The Nation 1923 : Vol 117

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The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO POLITICS, LITERATURE, SCIENCE DRAMA, MUSIC, ART FINANCE FOUNDED 1865 GAS Ce tesuFk 1 DO kt ; } BR Ty ee ~~ rs C J VOLUME CXVII FROM JULY 4, 1923, TO DECEMBER 26, 19238 THE NATION, Inc. 20 VESEY STREET, NEW YORK ih “ aa

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The following letters are used to indicate the type of article: As ~Art Cc Correspondence D Drama Dt Driftway E Editorial Article EP Editorial Paragraph F Fiction Xz International Relations, Documents IP International Relations, Foreign Press IS. International Relations, Signed Article M Music iP Poetry Ss Signed Article Book reviews and reviewers are indexed separately in the Book Review Section. A ZE. See Russell, George W. Academic freedom MVECESTICE CIEE oMMNGe ctor a vetelarcc c sraleie,c close ce ec 60d 104 Positions at Amherst refused; EP........ 49 Aerial warfare. See Aeronautics, Military Aeronautics. See also Airships Aeronautics, Commercial British service to India; EP.............. 255 Aeronautics, Military Sine week ATt KMISSI9 Ss TGR. csc cs esc ceces 15 American legion weekly proposal; EP.... 226 Bombing of Waziris, Haitians, etc.; EP.. 49 TUPICERUAYICOMG © IGE’, sp ccc clcciac cesses sce ce 1 Africa ; Democratization possibilities; EP......... 178 Africa. See also Kenya Agriculture—Economic aspects Pebbles in the farmer’s boots. SURECCUMINEMONECG L iateinia Togeretvan tle t's sie o.6.9 0 © «6 345 Agriculture—Economic aspects. See also Land tenure Airships ZR-1 passes over New York; EP......... 311 Akins, Zoé Royal fandango. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; PENMMG IES Tors'aciniwdled wivaies oeisle picts mee eases 614 Alabama After Florida, Alabama; E............... 31 Alien property. See Enemy property Aliens ’ Violent aliens; E...... Baas VA oee ATasare: ao: op 4nT Allen, F. H. Pree tt PRAMS CO. cece cwseccveces 117, 217 Allen, Harbor Missing most of Europe; S...........+.. 348 Allinson, Brent German youth and the pagan gods; S.... 296 Alvord, Clarence Walworth I MMT EN, ei dil’ o Cid nae ecvceeds 394 American civil liberties union Letier: to. Ku Klux klan; EP............. 311 Protecting our liberties. U. Sinclair; S.. 9 American civil liberties union, California Casuistry and strategy. C. J. Taft; C.... 526 American express company Paris employee acquitted; EP............ 425 American federation of labor Portland convention; EP..............+:. 424 American Jewish joint distribution committee Helping Russia help herself; I........... 694 American legion Changing policies; EP......ccccsvecscves 476 American mercury ‘ New radian akin divers monthly; EP...... 207 American review. New bimonthly; EP........ 15 Amherst college Amherst graduate’s answer. E. Glass: C.. 89 Chapter ends at Amherst; E............. 5 Faculty positions refused and _ resigned; ead wmh tide dare ctmine wi WO Nahe veld ences © 49, 339 Issues at ree wo. te. Gane: 8... 048 12 Pebbles in the farmer’s boots; S.......... 845 Anti-Semitism. See Jews—Political and social conditions Appeal to America by fifteen leaders of Brit- ‘ UUSUISED NAW eda ak vilrs caeedevsvvceds 168 Bponyi, Count Albert Count Albert Apponyi. O. Jaszi; S...... 376 Arabia Deserta. M. Van Doren; S........... 648 Arbitration and conciliation, Industrial No accepted code of ‘‘justice’; EP........ 225 Architecture New architecture. H. S. Churchill; S.... 552 43016 (Nos, 3026-3051) Argentina Is Pan-Americanism a joke—on us? A Pan-American journalist; S............ 683 Military appropriation; EP...... 128, 541, 620 Arkansas . Arkansas’s literary reputation. E. D. Titt- MUS AILTV ICN Coin at ela ds ole, ei ny x xtafenio teat aeia lekale iia lah: os, 6 89 Euterpe in Arkansas. E. S. Kelley; C 463 IMobe violence; sy WP os sic c oeceininicvein'ajereve, x are 0 vei 74 Art About art. H. J. Seligmann; C.......... 384 Confession and photography; E.......... 182 Axtistgnand, Moadels!* Die cdicccc ceticc ccm scieecs 273 Asch, Sholom Miles ofvidestinys (Story)... «+ sis.c.cnin6 ais 0% 59 Asia Democratization prospects; EP........... 178 Austria AUISUPIA AAV ER 8.9 TB cialis slant Oia eictemisicle eins «5° 132 Cause of Austria’s fall and rise. H. Kan- HEE: gH Rr lar wivi'e efeiaile 80h si.e\n owl elstoxsinoreiein vinia/sie sie. are 241 ATED OMAP EM. VIN. +0, exeslel cicaetoleie oe nie ain'e.e's aie. 555 Azertis, Lorenzo de Casanova. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.... 412 B B., W. Why modern cream is thin; C.......... 608 Babies Heuser. 10K Hoge: Dbsaccs ance cot ck eects 635 Baldwin, Oliver. ‘‘Comrade Oliver’; EP...... 677 Baldwin, Stanley Senco tot iieraelices RP aie eons oe 28 Eee. ANGER SUGEOIS SD. ociee eeee ls ee elec’ soles 718 Bandits Twilight. of a noble arts Wi. cc. che. cee hess 729 MATER ONG cla os his bea ca ees KAO OE eee ene Da 115 Banks and banking—Philippine Islands Report on National bank; EP............ 205 Banks and banking, Trade union tahoe cand. ‘its moneys Wai hseeescdsn ss 545 Opening of third New York bank; EP.... 477 Baptists Case of the fundamentalists; E.......... 729 Barbusse, Henri Indicted for speech to Ex-service men; EP. 676 Tha Womens. (BLOTS) 620 Is this the fact? or this? B. A. K. and Meer + Cc eae eee ene 464 MY. Clinical research bureau; EP...... 700 Questions for birth controllers. H. C. Dicket* Ges ccac otha pRM me baie no tei 355 Blacktail row. Liu Yii-hsi; P..............+- 645 Blackwell, Alice Stone Appeal for clemency ;- C.....sccsceccesess 741 Mr. Stuart Chase’s Junk ; Se artes ces wnt 116 Woman’s 75-year fight; s Oe See 53 Blake, Aldrich Oklahoma’s klan-fighting governor; S.... 353 Blanshard, Paul Mussolini starts a war; S.........-eeeee: 325 The Pennsylvania’s war on labor; S...... 79 Bloomfield, Leonard Mr. Stuart Chase’s Junk; C..........+5++ 116 Boat races Race of fishing vessels; EP..............-. 543 INDEX TO VOLUME CXVII JULY 4, 19283, TO DECEMBER 26, 1923 Bodenheim, Maxwell POA DAD Y. see bison ala ovetolarsra.ccaieip cretoseie widva-aceraie 185 TWOUDOLELAIES 5) EU.) shave ln wiels ci nis.e, ais /ausn bien 9s oon 10 Bok, Edward W. Prize offer for peace plan; EP.......... ont Bolton, Guy Chicken feed. Criticism. LL. Lewisohn; ahaelorarsjetsialaveters) sjavevevsiarayeiaiy sinitierere vhe-Otersve wis 412 paneer Soldiers’. See Soldiers’ bonuses Books and reading OTE KOLA re Wr aiciacgelcrarrsternicysucrslcte = merece 257 Books for Germany. B. Watson and G. Huebe- ME oi Concrete dopsieie(eticieve: vuvlace repo mccue olan era oe 355 Borah, William Edgar Free speech, the vital issue; S............ 8 Boston newspapers Boston, a journalistic poor-farm. O. G. BVil earls hs Srcteverey terete <tc cetovaniateyootsieuce rome 109 Bostwick, Arthur E. Company dinner for Lloyd George; C.... 525 Bowerman, George F. Intellectual Washington; C............... 439 Boy scouts of Kenya Wwennvofsthestreesy isc Mivas «os ace cmimies sine 229 Boys and the presidency; EP................. 49 Breaking point. M. R. Rinehart; D.......... 273 Brewer, Joseph Spectator and Mr. Massingham; C....... 384 Brewster, Dorothy Henin and the prize pig; Si ....5-00.<066 510 Brite, Mary D. Anyhow Debs spoke in Cincinnati: S.... 87 Britnell, George E. Educational reaction in Canada; C........ 166 Brooks, Van Wyck Receives Dial literary award; EP........ 127 Broun, Heywood Heywood -Broun's) Sk. neks =cesmcoocse een 372 Brown, W. T. Books’ for San) Quentin < 1G). ..0/00. sc csccols 827 Reading for political prisoners; C........ 89 Bulgaria Bulgarian communists; I...........:.ce.. 334 Counter-revolution; EP............... 338, 424 Revolution in “Bulgaria; T.........0.c0+.: 388 Revolutionary days in Bulgaria. T. Berkes Saini # Ryayersinecsralereiese ovate eerie ei siren Te 37 Russia and the Bulgarian reaction; I.... 447 Bullitt, Agatha Marshall German Sambo Stes vcctone hacen 344 Burman, Ben Lucien Kentucky, where men die standing; S.. 83 Butler, Nicholas Murray Mistaken for a Southerner; EP.......... 75 Byington, Steven T. Another dastardly outrage; C............ 165 Gumand “the barmys Cis. 68s eo. oe 463 That typical American dinner: C........ 687 Bynner, Witter, and Kiang Kang-hu, trans- lators ionsend..yenrs ago: Pec. st cacee eee. 645 Cc C.,; 00 2A: SOR a OTL OL MO ee ais a. a.5 Sib ckersuare.oinve saber, eit 555 Cabinet officers. See United States—Cabinet Cabot family Protests use of name; EP.......2.scceeee 207 Cain, James M. West Virginia, a mine-field melodrama. Rest of West Virginia. F. K. Viner; C. 354 Caine, Hall ial GRINEG, WH) tO) UALS +) Be oicis os 0is:c meters ole 73 California Casuistry and strategy. C. J. Taft; C.... 526 Wereecneionm OF ke Wi. Wes PEt sce sc censes 100 Protecting our liberties. U. Sinclair; S.. 9 California. See also Los Angeles California university EES s 0) COPSECLION. v apin Siem: «ve o.u.0,c08 stcisisieiey a0 Fees for non-residents and foreigners ; EP. 309 Call, C. F. Why the Negro emigrates; C............ 490 Carver: Lonis. Obituary: TDP... iced. acccas 101 Camel’s back. S. Maugham; D.............. 614 Canada Protected bison herd; EP.............+-. 477 Vengeance: Eskimo and official; EP...... 595 Where Canada leads; E...........+-..0.- 342 Capital punishment Sing Sing warden opposes; EP........... 366 Carb, David, and W. P. Eaton Queen Victoria. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; pe Fide c BOs crcias Die Mercado creme ences 672 Carpenter, Edward Childs Connie goes home. Criticism. L. Lewi- MEME Dah cee ec ee einen batho syantereame 331

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Nos. 3026-3051 ] ” Index [Vol. exvii

Cartoon, from Projektor, Moscow......... 516, 520 Casanova. L. de Azertis; D....... ceraNetoerrare™s 412 Cather, Willa Sibert Nebraska; the end of the first cycle; S.. 236 Cecil, Lord Robert Removal to House of Lords; EP.......... 594 Censorship Film censors and other morons; E........ 678 INaked ‘challenges: Bisiyeicc ces cic lstecioeieisiosie 229 Cézanne, Paul CEZANNE Lape COGL SPAN cree ccsitrelel or ceroio\ela’ sl nis 172 Chains) sec -Pn «Goodmans! (Daan ceiccnis ol ecre ce 359 Chaliapin, Feodor “Let freedom ring!’ S. Potashnick; C... 18 Chanrelings) “he We Dodd's “Dice nitric iienei 359 Chase, Stuart . Etiquette of big business; C.............. 383 Mr. Stuart Chase’s Junk. C. F. Dole, L Bloomfield, A. P. Weiss, A. S. Black- SOV CUMS ME cea s Sonus rollers bale ter Naya a. oe! elaia cecai@vetene, © e(ets 116 Wasieiencken right ri) (Cirerrc.cs cles cictslcice cies 88 Chass, Ben IV GELOME ChUDSte sO iaiciclaniete aetenaiette sia wete,e eraloine 355 Chaulmoogra oil U. S. experiment station to cultivate; EP. 311 Chauve souris. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.... 304 Chicago Illinois, first province of the middle king- Glory Bel NB (ONE Riso omen nocacod 186 Justice to Chicago. L. A. Mead; C...... A491 Chicken feed. G. Bolton; D...............0.. 412 Child labor—United States New Jersey conditions; EP............... 309 Child prodigies Rota Rinaldi, composer; EP........... cs. 3 Children—Management and training Parents: gods, policemen or friends?; E. 210 Children of the moon. M. Flavin; D.......... 273 Chile Chileans condemn ‘Yankee justice’; I.... 26 China Chinese situation in a nutshell. WN. Peffer; cPveg ieiauelleivasceik’ ate/ai ar biel aleevete.&, © cea, phe ptaereme aes 89 Joint note of powers on bandits; EP..... LIT China—Politics and government China’s newest president. B. L. Kuhn; S. 735 Model governor in Shansi; EP........... 477 Church Christ and the church today. W. Perkins; a MTree eis iata hele cle lator aue vas RIGS RibI See eee Sree 1 Remedy for its difficulties; Dt............ 7139 Church. See also Fundamentalism Church) advertising =: TSP ss sci sc ssoaiau aula auneidia 701 Churchill, Henry S. Wew, architecttre s. iste sien:cadeel kena ei cies" 552 Cincinnati Anyhow Debs spoke in Cincinnati. M. D. , PAEIUE tho “Pisievecie aiets.nwelck boule ol omiser eee es oe 87 “Citizenship Woman without a country; E............ 730 Citizenship conference White, protestant, and dry. W. Hard; S. 461 Civic federation takes up economics; EP...... 179 Civilization whine of civilisation’: EK... .ssasmwe'ss ass 426 Clark, Jane Perry Mental ‘overfeeding 2 (Cis isc nach hed vas 89 Clark university Enrolment decreases; EP.........sse+e00% 339 Retirement of president demanded; EP... 568 Clifford, John. ‘Obituary; EP..... «scsscsesers 621 Clothing and dress Another dastardly outrage. S. T. Bying- PEE UMC Ee Weis id Ak Kee Bsieie'vites eeetem Micon’ « 165 Tailored clothes and success; Dt.......... 266 Clowns pram Of Al Miaen OPS sss seetvecnay os « 282 Elijah and the clowns. L. A. Mischkind; Si ddda Cis Pinay Wale Ws & is uO RA or big ate ene 525 Coal industry—United States Coal characters. W. Hard; S............ 294 Coal commission report; EP...... 47, 281, 338 Coal strike is not settled; E............. 314 Coal, the public’s responsibility; E....... 181 Great joke about coal; B.......cscesses: 596 Pinchot strike conference; EP........ 225, 281 Emigen Gnd oprofiie® WPic.i.sacenebosccnsy 542 moe Peal problem ¢ YEP ss viis ce dececcaawesd 253 Coal miners How “‘news” is made. A newspaper man. 160 eens ene... ERy kay WO Sane c tins pcdm eae es 607 Colbron, Grace Isabel eeraene pitas 6 Os vec sicamae ae Wanee a 241 Coleman, McAlister emer tales. Peel's Co.cc. y wmidasd es eale 195 When the troops took Tulsa: S.......... 239 College graduates University and marriage; E............. 183 College students Langatld ~ generation: Jb. «ssvss'sc cesses cess 572 Lively generation. C. Mott-Smith; C..... 688 Colleges and universities—Canada Educational reaction in Canada. eens ER ou nwecken wud nana cobdiwe eel 166 Colleges and universities—Europe Anti-Semitism in European universities. Dh. SMUOETIROL S Bin ei u'ee sé aay ucichvecusks 647 Colleges and universities—Japan. See also Wa- seda university Colleges and universities—United States Easley to the rescue. H. C. Herring; S. 193 International missionaries; E............. 505 “Log” unseats ‘“‘Mark Hopkins.” F. L. Pattee se FS sc tea alevoiniclc eittareletelalel ttlelebelaimratetsca 55 Mental overfeeding. J. P. Clark; C...... 39 Monkeyings siRicrsclarisateistetetsicle leet elaraiarelaleleals 104 Stray thoughts on a college pilgrimage. Wier Ae Robson's) Sc cetscheieontere lame eiketags ais 108 Youth and the American colleges. N. Thomas's: -Givsssyerereususteteeistaione woe are lenles 106 Colleges and universities—United States. See also Amherst college; California university; Clark university; Dartmouth college; Delaware university; New York univer- sity; Princeton university Colum, Padraic Promise of Irish letters; S............... 396 Commencement addresses; EP................ 3 Communist party (Bulgaria) Bulgarian communists; I...... aisierevaislereneione 334 Communist party (Germany) Communists in Saxony and Thuringia; I.. 538 Composers, ‘eague 1ole Pi averarnelsie oi tie lene esiere 543 Conduct of life Mr. Stuart Chase’s Junk. C. F. Dole, L. Bloomfield, A. P. Weiss, A. S. Blackwell; Cc Re Ss cibicvguataesstetene wae the mais Rayeiers aheyeievetemeteve 116 Connelly, Mare, and G. S. Kaufman Deep-tangle wildwood. Criticism. L. Doewisobin's), Ds cticccevevtters alane cele Wie telecon oro cee 614 Connie goes home. E. C. Carpenter; D...... 331 Conscientious objectors Conscientious objectors and the army in- telligence tests. E. A. Lincoln; S.... 523 Contempt of court Craig case and contempt evil; EP.594, 619, 675 Justice Hagerty demands apology; EP.... 699 Convict labor After Fiorida, Alabama (lo. 0)-/ocecsimas nie 31 Cook, Frederick A. Barnum “and'* Cookie niin. aye ieleverslasinteleiers tele els 624 Coolidge, Calvin Calvin Coolidge; made by a myth; E.... 153 Chooses C. B. Slemp as secretary; EP.... 205 Coal characters. W. Hard; S..........-. 294 Coolidge’s country. W. Hard; S......... 380 His presidency delights army officers; EP. 178 Honeymoon, Wer Bard tists vseact odes 320 President and the progressives; E........ 103 Who would not take a chance? R. W. M.; GC] ce ctw ccye Weisein eae Stacie isietetele mais mietieeye 267 Cooperation Russian cooperatives: Tis coe ccdessictmbicss 536 Cooperative colonies Inside a cooperative colony. E. S. Woos- TOT 6 NE. cic. AMEE ara lol etic nla dtitetetelthe Sie ig tial oe 378 Cooperative wholesale society, England Strike ‘of workerss-2GPoseec uses vive evite 128 Cosmetics Have come into the open; Dt............ 216 “Little red box of courage’; E........... 598 Coy, Harold More North Carolina journalism; C...... 242 Cream Why modern cream is thin. W. B.; C.. 608 Criticism, Literary. See Literary criticism Crush, W. G. Jim Crowilem's: ©... 4% eatvias Caneweie os cries 298 Cuba Condemns American interference; EP.... 150 Lotteries and railroads; EP.............. 206 Samberland. road's. Dts ips onschceu Ge cet ieee 162 Customs service—United States N. Y. employees’ wages cut; EP......... 28 Cyrano de Bergerac. E. Rostand; D.......... 587 Czecho-Slovakia Agreement with France; EP............. 475 D Dahlem, Franz France and the Rhineland; IP............ 333 Daniels, Josephus Josephus visits Boulder. Danziger, Samuel Ex-private; C.. 267 Mistreating our ex-service men; S........ 184 Dartmouth college Free speech at Dartmouth; EP........... 676 Das, Taraknath. See Taraknath Das Davis, Arthur Powell Dismissal from Reclamation service; Davis, S. L. 7 Worthy candidates: G.ii7.cnass cah>- see e- 583 Dazey, Frank, and L. Osmun EP. 206 Peter Weston. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; BD ko win due udcnane.sipe si eeee 359 Dead Posthumous exploitations co, Itd.; EP.... 543 Death-watch. V. Starrett s. Piiccncccsils nicks 111 Debs, Eugene Victor Anyhow Debs spoke in Cincinnati. M. D. Brites Ge. os 6 ines ¥ane Ree nee wee 87 Debts, Public Homely truth. B. M. Woodbridge; C.... 327 Honor among allies: Ei... onncce aces saves 599 Deep-tangle wildwood. G. S. Kaufman and M. Donnellys Dy 0s iP. wae semaeeies aici 255 Deportation scandal. C. Holstein; C.......... 267 Design, Decorative : Appeal for art in common things; EP.... 151 Dexter, Robert C. Gallic war in Rhode Island; S............ 215 Dial $2,000 award to Van Wyck Brooks; EP.. 727 Dickens, Harry Thanks to Nation readers; C............. 166 Dictators Day of the dictators Bite csenccciehe ct. 312 Dinners and dining ‘American. dinner’”'s) (Diep acess ei latele evince 462 Company dinner for Lloyd George. A. E. Bostwick 's, (Gs .s.. pS cercailsyoet sb isis 522 Durkee, Harris S. Collars for the starving (eCrn i. co. c.. oate 636 Duse, Eleonora Eleonora Duse. L. Lewisohn; D.......... 562 Dwelling by a stream. Liu Tsung-Yiian; P.. 646 E Earthquakes—Japan At noon Saturday. C. Du Bose; S....... 522 Collars for the starving. H. S. Durkee; C. 636 Earthquake and fire; BPj.s-00- 3-00. .0.25 253 Recollaring the clergy. J. L. Fieser; C.. 741 Japan refuses aid from Russia; EP...... 366 Eastman, Max Land of leisure; "S.. ..eeaiee ee ee ec 515 Eaton, Walter Prichard, and D. Carb Queen Victoria. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; age Eclipses, Solar Insurance against rain; EP.............. 311 Edgington, May, and R. Besier Lesson in love. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D oie ale wie ule ow ule Oik a elie p teen te eee 412 Education—Russia In the house of the Sugar King. J. Smith; Sc vc ciciee 5 vino 0\e al tuleiclepeletete ME rainists) feria 518 Education—United States Gallic war in Rhode Island. R. C. Dexter; Sonne nce 010 s\n:0 0 ns tasteteet eee teiatrste fata) eter fee 215 Old and new methods; Dtiiie..c..5..-2; 437 Richer—but happier?; E..............0.. 313 Education—United States. See also Colleges and universities—United States; Public schools; Schools; Workers’ education Einstein, Albert Einstein and the League again. Hudson; .C. «i .aaet#. o)s nm oes ae 242 Resigns from League of nations committee; |) eee ee ro | yee: 28 Elections—Germany Parties of despair profit by chaos; EP.... 127 Elections—Great Britain British elections: . Bix. i: ase ee wish otk 597 Labor’s triumph in England; E.......... 702 Lloyd George and Asquith reconciled; EP. 567 Three party contest; EP.......... eae i

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Vol. exvii] Index [ July-Dec., 1923 EE , ————_——————————_—_—_——ee——eeeEEEE—E—E—E—Ee= Elections—United States Hearst and the N. Y. election; EP..... . 568 Sam B. Hill’s election to congress; EP.. 365 Elections—United States. See also Primaries, Presidential Ellis Island British criticism of conditions; EP...... 205 Emerson, John, and A. Loos Whole town’s talking. Criticism. L. Lewi- CAEL TECMMN ED etapa tet avoietictaynVallelaie.e e'0\/eleleis(«'ae'e/e) oeieie ols 304 Emery, Gilbert Tarnish. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.... 444 Are we Americans thieves?; E........... 103 Enemy property Confiscation pure and simple. C. Nagel; tae eee eee ih eer iai coe HRN Shee we oS ST calle German dye patents. S. B. J.; C........ 268 National honor; Hughes vs. Hamilton; EH. 131 Episcopal church. See Protestant Episcopal church Ervine, St. John Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Criticism. L. MGWAISOLT wD. is cicisiotete’d ote Slate ove eros 'e'e wo ovege 331 Europe Europe in Washington. W. Hard; S...... 521 Next war draws near. O. G. Villard; S.. 680 Only hope. O. G. Villard; S..........%. 371 Slavery or self-extermination. B. Rus- IPL ame rt iiatotele otele tel cterctela is icleis stewtelwie's = ope 32 Treaties and loans; EP....... 73, 475, 502, 727 Twilight of civilization; E............... 426 Niicley Saris, EYE. 2 /6)) Was cers c ciclsie ele 0/0 e'eie\le 130 United States of Europe. F. Toksvig; IS. 386 Europe—Social conditions Roots of the war—and of peace. H. Kess- Retr enCraetete sate lols \fiwicls, es eWid ete ae sis viel 'ela.a'al oat 191 Europe and the United States imenica im the fog svc s ios. tee caine 544 Appeal to America, by fifteen leaders of Pripish EROUR OG Si secu «c's. c'o csc ceeds 163 Europe in Washington. W. Hard; S..... 521 Hionor among allies; E......6sssescccceee 599 Mclean Samy) Nermititis Wi. cs. ccsccs seers ds 130 European war Roots of the war—and of peace. Count ise enpler 5) (Sir ..:.2) 05.22. 504 Poincaré and the proposed conference; EP. 567 homearess bareain: Wesssov occcee nee. 544 Showd the United States occupy France?: ea ee ae 228 Hero. or frmurdererPi+C.. 6 seco eee 555 Ghosts) ;B: ‘Marconnier ss Ps... 4)... on, 711 Giglio, Giovanni MUssolini\farls "WG... aaa ae cae oer 295 Gilliam, Florence, and A. Moss m@urkey and’ Armenia = (©3720. 4.58 1 scnioee le 140 Glass, Everett Amherst graduate’s answer; C........... 39 Gold Draining Europe’s liquid assets; EP...... Gombés, Julius _ ~ a dictator of Hungary. E. Lengyel; Meee hae Ge te 332 National union’s viewpoint; S............ 82 Good: old» days A; Hoffman Di*..2222):..°. 273 Gooden Jules Eckert ains. Criticism. L. Lewis si De iss Gorki, Maxim eee on Arraigns Russian cruelty; EP............ 227 Cruelty ‘of the) Russian’; S2.oo 211 Haessler, Gertrude Japan’s untouchables; IS.......+++eeeeees 249

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Nos. 3026-3051]

Haiti Before the Pan-American bar. P. Hudi- COUBG S Bits akepe cuss a ehd whe sa seca Reine ppieasye = one e.0 Haiti appeals to the world; I............. 750 Imperial America in Haiti; I............ 749 Plea for Haiti. G. Sylvain; C............ 525 Two significant, cablegrams; I...........- 566 Hall, Covington North Dakota's iC.) c.ciccccliiecsiccielc elsletalaies « 268 Haller, Joseph Hero or murderer? V. Gertlin; C........ 555 Hamilton, Alexander National honor; Hughes vs. Hamilton; E. 131 Hamilton, Ann Ppitlerssiseh ob stom etaversinisyarcietalercicinrs\ a) avaterereverete alee 437 HMlower=ven Gorse ob tayeretclele: «(cle ciesivale sie) eis/ 320 How many Hirams?; S.......sceccsceees 685 Little old New England; S.............- 435 Making wheat sober up; S......+++--e-s 14 ParadoxOlocy.s) Sere niers s(e aeicteieaniea's stelaleleverstn's 554 People let down; S......cccecccesccuccecs 58 Pinchot for president; S......seccereress 482 Progressives progress; S......--.sceceees 712 Straws and confetti; S..... 0. cccccsescese 86 MialencOL LOE CAPO’ sp pS ores aye cy disc's 0) oe pa tenn aainets wit ale l= 439 Some sins of omission. M. A. De Ford A - 3h. Beekests (Oak ane as nares tiekiew wait 582 Indians of North America For the Indian’s sake. O. G. V.; S...... 734 Industrial arbitration. See Arbitration and conciliation, Industrial Industrial workers of the world Attempt to disbar E. S. Smith; EP...... 2 California persecution; EP.............-- 100 Conditional amnesty; EP.............++.- 48 How ‘‘Wobbly” originated. R. W. Hogue; in OG chur id. peace spe penee steep Only an L. W. WW: Vio Gwent OU.'.5.6~s2> 18 Seattle strikes and bootleggers; EP...... 338 “Vacation” at San Quentin. M. A. De Ford 2). 6. nove un vend puis advhinee was sah as 114 Tnheritances. Dt... i icc vans cake cus bathers ones 713 Injunctions : Strike injunction made permanent; EP.. 100 Institute of politics, Williams college Hero of the session: MiP ssi. 2s. cce ines 255 Intellectuals Man and folk? Et. sees dink sis nceuset> 77 Interallied federation of former combatants Colonel Owsley’s speech; EP...........-.-- 282 International law and relations International missionaries; E..........+.- 505 Interparliamentary union, 1923 United States of Europe. Ireland—Irish Free State Free State majority in Dail; EP.......... 253 Hunger strike in Ireland. G. W. Russell: F. Toksvig; IS. 386 See ncbecaces ones RUS en ties ae eEaLee 589 Imprisonment of De Valera; EP......... 206 Ireland. H. S. Skeffington, J. E. Kelly, CG. A. Whitney: 'O inn ss te ttasneciwnes = 62 Trish. prisons: ©... .0s(gews be ebie cme cen haess 454 Premier and President meet; EP......... 128 Republican plea; I.:. sacdcwauadehbeses ouan 590 Republican prisoners in the Free Bthtes © 1. i... cccdsevaapaeeeusmeeaeenes 471 Why Irish labor failed. H. W. “ Nevinson : . SB nc winh's cuvcces nn wen awa pees anne 46 Irish literature Promise of Irish letters. P. Colum; S.... 396 Irish statesman. New weekly; EP............ 425 Irvine, Edward J. White terror in the West Indies; C...... 242 Italy Mussolini fails. G. Giglio; S............ 295 Italy—Fascisti movement Ttaly’é terrer goes off fT, itis. Jioccbe cus 698 Italy—Foreign relations American sailor speaks. J. D. Drake; C.. 491 Enters Moroccan controversy; EP........ 502 Everybody saves his face; E............. 284 League of nations faces the test; E...... 256 Mussolini and Hughes; E................ 257 Mussolini turns to Russia and Spain; EP. 727 Pirasy is not dead: EP.:::.i5: 387.006 365 [ Vol. exvii

Italy—Political parties. Italy Italy—Politics and government Mussolini starts a war. P. Blanshard; S. 325 Mussolini’s power; EP...... Serene « 74 Italy—Trade unions. See Trade ‘unions—lItaly See Political parties— J Jey Santee German .dye patents; Caeiaasiieldialde\ela\o else cOS. Japan Japanese students show their opposition to militarism; IP .2....cseeeeee teenies 4 Joffe in Japan; TP iisctttreomerertetii': persia voanehO Lost Japan. E. A. Jewell; S............ 287 Students and militarism; EP Rearatevaraiaen als Sia Will cut military budget ; BO 2 ce, 424 Japan—Earthquake. See Earthquakes—J apan Japan—Foreign relations Japan and the United States; I.......... 361 Japan—Labor and laboring classes. See Labor and laboring classes—Japan Japan—Polities and government “Dangerous thoughts” in Japan; IP...... 251 Japan—Social conditions Japan’s untouchables. G. Haessler; IS... 249 Jaszi, Oscar Count Albert Appon 1 eaten cll tete cisterns { Jewell, B. M. x fee Jim Crowismi; C..:. chee eee oe ee 298 Jewell, Edward Alden Lost Japan; \S.caeeseeeee alaeietoss(ersiate' EL eeeeen.cn eee 623 Journalism, See also Freedom of the press; Newspapers K Ki B.4A: Is this the fact?s (Gc cmmaatenp se tics costs 464 Kalaw, Maximo M. ; Filipinos’ sides (Sis..seessdeeve steam rae 627 Kanner, Heinrich Cause of Austria’s fall and rise; C....... 241 Kauffman, Reginald Wright “Dutch” tradition ; Ss seessssestece slo eens 7133 Lettuce with sugar and cream; C........ 637 Kaufman, George S., and M. Connelly Deep-tangle wildwood. Criticism. sohn s+ Do: Kelley, Edith Summers Euterpe in Arkansas; C.................. 468 Kelley, Florence L. Lewi- vali iw Soe ata Ee eee ewe eee eee Questions for the Woman’s party; C..... 241 Kelley, Thomas L. Why they subscribe; C........0...0...058 89 Kellogg, Frank B. Ambassador to Great Britain; EP....... . 726 Kelly, John E. . Irelanitl’s GC. cicuassun Pah ce eas 50 Cee ales carn BE Kentucky Kentucky, where men die standing. B. L. Barman : 28....¥.cwowts tee +t ee Kenya Indians in Kenya; I... <..ccsvcseress so@salmon White man’s burden; E....... Meus Rerewek ae Kessler, Count Harry At the Institute of politics; EP.......... 255 Roots of the war—and of peace; S...... 191

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Vol. exvii]

Kiang Kang-hu, and W. Bynner, translators Thousand years ago; P............2+-.+ 645 Knoblock, Edward Lullaby. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.... 359 Koren, John. Obituary; EP.............+..-. 595 Krasnoschokov, Alexander M. Russia’s economic revival; IS...... Ape oe Kriger, Eli Sinclair Lewis also nods; C..... slagere/s! sie RAO Krimsky, Joseph Science in Jerusalem; C.ceccisececccsess GOD Ku Klux klan aan and ntne DOtple rr) Eis slave cicielaleiers «lorie aie 570 Ku Kluxism in the schools. D. on Pierce; ee tence Nis die ea Maid ondtnareteys ov, a:c0'e! aap Letter from Civil liberties union; EP.... 311 Own methods not to be used against it; RN teiah ian ; WEP. ci cers escte wine’ oreissese.e 101 Worlds: lareest 3 BP ccceisic ov ciois siale e'e's byateieis-« 129 Lewis, John Coal characters. W. Hard; S......... «es 294 Lewis, Sinclair Hacksrdrivers¢ (Story) 304 CREM OSE) fee hs. 0 csc ania ta oeinsiow aren Se 746 udwieGewisohns Soc cs-esiclaerctels tac zes 583 WMakcoWarwien (Drs.c adc sete etek me kaos ios 412 Museovites. return’: De. i clss sactaciecosecds 672 Wied a stramps sc, Der... tderc cdo mcmorserticave Omcrcs 469 Oedinpaesnexis Ty . <). oiatiae eps c pennant taste Me 531 Chie las Th ares. oon de ait eRe cna bicidecs 444 _Outburst ; DAE oho. 5, Reto einmiacee ere cr merdiaiaten ot 273 “Saintsbury ; Rs cieiece whence Sree lee. steel etc) «Sid 634 CEA E SMD «Yana. deer RETO ONSD cox uke touevayers © 587 Li Shang-Yin Imperial. conference ¢) Piss... asec cass aee ve 645 Libby, Frederick J. “Selling” us another war; S............- 315 Liberia “Love of liberty brought us here.” J. M. Poet MEM a OS on cera nica emiaaeaaes ta aoe 582 Liberty The liberty above all others; E........... 4 Protecting our liberties. U. Sinclair: S.. 9 “Sweet land of liberty.” (From bulletins of American civil liberties union) ;..... il Lincoln, Edward A. Conscientious objectors and the army in- RUT GLOBIN oh So ee oe, chd ns: daa lh cdterete 523 Literary criticism H. L. Mencken. H. L. Mencken: S...... 647 Heywood Broun. H. Broun; S........... 372 Ludwig Lewisohn. L. Lewisohn: S...... 583 Literature Confession and photography; E.......... 182 Literature’ flourishes ; Toe. oi wec acc cnceses 230 Literature. See also Books and reading; Cen- sorship; Fiction Little Jessie PaMes 5 , Dia ceee ao teivensisinn seus v0.00 273 Liu Chang-Ch’ing peesie weenie Peet hater ae sdcs cn che ce 645 Farewell to a militarist ; Ee an hac catetmiers & 645 Liu Chung-Yung SRN ERG grate au atcia at barks Canon kr? cs ce 645 Liu Tsung-Yiian Dwelling by @ strestas PF... 2... ccecces 646 From the city-tower of Liu-Chou, a poem to my four fellow-officials, Chang, Ting, ear AMA Stery NS eS 646 Ser IPM Be, ee ake ns cea as ve 646 ee WE SS Seb wee ooo care 645 Liu Yii-hsi oo eg ong! Bea Beenie ee ee 645 Lloyd George, David American speaking trip; EP......... 477, 641 Lioyd George, puppet; E.........cssceeee 427 Warmenneatee = SOMMER § REI Co Or cca spc dpe e 207 Lo Pin-Wang Pome prisoners Pe. we cas nce cx cece sc 646 Loans, Foreign French military loans; EP.23, 73, 475, 502, 727 Lansing and the Salvador loan; EP...... 541 Mr. Hughes admits everything; E........ 479 Mr. Hughes makes a secret alliance; E.... 452 London Daily herald Trade union congress to finance; EP.... 337 London’s dockland. By An onlooker.......... 265 Lonsdale, Frederick Spring cleaning. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D LS en ont he 614 Looking on (cartoons). A. Young......... 7, 457 Loos, Anita, and J. Emerson Whole town’s talking. Criticism. L. Lewi- RES Fs bik nn bc ev caw elcheeen bas levees 304 Los Angeles de striae EP .scvcrotie mas ostcs spices ~~ 2 Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon III Lowenthal, Marvin Anti-Semitism in European universities; Aa how aye b wlth RUA DUR EEROEIL TL Sse c'e oo 547 Non-sectarian student relief; C......... - 718 Lu Lun Drenm-pektss: Pid ccccccae@eeer sucess ceccte 645 Parewell to Li. Tusns Pons wiwk svciccaes 646 Pelee tay TAMORIOGE © Case beers: cc ccwen 359 Lynching ee CR, DAs BORE en eles tees. ce ses 100 Proscribed by Women’s general committee; oa Savannah mob dispersed; EP............ 2 Lyne, J. G. Electricity for railroads; C.............. 298 Lyons, A. Neil Se would) bet “Gatosg) Weta: Seine ci wacss 606 [ July-Dec., 1923

M M., A. H. RP AUS 09) Cho o-sieie isin. s aie aaa afetese naierotar ssferee ADK M., R. W. Who would not take a chance?; C....... 267 McAdoo, William G. On criticizing the President; C........... 384 McClure, Mabel B. From a native daughters C....<0cs. 00006 609 McKeesport, Pa. : enMSyIVANIa, JUSTICE. ..3 6 ocics.cisec cess seaecve 381 Maeterlinck, Maurice Pelléas and Mélisande. Criticism. L. WeEwiASODMS, Do oe ecels srefersietaledersimiers areata 0.0: Magazines. See Periodicals Magee, Carl C. Conviction and pardon; EP.. 74 Mapnolian-ss-) LArkaineton Ds cionarioeac cto. 273 Man “and. folk; BEi..:... elstoteleysvarel sidiatecsictalcaretcress 17 Mann, Thomas Haney Sonlsou (StOTY ) sic sosis/s sicieie. odd eis bcd 318 Ma nisHapnenede Miticrriacieaciitecersccitce ces onblct one 29 Marbury, Elisabeth Shall, weado nothing 2° (Ci..8<,4sc cen cee, 740 Marconnier, Byrne RS OSUS Sgt oye, orc oes rarsiaa relaxes is Tole aoa cniete caret 711 Marriage Liability in beauty contest; EP.......... 310 Men, women, and books; E.............. 545 Mill on marriage. L. L. Hazard; C...... 218 University and marriage; E.............. 183 Marriage licenses in Chicago; Dt............. 88 Martin, Helen R. Mrs. Gladfelter’s revolt (story)........... 373 Martinez, Ramén A. PHI LOUA GT AG aterocicis toc as siecieeie speek 438 Marx, Magdeleine New Russian women; S.......... 508, 549, 580 Mary, Mary, quite contrary. St. J. Ervine; D. 331 Massingham, Henry William To contribute to Spectator; EP.......... 101 Masterpieces Tniteratre flourishess Bigs cre cscs ccc cvcees 230 Masters, Edgar Lee G. yous youne. earliest! “Ri. ccas cee Gorse ares 686 Maugham, Somerset Camel’s back. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; NP cs eisdelaroit Bis aieteistemicie ciesaitis, warsieiepeceiae voevers 614 Maurel, Victor Victor Maurel, singing actor. P. Sanborn; 4 mratatetuie eivtotarel Wierersinrnthis) iar: slageteaverakeretete eorete 67 Mecca MONCH LOR CAMO (Hie %'cani ain's ch wikia ere a ake 454 Meiklejohn, Alexander Chapter ends at Amherst; E.............. 5 Issues at Amherst. J. M. Gaus; S....... 12 Pharisees. and. reformers; Si... 6s'S0s 13 Melin, Jeanne Pence, ui. Normand ys GC iisjcisciceren:6 2 o'0\w'clen 439 Men and women. Generalizations; Dt........ 582 Mens women, And “Pooks s (Gs cis.c.c..c.ccteteterreiss.+ sre 545 Mencken, Henry Louis Ania: Marylanders. .icaicien cused Seas oma 731 H. L. Mencken; S....... Biecderore arte thevetatate 647 Méng Hao-Jan Stopping at a friend’s farm-house; P.... 646 THPECE, GCOre: BNA TENS Piss wis cw.cs a c.diowlptertars 646 Merchant marine—lItaly Mussolini fails. G. Giglio; S............. 295 Methodist Episcopal church Letter from Miss Billy Tichenor, dancer; MRED 9 acc, SER AS ici clot nates POS oi eiste wleiNin | als ionatatote 677 To cooperate with soviet church; EP.... 594 Mexico De la Huerta rebellion; EP............. « 725 Disarm the boundary; EP............... . 541 Ming day in Mexicde0l. hescece: obs seeewes a Menace of Mexico: Th. iiccsccwacieeeiccnses 703 Mexico: i Seussins (IPs so. eco ts wml wkowd 566 Mexico pensions a political prisoner; I.. 176 Who's who in Mexito?s Te. i edsccs were 748 Mexico—Foreign relations Recognition by U. S.; EP.......ccceccees 253 Where Mexico ‘stands; Fe. os. oo. .ista. tetate 305 Mexico—Labor and laboring classes. See bor and laboring classes—Mexico Mexico—Land_ tenure. See Land tenure— Mexico Middle ages Koreeniatia “relies *) TEP 2.1. 6 v.0's.0/diele,aicevel a0’ 867 Midol, Lucien. In the Paris council; EP...... 700 Militarism Japanese students show their opposition Pep MTP CR PASE 8) lr a ae oo 0/0 sien siesemiftewiesians 44 Military aeronautics. See Aeronautics, Military Mill, John Stuart Mill on marriage. L. L. Hazard; C...... 218 Miller, E. E. When company comes in Tennessee; S.... 732 Minnesota Election of Magnus Johnson; EP........ 73 Joy unconfined. L. Grotstein; C........ 115 Minnesota, the Nonpartisan league, and cei * Patten’, CEs ceeds cs Rk eels Maas cis Hane 102 Mr. Townley and Magnus Johnson. M. GRITINOT SCs cid ethic cias vackic(e Pubs wi eeeace 217 Mischkind, Louis A. Eitjah and ‘the clowns; Cis. sctcsskscuta’e 525 Missouri From a native daughter. M. B. McClure;

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Nos. 8026-3051] Index ‘ [ Vol. exvii

Missouri; doesn’t want to be shown. M. OPER ASON Sree raterete ale ents lofeta‘e = [einicisisiers 7° 431 Mister God. M. Gorki (story)..........----- 512 Mrs. Gladfelter’s revolt. H. R. Martin (story) 373 Mob violence in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas; Pe aaicscitiotes saree eee eeinaisewiclelsvaisisia e's 74 Molnar, Ferenc Launzi. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D..... 469 Swan. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D....... 587 Monopolies Beer and bigger things; E............++. 479 Technique of industrial monopoly. A. PTC HOL cies arte toistoie cere icleleun's(svaie’= stv sietole ieee 458 Monroe doctrine—killed in its home. E. H. GUSTER re erento allele) lel edare slayer etalon elec 'e)0 \« 630 Montana Montana, land of the copper collar. A. MIS wl Setirevatcrceterel overs cle «ovale, « sYole/svsileselens. ce 290 Morley, John Dictates of his will; EP..........-.+...- 701 ONT IMOLICY 31 Ma etateloisiale sisi cosielsiv/elis\e.s/eie aloe 341 Morocco Italy enters controversy; EP........-..+- 502 Moscow art theater. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; Dee ree a stite cvcicteustime ocietetefacerssctaiaie efelisiersusa 672 Moss, Arthur, and F. Gilliam Turkey and Armenia; C...........++--+. 140 Motoring and the hiker; Dt.............- 297, 524 Motoring ‘too easy; Dt. .... 2... ccc cess eccss 38 Mott-Smith, Constance Lively generation; C.........ccecceeesers 688 Moving picture censorship Film censors and other morons; E........ 678 Moving pictures “Baby Peggy” contract; EP..........+++- 227 Muscle Shoals project Challenge to Henry Ford; E...........-. 453 Why Henry Ford wants Muscle Shoals. G. W. aes Sapient acon oeols marerraels 738 usic—United States x Striking the hour. H. Straus; M........ 410 Music, English Renaissance of English music in England. EES ERAUIS CTs wislsicivlete nrcie\s,v crelels’e(e’nlelsielniere 201 Music box revue; D.........ceeeceerecsessecs 412 Musicians Rota Rinaldi, child composer; EP........ 8 Symphony players. A. L. Langley; M.... 67 solini, Benito Seen DicEaier. B. Robinson (cartoon)........ 293 Mussolini and Hughes; E.......-..++++++> 257 Mussolini fails. G. Giglio; S.......-..+++ 295 Muzumdar, Haridas T. Gandhi, the apostle; B.........s+eseeeeee 248 N Nagel, Charles Cebsgration pure and simple; C........- 165 Nansen, Fridtjof His American mission; EP.........+++++:+ 569 Napoleon III ‘ olan from 1870. M. T. Ollivier; C...... 635 ion, The eT P. S. Resnikov; C...cscaccevess 827 J. Fontaine; C..... 583 W. J. Robinson; Editorial suggestion. | “It shall not be again.” MORNE ee. wave Sine wheten a Kole» 8 464 Nation clubs. B. Chass; C......-.-+es005 855 Poetry prize...... 506, 556, 586, 614, 670, 692, 718, 746 S. S. McClure and S. S. Menken; EP..... 569 Sailor’s offer. J. A. C.3 Cu.cccccoccaees 555 Thanks to Nation readers. H. Dickens; si Cc Why they subscribe. PEA as acca eoeine us 6d oe eles me cme uel 39 National characteristics, American Timid American; Bl. éccsscvccvesccenecnns 182 Wiolent aliens: Wi. ....cccicascscsstenvenns 427 National characteristics, Russian Against Gorki. C. L. Todd; C........... 384 Are the Russians cruel? C. Rice; C...... 327 Cruelty of the Russian. M. Gorki; S.... 231 National nonpartisan league Minnesota, the Nonpartisan league, and Sis MUI E Fs crs Ca cean viene t Creu hee e Bere 102 National petroleum reserves Tale of the Teapot. W. Hard; S........ 575 National woman's party Seneca Falls convention; EP............- 128 Naturalization Avine Lerner Case: TEP. .ccsccveusescvecic 727 Indian rights in the United States; I...... 447 Pacifists and strikers barred; EP......... 178 Refused to Hindu; EP..............- 366, 367 Woman without a country; E............ 730 Navies World’s chief navies; IP................- 45 Nebraska Nebraska; the end of the first cycle. W. GR Ba wlus cate dhek + ns ciate uate « 236 Negroes in France France resents American insults; EP.... 151 Negroes in the United States Cause for exodus from South; EP........ 254 Crisis on the Southern exodus; EP....... 227 Excluded from trade unions; EP.......... 542 Jim Crow here and there. W. Pickens; © ifecacehedvexens came std Gian aa dane 463 Jim Crow in Texas. W. Pickens; S...... 155 Jim Crowism. W. G. Crush, C. L. Stone, B:-M.: Jewell, IF. Pv Walshe1Grz... 0. 298 New comers driven from Johnstown; EP. 309 New emancipation of the Negro. B. Wal- Jersteins {S..45 ccm aicietecte teeters aienie siete alec 263 Opposition to Negro staff at Tuskegee hos- Ditalis ss WPis sc sc Saws cokers anhetee ie tteate steraietetes 48 “White.”” G;. A. Steward's iSite. ontkcciate 436 Why the Negro emigrates. C. F. Call; C. 490 Shoving of the South; Hic... cs.-ccce.ss 131 Women and Negroes excluded. K. Fisher; CP a is wele He stevevete che ales heoeahat rents /oavelee ciate 636 Nevinson, Henry W. Wihy sirish Jabor failed Smmn casei clei 460 New England Coolidge’s country. W. Hard; S......... 380 Little old New England. W. Hard; S.... 435 New Mexico New Mexico; a relic of ancient America. I: Si (Sergeant: Sic e een 577 New school for social research Student government grows up. G. Peck; C 384 New York (city) Greatest Jewish city in the world. K. Bereovicis: oSiic's ctr aylecete tere ete erie stare 259 New architecture. H. S. Churchill; S.... 552 Prediction of population growth; EP..... 503 New York (city)—Housing Housing) ‘conditions 57m britceeietaresie keto 451 Kennels of New York. V. H. Lawn; S.. 710 Tenement law enforcement; EP.......... 476 New York (city)—Police department “Safety ~hour’?+i4PP.:. cee icce tices. 29 New York Evening mail Statement by E. A. Rumely; C.......... 166 New York leader Tioste Meader gs = Waves re, cin cremmicelensiate stele oictetareiheteietele 571 Two weeks’ achievements; EP........... 425 New York Times Ahead) of the) Tanrvess (Sis cssaseiessen en aD Pickering, Hannah Workers’ faculties; IS........ 533 Pierce, David H. é in the schools; Gi...+....... 18 Ku Kluxism Pinchot, Amos t Railroads and the mechanics of social POWAY s) So oc cenuste ookls ctotwtenaiaie « 420 058, . 488 ee

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Vol. exvii]

Pinchot, Gifford Coal characters. W. Hard; S............ 294 Pinchot for president. W. Hard; S...... 482 Pirandello, Luigi , Floriani’s wife. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; ei Player queen. W. B. Yeats; D............... 496 Po Chii-Yi To my brothers and sisters adrift in troubled times this poem of the moon; Efatelacctave Rr ae atclara a talaiee! oTe''s\ le s:'» ci ogee OO Poems Bare almond trees. D. H. Lawrence..... 393 Billers. A. Hamilton..........cccesesees 437 BING Tle URONEYic « cictelaielele ctusietelel s.= olels\ oe oles 553 Blacktail row. Liu Yii-hsi............... 645 Cobweb boy. R. L. Wolf.......-.+.--eems 607 Death-wateh. V. Starrett... ......-.'-- swe 111 Drum-beats. Lu Lun.............ss-ee0. 645 Dwelling by a stream. Liu Tsung-Yiian.. 646 Exile recalled. Liu Chang-Ch’ing........ 645 Farewell to a militarist. Liu Chang-Ch’ing 645 Farewell to Li Tuan. Lu Lun........... 646 Flower-vendor. A. Hamilton............. 162 Forever. Liu Chung-Yung............... 645 From the city-tower of Liu-Chou. Liu Brenig Vlcanaen ter afoin eeteree s cieniclciclarc.cls ele, oleihvare 646 Ghosts, 4B) Marconnieri.....0c.022sc000088 711 Humming-bird. D. H. Lawrence......... 393 Imperial conference. Li Shang-Yin....... 645 imapressionse | “We. SNOW...00.0cccscccns » 139 O you young eagles! E. L. Masters...... 686 Old fisherman. Liu Tsung-Yiian......... 646 Pagan reinvokes the twenty-third psalm. PUTT MMU Olt levels orole ercicntere el svelotei cies s celnece 607 (Peace. D> VE. Ga wren@es 6 cic. cance cas ces 393 ioetaster. 9) Bs “LROMPSON «6 olds. acca se os 397 Political prisoner. Lo Pin-Wang......... 646 Reunion. E. A.-Robinson........206.cie0 514 Simplest way. Liu Tsung-Yiian......... 645 Song overheard on the highway. A. Hamil- ED Memeeeraetals sisi sera wre! aes PAN Ne asslereeleie eletveeutis 216 Stopping at a friend’s farm-house. Méng Pletal Atle te tisidicictere lcteteie tele eleiele ete olerels «eit are 646 Swallows pass through Rome. L. Speyer. 63 Three score and ten. Méng Hao-Jan.... 646 To a baby. M. Bodenheim............... 185 To my brothers and sisters adrift in troubled times. Po Chii-Yi............. 645 To my retired friend Wéi the eighth-born. PISCE MMMIEDIA coctotate tt’. etels oi arewitiele slcha. gie/e ire es, ¥ a.05;0 646 SEY ODICe es Hs TUR WYETICE ./c’e'c\elerc'e v 0:0'0 ajelave 393 Two portraits. M. Bodenheim............ 10 Nvoodemation, |G. SPARSATC ofc divs soc 0 sifrete 464 Poetaster, B. “Thompson; Pos. ceece seco 397 Poetry Nation’s poetry prize..506, 556, 586, 614, 670, 692, 718, 746 Poets Poets resident and state laureates; EP.. 569 Poincaré, Raymond Franco-British alliance; EP............-. 150 Polakov, Walter N Curse of work; S...... aie in(alete.e,s etele o recamty 506 Poland Poland, a danger spot. R. Dell; IS...... 96 Polar exploration Capt. MacMillan’s radio and movie; EP.. 543 Political parties. See also Labor party Political parties—Italy Gator disunion m Italy's Tu... .c.cccccceee 202 Political parties—Spain Bomamnnignor lampes Dc. ce cs cocuce awe . 448 Political parties—United States POMuIeR COMMISION S Eis ccccsseatencvevcupec 154 WGs 16 (Sa thina MRL Te TU. Jvc evecccenne 50 Political prisoner. Lo Pin-Wang; P......... 646 Political prisonerg Amnesty demanded; EP..............s00. 619 Chileans condemn ‘Yankee justice’; I..... 26 Christmas in prison. Workers prison re- DE RRRRNNRRY ARTOIS Gy clatainieivorens'e slelwie'w's'w epinisio 713 Conditional amnesty’: EP... ce. .cevcccges 48 Freedom and Mr. Harding; E............ 6 German spy freed, politicals still in; EP. 594 PETER ISCIBONIN Ce), Ils ceo oi¢ #6 sic'svico'vvie o's cleus e 454 Mexico pensions a political prisoner; I.... 176 Political prisoners in the Rhineland and the Ruhr EK. Francke; IS....... des. 638 Reading for political prisoners. W. T. RERUN CIE Cra etewalcleaisc-cnk bb pic's > oe'e ¢ anh 89, 327 Release of federal prisoners; EP.......... 125 Republican prisoners in the Irish Free Pena E NaN OR aed ein'd oat dc oe eve neuen se 471 MUP RIAIMIL POMP cies cc slateleccovaswuns ewe BOT Poppy. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.......... 304 Porto Rico Progress (and poverty) in Porto Rico. A. eee 158, 189 Potashnick, S. wien sreedom Ping ls COC. cecccavece cea a (LS “Pound breach” in Washington; EP.......... 700 Power. See also Superpower Presidential campaigns—1924 Candidates and issues; EP.......... meee 501 Coolidge-for-President clubs; EP......... 337 Entering the primaries; EP.............. 699 Good old squirrel cage. W. Hard; S.... 351 Johnson and McAdoo enter contest; EP.. 593 Pinchot challenges Coolidge; EP.......... 449 Pinchot for president. W. Hard; S...... 482 Index Presidential primaries. See Primaries, Presi- dential Presidents—United States Coolidge holds short sentence record; EP. 676 On criticizing the President. Wee. G: WEG ACOO IS Gait crores acieseerern rae raterene ele 384 On exalting the president; an open letter; Matera lassie Oe Tat boletaratakenet a chau shelereseie.6 207 Primaries, Presidential Presidential primaries. Princeton university B. S. Rodey; C.. 165 Class attendance not compulsory; EP..... 451 Prison labor HorwaArds so marehilicn Mitts scl acisieicerssisis ¢ 342 Prisoners Appeal for clemency. A. S. Blackwell; C. 741 Prisoners. See also Political prisoners Prisons. See also Convict labor Prisons—Ireland satay OOISOMGIS Ey eich ceri sts retsievels stenoses eyeceiete.s) = 454 Republican prisoners LAME Ged: rite rae acieeciTaeerate ce et ware 471 Prisons—United States Georgia and needed reforms; EP......... 178 EVA VACY a OD) tractor Nets c avayste ecerctey Mame ereicisle als reve apo ee 490 Prize-fighting Etiquette of big business. S. Chase; C.. 383 Kearns and the Shelby fight; Dt.......... 61 Methodist church asks suppression; EP.. 227 Our town and the championship bout. G. RGOIUISONG Css. chelttieite terrae ate ees ieicinrete ne 16 Progressives progress. W. Hard; S.......... 712 Prohibition—United States Graft and non-enforcement; EP.......... 449 Kilane and the bottles Wiees srr cans ee 570 White. protestant, and dry. W. Hard; S. 461 Propaganda “Selling” us another war. F. J. Libby; See rate avers aya ‘nc’ sie oe oaieel oe lelelee ale 315 Protestant Episcopal church Stmmringese Of propressis WN Pen ae a. ce. s ciciene 726 “Prurient prude.’”’ G. I. Colbron; C.......... 241 Psychical research Committee to explain the occult world; EP 677 Public debts. See Debts, Public Public schools—United States Reddy to OAL: isa seems Selects sista stthnie s 312 Puppets of Teatro dei Piccoli; D............. 331 Q Queen Victoria. W. P. Eaton, and D. Carb; Ba heratstcraiaie. els aha etabedehetsin Ciianen teres ero ics 672 R Rader, Jesse Lee Olclnhoma G talks” | DAK 4 Coles roraty s vie'e'n ea eae 194 Radicals and radicalism Leo Granoff, the boy Trotzky; EP........ 677 Radium Discovered in Turkestan; EP............ 311 Railroad shopmen’s strike, 1922 Injunction made permanent; EP......... 100 Railroads Electricity for railroads. J. G. Lyne; C.. 298 Railroads—Cuba Taras valrond bile Pieces vcvb access 206 Railroads—United States Beer and bigger things; E........ api orals 479 Deadly grade crossing; E..............+- 369 Little old New England. W. Hard; S.... 435 Railroads and the mechanics of social Dower. A.) EAnGHOGs (Sans cas <5 429, 458, 488 Railroads and state—United States Can the government run railroads? A. ATA G Oo Ss ecco fares ate ieee Gia leie crete s/eeie 429 Pools of power. A. Pinchot; S.......... 488 MINORS PIC = IGE vauduaiecisia skis gp etalsiavis vce bee 151 Ralph, Alan “Tt returns him to you a better man’; S. 156 Rascoe, Burton Oklahoma; low jacks and the crooked FT SE Siig 5 6.0.c vive e iuninte tsTp Cras C. x inle efere.s 34 Rathom, John R. Obituary; EP............. 726 Rea, Samuel Panos se reply <* (Ss c.ccgencrsti css cscs ene 80 Reading. See also Books and reading Pee Sh, UTACLTONI 4 i Sale chats ce ciamintatee <ieleip Sie:s\ oi, 0.0,6 453 Reformers and pharisees. A. Meiklejohn; S.. 13 Reisiger, Hans Appeal from Stefan Zweig. S. Zweig; C.. 741 Relief work Ameries in the fogs Bivergaer ccs cronce.cas 544 Important Russian relief. J. N. Rosen- REESE ike vn cc's c/a Cee ae a's widteirk sro. qs0 88 Misrepresentation hinders Russian relief; EB Rein tw vine ia Shaan oem catauate tpi hiweb sn) w:tijeiw ois 701 Prompt aid for Japarns BP ici sp ose occ c cow 281 PAINRIB TLOGE SFE cages eins aia Wikio. peje a e:eseiete 282 Shall we do nothing? E. Marbury; C.... 740 Reparations. See Germany—Reparations Republican national convention Representation of southern states; EP.... 725 Resnikov, Philip SERRE si iis vibe. 6 c0ih 316 aerate Nes. 6 ueit wivte wd 327 Heunion, Ms A. RobmMeOns oP oiwsiisccwcc ese 514 [ July-Dec., 1923

Rhode Island—Education Gallic war in Rhode Island. R. C. Dex- LEVIES ibs nialstsieinieis aalaaralate ck: Cee eae vies, 2Lb Rice, Charles Are the Russians cruel?; C......... pp iela.a ate Rinehart, Mary Roberts Breaking point. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; DME, (cietoue Wereinve felese a Reels loceleveiolaletclelalotes-tae arene 273 Robert, Carl teaeucents of Carl Robert. W. W. Hyde; Robinson; Boardman) © =. °°, a mhemdictator § (cartoon) +.- nee eee 293 International puzzle: who has the ball? (Geartoon))mi:titen cee tee nies jee ee 507 Boincarés (cartoon) asses ee 352 Robinson, Edwin Arlington VCUMION fmol levers chit ce ete eee eee 514 Robinson, G. Our town and the championshi ; Robinson, William J. pionship bout; S.. 16 clteishalliznobebev again’ Ch. . 2. eee 464 Robson, William A. Bis thoughts on a college pilgrimage; TE CAG a ee ee 108 Presidential primaries; C.................- 165 Rogers, William L. War the agency of law; EP............. 150 Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. Roosevelt and the Klan; EP............. 677 Rorty, James Avsbirthise0P saacrrcrire site «ecto ann ee 553 Rosemary school, Greenwich, Conn. Tnial'by? fires’ Witacssea. sys eee eee 679 Rosenberg, James N. Important Russian relief; C.............. 88 Rosenfeld, Morris. Obituary; EP............. 3 Rostand, Edmond Cyrano de Bergerac. Criticism. L. Lewi- BONMUS EID Ris over ein oe ate ee ee ee ee 587 Roy, Beant Koomar. See Basanta Koomar oy Royal fandango. Z. Akins; D............... 614 Ruhr Valley—French invasion British lion’ helpless EPs. .......0-<.ceee 149 British “notes se P ese Ae een ee ee eee 99 Collapse of the unholy alliance; E........ 180 Death wof Samnation =f. cen. nee eee 368 Debate audiences disapprove: EP..6)2).). 449 France in the Palatinate; I:.)..2-.....0. 724 French military orders; EP.............. 13 Incredibly severe sentences; EP.......... 149 Military, iheel/ Choa ek ott rn eee ee 592 Neither peace nor WICtorya ele atte nee 339 Passive resistance; EP................ 47, 281 Poincaré’ss, terms EP 5.0 bene ee 1 Political prisoners in the Rhineland and the; Ruhr, | Kieiranckes 1S 2k. 638 Resultss) Barwin ects 99, 177, 205, 449, 699 Showid the United States occupy France?; nje oo lfele fajeterareiataletatats ovetrere cic crc aa eee 228 Whither France? Whither Germany?; E. 176 Rumania New constitution of Rumania; I.......... 274 Rumely, Edward A. 4 mratement 5. Co iciectietae an tae eee 166 Russell, Bertrand Slavery or self-extermination; S.......... 32 Russell, George .W. ‘ Hunger strike in Ireland; IS............. 589 Russell, Lee M.~ ~ Gov. Russell on the press; C............. 62 Russia After six years of bolshevism; EP........ 501 B. K. Wheeler and the Civic federation; EGER. collab eee netic tee cote nee cee 594 Commercial and financial outlook; EP.... 337 Helping Russia help herself; I............ 694 se under the soviet regime. L. Talmy; a iavateluintahereiuveteiere siorsceietevec ere aicicis cle aerators 533 POLED ie avan moe led voce tor nee 70 Land of leisure. M. Eastman; S......... 515 Methodists and the soviet church; EP.... 594 Mexico “in RaBSiaiss TPS. 2.01 cio scio sleidc aicieiere 566 New Russian women. M. Marx; S....... 508, 549, 589 Romanoff methods of rule; EP........... 621 Mussian’ cooperatives 7) Vics cosenkinies aocinct 536 Russia’s era of revival. I. J. Hoorgin; S. 516 Swiss assassin of soviet envoy acquitted; Pay ever cteteteicisielebotoiakeinceiiie’ sca: sveydie areisicrs ai cvoasntere 620 Truth about Russia breaking; E.......... 6 Workers’ faculties. H. Pickering; IS.... 533 Russia—All-Russian agricultural exposition Lenin and the prize pig. D. Brewster; S. 510 Russia—Constitution Russia’s new constitution; I............. 173 Russia—Economic conditions Russia’s economic revival. A. M. Kras- MIOSCHOMOV 3!) USiisn cedars <tes)e5s ele o amer rene 69 Russia—Education. See Education—Russia Russia—Foreign . relations Hughes fears recognition; EP............ 100 Making friends in the Pacific; IP........ 364 Russia and the Bulgarian reaction; I.... 447 Russia—National characteristics. See National characteristics, Russian Russia—Relief work. See Relief work Russian-American industrial corporation RAIC declares a dividend. S. Hillman;

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Nos. 3026-3051]

Ss SS We From a willing correspondent; C........ 609 Saar Valley Trouble jon .the Saans pilvewweles wectele + «vine 124 Sabatate evn selec sccteals viel e)inte /olaists\sini sl tele) aiate ree 359 Sailing Crossing Atlantic in 30-foot boat; EP. 310 Saintsbury, George Saintsbury. LL. Lewisohn; S............- 634 Salvador Commercial defends Hughes’s loan agree- POG ee Pub deere tetova cio seekers. ole! diatarevarersrerecs'sys 503 Feansine and LHe MOAN ue ous e6 siajaieleelaisis © 541 Mr. Hughes admits everything; E........ 479 Mr. Hughes makes a secret alliance; E.. 452 $6,000,000 lean WE Peeetotevo ove cos etch ate aeanelerotne era 365 Samoa Tyranny in American Samoa; I.......... 26 Sampter, Jessie E. Voice from Jerusalem; C.............--- 241 Sanborn, Pitts Ep at Pictierlicay Wie .o ais.n)ciaseieleuisinimainle =: slelicieels etoyer « 248 MIGermrsine ers ie) Vcr eradatay-'c clteveioiale\= a0 ie aleve «= 122 Victor Maurel, singing actor; M.......... 671 Sandburg, Carl Two sweetheart dippies (story).......... 15 San Quentin Books for San Quentin. W. T. Brown; C. 327 Santo Domingo. See Dominican Republic Sarjyut Shankerlal Gandhi’s life in prison; IP..............- 24 School of opinion, Siasconset, Mass. Subject for 1923 session; EP............ 179 School tyranny in Seattle. W. Foote; C...... 18 Schools Ku Kluxism in the schools. D. H. Pierce; ‘ WO get ne heer ayc te rai arava ele oe inlaicia ole ie a epelaraerer chalet TMi DY OTE Pilates lois. s, dese siniminisiewie in ctetelaraiste 679 Schools. See also Colleges and universities Schools, Experimental Seas of democracy; E.........--+esseee> 104 Schreiber, David Poles protect “their” Jews; C.......... TAL Schultze, Ernst Lheipzig’s need; Co.cc cciecsccnvszcccwcewns 195 Schulze-Gaevernitz, Gerhart von Visit to United States; EP............-. 621 Scott, Susan B. Oklahoma talks back; C.......ssceeeeees 194 Scott, Temple CR ATINE ee Are dieicatiac.s'a/As x aio e[p ajuieb wrasse ete 172 Seattle, Washington School tyranny in Seattle. W. Foote; C. 18 Strikes and bootleggers; EP.............. 338 Seitz, Don C. Protest against Indiana imperialism; C.. 439 . Where pie is king; S......... i aha eles 1382 Seligmann, Herbert J. PE war th 1Grs so cicte a bie 6 80a .a'o'e odes a Renee 884 Picasso on fifth; A......cceccccecccncses 714 Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley Dining in New Mexico; S........cscssesae 133 New Mexico; a relic of ancient America; Pad Didiide Go ctui> ole-sa.n ken be aces aeiehen pees 6. 577 Servant problem solved; E.........eeeeeeeees 52 Shakespeare, William Hamlet. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D.... 718 Ghameowomen. I. Vollmer; D... favage ibvaiclelaceletdidie st ole cree eee ae me ee 216 Sophocles Oedipus rex. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D. 531 Sorolla, Joaquin... Obituary; (EP aacheses ac 179 South Africa of tomorrow; IP................ 279 Southworth, Constant When the franc joins the mark; S...... 321 Spain Should surrender African possessions; EP. 254 Spanish Jabor, Jimpsiyrilaemeeric ese ee on 448 Spain—Labor and laboring classes. See Labor and laboring classes—Spain Spain—Politics and government New military government; EP........... 337 Revolt in Spain. S. M. Waxman; S...... 322 Spain today. R. A. Martinez, and S. M. Waxmian's) °C). ., aera aaee ieee ee eicratereie nivel 438 Spectator (London) Engages H. W. Massingham; EP........ 101 Spectator and Mr. Massingham. J. Brewer: GI iia. is claws ojo .olale Sane DORE tata iialsahalbadins 384 Spero. Sterling Denhard “Reversing”? Burleson’s labor policy; S... 682 Speyer, Leonora Swallows pass through Rome; P......... 63 Spingarn, J. E. “Quite unintelligible’ Emerson; C...,.... 140 Spring cleaning. F. Lonsdale; D............ 614 Stambuliiski, Alexander Revolutionary days in Bulgaria. T. Ber- Keg 20. Soe wc c:0.0'istaie' dls a Wins Gaines aimieioqeers sree 37 Starrett, Vincent Drea thoy a belae Pie aieve lo cisiole olaieisuieintel Diula: tis .ace 111 Steamships and steamboats Big and. the little at seas Wie ccs cciewc over 209 Steel industry In the steel country. H. Gellert; S. 604, 632 Steinmetz, Charles Proteus Curse of work. W. N. Polakov; S...... 506 Steward, Gustavus Adolphus White: . ‘Sesd sch nact ec abeeee seen cea ees 436 Stillman, Clara G. Florida; the desert and the rose; S...... 485 Stinnes, Hugo Hugo Stinnes denies it. Humann; C.. 383 Stinnes—and Stresemann. J. Lachenbruch : Pe rT een Gee ee een 213 Stone, C. L. Jim \'Crowiemts. (GC. D146 0« cesaeeeebeness 4Ae Taxation—Great Britain Land tax law destroyed; EP............. 74 Taxation—United States Oliver iron mining co. case; EP.......... 593 Secretary Mellon’s proposed ‘changes ; EP.. 568 Taxation, Exemption from More about tax-exempt securities. B. T.; SRIe Silks ic'p sce araeleluie pis Site Seine ets tate a 140 Word on tax exemptions. H. H. Furth; C. 61 Teachers—Rating Self-rating of principals; EP............. 310 Tennessee university Monkeying's> Bis., #.. 06. nce saNaebala)ia ol 6 cate bod , 104 Texas Appeal for clemency. A. S. Blackwell: C. 741 Jim Crow in Texas. W. Pickens; S...... 155 Mobpsviolence; ENP... :::sjncdos oe eee ts 74 Thayer, William Roscoe. Obituary; EP....... 283 These United States Florida. -C.cG:; Stilmang§Sase. eee eee 485 Hlinois.. | H. Ve.jO’BriensiSe eeeeeeeeee 186 Indiana. T. Dreiser; S............. sive, B48 Kentucky.) /B:5L;, Burman iSih. Jose nee 83 Missouri. M. O. Hudson; S.............. 431 Montana. A. Fisher:.Siee eo. eee ene 290 Nebraska... .'‘W.7S. | Cather: uSaeuinen cee 236 New Mexico. E. S. Sergeant; S..... yaaa OTT North Dakota. R. G. Paterson; S........ 134 Oklahoma. B. Rascoe; S...........+6--. 34 Washington. R. Whitaker; S............ 107 These United States. For earlier articles see indexes to previous volumes This is life. E. S. Holding (story).......... 161 Thomas, A. E. Jolly Roger. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D. 304 Thomas, Norman. Youth and the American colleges; S...... 106 Thompson, Basil In ithe ‘Creole icapitall-sSe eee eens 732 Poetasters Pj i:ads 0 Soe 397 Three little business men; D.............- Ws saeco: Three score and ten. Méng Hao-Jan; P 646 Time; Duisacatwsereth see eee eae 718 Tittmann, Edward D. Arkansas’s literary reputation; C......... 89 To a baby. M. Bodenheim; P................ 185 To my brothers and sisters adrift in troubled times this poem of the moon. Po Chii- Yis. Pinks ds oth eee eee 645 To my retired friend Wéi the eighth-born Tu FUs) Panos. tee eee eee 646 Todd, Constance L Against ./Gorki's: Gra. scene eee Bighete nS eee 384 Toksvig, Fridtjof United States of Europe; IS....... Satie lerees Ol Tourists Intelligence tests for tourists. S. A. Olm- sted $s Gan seis vis ele ate eee Ds autos OOG Trade unions—Italy Labor distnion in Italy-<)i-os sasenene 2 cee 202 Trade unions—United States Barbers’ unions bar women; EP........ 548 Company unions or national unions? a debate. P. Blanshard, S. Rea, N. P. Gopd s), Sic. J nai die te eR ee oe sen 9 Factories of public opinion; E........... 623 Obstacles in steel industry; EP.......... 542 Women and Negroes excluded. K. Fisher; CO riers temieie ia sO tamsle chet a aeee eisveielseiaide exten 1606 Tresca, Carlo Anti-fascist weekly barred from mails; EB ne ccinciajets an coe oo a oe Sabesoe a 207 Convicted for advertisement; EP..... 676, 701 Tropic. _ 2D. H. ‘luawrentes Ps. seseseeeee een 893 Tu, Theodore B. That typical American dinner; C........ 687 Tu Fu 7 retired friend Wéi the eighth-born; Sipe sca oo © eo o serene ia i Siahskeve eieic.s' 31 O26 Tulsa, Oklahoma When the troops took Tulsa. M. Coleman; S 5ahte- Ric Meets eefe ejafarnnathc ete cisco ka 239 Turkey Allied troops leave Constantinople; EP.. 423 Celebrates Lausanne treaty; EP.......... 127 Labor in “Turkey's Tascsnetente acres aces; 566 Turkey and Armenia. A. Moss, and F. Gilliam: ©. .ou25.cn aspen eet. S 140 anes B. Tarkington, and H. L. Wilson; ois Seles: ajuteia\s alule/e ata giant aidistetalacts. 2s Two portraits. M. Bodenheim; P............ 10 Two sweetheart dippies. C. Sandburg; P.... 15 U Unemployment—Great Britain Winter prospects serious; EP............ 226 United mine workers of America Ku’ King ‘tactics; EP ic. 0.2 cssns sneiea(te| Gee Stories of bolshevik menace; EP......... 310 United States People let down. W. Hard; S..... wane OS United States. See also New England United States—Army “It returns him to you a better man.” A. Ralgae’ 87). vdteeak ae SCE MENenis Crees he LO

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Vol. exvii Index [ July-Dec., 1923 enn ——————————————

United States—Cabinet Resignations in order; EP.............++ 149 United States—Congress Deaths and resignations; EP............. 621 Juxtra sessions; EP ..... 2... . ss cc eee ewe 178 Major parties fear ‘radicals’; EP........ 726 President and the progressives; E........ 703 Progressives progress. W. Hard; S...... 712 United States—Constitution Remaking the constitution; E............ 286 United States—Customs service. See Customs service—United States United States—Defenses Disarm the Mexican boundary; EP....... 541 Expenditures for war, past and present; BP aioe lao crctelate ene eas ateletaAe « ate SMateTe 675 Gum and the army. S. T. Byington; C.. 463 United States—Foreign relations America worst. W. Hard; S...........- 137 Brazil naval mission should be recalled; eRe) Bas ais Siayss sears asia «sickle 0 0.ce nla 620 Commercial defends Salvador loan agree- PRICKIE Ee Eco a encesiae resin syne > elec stale owas wale 503 Haiti appeals to the world; I............ 750 Imperial America in Haiti; I............ 749 Japan and the United States; I.......... 361 Mr. Hughes admits everything; E........ 479 Mr. Hughes makes a secret alliance; E.. 452 Monroe doctrine—killed in its home. E. Ae Mea TROR ITS ete ieipyate ied» aya) o dln 107 Watson, Blanche NGI Lote GETMAIN 6 Ciislctce victmicaied 6 eres 355 Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus of Nazareth; CR RE, CMDR, rate intele arn ab Nevale:s afkidwis's 713 Waxman, Samuel M. REGO IN FS DAL Siz suleiad wd einixsinlslpleled:s a’ 322 Pa Tae ANU NG n otc ic’ sal oiase' win ore Baie Ute.de Sitote 438 Weeks, John Wingate Challenge to Henry Ford; E.............. 453 Weiss, Albert P. Mr. Stuart: Chase’s Junk} ©. .i6.6c 0s 116 West Virginia Ku Kluxism in the schools. D. H. Pierce; pe OR ct ty ee eee 18 Rest of West Virginia. West Virginia article. F. K. Viner; C.. 354 F. K. Viner; C.... 195 Wheat Making wheat sober up. W. Hard; S 14 Whisker championship; EP..................-. 75 Whitaker, Robert Washington; the dawn of a tomorrow; S.. 707 White, William Allen Fish hook’s disapproval; EP............. 179 Supremacy of beefsteak; S............... 731 Whitney, Charlotte Anita OME SoG es sh 9 nine REM AON OL a cee cis Cs os 62 Whole town’s talking. J. Emerson and A. DME CMT Co oo o0clawe cette plas Ste attest ovis 304 Wiggin, Kate Douglas. Obituary; EP........ 227 Wiles of destiny. S. Asch (story).......... 59 Williams college institute of politics. See In- stitute of politics Williamson, Guy Enngere in Oklahomast@ oon feces sess: 438 Wilson, Harry Leon, and B. Tarkington Tweedles. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D... 273 Wilson, P. W. Feels Massingham his superior; EP...... 3 Wilson, Woodrow Advocates Christian brotherhood; EP..... 127 Windows... Lis Lewisobry Wisi is Gis wei sce. 469 Winsor, Mary Mischievous’ movies 0Ge coos wwe es es cele ase 636

Wolf, Robert L. BEEIONVED | DOVE Sge Ee as alas. o\eatales) treratelalewiatietoaiaereene 607 a reinvokes the twenty-third psalm; Ve on esters teri ree 607 Woy they ‘subseribe 3 Cs siccne sees deccs cts 39 Woman ARS ee SDMPYO’s) By. ce dels deoses scosecce cues 29 New program for women; E............. 285 oes 7b-year fight. A. S. Blackwell; Woman—Employment #2 # © e Barbers’ unions bar women; EP......... 543 Questions for the Woman’s party. F. CUS Y is Tiras. ccvecsitoioleietetotniccayavetaiole sven te irtatoe. 241 Wages in New York state: EP........... 568 Women and Negroes excluded. Cece deemcrteeceincraehe toe sina cae cae ee 636 and women Woman—Equal rights Mischievous movie. M. Winsor; C........ 636 Questions for the Woman’s party. F. Kel- ley ; easter Motateiotals mafearie: ceveve a varalacnuern oh node 241 Right to jail for speeders; EP............ 595 Woman’s party amendment; EP......... 129 Woman—law Woman without a country; E............ 730 Woman—Russia New Russian women. M. Marx; S...... 508, 549, 580 The woman. H. Barbusse (story)............ 262 Woman ionithes jury: D's. sie.5 cic jce croitersinveloe enon 273 Women and politics First woman ambassador. FF. Holbrook; Woakp Grrl Wi ny fi cae i Challenge to The Nation; C.............. 556 Wood, Clement What) Alabama voffers's (Si si8<.5. senescence. 733 Wood, Leonard Hilipinos protests. WIP asec cscs le celae bate 99, 450 Woodbridge, Benjamin M. ‘ Homely VecrubiisieeO cere se tic ace «chester eee 327 Woodsman’ 7G) “Tarrard sy Poe eccns ee ose 464 Wooster, Ernest S. Inside a cooperative colony; S........... 378 Workers’ education Workers’ faculties. H. Pickering; IS.... 533 Workers’ party Pennsylvamias IUBCICE acy. cies ne ais sw idles cimenion 381 Workers prison relief committee Christmas pin GOLisOMisd Cac. oerteecleneicciccte 713 Working girls and women Contribution to family support; EP...... 129 World court. See League of nations. Perma- nent court of international justice Wrangel Island expedition Ada Blackjack, lone survivor; EP........ 283 Wrangell. Island's) Eject siecltico ew ticeceens 306 Yacht racing Big and the little at sea; E Yeats, William Butler Player queen. Criticism. L. Lewisohn; D. 496 Yiddish literature Yiddish literature; a product of revolt. Mic RRUNET ICE Sa cVelere cileicle o.c/eieteisals ateie-dieris, wavs 137 Young, Art Hooking: “ony (Cartoons) sic </ecccre ss 00, wsieteis 7, 45T Young, J. M. Stuart “Love of liberty brought us here’; C.... 582 Yeuseapce, Prince, admitted to United States; Mislgretaee(ets afein(sofolelx(e low sraiera era are aldieiecs ies ein 619 Youth ane the American colleges. N. Thomas; Sia apa ior ale alapen bi @ueietavoce sia wiaiain: ararsrs cvontennte 106 Youth movement From the Young Friends; I......:....... 307 German youth and the pagan gods. B. PRL INGON see aris ai stelain oats cle a cienk burt secs ere 296 Z ZAUALOMN FOIE EAST Se DE ainisiein1e viele, fale elerels (010. c.0le% 326 Zangwill, Israel Israel Zangwill. J. Smertenko; S........ 483 Views about United States; EP......... 568 Zionism controversy; EP........cscccses 450 Zeigner, Ernst Red Saxony. O. G. Villard; S........«.. 573 Zionism Issues of third world congress; EP...... 179 Zangwill controversy; EP......00...sdee~ 450 Zweig, Stefan Appeal from Stefan Zweig; C........... 74h

Page 17

Nos. 3026-3051 | Index ‘ [Vol. exvii ee,

BOOK REVIEWS Books are indexed under author and title, and in some cases under subject. The following explanatory letters are used in the index: B Book review AN Brief annotation R Reviewer A Adams, John Quincy Life of William Shakespeare; B.......... 271 Advance of the American short story. E. J. OLB riers ei ara cate cis ters haleteioie'e' see's we lere aianect 248 Die aera’ Bulow) Je, Haller’s “Bian ie ccscie cose ace 92 Africa, Partition and colonization of. Cc. TI CAS sp gees sic levaioie one ac tteets, oVeiniaielescie.e ereveyaie, anole 247 ATtermall. sen Gegeb-) PED mele: 2Y3 5.60 oo) a0 ore at olecete vers 200 Aiken, Conrad Piletimage more Mesttis ss) 03).:4c:clve/recreviaistele ae 271 Alciphron NUSELOTS PAIN ioseretele ats Siete o =i e1e)e\e aim «fs mvatelaleleves 745 eMC WAT Geb ett et. clattaecarolere 2 ete elteisieva ei steteteiese 199 America and the Atlantic. G. A. Ballard; AN. 531 American addresses. C. Weizmann; AN...... 222 American government. F. A. Ogg and P. O. Ua yscen Ese cieverterets ei oie icis' odie ni a suaisiele eit eigtemisiele 272 American intelligence, Study of. C. C. Brig- CATING ee ESS re ccakave cree 3.0 © soviet ele “evevaereisinte sewn 330 American Jewish yearbook. v. 25; AN...... 469 American literature, Classic. American literature, Some makers of. : MPUITE aS ieee MED usec aire seve al scselate’ che usveinveseustaimietn rey a: 6 464 American party system. C. E. Merriam; B.. 612 American poetry since 1900. L. Untermeyer; AN hs folic foes ata eile! ere cys o[evesele Sinvets ania Megas 670 Americanism. W. T. Colyer; AN..........-. 495 Americans in eastern Asia. T. Dennett; B.. 357 Angell, Katharine Sergeant; R.............. 66, 94 Ariie)Gelston. BR. Li. Sergel?) By... ccc se css 742 Armén Ohanian. See Ohanian, Armén Armstrong, William, editor Lillian Nordica’s Hints to singers; B.... 440 Arnold, William Harris Ventures in book collecting; AN......... 531 Artvot poetry, WwW. Po Mer: AN. ...5ccsnc ee. 746 Art of the prima donna and concert singer. Het SEX oy IVES TLENIBIS UES! cee 00: 0'ei0's els weawslen/ orm 440 Attmepint. KR. Hentis Bi....c..ccscspenenese 495 As they are; French political portraits; B.... 666 Asch, Nathan; R.....sccccccccsscescosscccces 43 Asquith, Herbert Henry Genesia of ‘the war; Bi... cccsscswase 745 Astor, J. J., and others Third winter of unemployment; B....... 652 Atwood, Millard Van Marter Country newspaper; B......cccccvscecens 269 B PED OMEaL etoackieyG Sih © s 8 oNia. ds ocia'a eo umes SRNLe 529 Bacheller, Irving PITT TGUIN . caee seen 40 Ballard, G. A. America and the Atlantic; AN........... 531 Balmont, Constantin WARIO MOURNE So Ede s ov vicc eves wu ay Rie pele 64 Barnabé and his whale. R. Thévenin; AN 746 BRE, (CARE AGE SER. ose ows sa vmedieanes 20, 121 Barnouw, A. J. Holland under Queen Wilhelmina; AN.. 614 Barrie Marvell. C. Vince; B.......ccccccsess 668 Barry, Florence V. Century of children’s books; B........... 560 Bars and shadows. R. Chaplin; B........... 219 Barton, Alfred World history for the workers; AN...... 66 Beals, Carleton pS ee > So ae ee Oe en en eye re 660 IOMGe CHEDS) CRN GND. UN ollie a whe a¥en boy ure pwae ales 556 Behaviorism and psychology. A. A. Roback IN WAdti kilns noe Sb we BAER © aieelatias autem ad 122 Being respectable. G. H. Flandrau; B........ 66 Belloc, Hilaire ED A a ee ees or Ree re re ee 530 GIN MANUPN e Bec dean. Ga sc abuvaks keircsiaoeekes 94 Bennett, Arnold PRIGGIRT “CN SR eine evs vines tadanvicr 717 Bercovici, Konrad BROT t, By uawabawa dvwasaeewaus de th'exkcews 43 EUOTOOVIG, BOMVAGs” Ti. cs ckknsdeuscunewddevtetse a 748 Berguer, George Some aspects of the life of Jesus; B..... 664 Pormuda. eictaterstetots 122 Boas, ‘Georges. \R.G. ss. uc. chilean ete ce eek 119 Body of this death. DL. Bogans B.....2- 196 Bradley, H. Dennis Eternal masquerade; AN. i. i. cc2.-peeeneee 42, 66, 330 Creative spirits of the nineteenth century. G. Brandes’; Bist <a. « «ae onic 399 Crime. ©. Darrow: Bi... cueeeeeee cease 94 Crucibles of crime. J. F. Fishman; B........ 662 Cults of Campania. R. M. Peterson; AN.... 746 Cummings, E. E. Tulips and chimneys; AN..............0. 614 Cunliffe, J. W., and P. de Bacourt French literature during the last half-cen- tury! AN s si0.a'5 0:6 cloth oi nisnteier oe eee eet 273 Curtis, Cyrus H. K. Man from Maine. E. W.Boks; Bivuc.a seston 302 W. A. Berridge; B. 743 Cycles of unemployment. A. Rasin; Czechoslovakia, Financial policy of. wis oe e 0.8 0@s1a /o 6: 6,40 Sele ene eine piareretakete EG D Damaged souls. G. Bradford; B.............. 196 Damon, Samuel Foster, and R. S. Hillyer, translators Book of Danish rene B igecsigki'ns wiptaicie OT Dance of life. HB. Millis: Bi semseen-s sien aiiciate 9 Dancer of Shamahka. A. Ohanian; JANG. eins Si 67 Danish verse, Book of; Bi. . cst cetiens + oc «0 oy LOT Dargan, E. Preston, and W. A. Nitze History of French literature; B.......... 93 Darrow, Clarence Crime; its cause and treatment; B........ 94 Das, Taraknath. See Taraknath Das Davies, W. H. Collected poems; second series; AN...... 692 Davis, Elmer Times have changed; AN..............-- 144 Davis, Jefferson, his life and personality. M. Schaff; “AN Are... <vccns nee sdpetee wares e's MOO Dawes, Charles G. First year of the budget of the U. S.; B. 302 Day’s journey. W. B. Maxwell; AN.. De amicitia. Cicero; B De divinatione. Cicero; De senectute. Cicero;

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ee Vol. exvii] Index [ July-Dec., 1923

Deep channel. M. P. Montague; AN....... .. 410 De Ford, Miriam Allen; R...........eeeseees 219 eM eENOVds Beane nccccc cists vinlele slots ele(enisiene oa 650 Demonism verified and analyzed. H.-- We RUVIFAT LE sire e Es aletaiore talieve taal sve (e,sya.leete, eels Rterel siete 93 Dennett, Tyler Americans in eastern Asia; B........... 857 Desert horizon. E. L. G. Watson; B........ . 169 Desolate splendour. M. Sadleir ; B Sreteie sicicie etd 330 Dethronements. L. Housman; AN........... 561 Die deutsche literatur unserer zeit. K. Mar- OMAR mms ceateteretalelailaycleyeio el(o/ cia clacaiel eleiare! «.«'alehela 300 Deutsche literaturgeschichte in einer stunde. FAME CHB CHIKE on Diaiciclela ciclele sem iclerelore © «ivlelersis 300 E. Haeckel; B.... 527 Development of a youth. J. P. Lichten- Development of social theory. MERGE CAIN sreteie aie nie oleelola:ielele nivicl= oie’ sie etme 95 Development of the American short story. F. immer atee sin Ite elalete, clsvove)e oletaveiele sims eve) sis ears 243 Dickensian inns and taverns. B. W. Matz; ESNet or cise cLeieratclc alsrctcheleleretalerete aie ooh ocorole crates 198 Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes War; its nature, cause and cure; B...... 167 Dickinson, Zenas Clark Economic motives; B.........cceccseeees 328 Dillon, E. J. President Obregon, a world reformer; B.. 492 Dixon, Maynard Injun babiess AN.....5- 0.2002. cecccceee 668 Dr. Doolittle’s post office. H. Lofting; B.... 560 Dodd, Walter F. States government; Bi... scisccccccceccels« 272 Dodd, Walter F., and Sue Hutchinson Government in Illinois; B..............-- 245 Workediane Ju. Wewisohn s Bei... . weirs cavers 649 Dostoievsky; letters and reminiscences S. S. Koteliansky and J. M. Murry, trans- TOUS sa Eee elsiciats e sinwaerlaiotereie’=( elsleles!slefdie:e 220 Doughty, Charles M. Travels in Arabia Deserta; B............ 648 Dream and other poems. J. Masefield; AN.. 200 Drucker, Saul, and M. B. Hexter GHG ReM CABLE A Vise ES cinie cn clsloiniuicloic| ce smsicieiels 272 Duff, J. D., translator Memoirs of Alexander Herzen; B........ 691 Dunsany, Lord Plays of gods and men; B.........--+e«+> 95 Plays of near and far 5, Beis gsi... sicloaw caves 95 Dyboski, Roman Rise and fall in Shakespeare’s dramatic FRAMED EL tet caida o(eis! 00 arsls'e aicie(s view im atace%e's © slabs 611 Earle, Edward Mead Turkey, the ee powers, and the Bagdad PLTUVENS §) LES s eracdicte’sls sicla’s\s «0 e'sie e'eleieve'e a Watne 556 Earlham. P. Labbock NS eile ciiista «id arttavele.> Siecle 91 Early northern painters. Mrs. C. R. Peers; RAs Cee cen cic end aale's's cle cose ee eidere 408 Marp, J. ROsslyms Ris... ccc we cscs evs ccccens 529 Eckardstein, Hermann, freiherr von Lebenserinnerungen und politische denk- OP AMPCILCIN SED once ep vivecacccedcvawes 92 Economic history. N. S. B. Gras; B........ 442 Economic motives. Z. C. Dickinson; B...... 328 Economics of the hour. J. St. L. Strachey; oa Economics of unemployment. J. A. Hobson; a erners UEwins Bi creceic ccc tleesccces 141, 299, 440 Edschmid, Kasimir Das biicher-dekameron; B........+-+++0+% 300 Education and training for social work. J. PLES Soc Phce tite wrelee'c evalelavere, dls eel eva'aialn me 245 Elegy on Randolph’s finger. W. Hemminge; a Elizabethan drama, Fool in. O. M. Busby; B. 611 Ellen Prior. A. Brown; AN........-++-e0e0: 614 Ellis, Havelock Dance of lifes: Bu... ccc ccccvcsevscvcnsece 19 Ellis, S. M., editor Mid-Victorian Pepys; AN........++-+++++- 469 Eminent Europeans. E. S. Bagger; B........ 40 Emperor’s old clothes. F. Heller; B.......... 43 =e. the House of Alard. S. Kaye-Smith; aes England under the restoration. T. G. Stone; = apa grammar, Old. J. and E. M. Wright; Pe English metre. is. Smiths AN i ones cece ace 359 English words and their ‘background. Ge. “Be MeKnight: AN. ..cccccccsccncccccaenens 43 Brasmus. P. Smith; B.s....ccccccccevcvacues 651 Eris. R. W. Chambers; AN..........--s++-- 444 Die ermordung des erzherzogs Franz Ferdi- nand. S. Stanojevic; B..........e.+-- 142 Erskine, John Literary discipline; B.......cccccsevceses 168 Mecapade. BE. Scott; B.......cvcrccvestavees 141 Eternal masquerade. H. D. Bradley; AN.... 200 Europe, 1878-1919. G. P. Gooch; B.......... 690 Europe in the Middle ages. I. L. Plunket; oe hE ACE OE EET ee er 66 Europe since 1918. H. A. Gibbons; B........ 443 Extemporary essays. M. Hewlett; B.......... 530 Eyles, Leonora PI CURVOR AN cores e's vulvsdrsenccabuygese 410 F Famous single poems. B. E. Stevenson; AN. 562 Mane WW. ot ‘“Romes: Besicesd 197 Hamilton, Walton, and S. May Controlioftiwaresis) Bc. jcrselers lacie cnyeictateniae 493 Hammann, Otto Bilder aus der letzten kaiserzeit; B....... 92 Der missverstandene Bismarck; B......... 92 Zur vorgeschichte des weltkrieges; B..... 92 Handling of words. V. Lee; AN............ 201 Hansen, Harry Midwest) portraits) Bisson oo. oe eressisceisioins 558 Harcourt, Sir William, Life of. A. G. Gardi- MOPS) || Bostic etre ea oi eee pS mola Soin aaiee 402 Hardy, Arthur Sherburne Things remembered’:) “AN... is ssi sos 303 Harford, Henry, pseudonym. See Hudson, Wil- liam Henry Harmonium. We Stevensis © Ba caisclreleterere cise 400 Harraden, Beatrice Pa tin thane AUN aye.) aver i cyetarcuersrers oheravoveiwiene oie eek 614 Harris, Emerson P., and F. H. Hooke Community newspaper; B..............+. 269 Harrison, Haberti:) Gee e to saint cvorelscteconve oie 247, 358 Harrison, Marguerite E. Unfinished tales from a Russian prison; B. 529 Hartt, Rollin Lynde Man himself (Bictiipuws vecdpinie ¢acccasemee 664 Hastings, Hudson Bridge Costs: sandteprofites) <Biscig.5 qaeihone scorers 743 Haunch paunch and jowl; B................ 743 Hawkeye: Ho Quick :3: ANG ec ctiisicdes cecsieouee 247 Hawtrey, R. G. Monetary reconstruction; B.............. 743 Hayes, Carleton J. H., and P. T. Moon. Mod- ern: history.qevaAlNis% s.tecanisicn ieee oe 95 Health building and life extension. E. L. Basle 3 AUN Dare stave aricve pais ere olay er ojevocaroeieteverdiers 222 Heart’s blood. E. M. Kelley; AN............ 331 Hellas einst und jetzt. G. Brandes; B....... 399 Heller, Frank Emperors cold clothes); 0 Bi... « «ie sisi elvisyr cies 43 Helm, Jeanette Without; elues's” VAIN< < crefectetccrreseveievale, sloverstsine 562 Hemminge, William Elegy on Randolph’s finger; AN......... 359 Hendrick, Burton J. EWS) IN CAMELICAs Febseierstee cceletea\sie so ote eteteiens 468 Jews in America. Correction............ 532 Henri, Robert ATE “SPITIE SHB Geis ccs cyeisre foie aictele wy euele steve weiss 495 Henschke, Alfred Deutsche literaturgeschichte in einer BEUNG SS Er ea saiotare siete: vlcte cfotel sieleleters.otavoreeyere 300 Efernrick,, ‘Roberisr} iH wiraveoctetee sc areie te cetera eines 654 Herskovits; Melville ig) Bie cic sis acicietes. cave tte.ctete 689 Hertzler, Joyce Oramel History of Utopian thought; B........... 197 Herzen, Alexander BVERIOIS Sarees svcrsrieicrehstere. oisye er eccterereteiotetere efelsiei ars 691 Hewlett, Maurice Eixtemporary CSSRySis) Bsc nseic.cpcree victe sivin'e oie 530 Hexter, Maurice Beck, and S. Drucker Varennes BAUlAvie Meester eo adele scelletohelels wledere 272 Hidden’ lives: “i. Wiylesei AN sors cciacieves creretsts 410 Hieroglyphics. A. Machen; B...............- 329 Hill, Caroline Miles, editor World’s great religious poetry; B........ 246 Hillyer, Robert S., and S. F. Damon, trans- lators IBook of Danish verse; “Bi... cece 197 Hippocrates; translated by H. S. Jones; B... 441 Hirst, Francis W. Paper moneys of Europe; B............- 743 History, Modern. C. J. H. Hayes and P. T. VEO OTL eae clei sake insite wiel uve elbetajote o-vteretencteltede 95 Hobson, John Atkinson Economics of unemployment; B.......... 652 Incentives in the new social order; B.... 328 Holiday. We obrankis® Bence cas tvcretetcle tue 585 Holland under Queen Wilhelmina. A. J. Bar- THOU. GAIN ox 0%, Sieve loveieloreters orci ercre thei aretetatereve 614 Holmes), Johnmiaynes OR. oticnccew ce ntinewies 664

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Nos. 3026-8051] Index ‘ [Vol. exvii

Holt, Winifred L Mackenzie, F. A. Light which cannot fail; B.............. 199 Russia before dawn; B....... el bas onic Boe Hooke, Florence Harris, and E. P. Harris Tey Tas eR ais esa jeid wd: ah 'ccasmeopehere apie eee ane 270, 399 McKnight, George H. Community mewspaper; B.............+.. 269 Labor and politics. M. R. Carroll; B........ 167 English words and their background; AN. 48 Hope of the variant. J. G. Gehring; B...... 120) Ibabor’s money.. R. BoeckeliimBin. cen. - sane s 466. Macy, ohms, Bi va..sacccacc van eceleee Saud. « S08 Horne, E. A. Landmarks in French literature. L. Strachey; Mademoiselle Fifi. G. de Maupassant ; Bot) 18 Political system of British India; AN.... 614 BB) oe aca ace wich Biden) « Re eines ie teie rey eieeatene Seven 198 Magidoff, Jacob Horwill, Herbert W.; R..41, 144, 167, 402, 586, 745 Lascelles, Ernita Der spiegel von der East Side; AN...... 247 House,uboy, Lemiple sii Bi.cicasiciciss chas stere 64, 171, 359 Sacrificial coat J3i,.rtacpaete wits Bi meratele ciate ete 559 Main currents of nineteenth century literature. House of the enemy. C. Mallarmé; AN...... 531 Late Mattia Pascal. i. Pirandello; B........ 408 G. Brandes: Bi...stett eee Papeete 399 Housman, Laurence Laugh a day keeps the doctor away. I. S. Malady of Europe. M. E. Ravage; B........ 301 Dethronementsiy CAIN ./.\c«civls awict ste civieiicicis = 561 i: ae BN wi Sic seve Spreraners piers cristae bigs anise 562 —! pene illiam Henr awrence, David Herbert ouse of the enemy; AN.......... bis owas 531 ae ae NE Re Re Rey A: 5% 530 Birds, beasts and flowers; B...........+-- 660 Man from Maine. E. W. Bok sbi ess ihis.ccws 302 Hummel, George F. Kangaroo ; Bien ase 0: sit avers hele pera hexane tolictate Ik. ohete 526 Man himself. R. L. Hartt; B..... TID n,n he eet te 664 NGher tral Pe eet rc toes a Slals Shee Ree eRe 200 Studies in classic American literature: B.. 398 Mann, Jacob Hunt, Leigh Leadership of congress. G. R. Brown; Tceadue Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Poeticals workin PAIN. orm. cltes -eltelewe «cle eis 43 Lebenserinnerungen und politische denkwiir- Fatimids ;-. Bis. «......\.\gtedng en eee 23 TTT LeTRREXCED ee ars Sie lete nina Bates Biles ofticless 121 cieselen Freiherr H. von Eckardstein ; Manuscript of youth. D. Patrick; AN........ 410 Fouxleyuenidous =) 1. I RIS IS is cl cp trusuesnlatelennie sioteene dele eee ee eee 92 Marching on. R. Strachey; B..... Bee ws chines 493 rr ERASED cata is wicicie!={o-010.s-0/0» wale leleeleTr 530 ~=— Lee, rena pseudonym (Violet Paget) Margueritte, Victor Handling: ‘of words; AwNiniaecicsisie «= 5 201 Le compagnon: 32.1... cesar eee 467 eft lee. "EI Bs. UPowysig: Binceeeeinstseiens tienes 358 Markenmore mystery. J. S. Fletcher; AN.... 562 Legislative procedure. R. Luce; B.......... 856 Marks, Henry K. engyel, Mimil’s (Rivvca asc pune caetie 170, 246, 301, 357 Undertow; (AN? .. 28... coceee nee eee 745 Leopardi, Poems of. G. L. Bickersteth; B.. 143 Marsh, Frank Burr / I Lermontov, Sheaf from. J. J. Robins, trans- Founding of the Roman empire; B....... 20 c lator: AN Gio.c.02 eae ct ee en eee 222 Marsh, James Reid Illinois, Government in. W. F. and S. H. Hess lonely: yA. Kreymbore ss eh meee ce 400 Charm of the middle kingdom; B......... 302 Dodd: We es ke Ee oe fa ee 245 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien Martens, Frederick H. Immigrant’s day in court. K. H. Claghorn; Primitive mentality, Bice -siigeleb «hie aces _689 Art of the prima donna and concert Becee PTA tote oL Le oe os tele wits Me ae 21. Lewisohn, Ludwig SINGEL';. | BB ss\./s'sa/'sis'ao eee nee. ae LAO In the clutch of circumstance. A burglar; B. 94 Don Juan; B...........2-sseeseeeseeeeee 649 Martens, Kurt : Incentives in the new social order. J. A. Lewisohn, Ludwig; R........ 19, 95, 141, 558, 634 Die deutsche literatur unserer zeit; B.... 300 PET epING gE iets coe cle aiel state elayelsle in olataverektere tareas 328 Lichtenberger, James P. Masefield, John | India in world politics. Taraknath Das; B.. 22 Development of social theory; AN........ 95 Dream and other poems; AN............ 200 Industrial America in the world war. G. B. Eafe, Poems from’; AN isaa-e eek ee oiteant 95 Massingham, H. J. Mlarikson epee eich ess cis ealels ictalela sem ecis 221 Light which cannot fail. W. Holt; B........ 199 Untrodden: “ways; “ANE. masee erento 495 Industrial democracy. G. Plumb and W. G. Lilienthal’; Dayid) -W.js) Ra ave oe aie tein seloteiaits 466, 716 Masson, Thomas L. 5 Reavy lanices ta cic strats setae sts jo teakerere cielo $28... ind? John E> Ra... scnapesies tosciec renee 120 Our American humorists; AN........... . 122 Injun babies. M. Dixon; AN............+++- 668 Lindquist, G. E. E., editor Masters, Edgar Lee Irwin, Will Red man in the United States; B........ 218 Nuptial flight$\Bs..,. 32. 258 see eee 270. - brash (Or Mars 24 9B do ieisys iss 6 oja.0 a eat ainel Wins 654 Literary discipline. J. Erskine; B........... 168 Mastro-Don Gesualdo. G. Wersarcnib. cite at ce 406 . Isles of illusion. B. Lynch, editor; B........ 494 JLiterature of the old testament. J. A. Bewer; Mathematics. D. E. Smith; B................ 441 4 Italian painting. F. J. Mather, Jr.; B...... 408 Bere teed Jel xiniciala Seo agemneeeieea ef reared ote ia 169 Mather, Frank Jewett, jr. | Little tigress. W. Smith.s sAIN S36 «fe cecte se arene 468 History of Italian painting; B..2..2....-. 408 Tattle: ‘Tonts WV." Tillesi aA Nw paeenere eee sie 560 Day’s journey; AN........ Rema th ats ehastetrele 331 J. Hardin & Son. B. Whitlock; B........... 654 - Stoeie.. | Hae B. Smiths sBaieisid eae sialierent stele 1 330 May, Stacy, and W. Hamilton Jackson, Holbrook Lookoutman. D,. W. Bones: Buiesconsics chess 558 Control: iof* wages; (Bice eee eee 493 MSECRRIOTIS FES iy Pu die wk aiciso a\diule e Pulete Maye ere 121 Lord, Chester S. Mayer, Edwin Justus Japan, Military industries of. U. Kobayashi; Young man and journalism; B........... 269 Preface to life:’ Bian eeueeneee eee 691 BN coccscccvcccdovvccccevegeaseussaes 67. Bost lady: .W.. Cather; » Bi. adept usetsen sg 610 Mead, Lucia Ames ; Jessup, Alexander, editor Louis Napoleon and the recovery of France. Justice to Chicago; "@r. acseeee eee eeee o 491 Representative American short stories; B.. 243 h. A-Simpson :: Be ooce cae occas 196 Médicis, Catherine de. P. Van Dyke; B...... 90 Jesus Christ. Some aspects of the Life of Louis Napoleon and the recovery of France. Men like gods; H. G. Wells Bites seers cee 90 wesus,,-G, Bergaers: Bic vases steers 664 F. A. Simpson. Voice from 1870. M. Mencken, Henry Towisis (Repesceevere vee nce ae 40 Jesus ae The man himself. R. L. Hartt; 7. Ollivier* (C... ovci nese seer cewek on 635 Merriam, Charles Edward Sista hin hie See Ie Ps cuc'elece sole rooeTS 664 Lovestone, Jay American party. system: (Bio... bene Ole aah yearbook, American. v. 25; AN...... 469 Government—strikebreaker; B.........---- 198 Mexican nation. H. J. Priestley; B.......... 492 Jews in America. B. J. Hendrick; B...... 465" Lovett, Robert “Morss$: RV. -cciwuiss shia sainieteci 584 Mexico. C. Beals; B....+..ssseeesessesscrves 660 Jews in America. B. J. Hendrick. Correc- Lubbock, Percy Mexico, Social revolution in. E. A. Ross; B.. 492 | AeETAY Vos Wala oie eis: a/o.e.e ote gaia he cr Che aa mete eas 532 Hariham's. .B..x.0s 0<0s Ohi shee oes ies ne 91 Mi campagna hispano-americana. M. Ugarte; Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Roman. pictures. Boo serse eres otuvecs ewe 668 BB's 010 Gis tatadnie leia'e cele's 1c) ale, ohn erer nen ere area eee 171 Betws: <0. Mann; Bist. ovet chews h 23 Lucas, Charles Mid-Victorian Pepys. S. M. Ellis, editor; AN. 469 Josephson, Matthew F Partition and colonization of ‘Africa; B.. 247 Middle ages. F. Funck-Brentano; B..... acai tarep ee NGIELISMIBUEIGS SWAIN ste.cis skis si0'etn 0 a cfe'e's a eae 122 Lucas, Edward Verral Midwest portraits. H. Hansen; B............ 558 4 Jung, C. G. Giving and receiving; AN..............+. 172 Mikado, Story of the. W. S. Gilbert; AN.... 444 Psychological types; B......secscccnceres 440 Yucas-Dubreton, J. Military industries of Japan. U. Kobayashi; Le. rot saawagzes) Bi este ak ees ibeee bc chek 359 ; AN ciresdoss sooo a she ee eee eee ee 67 . Lucatelli, Luigi Mill, John Stuart Teodoro the sages. B. icc cscs dod siosje dene 301 __ On liberty; B.....ss00ccssssccers ed cont 19 Luce, Robert Millay, Katbleen:: RB... i1..:-<:is binyemrae eo mene 197; K Legislative procedure; B............-.++- 356 Miller, Herbert Adolphus; R.................. 21 Luts, Hermann: Bi... c.cccstas ees teeedanes 92. Miller, Spencer, 3ri5) Rapes. seep aeee 662 Lyeskov, Nicolai Monetary reconstruction. R. G. Hawtrey; B.. 743 Kangaroo. D. H. Lawrence; B..........++++ 526 Sentry and other stories; B.............. 358 Money. W. T. Foster and W. Catchings; B.. 465 Kaye-Smith, Sheila Lynch, Bohun, editor Monroe doctrine. W. A. MacCorkle; B....... 199 End of the House of Alard; B..........- 689 Tales of Wlusion; B. Jcsissasvadeysanls. toe 494 Montague, Margaret Prescott Dramping ‘methodist; B...........ecresnes 94 Lynd, Robert Deep channel; AN...... shiecuee sidpajaicsiesepeyre ARO Kelley, Ethel M. Books and authors; Byidiessee aves so<Se ates 91 Montesquieu, Baron de PISNEE es OOS CAIN 050» cbs. deee coweeyn yy ee 331 Persian letters; translated by J. David- TE OOD SE ee ee re see 272 son: ANiasacld sca eee 561 Ker, William Paton Moon, Parker Thomas, and C. J. H. Hayes PCL MOR ERLE © FUN 5c vec t¥inedes ces ¥eey es 746 Modern history: AINi-...icoeee ation oe econ 95 Ketterlinus, Eugenia; R.......sceeeeseeeeeees 302 M Moore, Anne Carrols) i. . csasuimeentaee cst ieee 651 Kidd, Beresford James More books on the table. E. Gosse; B........ 219 History of the church to A. D. 461; B.. 23 More lives than one. C. Wells; AN.......... 495 Kitchen porch. G. P. Krapp; B............. 560 Mabell, Countess of Airlie Morris, Ira Nelson ; Klabund, pseud. See Henschke, Alfred Lady Palmerston and her times; ‘B pated 144 From an American legation; AN......... 746 Klein, Philip McCartney, Eugene S. Moult, Thomas, editor Burden of unemployment; B............. 652 Warfare by land and sea; B............- 441 Best poems of 1922; AN............ fosen look Knee-high to a grasshopper. A. and D. Par- McClintock, Walter Moulton, H. G., and C. E. McGuire ian =. MRBUCEL ss ts ate ces ee's oka we pea eS Ge 560 Old: Indian trails * Bai. ice cesses 218 Germany’s capacity to pay; B............ 404 Kobayashi, Ushisaburo MacCorkle, William A. Muir, Ramsay Military industries of Japan; AN........ 67 Personal genesis of the Monroe doctrine; Politics and progress; AN...........scs<. 273 Kohlsaat, Herman H. Peer ccs or ee 199 Munroe, James Phinney From McKinley to Harding; B.......... 356 MacDonald, William Life of Francis Amasa Walker; B........ 143 OCG, TORRE FE. Gis beac 80s cin caguivvins vwk 94, 197 Reconstruction in France; AN........... 95 Murdo. K. , Bereavicis 9Biis sent ssw’ «neue 43 Krapp, George Philip MacDonald, William; R....170, 199, 245, 443, 528 Murry, John Middleton RO PRICE Abs Caw cep ve dda ths evvakwae 560 McGraw, John J. Problem’ of . style; By ésiucs cacnaneieeeee 171 Kreymborg, Alfred My thirty years in baseball; B........... 40 Mussey, Henry Raymond; R.. 167, 245, 302, 328, . — ot Bits we wd Rian we d-6 ve van Keine So 400 McGuire, C. E., and H. G. Moulton 442, 465, 493, 652, 748 rock, Arthur B., compiler Germany’s capacity to pay; B............ 404 . sas Editorials of Henry Watterson; AN...... 444 Machen, Arthur My class ee composition. J. Bezard; B....... 142 Krutch, J. W.; R...... 90, 168, 526, 610, 655, 717 Biesosiyphics: 3B... <<.,canhassieonacsaens 329 My thirty years in baseball. J. J. ons Ruonyneki, Th: Bek Beicics ps icvv dl dvn duels 404 Shining’ pyramid; AN. is ccesetvesscce amen 247 | ee stent eee ees Kultur un’ civilizacia. W. Nathanson; B.... 121 Things near and far; AN) ..esccccsne scum 172 Mystics and heretics in Italy. E. Gebhart ; “AN. 122

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Vol. exvii | N Napoleon III. See Louis Napoleon Nathan, Robert Muppet “masters GAIN sci sics cocie sien eiec soe 669 Nathanson, William Multumeunm civilizacias Bee... oc. ee es wee 121 Nearing, Scott; R... cae cc esc ce eee eee eens 198 Negro soldiers. C. H. Williams; AN.......... 669 Neighborhood in nation-building. R. A. Woods; ae ES nea CPM rar cthiala tela oreieesbinieieiavs-p's/s/s10 «nce Neilson, William Allan; R..........-.++sse0- 271 Nevinson, Henry W. Farewell to America; AN...............- 144 New Hampshire. R. Frost; B...............- 715 New York city. A. F. Rider; AN............ 303 Newspapers a the historian. L. M. Salmon; TERME fia invahe) sis ain ase reais iaic veh oeisis s. 0 ie ai 494 Partition and colonization of Africa. C. Lucas; Rd Sioa RAR Neale o bieip RN wis lasigle oe aa weknag 247 Patrick, Diana Manuscript BOOTH =) ALIN 6 o.o:0's owe bin 516 «Oe 410 Pattee, Fred Lewis 2 rhapeeee of the American short story; Se Bada aca t as ere race be Patutra, , B. Harraden; AN...........seesde 614 Pearl, Raymond RENN SKE PML IN sa rs cme oles wos cigithtere 614 SONY y Ges Tens conse s es vccncccrephan 143 Peers, Mrs. C. R. Early northern painters; B............6.. 408 People and politics. S. B. Griffin; B......... 356 Perry, W. J. rer OF tHe SUNS Be icici c ce ccccomvere 609 Persian letters. Baron de Montesquieu; AN.. 561 Personal genesis of the Monroe doctrine. W. Pas PONS TDs 5 iciaveie cue a von uccneds¥s 199 Peterborough anthology; AN...............65- 222 Peterson, Roy Merle Mey Ofte Germania: AN... ..ccve0e esedhecs 746 etrie, W. M. Flinders Social life in ancient Egypt; AN...... ae. G10 Petronius Arbiter Satyricon; translated by J. M. Mitchell; B. 441 Pettit, Walter NCCE en tis cc eh cbse os etalene 527 Phelps, William Lyon Some makers of American literature; B.. 464 Index | [ July-Dec., 1923

Phillips, Gordon Brighter. intervala's (AN; gee sisiee sais alee es 746 Philosophy of civilization. Re: mayer ¢ AN. 746 Pierson, Charles W. Our changing constitution; B............. 221 Pilgrimage of Festus. C. Aiken; B.......... 271 Pirandello, Luigi ate: Mattia: Pascalls, Bist acces ctakl sje. 408 Plays of gods and men. Lord Dunsany; B.. 95 Plays of near and far. Lord Dunsany; B.... 95 Plumb, Glenn E., and W. G. Roylance Wudustrial, democracy; “Bisse sitetesis aleve evers% 328 Plunket, Ierne L. Europe in the Middle ages; AN.......... 66 Poems Lrom Wifes “AWN: iicies i is.0:0 oie sidielojalsle’asieieres 95 Poetry. Best poems of 1922; AN............ 531 Poetry, World’s great religious. C. M. Hill SAILOT PSH D 5 odie ob laieiare cae Peles ete cfanie.e rete 's 246 Political system of British India. E. A. Horne; PAIN MMI cialevetaisvaicr= aiafessvale meer lotecemtaei ete wid tie « 614 Politics and progress. R. Muir; AN......... 273 Polybius; translated by W. R. Paton; B...... 441 Postgate, R. W. Oui ofthe nastis AN)... atsescoasecan tes 495 Powelin ehnomas) EuCed si kes e's.c/cletnis alas ie em sierais ties 656 Powys, John Cowper Suspended judgments; B.............005- 65 Powys, Liewelyn Phirteen a wOrthies)*: 0 Bis-s.c isiectssciapieicleicievesav. 65 Powys, T. F. RGCEE MOR as se eile cick ula attmenaee lalate a ccereierevelete aie 3 358 Preface to life. E. J. Mayer; B............. 691 Priestley, Herbert Ingram Mexican nation; a history; B............ 492 Primitive mentality. L. Lévy-Bruhl; B...... 689 Private papers of Henry Ryecroft. G. Gis- SUES Se LD bose ooh 'x: nuclaln sisi piatece urate sieve eceNaine oldie 240 Problem of style. J. M. Murry; B............ 171 “Problem of Timon of Athens.” T. M. Par- MOUS ee ciaiere ate ric ale. d Aeredeim ate oie cine) travels sets 611 Proserpine and Midas. M. Shelley; AN...... 359 Prospects of industrial civilization. B. and yO CIS GLE SSO cn wie, s ciate Vote Gayeim lars hin alors iete « 585 Psychoanalysis and suggestion therapy Ww REPEL omeAUIN c thatercvaiinle te lweate mic ofaekstetce,e inteie 144 Psychological types. C. G. Jung; B.......... 440 W. H. R. Rivers; B. 141 M. H. Smith; B. 94 A. M. Psychology and politics. Psychology of the criminal. Public health nursing, Evolution of. ESRRENIEL ICL Se Eb 5 nial ote ctor ororstisimints a) aie .oleual am 1o'0)'e 529 Pupin, Michael From immigrant to inventor; B.......... 557 Puppet master. R. Nathan; B.............. 669 Q Queen, Stuart Alfred Social work in the light of history; B.... 245 Quick, Herbert ie cette es MALIN, a ta wn wn ntdintelee gl Yee aie ane 247 R Random studies in the romantic chaos. F. A. WEMSERDOUBES ES is. s.cxind ANE nKe Orns 0.0)nibje Rowland, Henry C. Return of ‘Frank (Clamarti:B:«::>.20.2ss6 Roylance, William G., and G. Plumb Industrial democracy; B ase Bertrand ee thought and official propa Russell, Bertrand and Dora eee Prospects of industrial civilization; B.... Russia before dawn. F. A. Mackenzie : Bien Ce ee i ae ee J. Lucas-Dubreton; B....... 2) 0 0 Bye, a\0\e 6:9) 010.0 6 ss b'6 Russian soviet republic. E. A. Ross; B...... Russo-Japanese war, Expenditures of the. G. OP AWA ETAING once icc ec ei Ae s Sacrificial goat. E. Lascelles; B............. Sadleir, Michael Desolate isplendour’s’ Bea... .002-.ceeees uc Sailor town days. C. F. Smith; B............ Saintsbury, George Collected essays and papers; B........... Salmon, Lucy Maynard Newspapers and the historian; B......... Salpeter -Harrymhtn macnn soe 198, Salverson, Laura Goodman Viking Hearts eAsn sori cS ayecrorrwe ens cae Nanborns Pitts sim achada cio adele anaes Sandburg, Carl Roptabara: ‘pigeans s), “Bis revs /sisiccke aw cicetorstave « Santayana, George Scepticism and animal faith; B.......... Satyricon. Petronius Arbiter; B aerekaresavetarratprals Sayers, Dorothy L. Wihose p hodyj7 sw AIN c... satey seince sclera alec: and animal faith. 00 0B 00160) 8:e we 0.0.0 © ele 6 on ce 0's be 0 s.0 eid we Scheifley, Schreiner, Olive Stories, dreams and allegories; AN....... Scott, C. Kay Sinbad ; BB ie efotp ecciotere ers, siutera oh cPoustava’e sists or eiotavawe Scott, Evelyn MOSCA est Eee atet sia: c/vie love vise Mave. char ero eo Scoting Leminle (eRe tr. 5 jes eis wreck 19, 408 Secudders. I Bacheller; AN..<....0-0cecsneue Seayers, MiG wineries ccicirsieisiessva.cte setae eee Wie Second contemporary verse anthology. ILOLIC, MeditorrmeAUN ec) can antic a Ne nse Self healing through autosuggestion. P Wein biglericmaAGNs froin acre e Aarti cvaiorsccteret fe Seligmann, Herbert J.; R............ 43, 120, Sentre? — Nea loyeskov en Bieaaitrow cies braaeleee cee Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley; R............... Sergel, Roger L. Alien Gelstorgmpsbyerwteleietelais to\cle cartier cietereriehe Seven for a secret. M. Webb; AN........... Shakespeare, William. J. Q. Adams; B.... Shakespeare. In commemoration of the first folio: tercentenary;;, Bo focces cele e sieterelere ote Shakespeare. “Problem of Timon of Athens.’ pees MES Paxrobus ub aeiewicte suis bielavaeietoiarcinns edie Shakespeare in Poland. J. Calina; B.......... Shakespeare’s dramatic art. R. Dyboski; B.. Shakespeare’s use of song. R. Noble; B...... Shay, Frank, editor Treasury of plays for men; AN.......... Shelley, Mary Proserpine and Midas; Shining pyramid. .A. Machen; AN........... Shipley, Joseph T.; R Short stories, Representative American. A. PEASUD, Meditoten vee cc vAjecs ha howsawstuchte Short story, Advance of the American. s SOLE TICR cd Ese cintes siecle skint oil aletn pipioretelatelere story, Development of the American. ee Pap eeir als. versvicls welark wyeresie Cine eeientala GHewernmaAn (Grails Glbs tia ciel cigs o disisienn ss elereieierene ae on Negro soldiers. i A Siw oper Bly wi0)e\e 6 oa. c's's & 0 Dis 00:09 66 #1581916. 6 Short Simpson, Frederick Arthur Louis Napoleon and the recovery of BPC eee Bae ye aisicicldessie vie atc/pis Goes om eis etereieicts Louis Napoleon and the recovery of France. Voice from 1870. M. T. Ollivier; C.... 122 585 529 527 - 247 * 999 611 611 611 611 611 614 359 247 168 243 243 243 668 635

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Nos. 8026-3051] Index . [ Vol. exvii

Simpsons Jelerntans = Bi... cietetevescleh ciefalstemine’s seats 40 Simbad: C. Ke Scott: OBt nicdintem sic earersterets. oa. sie 120 Sinclair, May WMCANBY, ISTONICH ss HBic cine tale laisse she a ssa ern eras 655 Singers, Hints to. L. Nordica; B............ 440 Singing. Art of the prima donna and con- cert singer. F. H. Martens; B.......... 440 Sino-Japanese war, Expenditures of the. G. OM OMA RAIN is ctsierercrais Sie res ales cre erepaledenna rs 67 Smertenko, Clara Millerd; R............. 495, 527 Smertenko, Johan J.; R. .48, 98, 121, 200, 243, 358, 468, 585, 668, 691 Smith, C. Fox Sallore cowl eda y Sie esis lemcianie sie sels levels. s 558 Smith, Charles Edward From the deep of the sea; AN........... 23 Smith, David Eugene Acute TIGL CS) mmm eseteravalctic) ol alele\ciaiersl eustalevehs|eiels olaus 441 Smith, Egerton Principles of English metre; AN........ 359 Smith, Henry Bradford Idrodsiey voile babe yea de) 3315 Opn aodeDeonD loon 330 Smith, M. Hamblin Psychology of the criminal; B............ 94 Smith, Preserved PESTA YAULS 3 aE ct Satie av aleteselnae’ 21s alate at otlots (o-eNarYaverahe ate 651 Smith, Wallace tiles pe TesB ice AUN aisha o\cls,ccele16. «leis ioe aleine siecle 468 Social and diplomatic memories. Sir J. R ROG Sms piare oe tateveleze sie lo\sheLoieve 12 ‘ste statarereses a 41 Social and diplomatic memories. Second se- TICS MILs Bese eORG 5 AUN ci ci0 0 ere eles oo ole 670 Social life in ancient Egypt. W. M. F. Petrie; AN Social revolution in Mexico. E. A. Ross; B.. 492 Social work, Education and training for. J. APPLET LS) sete Ev alone ere ols ieve.« (oc, 0) oi sialatevelaleteal= 245 Social work in the light of history. S. A. COC MAB Ess trts te s/c ios ono eec. (assole. oiole foieuelee fernts 245 Soltau, Roger H. French parties and politics; B........... 221 Some makers of American literature. W. L. PGI G Shik Eotiavetetewere.o%s! xo ere tolateln creel ota apna 3 464 Some newspapers and newspapermen. O. G. VALLES cietate tion ieleleieie Gipie wicisevelete: slatarssadl 584 Son at the front. E. N. J. Wharton; B...... 398 Noattle;. Greoree iscsi orem toe alnce.crs ais 221, 328, 585 Der spiegel von der East Side. J. Magidoff; PESO it Stats 's ele aiu'ss0 wa e/a ore ars yest ehotae Side een dete 247 Stanojevic, Stanoje Die ermordung des erzherzogs Franz rea oy ce Escrsmcactere dss os. eM Rteerciotegsinte cae 142 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, as revealed in her diary, letters, and reminiscences; B.... 63 Stanton, Theodore, editor Elizabeth Cady Stanton; B.......c.c.00- 63 State government. W. F. Dodd; B..m»....... 272 Stekel, Wilhelm Psychoanalysis and suggestion therapy; . ASME Eta Hiiec axle UR Pa tae vk «vie siete ites s 144 Stephens, Winifred Women of the French revolution; B...... 662 Stern, G. B. AOA eBCARS “MIN Ri aediadveweséDedawue kaa 410 Stern, Leo and Elizabeth rvenniembe COUMrt: GAIN cia. «0 euieimesics sx 278 Stevens, Wallace PP PRRUUETL SD ap ba sale annie seni Se DNAe We 400 Stevenson, Burton E. Famous single poems; AN.............-- 562 Stone, Thora G. England under the restoration; AN...... 67 enriiD + DOL» LORMAY. 6° Ds. yee ces peewenews sd 199 Stork, Charles Wharton, editor Second contemporary verse anthology; AN. 746 Story of Mrs. Tubbs. H. Lofting; B......... 560 Story of the developmert of a youth. E. PEN SRES IEE S89 EP oma rurieatn/ pice le ove bak aera ere 527 Strabo Geography; translated by H. E. Jones; B. 441 Strachey, John St. Loe moonomics of the. hour: B...secssese sae 716 Strachey, Lytton Landmarks in French literature; B...... 198 Strachey, Ray NE AML SSCS ways cie'e co oa dalus'wae tamale 493 Straus, Oscar S. Under four administrations; B........... 170 Study of American intelligence. C. C. Brig- ES OE a Ata Oets hows Re oh a arate ete eee 8380 SECIS CLERK? CRs ov wld dl w Utw side oe winnie aren e's 742 Suggestions and medical analysis. W. Brown APR Pea nd uns egcde sae ne awa a petdaeh, © 23 Suspended judgments. J. C. Powys; B....... 65 Swinnerton, Frank APRERs SOMLTS A. Gata ci alae o'e won ainda eas « 717 - Taraknath Das India in world polities: B.......cccccccen 22 Temple and other poems. A. Waley, trans- DEG? 2; IR h a wiath a a tvs pidien ss & pia kam 0 oh a ce 692 Tapspeat. “Ta, TOME sr asc vac viueteanee 559 Teodoro the sage. L. Lucatelli; B............ 301 Terassa (of Spain. - Bi. (Rish)s9B. « danetiial-r stare 43 That pig Morin. G. de Maupassant; B....... 118 T ‘venin, René Barnabé and his whale; AN............- 746 Things near and far. A. Machen; AN...... 172 ‘Things remembered. A. S. Hardy; AN...... 303 Third winter of unemployment. J. J. Astor, and), others; » Bias chi..ssemaseteesiteinle Ole: ciclane 652 Thirteen worthies. ‘-) Powysite Boe cten -2 as 65 Thomas, Edward Cloud» castle AINi-. «sc sieteeld eiatatate avatavete’ t,t aie 562 Thomas, William I. Unadjusted): :irls GBisics sitines eine ictalovsuns ofeve 119 Three studies in English literature. A. Chev- PWWOMNG « TBisis ajareacalstece eerarteneretstelere Vievelevaierteters Through the wheat. ‘T. Boyds *Bi i. .0...0% 00. 66 Tile mave Little: 7 Tomes:= AN. gaia cutee cera ae ec eecieteta 247 Tilton, George Henry Fern lover’s companion; AN............. 23 Time is whispering. E. Robins; B........... 42 Times have changed. E. Davis; AN.......... 144 Tolstoy, Talks with. A. B. Goldenveizer; B. 220 Tolstoy’s love letters; with a study of the autobiographical elements in Tolstoy’s work.) PS Biriakoys | Biarsaes te ciieaieie as 220 _ Tormay, Cécile Outlaws diary’. (Bice cscctcretts steele terete 170 Stonecrop's Bis cad catendee steetelelel eine wtenotevsreievere 199 Towner, R. H. Philosophy of civilization; AN............ 746 Tramping methodist. S. Kaye-Smith; B...... 94 Trausil, Hans, translator Ein zweig vom schlehdorn; irische dich- tungen 5; * AUN eee. biate hactotelausyancieratererat 359 Travels in Arabia Deserta. C. M. Doughty; Bip in ciaeaiecte-s.ein aye alata elalelsteeie sratoriete sores 648 Treasury of plays for men. F. Shay, editor; nso soe Redke Collate CPeke veaicistene niece ieee 614 Trend of history. W. K. Wallace; B......... 142 Tufts, James H. Education and training for social work; 5 er Gtse. 0 wrcle suet: 2: 518 ela te Iaie eee erebeneretatite ys eate.'e 245 Tulips and chimneys. E. E. Cummings; AN. 614 Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Ta way., Pies. ares Boxart «cist ysc 556 Tuttle, Margaretta Peet of. clay? AIN ;..piibwcsacm tscsins ose c 495 U Ugarte, Manuel Mi campana hispano-americana; B....... 171 Unadjusted girlk W. I. Thomas; B........... 119 Uncanny stories. M. Sinclair; B............ 655 Under four administrations. O. S. Straus; B. 170 Undertow, . .H.- K. ‘Marks; ANweec7. saotl es ae 745 Undset, Sigrid Bridal” wreath: AN ..ccccease ome 200 Unemployment, Burden of. P. Klein; B...... 652 W. A. Berridge; B. 748 J. A. Hobson; Unemployment, Cycles of. Unemployment, Economics of. B OS Oe AT Ot oe iI eee ES 652 Unemployment, Third winter of. J. J. Astor, and) others: DB. o..Jcesancaestee ee acc eee 652 Unfinished tales from a Russian prison. M. » Harrison: B> i. ..ceemeeetew eee mart. 529 United States—Constitution Recent changes in American constitutional theory: ' J. ‘W. ‘Burgesie’ BS ..c. tek 656 Untermeyer, Louis American poetry since 1900; AN......... 670 H. J. Massingham; AN.... 495 See Kobayashi, Ushi- J. O. Hertzler; Untrodden ways. Ushisaburo Kobayashi. saburo van thought, History of. oan 0.eja.e dain 6 » & tn meee tere mete eter 197 Vv Var ‘Doren, Carl: Riv: «see ee eee 898, 651 Van Doren, Mark; R...... 271, 400, 494, 530, 648, 660, 715 Van Dyke, Paul Catherine de Médicis; B................-. 90 Van Loon, Hendrik Willem Story..of the bible: B;... 2447 43 eyo Gate 714 Van Vechten, Carl Bind *how-hoy :’ -B. .o. Sis 6 cecdoaes ota 244 Ventures in book collecting. W. H. Arnold PEN Ga cts capi ascurecnasaeceteeereeee 531 Verga, Giovanni Mastro-Don Gesualdo; B...............00. 406 Victorian literature. S. T. Williams; B...... 666 Viking heart. L. G. Salverson; AN.......... 746 Vildrac, Charles Book iof Jove: ANsi.s.. ion dock aee nee 200 Vilsge” A “Ginin? Be Sol 7.9. ke e~ckiaeee 858 Villerd; Fanny -Garrison:- RB, see ve eee 493 Villard, Oswald Garrison Some newspapers and newspapermen;: B.. 584 Villard, Oswald Garrison; R............. 269, 356

Vince, Charles MALT. Manvellls, 3B. vise vga noite Maitemintenia nine 668 Visions. solaires. C. Balmont; B............-- 64 Viadetkja BS Charney;: Bait. « 002 eee aes 557 Ww Waley, Arthur, translator Temple and other poems; AN............ 692 Walker, Francis Amasa, Life of. J. P. Mun- LOC Baas selee oeienacen Dretetaiete’s siasicieraint res 143 Wallace, William Kay T&éend: of “history; ~ Bi ssseteeee se ean. 142 Wants in northern China. H. A. Franck; eee ees 00.6 6 6 be a0 wo 6 ot etRtaMneteEmatet Sts re eerie 744 War; its nature, eause and cure. G. L. Dick- Inson; Bs. 6ss.03 soo oe eee eee 167 Warfare by land and sea. E. S. McCartney; eis. a is eis'e'e'e co )a.0 0 010 el o/c eterna Reeieteierate 441 Warner, “Arthurs. Ri: ..c lose eee 558 Washington. A. F. Rider; AN.............. 303 Waterhouse, Francis A. Random studies in the romantic chaos; aise isla \aT"6L sveye''sy0\ «oye ela cote eaten te RET a or eae ee oe 612 Watson; “Blanche R: =... . cacti 22, 243 Watson, E. L. Grant Desert shorizons B:’.)..cesh eee oe cette 169 Watterson, Henry, Editorials of. A. B. Krock compiler; AN?..%s2c¢aeeooeene oe ene 444 Webb, Mary Seven for’ a ‘secret; “ANe.a-tees seis ca eeee 410 Weizmann, Chaim American “addresses: ANeee eres ania 222 Wells, Carolyn More lives than one; AN................ 495 Wells, Carolyn, and A. F. Goldsmith Bibliography of the works of Walt Whit- man);”, AN). .\ic.c/c scot eee ee eee 359 Wells, Herbert George Men. like gods:; “Ba... cacemedeeeeraiooe cate 90 Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones Son at the front Bp eee eee eee 398 Where are we going? D. Lloyd George; B.. 745 Whipperzinny.. “R: Gravest Bee eee ee 400 White, Hugh W. Demonism verified and analyzed; B...... 93 Whither France? Whither Europe? J. Cail- ux; Bin: 6 cscs atte eee citer 22 Whitlock, Brand J.. Hardin, © -Son3 MB seer oe eee 654 Whitman, Walt. Bibliography. C. Wells, and A. EF. Goldsmiths “AiNtenccec cece sce 359 Whose body? D. L. Sayers; AN............. 247 Williams, Charles H. Sidelights on Negro soldiers; AN........ 669 Williams, Stanley T. Studies in Victorian literature; B........ 666 Winbigler, C. F. Self healing through autosuggestion; AN. 43 Without clues. J. Helm; AN................ 562 Woman of the horizon. G. Frankau; AN.... 247 Woman’s life. G. de Maupassant; B......... 118 Wemeg of the French revolution. W. Stephens; FOE Okc a 9:4 Miiienaieia els andere OOe Wood, ‘Clementi; BR... ss. cmetuctne 93, 169, 246, 330 Woodbridge, Homer BE. F Raeates cisntste aonies 742 Woods, Robert A. Neighborhood in nation-building; B....... 245 Woodward, W. E. Bunk’? “Bibs cw ¢ dicwis » ede oes siete ere cies 398 Woodward, Wes Reo aemarateetinercterste: se reteretter 654 World history for the workers. <A. Barton; World’s great religious poetry. C. M. Hill, editor's! Biiyeictest. 04.0 seis steers Pierce icte 246 Wright, F. A., translator Letters of Alciphron; AN..... Saacke dels ranerots 745 Wright, Joseph and E. M. Old English grammar; AN...:........... 144 Wrong! move.. A. R.. Burrs eANiee ee cme 67 Wrong shadow. H. Brighouse; B............. A2 Wyndham, Horace Nineteen hundreds; Bicsuctsseverses.cecs 91 ¥ Young, Howard Irving; R............... 301, 530 Young, \ Kommaisall sissies oisien alse olopeeieaiaieel 142, 330 Young Helix. “FP. ‘Swinterton See ear oe Tie Young man and journalism. C. S. Lord; B.. 269 Z Zinnecker, “We Diss Wi dees cise chile v'ciew eats 300 Zur vergeschichte "des weltkrieges. O. Ham- pan s © Bia. o.0:e:5.<ine-e.», aicletelalels aioe eae arenes 92 Ein zweig vom schlehdorn. H. Trausil, trans- Matar s AI. 5 oi cicls sve dine, SStSleraee TS ona Sea 359

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AS | pee t Tere" : ~~

Se vy RS

The Nation FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII q Contents ETAL RAN ae EAN ERAN GEC AME ELIGS, cheval e: aye) ch = 0 ’ane: akebubelm ee wallaifes sa¥ alle (sy oy «as farlole lo ava anos 1 EDITORIALS: The Wiberty Above ‘All Others. ... 00... seesiecs sence cciscncccecceewcess 4 PMA CET PE MOS AGE AIM RCLS DL. cichs vc sic cieidsletatelas)e¥s\ cs) sina a/cle e che dew ce ceees 5 Sbrrutiins PAI OIEG RIS BIct MESTORNCITIC aisle sls dic a et aretnlols opie elatalayele elele eietelecevwse elalere 6 SI LOE E MET TICLE erm EN MET Oop aves (x o.'u enslle c ORMEEe (olake'e pice aisle (ere, o/s! eiaub je als 0.0 iS 6 Sea HONING INS GigE: PACED @ NCOUINLES. Soci sieve cise alelelnieretlsweicleleisiels ols.a's.s cls se side ese 7 FREE SPEECH: THE VITAL ISSUE. By William E. Borah............ 8 PROTECTING OUR LIBERTIES. By Upton Sinclair................... 9 TVMPORTRAITS. Bye Maxwell Bodenheim.,. . cic. cceciccssvcccccecvecce 10 REDE le LANGE PRACT UTES NEC Wee aye cio. seis. » eieltlolc ele © els b tie Fisvslel eve ein aieiersiecsions. 11 THE ISSUES AT AMHERST. By John Merriman Gaus................. 12 PHARISEES AND REFORMERS. By Alexander Meiklejohn............ 13 MAKING WHEAT SOBER UP. By William Hard...................... 14 THE TWO SWEETHEART DIPPIES. By Carl Sandburg................ 15 OUR TOWN AND THE CHAMPIONSHIF BOUT. By G. Robinson...... 16 PLP IUED VW AN a by sthe DPiiter . .7. cgi c ocr aver sir oye 0, cies ieele ope) oiere eae 17 Pe PR EAONGD) PEN ae Ab ela: Site's cles as clolgtiticwcieecnccesccsccesacesscess 18 BOOKS: . The Democrat’s Handbook. By Ludwig Lewisohn................+.--- 19 MePNHNCeLOL ate. Evo Lemple. Scott. feacinie en 0:s:010.010 view vlaleisicleeiclsleic aici 19 Miernalsneme, By Harry Mimer Barnese. 2. os. c cece cttw ecvccce 20 The Case of the Immigrant. By Herbert Adolphus Miller............ 21 For the Freedom of India. By Blanche Watson.............+0-e200% 22 Greets OME SEIS OMG in Lay milain oe tGry . oc wlcielata.cle’ris o\0 es dle Galeree veweseeeseiae 22 Monumental Scholarship. By Lewis Browne.............eeeeeeeeeee 23 era MNT TAMERS IONE tater acre eles fain iotalcls 6 slcisieiieieie c civ aisle e'spa eitblocececceseess 23 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: ecm Tetint ee PEL Cm RESETS OTL eel o.< m9! clase c cleisie.sis\ele.nic’e ele's aieipiale clase ssieec se cc's 24 Ghiteans /Conmemmn, “Vamicee Justice” «2.0.01. sisicclsic o cclaciecncesievieccces 26 SMe TD PAT CTECA TT SAMOA eels: 6 c's 0.0 viclelafeigicce cleisieie ses cdiccnisveseveece 26 rer mer eee CL NORTE t ae EA DEY crnlera aie s win e/a /elsie y= ohne aieloie's-sisleleveie|ore «. 6.0\c aleve 26 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN SusBscriPTION Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS ARREN HARDING has, as he puts it, “revealed the hopeful anticipations of my mind and the trustful longings of my heart.” That is just about what his speech- making and his statesmanship amount to. Unfortunately, trustful longings do not get a man or a nation very far. Mr. Harding’s longings seem to direct themselves chiefly to a pathetic desire to please everybody. In Kansas, old home of prohibition, he catered to the dries; in St. Louis, where wet Germans abound, he was silent on the liquor issue, paying a pleasant but cautious tribute to the Ger- man Republic. He made an eloquent plea for a kindly light to lead us on to the World Court, but prefaced it with sug- gestions of reservations which will effectively scotch his own proposal to join the court. The poor dear man has pain- fully sought to be nice to everybody—to join the court without joining it, to pardon the political prisoners without letting them out of jail; he has praised the American farmer and painted a touching picture of his rise from frontier hardships—but without indorsing the farmers’ proposals of remedies for their present poverty. He has kissed babies, driven a tractor (not a Ford tractor, as the New York World’s correspondent observed), and beamed and smiled and shaken hands until his lips were sunburned and his hand swollen and inflamed. He has tried hard. But we Suspect that he has not won a vote from Henry Ford or a NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 1923

No. 3026

supporter from Robert La Follette; the Western voter is in no mood to be content with the hopeful anticipations and trustful longings even of a presidential heart. He is, in fact, sick of soothing syrup. OINCARE is budging, but it will be a sorry day for Europe if Stanley Baldwin agrees to cooperate with him before he has budged further. The French Premier, faced by Belgium’s defection, a hostile Senate at home and a growing opposition in the Chamber, and defeats in by- elections, has modified his previous demands and is now ready to withdraw his soldiers from the Ruhr, maintain- ing only a civilian occupation, if the Germans will give up their passive resistance and agree to pay reparations. He has not yet made clear what he means by paying—he still talks in impossible terms—or what he means by civilian occupation. If he means a perpetuation of the slave regime which General Degoutte is trying to establish—he has de- creed fifteen-year jail sentences for men who refuse to work for him—the Germans are hardly likely to accept it. Passive resistance is forcing a Power with unlimited troops at its command to compromise if not yet to yield. Two great dangers remain—that passive resistance will degen- erate into guerrilla warfare, and that unemployment and hunger will bring about civil war. EFORE the next war, the next war code. You cannot start playing any game unless its rules have already been drawn up. So “the best combined thought” of an international commission of jurists, established under a resolution of the Washington Arms Conference, has formu- lated a code to regulate the use of radio and aircraft in warfare—a problem discussed by M. W. Royse in The Nation last May—and its recommendations are submitted for embodiment in treaties between the five great Powers. Here, then, is further occupation for the next session of a Senate that might otherwise find time hanging heavily on its hands. The adoption of the sixty-two articles proposed py the commission will doubtless clarify and settle, in many respects, the orthodox doctrine of what is reasonable, cour- teous, and humane treatment of your enemy. When the Great War broke out, for instance, the restrictions on the aerial bombardment of cities had to be inferred, by exten- sion, from the laws of naval bombardment. Henceforth there will be chapter and verse in an authorized textbook to appeal to in any controversy whether such and such an air raid was justified. The new aircraft rules follow closely the lines of the old naval bombardment rules, and will prob- ably be neither more nor less effective than they in protect- ing the civil population. ONGRATULATIONS to the British Parliament and to Morpeth! A by-election in that constituency—which, in 1874, returned the first Labor member in the person of Thomas Burt—has strengthened the moral and intellectual caliber of the present House by the addition to it of Robert Smillie. Shunning publicity and averse to frequent speech, Mr. Smillie has gained his great influence by combining

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9 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 ee with his masterly knowledge and grasp of labor prob- lems the rare gifts of sanity of judgment, sincerity, and simplicity. He worked in the pit in his youth, and to- day he still dwells inconspicuously among his own people, occupying a small cottage in the center of the Mid-Lanark mining district. His fidelity to conviction has stood many tests, notably the offer of a seat in Lloyd George’s cabinet as food controller. His refusal so piqued the Premier that he attacked Robert Smillie by name in his sensational Old Kent Road speech at the 1918 election. But the group of Pliables that Lloyd George gathered around him could be no fitting company for the man who, on the introduction of conscription, had accepted election as the first president of the National Council for Civil Liberties. As a Labor spokesman whose internationalism springs not from emo- tion only but from knowledge and reason, Robert Smillie will contribute an element of special value to the parlia- mentary discussions of the European situation. F the agitation for a Federal anti-lynching bill had any- thing to do with the spirit shown by the county sheriff, the city firemen, and the State guardsmen in Savannah, Georgia, on June 20, then we hope that anti-lynching bills will be regularly debated at every session of Congress. A determined mob of 2,000 citizens attempted to storm the jail and lynch an eighteen-year-old Negro boy charged with rape. Sheriff Merrit W. Dixon collected a few deputies and warned the oncoming mob that the first man trying to enter the gate would be shot. The mob stood its ground. A sousing with fire hose still did not break it up. It hurled bricks and stones at the sheriff’s party, and even shot at them. Finally a detachment of guardsmen firing over the heads of the mob dispersed it. One man was killed. At the -request of Savannah’s mayor the city was put under martial law, and the Negro boy is still safe in jail. It shows—as has been shown before—that a sheriff with red blood in his veins can maintain the dignity of his position and prevent 2 lynching despite the most embittered mob. Fifty mem- bers of the mob were arrested by the military authorities; sixteen were held. These men were caught red-handed; if the people of Savannah see to it that they are punished as they should be we shall take new heart. Something seems to be happening in the South; in the first six months of 1923 only one-third as many lynchings occurred as in the first half of 1922. There is just one way for the South to prove that a Federal anti-lynching bill is unnecessary—that is to stop lynching. HERE is no reason to suppose that the PennSylvania Railroad will be influenced to change its policy toward its employees by the rebuke of the Railroad Labor Board. The Pennsylvania’s refusal to recognize any labor organiza- tion other than its own company union is rooted in the same obstinacy and the same disregard of public opinion as the retention of the twelve-hour day by the United States Steel Corporation. But although the Pennsylvania may care nothing for the judgment either of the Railroad Labor Board or of the public, it does care about future railroad legislation in the United States. It may be influenced by the suggestion that this flouting of the will of Congress is likely to increase the pressure for compulsory arbitration of labor disputes on the railroads. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case of the Kansas Industrial Court does not close this possibility. And compulsory arbitration is as distasteful to the railroads, the Pennsylvania included, as it ig to their employees. — N trespassing upon private property and illegally arrest- ing a group of persons about to hold a meeting in con- nection with the Los Angeles dock strike, it is fortunate that the police gathered in, among others, so pertinacious an individual as Upton Sinclair; for it is a foregone con- clusion that they will want to let go before he does. The original charges of inciting a riot and addressing an un- lawful assemblage have already been dismissed and the police have substituted a charge of—vagrancy! “The law is an ass,” somebody once remarked in his spleen. Doubt- less it is at times, but not nearly so often as those who in ignorance, or as tools of interested persons, misuse it. When we contemplate the antics of the chief of police of Los Angeles we are deterred from characterizing him as an ass only through fear that such a comparison would lay us open to damages from every self-respecting donkey in Christendom. ROM time to time there has been much criticism of the legal profession on the ground that, as it is alleged, an advocate will sometimes appeal earnestly for the acquit- tal of a defendant whom he really believes to be guilty. A strange comment on this popular demand for sincerity has been supplied by certain members of the profession in the State of Washington, who seem to hold that only the lawyer who disbelieves in his client’s innocence is ethically justified in appearing on his behalf. Elmer S. Smith, a local attorney in good standing, has been defending various members of the I.W.W. when prosecuted in the State courts. In so doing he has not been merely speaking from a brief, but has evidently pleaded his cases con amore, for he has himself addressed I.W.W. meetings and other- wise taken part in I.W.W. propaganda. By thus asso- ciating himself so closely with the cause of his clients he has been guilty, it is contended, of moral turpitude such as to unfit him for the practice of the law, and a petition for his disbarment has accordingly been filed. The formal “complaint” recounts a miscellany of offenses charged against the I.W.W., and asserts that Mr. Smith, “having knowledge of all these things,” has nevertheless “used his talents and energies” in furtherance of their cause. There- fore he should be disbarred. B*.. if the charges brought against Mr. Smith are true, he is liable to prosecution under the criminal syndi- calism law, and should be tried under that statute. Why is that course not taken? The proper tribunal to pronounce upon his conduct is, in the first instance, a criminal court and not a committee of lawyers. Incidentally, this “com- plaint,” an elaborate and melodramatic document, presents a few curious features. In marshaling its indictment of Mr. Smith it mentions that he has been twice acquitted on charges of being accessory to murder—which reminds one of how the typical Babu applicant for a post is wont to in- clude among his qualifications a list of the examinations in which he has failed. Again, Mr. Smith is accused of violating his professional oath as a lawyer in the State of Washington, wherein, among other things, he promised that he “would never reject, from any consideration personal to himself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed.” (Does this pledge, one wonders, bind lawyers in other States?)

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reer sete te | | : | , } f , e ; | : : t : : d ih T e ‘ 5 - July 4, 1923] There is a further touch of unconscious humor in the fixing of July 5—the nearest available date to Independence Day— as the time when the “complaint” is to be heard before the State Board of Law Examiners. The Comic Spirit has evidently played a part in the drafting of this document, put to Mr. Smith it is a serious matter. It also gravely concerns everyone who is jealous for the traditions of the American bar. 3 ND, to be frank,” says Mr. P. W. Wilson, the English journalist, frankly in the New York Times of June 16, “I have always felt that a man like Massingham [for- merly of the London Nation] is my superior.” Well, to be as frank, we think Mr. Wilson right; and this gives us par- ticular pleasure since, so far as we can remember, it is the first time we have ever been able wholeheartedly to agree with a single opinion of that most prolific dispenser of opinions as to what and how we Americans should think. OME day a Carnegie or Rockefeller foundation, eager ‘to exploit new intellectual mines, will subsidize the annual issue of a publication containing all the commence- ment addresses—including, of course, baccalaureate sermons —delivered at American colleges and universities. Yes, all of them, from Abilene College, Texas, to York College, Nebraska. What is wanted is not a selection of gems, but a faithful record, without picking or choosing, of the ora- torical portion of the commencement exercises of every institution of higher learning in the land. Such a compila- tion would display before the reader, as nothing else could, a panorama of the educational, social, political, and religious ideals of the time, which to later generations would perhaps be of even greater interest than to contemporaries. Mean- while, even such brief extracts and summaries as appear in the daily press throw some light on present-day ten- dencies. It is significant that this year so many speakers— including men so diverse as W. G. McAdoo and presidents Farrand, Faunce, and Hibben—warned their readers against intolerance and fear of the truth. Dr. Hibben especially de- nounced the attack on Dr. Fosdick, who himself, speaking at Michigan, made a ringing plea for independence of thought and action, and declared that the idea that the voice of the people was the voice of God was “largely non- sense.” At Dartmouth, Dr. W. P. Merrill went so far as to welcome the widespread evidences of the weakening of authority, alike in church and state. MONG other notable deliverances were Dr. Gray’s timely protest at Bates College against the mass pro- duction of standardized graduates, Dr. Lowell’s discriminat- ing remarks at Harvard on success and failure, and Dr. Angell’s wise comments at Yale on the services and limita- tions of science. The national division of opinion on Amer- ica’s international duty is riflected in the commencement addresses, from which one might gather arguments for almost every variety of isolation or cooperation. The freak performances of this season of academic oratory seem to have been contributed by Secretary Weeks. At Norwich he harked back to the “straight-shooting type” of colonial days as the ideal citizen whom young America of the pres- ent time should emulate. At Brown he was more modern in his outlook by a century or so. “History,” he is reported as saying, “has fully demonstrated the wisdom of those rather conservative methods which have guided the nation The Nation 3 since the days of 1776.” What was good enough for his great-great-grandfather is good enough for Secretary Weeks. With this conviction of the infallibility and miracu- lous prescience of the ancients, it is no wonder that he came down heavily on those agitators and reformers who wish to modify the system of government inherited by us from the Revolutionary period. These utterances of his, however, are of so different a tone from the general run of commencement addresses that the analogy they naturally suggest is to the croakings of a raven on a lonely bough. OTA RINALDI, eleven and a half years old, has com- posed an oratorio and conducted the orchestra and chorus in a public performance of his work at Milan. His mother has decided, perhaps wisely, to take him out of the conservatory of music and send him to a common school so that he may grow up like other children. The story of child prodigies is not always happy. There is the danger that their genius may burn out their little bodies before they develop. Sometimes, however, they continue their growth to mature mastery. When Paganini first astonished an audience at the age of nine he was already prematurely old and de- formed from too much fiddling; he was unrivaled all his life. Josef Hofmann, at the age of forty-six a notable pianist and a man of wide scientific interests, appeared first in public at the age of six. Mozart composed his first pub- lished work in his sixth year, and in his eighth wrote ten sonatas. He remained a prodigy, the most prolific and one of the greatest composers of all time. Perhaps the amount of work he did hastened his death at thirty-six. There have been child wonders in other arts and sciences: the exquisite Marjorie Fleming, Walter Scott’s pet; our little contemporary, Hilda Conkling, a gifted poet; John Stuart Mill, who began to read Greek at the age of three and in spite of that lived to be a wise man. We await with trembling admiration the further career of young Rinaldi. ORRIS ROSENFELD, who died on June 22 at the age of sixty, leaped into fame just twenty-five years ago by the publication of his “Songs from the Ghetto.” He had been for years an operative in the sweatshops of the East Side and his Yiddish verses gave an intense and moving expression to the suffering of the Jewish prole- tarian. His poetical activity has been steady ever since and he was, undoubtedly, one of the best read and best be- loved of all poets who use the Yiddish language. The im- portance of his poetry was in its substance, in the new world it opened and added to the domain of verse. The fa- mous “Songs from the Ghetto,” at all events, had no artistic originality. They employed the exact forms and devices of Heine and the minor German Romantic lyrists and ballad- ists. They were intenser in feeling than some of their mod- els and got a certain edge and tang from the resources of the Yiddish vocabulary. They were not creative in the deeper sense. But they did a magnificent service in express- ing to the world at large the thoughts and aspirations of a proletariat that never permitted its soul to be submerged with its body in the slavery of industrialism. E take pleasure in calling attention to the review in our book section of an essay which has attracted a good deal of attention in England. The essay is by one John Stuart Mill, and is apropos at this time in connection with free speech and personal liberty.

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 The Liberty Above All Others HE liberty to know, to utter, and to argue, and to argue freely according to conscience, is, as Milton said, above all other liberties. It is the foundation of the civil liberty of the citizen. It guarantees his right to state his griev- ances and to propose his remedies, and, because it guaran- tees that right, it tends to minimize the chance of disorderly change. Civil liberty means toleration for the opinions of others. It means toleration for the opinions not merely of those with whom the majority. agree, but of those also whose words are believed to be fraught with danger and despair. It means not only that the rich, the wise, and the good shall speak, but that the despised, the fool, and the poor man shall also be heard. Toleration, be it said, does not mean agreement. Because we believe that all voices should be heard, it does not follow that we are to agree with every folly that is uttered. Tol- eration means a humility of spirit that is willing to con- cede that the other fellow may be right. It means a ca- pacity to understand that desirable progress in this tenta- tive world can come only through free trade in ideas. Most of all it means a concern for the rights of others, for only when the rights of the most despised among us are secure can the market-place of the mind be kept open. The capacity of a people to insure and to possess civil liberty and toleration is the measure of the civilization to which they have attained. Freedom, happiness, knowledge, these are the goals of civilization, and they are born of the opportunity to experience life, as truly for whole peoples as for individuals. If that opportunity be broad, success will follow. And who can doubt that the capacity for civil liberty and toleration is the precise measure, alike for com- munity and individuals, of the opportunity to live fully? It is wise, then, from time to time for a people to con- sider their condition regarding civil liberty. How do we of these United States fare? A glance first at the past will perhaps not be amiss. At the time when the American Col- onies were achieving their independence of Great Britain, the phrases of civil liberty were upon the lips of every patriot. Civil liberty was an integral part of the political philosophy for which the American Revolution was fought. And yet, although that war was fought for political free- dom, the civil liberty of the Tory minority which opposed independence received scant consideration. The Civil War, too, was fought for freedom—for the freedom of an en- slaved race, but again the minority which believed in the right of the South to secede received short shrift. When the United States entered the Great War, civil liberty and tolerance left us once more. The minority of opposition— radical for the most part—were vindictively put upon. But these violations of the principle of civil liberty oc- curred during war, and war, almost by definition, is a step back from the ways of civilization. We can judge better of the reality of civil liberty by its condition after war has passed and in time of peace, And there is a striking parallel to be found between the history of the years just-passed and American history of a century and a quarter ago. In 1798 Europe was arrayed against France, shaken and torn by revolution. The gospel of liberté, egalité, fra- ternité was feared in every land. French radicalism sent its propagandists abroad, and in many lands its sympathiz- ers and advocates made themselves hated. Our country was not exempt. Genét had come to our shores, and voices, often in high places, expressed sympathy for revolutionary France. The Federalist Party, then in power, became greatly exercised. The Chief Justice of Massachusetts de- nounced “the French system-mongers, from the Quintum- virate of Paris to the Vice-President” (Jefferson) as “apos- tles of atheism and anarchy, bloodshed and plunder.” In such a mood of excitement Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798 and prosecutions under it followed. None of the sentences exceeded eighteen months, but they aroused the resentment of the people, and at the next election the Federalists were swept from office and the obnoxious act perished. Jefferson’s vigorous and pungent condemnation of the act and Madison’s carefully reasoned demonstration of its inconsistency with American principles of govern- ment, make it abundantly clear that civil liberty was then a reality in American political life. Indeed, the fate of the Sedition Act is a chapter of American history that we should regard with pride. Turn now to the years following the World War. Europe is again in tumult, and revolution is once more abroad. The great Powers now unite against Moscow, and Russian radi-. calism spreads its propaganda wherever it may. Its new political and economic philosophy is hated and feared as was the French in 1798. In the United States, farthest re- moved from the seat of contagion, and safest, because our people have not suffered as have the peoples of Europe, the excitement and fear of the new radicalism have run high- est. Our State legislatures have enacted criminal-syndical- ism, criminal-anarchy, and sedition laws until these statutes, which have the same quality as the old Sedition Act, are the law of no less than thirty-nine States. Prosecutions under them have followed aplenty, and the sentences meted out have not been light. Instead of eighteen months they have run as high as five to ten years, and the trials have been numbered by the score, as against the ten trials under the Act of 1798. The history of a century ago would have led us to expect a wave of resentment against these infringements of civil liberty, but the wave of resentment has not come. The more intelligent of our daily newspapers are now urging the repeal of these laws, but for four years hysterical fear in dealing with radical minorities has replaced toleration and discussion. Reports of a sensational State trial for merely being present at an alleged seditious gathering in Michigan were in the daily news but a few weeks ago, and but last May nine men and women were indicted under the Pennsylvania sedition law for membership in a forbidden organization. The tide is receding, but it has still very far to go.° What shall be said of this contrast between 1798 and 1923? What needs saying is that a contrast exists—that the average American of 1923 is less concerned about™the condition of civil liberty than the average American of 1798. That this is not altogether his fault is doubtless true. He has been told so many times that the sedition prosecu- tions of the present are necessary for his safety that he has come to believe it. But, unless his country is to suffer irreparable injury, it behooves him to shake himself out of his assurance, to examine the situation for himself, and then to take thought as to the future.

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July 4, 1923] The Natio 5 A Chapter Ends at Amherst HERE was a sound of revelry by day and night. Am- herst’s chivalry had gathered for commencement. Alumni had come back for a season, parents had turned up two by two, interested girls by ones and dozens. The professors were really relieved and relatively merry. Then, out of an unclouded sky, broke the storm which had for a long time been threatening. President Meiklejohn resigned his post and the trustees accepted his resignation, having first asked for it. The news, more or less expected, went across the continent; reporters dashed to the scene for more details; the story adorned the first pages of metropolitan dailies. Enthusiastic rumors went out to the effect that the graduating class would refuse to graduate and that the members of the faculty in favor of President Meiklejohn would resign in a body. Nothing quite so impressive hap- pened. Mr. Meiklejohn told the devoted boys that “This is my fight, not yours.” At commencement thirteen students left the hall without their diplomas, to the accompaniment of cheers from the spectators. Half a dozen teachers have resigned and others will, or will be forced to do so. This is the outward end of a chapter. Eleven years ago the trustees in calling Mr. Meiklejohn to the presidency of Amherst understood that they were bound for something of an adventure. He made it clear then, as he has made it clear regularly since, that he believed in experiment in education and that he was at many points out of sympathy with certain older traditions of Amherst and of other Ameri can colleges. He has worked ceaselessly to bring it about that the students of Amherst might learn something about the changes which are going on in the world instead of being held to the intellectual goose-step which the old guard everywhere prefers. He has attracted to Amherst some of the most promising young teachers in the country. He has worked with his advisers to bring the curriculum into touch with the thoughtful life of our times. He has been a conspicuous element in making Amherst deserve to be called our liberal college. And now, after a decade of the experiment, his trustees have lost courage and have stubbornly turned back to safe ground. Let no one be deceived by the smoke screen which, as always in such cases, is being thrown out by the trustees. They say that President Meiklejohn was a bad executive, arbitrary and inconsiderate; they hint that he personally spent more money than he should have done and thus em- barrassed the reputation of the college in the neighbor- hood; they find, that is, the petty reasons which their kind can always find in an emergency. To answer them it is suf- ficient to ask what they would have done if President Meiklejohn had at every point agreed with the majority of them in their notion of what the policy of Amherst ought to be. Then of course he might have been as arbitrary as Mussolini, provided it was the liberal elements he rooted out. He might have been as inconsiderate as Mussolini— toward the dissenters. As to his personal expenses, what- ever may be the facts of this difficult matter, his trustees would have had no difficulty had President Meiklejohn, again, been Mussolini. They have had enough experience in covering up the little extravagances of presidents of banks and insurance companies and railroads and factories. What they could not stand was a liberal president. They did not, it seems, want a liberal college after all. Back in 1912, when they thought they did, there was a Progressive movement. It was not particularly intelligent, but it was reasonably fashionable, and even a trustee could go with it and not lose caste. Since then, however, there has been a war of stupendous magnitude, a flare of temporary idealism, a morose reaction. In that reaction the mind is distrusted in America as it has perhaps never been before. “Americanism” and fundamentalism are trying to force the nation back from the courageous ways of thought into the lazy ways of habit. The trustees of colleges are of course peculiarly susceptible to such flutterings of timidity be- cause they are among the most ill-informed of men in any form of education except that of perpetuating the special type to which they themselves belong. The conversation of one of the Amherst trustees, in most respects a liberal and enlightened man, and an essentially decent man, led Lord Robert Cecil lately to express his incredulity that such ignorance as this trustee displayed could possibly exist in a modern civilization. And it was one of the trustees of Amherst, incidentally Vice-President of the United States, who only a year or so ago published an attack on liberalism in the women’s colleges as stupid as it was absura. No wonder, with such men among them, that the Amherst trustees finally drove President Meiklejohn out. To put the matter more accurately, they did not want a liberal college enough to pay for it. They might have been willing and able to raise the money, but they could not raise the courage and intelligence necessary. To make an Amherst such as they might have had they found they must shock that great mass of the alumni which, as with all col- leges, hangs like a sentimental millstone around the neck of the institution. To make an Amherst such as they might have had they found they must shock that considerable portion of the faculty which, as with all faculties, sits tight in its safe chair and schemes against any changes what- soever, good, bad, or dubious. The trustees found they must pay for a liberal college by choosing teachers who now and then might get themselves talked about in the world as the holders of novel doctrine; they found they must pay for it by making it easy for the students to become ques- tioners of the established order in theology, politics, art, morals—even in business; they found they must contribute to the upkeep of a college which would pretty surely mystify the trustees by its opinions and attitudes. And these things seemed too dear a price to pay! Had these men been any- thing but timid, shortsighted trustees, they must have seen that no price is too high to pay for what they had already in 1923 gone a long way toward developing. You cannot pay too much for liberty, for the free exercise of the intelligence, for the untrammeled quest for truth and beauty. Amherst had been made in a decade the most in- teresting and most distinctive of all the smaller New Eng- land colleges. It had developed rare eagerness for learning in its students. Now, apparently, it is to go back to the good old tradition. But it will not be the old tradition of devoted scholars, teachers, missionaries in which the college grew up. To something of that older tradition President Meikle- john was helping it to return. Amherst will go back, if the trustees now have their way, to the intermediate stage and be once more, and increasingly, a country club for fine young gentlemen.

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3026 Truth About Russia Breaking LOWLY, but surely, Russia is losing the pariah stigma. In Denmark both houses of Parliament, by large ma- jorities, have ratified a commercial agreement with her. Tokio, too, has opened negotiations with Moscow for the resumption of official relations. While the feeling of this country is a long way yet from being sympathetic to Rus- sia, there are signs of a steady breaking down of anti- Soviet prejudice. This change of attitude is clearly re- flected in the press, which nowadays finds it expedient to give prominent space to pro-Soviet statements. The New York Times, for instance, recently published a cabled inter- view with Irving T. Bush, of the New York Chamber of Commerce, which, if it had appeared a few months ago, would assuredly have led to the exclusion of that journal from the library of Clark University. This American busi- ness man, not hitherto classed among the “Reds,” expresses himself as convinced of the stability of the Soviet Govern- ment, and asserts that not one American in ten thousand has any idea of the order and generally good conditions prevailing in Moscow. The Russian leaders, with whom he was able to talk “quite frankly and without mincing words,” struck him as “intelligent, courageous, and sincere in their desire to better the Russian people.” To appreciate what this testimonial means, one has to remember that there have been occasions in American history—some, perhaps, not very remote—when a candid foreign visitor might have hesitated to pay an equal tribute to the political leaders of the United States. Again, two leading American Methodists, Bishop Edgar Blake, who directs the Methodist work in France, and Dr. Lewis P. Hartman, editor of Zion’s Herald (Boston), have sent home remarkable reports of their visit to the All-Rus- sian Council of the Orthodox Church. People who have swal- lowed sensational tales of the reduction of the Russian Church to destitution through Soviet robbery will read with amazement Dr. Hartman’s account of the dazzling scene at the opening ceremony in the Moscow Cathedral— the altar blazing with jewels and gold, and so on. The Boston editor testifies that, on examining churches from which treasures had been taken, he found that in no case had the ikons, crosses, banners, or other religious symbols been disturbed. The Government had done no more than commandeer superfluous gold and precious stones that served merely as ornaments, and had used them for the purchase of much-needed food. How Bishop Blake was impressed by what he saw and heard may be understood from his address to the council. “Russia,” he declared, “is in the midst of a stupendous social experiment. For the first time in human history a political government has dedicated itself to the service of the common people.” He did not see how the church of Jesus Christ could hold back from “an adventure so full of possible good to mankind.” Accordingly, he offered unreservedly such assistance as American Methodism. could give. The immediate outcome was a pledge of $50,000 to aid a program for the education of the Russian priesthood. Whether Bishop Blake had authority to make such a pledge is a matter of denominational concern. What should inter- est the general public is that such favorable reports on the Russian situation should have been made by the American visitors and published so fully in the Methodist press. Freedom and Mr. Harding OMEWHERE out on the fertile plains of Kansas, War- ren G. Harding, a rich man and the President of the United States, puts in an hour or so running a threshing machine, shakes hands with the farm owner and talks with him “man to man,” and enrols himself as a “member of the farm bloc.” A performance like this does not, however, effect the transubstantiation of Mr. Harding into a dirt farmer. He might quite as convincingly claim to be a mother every time he kisses a voter’s baby; for Mr. Hard- ing’s gesture, even though the sun was hot, is likely to im- press few people—certainly few farmers or workers. Mr. Harding is mentally a million miles away from the farmer or the worker, and that is why his other recent gesture of amiability, the “pardoning” of twenty-seven political pris- oners, was executed ‘with such infinitely bad grace. Men were jailed under special war-time acts in America for speaking their convictions against war. Some of them were jailed under these acts after the war was over and when even the pitiful excuses conjured up by hysteria and fear were gone. While other governments released their political prisoners, our government went on sending them to jail. When our government released “enemy aliens” who had plotted actual destruction to American ships and lives, it left in jail the men who had only disbelieved in war and said so. Finally, grudgingly, a few at a time, it began to release the pacifists and radicals, keeping in jail those whose economic views it particularly disliked. And now, with Independence Day in the offing and a hostile West to face and to win, President Harding releases twenty-seven more, with this reservation: That they be law-abiding and loyal to the government of the United States and not encourage, advocate, or become wilfully connected with lawlessness in any form, and upon the further . condition that if any of such persons violate the foregoing con- ditions, such commutation will be immediately revoked, and the prisoner returned to the penitentiary where he is now confined. Which means that unless these men permanently live up to Department of Justice standards of “loyalty” they can be thrust back into jail without the formality of a trial. They are neither free nor pardoned. Meanwhile even this poor portion of freedom is withheld from twenty men whose offense was in fact similar, but whom the government will hold on the ground that they are said to have conspired to prevent the free flow of supplies to the government for war purposes. It is withheld from one man, F. J. Gallagher, because “he was the cause of sev- eral strikes in the oil fields during the war....” It is withheld, without explanation, from Nicholas Zogg and from Librado Rivera, the brave little Mexican friend of Francesco Magon, who published in his Spanish paper at Los Angeles a manifesto calling upon the peoples of the world to unite against war. President Harding may hold babies and drive threshing machines, he may talk about the glories of the United States and the infinite wisdom and loving-kindness of the present Administration, but the people of the West, from Kansas to Alaska, should not be too far beguiled by his words or his acts or his “ice-cream pants.” They should challenge his right to ask their support or talk of freedom as long as twenty-three men remain in Federal jails to prove the futility of such words.

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«July 4, 1923] The Nation 7 - é . | - | , -, Looking On GX 4 a of AWW — DAILY BATTLE — Kui 040 B/RD OF FREEDOM NG Georce Z KInG Commercialism AGAINST THE SEAL OF AUTHORITY 1S DIFFERENT —— 8UT CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE, MIL— ib JTARISM, CORRYPT PoLITICS, Ku, Ktux KLAN, ART,DRAMA AND REL~ 1QYUS BIGOTRY, ANO THE COMMER-= 'CIALIZEO PRESS » THE SPORT OF YVUDGES i SHOT AT SUNRISE IN THE MINUTE, IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY MORE THAN THREE YEARS ON THE WAY .

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8 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 Free Speech: The Vital Issue’ By WILLIAM E. BORAH GREAT American once said: “You may chain down all human rights but leave the right of speech free and it will unchain all the rest.” This is not mere elo- quence; it is the plain statement of a simple and funda- mental principle of free government. I sometimes think that the most vital provision of the Constitution of the United States is the First Amendment. Our institutions have had a severe test in the last few sufficient to make life comfortable, or at least endurable. But the average man or woman, the man or woman in the ordinary walks of life, finds security only and alone in the great charter itself, a charter binding upon the courts and the Congress, upon majorities and minorities, upon the rich and the poor. And those who are not willing to live up to the Constitution and to its guaranties of civil rights are not true Americans—they have not the slightest conception of years. War is the great enemy of orderly and free government. It undermines respect for law. It treads down constitutional guaran- ties. It disregards the assurance of civil liberty. When war is on, these things are difficult to avoid. But certainly when war is over it is the highest duty of a free people to get back to the great underlying principles of constitutional government — to put the practices and habits of war, the hatred, the bitterness, the intolerance, and the ar- bitrary spirit of war behind us and live in the light of the future. ‘I think it deeply regret- table that we procrastinate in this work of getting back to constitutional govern- ment. It cannot be other than a matter of profound regret to all who believe in the great guaranties of the Constitution that even five years after the war men still lie in prison because of the views they expressed touch- ing that conflict. We are the only nation engaged in the war which still claims its political prisoners, which still holds men in prison for expressions of opinion. What Congress shall make no law .. . abridg- ing the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.—Constitution of the United States. Chief of Police Oaks, Los Angeles, Cali- fornia, to Upton Sinclair: “Constitution or no Constitution, you’re not going to speak in San Pedro.”—Los Angeles Record, May 16, 1923. Chief of Police, Martins Ferry, Ohio, when the Mayor refused a permit to J. P. Cannon to speak on Russia. Chief of Police: “We don’t need no law to stop bolshevik meetings, and there ain’t going to be none held here.” Cannon: “That is in violation of the Constitution.” Chief of Police: “All right, if that’s the case, it is sure going to be violated. By God, this is the United States, and you can’t have no meetings here.” —Oklahoma Leader, May 14, 1923. the underlying principles of free institutions. It is easy to believe in our Constitution and the princi- ples of right which it guar- antees when it fits our case— the great test comes in apply- ing its principles to others. Everybody believes in free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution when he is the one making the speech—the supreme test comes when we are called upon to apply its principles when the other man is making the speech. Everybody believes in the right of peaceable assem- blage—but the test comes when you are looking upon the gathering of those who ~ hold a different view. The assaults in these days upon the Constitution, and particularly upon the Bill of Rights, are persistent and insidious, as tireless as they are reprehensible. They are made under all kinds of spe- cious pleas and for all kinds of purposes and with all kinds of proclaimed good in- tentions. But however made or by whomsoever made or for whatsoever purpose men who really believe in a representative republic will resist these aggressions interest is served by such a course? What benefit is derived from establishing such a precedent? There is no subject of deeper concern in these days than that of preserving these civil rights of the citizen. It is a matter which relates directly and immediately to the wel- fare, the security, and the happiness of all. But while all are concerned, it is especially of the highest concern to the average citizen. The man of influence and of uncommon ability, the man of commanding wealth, may secure his rights under any condition or under any kind of government * Copyright, 1928, The Nation, Inc. whenever and however and by whomsoever made. We cannot afford to barter these rights or sacrifice them for any purpose or under any circumstances. It may sometimes seem advisable to do so for a day or to meet some particular emergency, but in the end it will prove a costly experi- ment. When I look back upon those stately figures in the forma- tive days of the republic, contemplate their vision, their faith, their breadth of thought and tolerance, I can think of no greater boon for our country than that their example shall continue to be our guide and inspiration in these days of vexed questions and great problems.

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July 4, 1923] The Nation 9 Protecting Our Liberties By UPTON SINCLAIR MERICA has a grave question to consider at the pres- ent minute. Can we preserve the constitutional rights which have been handed down to us by our ancestors? And if so, how shall we set about it? It is no exaggeration to say that these rights are, for practical purposes, non- existent in America at the present time. The rich and prominent, of course, can protect themselves; even a Social- ist author, if he happens to be well known, will be released tries to do anything, he is immediately dubbed a Red and falls victim to the police brutalities above described. The only thing the average citizen can do is to organize; he must become part of a great body of people, and this or- ganization must be founded upon wise principles, a plan of procedure so carefully chosen as to make it impossible for the thugs and bullies of big business to overcome it. We are proceeding to do this here in southern California; from jail after his arrest; but the average American citizen no longer has any right which a police official is bound to respect. He can be arrested, thrown into jail, and held incomunicado for days, or weeks, or months, as the police authorities see fit. His home will be raided, and his belongings scattered about on the floor, or confis- cated, or burned. He will be tortured in jail, to make him give evidence against himself —a procedure not merely in violation of constitutional provisions, but in violation of one of the most funda- mental principles of Anglo- Saxon law, which in England and other civilized countries has been respected for many centuries. Needless to say, of course, the common citizen is de- prived of the right to strike, and especially of the right to win a strike. All over this country at the present time the police serve as strike- breaking agencies at the be- hest of the big-business in- terests. They forbid picket- ing, they make mass arrests of the leaders, they raid No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.—Constitution of the United States. General Pat Hamrock, Denver, Colo- rado, when Rangers deported W. Z. Foster: “We consulted no law.’—Federated Press, January 6, 1923. Mayor of Bellaire, Ohio, on admitting that H. M. Wicks had been arrested without any charge having been made against him: “It is not what he has done, but what -he might do.”—Reading Labor Advocate, May 12, 1923. Judge in Seattle, Washington, in the case of Tom O’Mara, Tom Smith, and others, arrested February 14 for selling I.W.W. papers in Centralia. Judge: “I suppose you will plead not guilty, but I will find you guilty now.” Question: “Do constitutional rights count in Centralia at all?’ Judge: “No. Constitutional rights do not count at all.”’—IJndustrial Worker, March 10, 1923. we are doing it thoroughly and making a real job of it. Knowing that the same need exists in other parts of the country, we think it worth while to make our method of procedure known to others, so that groups of citizens may profit by the lessons we have learned, and may pro- tect their civil liberties and become once more the citi- zens of a republic, instead of the slaves of an industrial empire. The American Civil Liber- ties Union is a national or- ganization, formed four or five years ago to educate the people to the meaning of civil rights and to help them in the struggle to maintain these rights. This union has done good work in the publi- cation of educational litera- ture and in the raising of test cases to bring the facts before the public. We have proceeded to organize the southern California branch of the American Civil Lib- erties Union. We have held a series of five mass meet- ings; our free-speech demon- stration at San Pedro was attended by not less than union offices and close them, they forbid public assemblies and deny the strikers an opportunity to consult together and to act, or even to exist, as an organization. In all these procedures the courts back them up, and the American workingman is reduced to a condition similar to that of serfs in old-time Russia or of peasants in France prior to the revolution. And these things are done not merely in semi-barbarous parts of the country, such as southern California; they are done in places as widely scattered as the States of Washing- ton, and Idaho, and Kansas, and Louisiana, and Pennsyl- vania, and West Virginia. What can the average citizen do about it? As an individual he can, of course, do nothing. If he 15,000 people, and there have been four meetings at the Walker Auditorium in Los Angeles, from the first three of which thousands of people had to be turned away for lack of room. We have obtained the pledges of some 500 people to join our organization. Re- cently we held our first organization meeting; we did not try to get a crowd for this meeting, but invited only the people who had agreed to join, so that we could get down to busi- ness and get practical work done. At these various meetings we have taken in something over $700, and we are now start- ing a campaign to raise a large fund to make possible our permanent organization. We are going to have a salaried organizer, a man who is competent both to lecture and to write about our work: we are going to have an office and

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10 The Nation a stenographer; we are going to print literature and dis- tribute it, and hold meetings and conduct debates and an open forum, to which we shall invite the enemies of civil liberties for exhibition purposes. There are many groups of people formed for the pur- pose of bringing about industrial changes; and these peo- ple apparently cannot get together upon a program. But there is one platform upon which it should be possible to get every true American to stand, and that is the platform of free discussion of our problems. This ideal was care- fully embodied by our forefathers in the fundamental law of our nation, and of every one of our separate States. There are constitutional provisions, granting to the people the rights of freedom of speech and of the press, also the right to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. This is the true 100 per cent Americanism, and we have taken this for our sole program. We are tak- ing pains to make clear that we have nothing to do with any labor union or political party or religious creed; we are taking our stand upon the simple elementary right of all sides to have a hearing and to be protected by the law while they are setting forth their ideas. On that platform we can get a great many people of all classes to stand; and having got them, we mean to see that the authorities do actually obey the law, and do actually permit every person in the community to exercise his constitutional rights. Americans, as a rule, especially the new variety of 100 per cent business men, do not realize what is the funda- mental law of the United States and what were the prin- ciples of the founders of our nation. We are getting out a leaflet to inform them. We are going to teach the Bill of Rights to the public—and nobody is going to put us in jail for doing it, because we have on our executive commit- tee three clergymen, two lawyers, a doctor, and two or three prominent club ladies; we are going to get a great number of such people, and whenever we meet we shall have such an array of wealth and fashion upon our platform that the police and prosecuting authorities will be awed into de- cency. You should have seen how good they were down at San Pedro, where we had two authors, two journalists, two millionaires, two lawyers, and two men who had served as officers of our army in France—all assuring the strikers that there is really a difference between present-day America and old-time Russia! We are going to have at least 2,000 dues-paying mem- bers, and at least 10,000 people interested in our work, to whom we can send information about violations of civil rights as they occur. We have named fourteen committees —and these are not going to be mere names; they consist of people who mean business, and each one has a chairman who is going to plan and see that things are done. We think it a little tribute to our effectiveness that from the day of our free-speech rally at San Pedro not a single striker has been arrested; and recently the courts have re- leased 300 who were charged with “blocking the sidewalks.” Also they have released eighteen who were charged with displaying a red flag, along with a dozen other flags, in- cluding the American. Police Court Judge Crawford stated that all red-flag showers ought to be sent to jail, but un- fortunately for him the Supreme Court of the State had held the red-flag ordinance unconstitutional! The violators of this unconstitutional ordinance had only been held in jail three weeks. We are so much encouraged by this de- cision that we are now going to try to get the release of [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 the restaurant proprietor who was dragged out from be- hind his counter and jailed for feeding the strikers—that was “prolonging the strike”! One of the wealthy club ladies who is working quietly to help our organization tells us that the thing which most disturbs the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association is the publicity we have managed.to get all over the country. They are sensitive about this, because they are trying to sell our climate to “come-ons” from the East, and they don’t like to have it known that people who come to southern California are likely to be thrown into jail for trying to read the Constitution of the United States. That is the way to tame these 100 per cent rowdies— to = the fear of the American people into their greedy souls! Two Portraits By MAXWELL BODENHEIM I Office Girl Within an office, whose exterior Resembles an ultra-conservative mind, She battles with the avaricious words Of a meager petrified man. Her face is brown stagnation But it has not succeeded In drowning a barely breathing wistfulness. Bravery is fear Sneering at itself, And her life is ever hovering Upon the edge of this condition. Yet her obscurity Is an important atom In the mysterious march of time. II Envious Poet Seraphic and relaxed you take Your novel, with uncertain thumbs, As one who lingers over cake And dreads the thought of final crumbs. (Frown at my precious sorcery And label me an envious elf, If human beings could agree Their boredom might revenge itself!) O youthful housewife weighing grains Of joy upon your empty smile, The total of my bolder gains Is but a more impressive guile. Your serious child wins the alert And limpid art of playing tag While your emotions rest inert, Like dried fruit in a paper bag. And yet I envy both of you And wish that I could also find The mildness of your fancied view, Where feelings dance and thoughts are kind.

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—_ —=— 2 -—s. ~ July 4, 1923] ‘Sweet Land of Liberty’’ (From Bulletins of the American Civil Liberties Union) BEYOND THE LAW LABAMA. After protecting himself against a mob for six hours, John King, Negro miner of Helena, was lynched on May 10 by men whom he had accused of tak- ing money from his pay envelope. THE CRIME OF QUITTING WORK Arkansas. The joint executives of the sixteen standard railway brotherhoods have offered a reward of $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the parties connected with the lynching of E. C. Gregor, strik- ing shopman, at Harrison, Arkansas, last January. A legis- lative investigating committee of the State has whitewashed the citizens’ mob which committed the crime and has been unable to fix the responsibility on individuals. It did find, however, that the lynching followed a conference of twelve leaders of the mob at the Harrison Rotary Club. Boys WILL BE Boys New York. Students of Columbia University kidnapped William Werner, zraduate stuc2nt, on May 17, took him out of the city in an automobile and beat him, encouraged by policemen who were told that he was being punished for lack of patriotism. Werner had written a letter to the uni- versity daily defending freedom of speech and press in a local issue. THE SUPREME OFFENSE Arkansas. Two delegates of the Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union were menaced by a mob of citizens of Bald Knob on May 15 and, after being searched twice for evidence against them, were forced to leave town. They were accused of agitating for higher wages for berry pickers. LAW AND ORDER California. More than 400 members of the I.W.W. were arrested in San Pedro on May 14 for holding meetings in connection with the harbor strike. EXCESSIVE BAIL Pennsylvania. After a hearing before Justice of the Peace Riley at Pittsburgh, Fred Merrick, arrested with twenty- three others at the Labor Lyceum on April 27, was re- leased on $10,000 bail pending trial under the Flynn anti- sedition act of Pennsylvania. AN I.W.W. HAs No FRIENDS New Jersey. Two members of the Industrial Workers of the World, Boorus and Romero, arrested at Hoboken on May 2 for holding up government mails, were convicted on hearsay evidence of attendance at an I.W.W. meeting by United States Commissioner Besson on May 10 and held in $500 bail for the grand jury. Our DEMOCRATIC NAvy California. Five men were injured, one seriously, in race rioting between white and Filipino sailors of the battle fleet in Los Angeles harbor on May 27. The ejection of a white man from a Filipino dance hall precipitated the riot, which police were unable to manage. UPHOLDING THE LAW New York. Immediately following the signing of the anti-masking bill by Governor Smith the Klan defied the new measure on May 27 by: initiating 789 members at a large meeting at Eastport, L. I. The Nation a 11 ALWAYS FAIR PREY California. Two members of the Industrial Workers of the World, Albert Stingeland and William Flanagan, were convicted of criminal syndicalism at Sacramento on May 18. MORE OF THE SAME THING Idaho. Six members of the I.W.W. were recently arrested on criminal syndicalism charges at Pocatello. For TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH California. The Appellate Court on May 23 handed down a decision sustaining the conviction of ten witnesses who were arrested at the Casdorf-Firey trial in April, 1922, for admitting membership in the I.W.W. OUR SUPER-GOVERNMENT Ohio. The hall in Columbus in which Eugene Debs was to speak on June 22, for which deposit money had been accepted, was refused to the Debs committee on June 1 by order of the American Legion and the Chamber of Com- merce. SUBSERVIENT POLICE New Jersey. Passaic police on May 28 seized Lorenzo De Mario, Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ representative, and placed him on a train for New York with orders not to return. His offense consisted of talking organization to the workers. THE WAR IS OVER California. Ex-service men took Frank Siceri from his home in Los Angeles on the night of June 5, bound him to a post, and beat him unconscious with a wire cable. They left a note accusing police of indifference in failing to prosecute him for an alleged assault upon a young woman. THE DEFENSELESS RACE Florida. The body of Henry Simmons, Negro, was re- cently found riddled with bullets and hanging to a tree near Palm Beach. He was suspected of having shot and killed Policeman J. N. Smith. Dip PETER COOPER TURN IN HIS GRAVE? New York. The director of Cooper Union in New York City denied the use of the hall to the Anti-Fascisti Alliance of North America on the ground that the meeting threatened “to involve riotous proceedings.” OuR SOLONS Michigan. The act to repeal the State criminal syndical- ism law was killed in committee before the recent adjourn- ment of the legislature in spite of the united action of labor bodies to force it into the open and insure its passage. SocraAL ITEM FROM GOOSE CREEK Texas. Henry Haeker of Goose Creek was kidnapped on the night of June 14 by masked men, taken to the woods, and beaten over the head. No cause for the attack is known. SHADES OF WILLIAM PENN! Pennsylvania. Girolamo Valenti and Birch Wilson, So- cialist speakers, were prevented from addressing a meeting in Old Forge for the second time in a week on June 13, when they were ordered from the town by Burgess Cos- tanzo. So Tus Is JUSTICE! Washington, D. C. Because the papers proving his Ca- nadian citizenship were seized by the Government in 1917, Archie Sinclair, I.W.W. political prisoner freed on Decem- ber 31, 1922, by order of President Harding, cannot be deported to Canada and may be forced to return to Leaven- worth penitentiary to finish a ten-year sentence.

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12 The Nation ‘ [ Vol. 117, No. 8026 The Issues at Amherst By JOHN MERRIMAN GAUS RESIDENT MEIKLEJOHN had attempted to define the function of the liberal college. His inaugural ad- dress was devoted to this. He had stated and restated his suggestions to trustees and faculty as well as the general public in a series of papers and reports, and had discussed it with undergraduates on many occasions—notably the Chapel addresses at the opening of the fall term. Many of these papers are conveniently found in his book, “The Liberal College.” Disagreement, discussion, clarification of issues have been deliberately sought by the president. But there were many people who were unable to disagree in this wholesome and healthy way. The president was brought to Amherst by the trustees to build up a stronger faculty. It was a situation clearly recognized even among those of us who were students here at the time. The selection of personnel for the purpose of developing larger policy is the essence of administration. A part of President Meiklejohn’s thesis was that the presi- dent should be only the agent of a controlling and dominant faculty, with the board of trustees playing no part in the determination of educational policy; yet he had been brought to Amherst to change the faculty for the better. Here was, obviously, a dilemma. There was an inherent and essen- tial conflict; and if the trustees at any time should no longer support the president in the task which they brought him to Amherst to accomplish, his work would be biecked. The new men brought to Amherst by President Meikle- john included many younger men; and some of the older settlers in Amherst did not approve the attempt to give young men a share in the determination of educational policy. The methods of these younger men, in closer touch with the students, frequently approached those described by Walton Hamilton in his address published in The Nation for June 20, as treating education as an adventure. They were more largely engaged in research in their re- spective fields, and viewed Amherst as a part of the larger enterprise of learning rather than as a single tradition. Instead of welcoming this infusion of new blood, instead of doing their full share to create an understanding and a synthesis of ages and outlooks, some of the older teachers were embittered and some of the new were impatient. One cannot ignore, too, the kind of social life that de- velops in a small college town, It has something of the atmosphere so brilliantly described by Hugh Walpole in “The Gods and Mr. Perrin.” Most small colleges recruit their teaching staff largely from among alumni. President Meiklejohn was not an Amherst man. Many of the people he brought to Amherst were not Amherst men. Into a relatively settled and fixed society these new men came; and feelings that were already hurt by the failure to re- appoint certain former faculty members were not recep- tive, always, to the newcomers. And the possibilities of gossip and rumor in a village are notorious. One of my neighbors looks upon the controversy as centering upon the failure of four of the new men to keep their lawns mowed! The policy of the president of extending responsibility to the students for their activities and conduct has brought much criticism. This policy was inaugurated with the es- tablishment of the student council in 1913, and has con- tinued to the creating in 1922 of the committee of seven (selected from and by the seniors) who are responsible in matters of student conduct affecting the college’s name. In terms of policy, of personnel, of curricular changes, of attitude toward teaching and research, of relations with students, here was an experiment in education which pos- sessed the virtues and defects of experiment. New courses, new men, new relationships had to be integrated with the best in the old. In addition to the strains of the period of readjustment came those of war time; and there was oppo- sition to the idea that a college should continue its study and teaching in war as well as peace. It was only by lifting the issues to the plane of educa- tional policy that progress could be made; and meanwhile large numbers of alumni grew increasingly hostile to those policies. The development of the curriculum had included the building up of the work in the humanistic sciences— politics, economics, philosophy, history of religions—to a closer approach to equality with the natural sciences and languages and literature, and this caused some disapproval. The president’s views on athletics (most recently set forth in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1922) angered many. Some held to the sentimental belief that the college and per- sonnel of their particular day should be restored so far as possible, and that change was necessarily bad. The work of the college was viewed, again, as antagonistic to some conceptions of religion and morals; teaching was destruc- tive. The establishment of classes in collaboration with the central labor unions of Holyoke and Springfield was put down to the account of “radicalism.” In fact the whole gamut of rumor, gossip, sentiment, prejudice, and fear was run by a variety of critics. What was surprising was the number of busy men of affairs among the alumni who made a deliberate effort, on the other hand, really to understand and appraise the work that was being attempted at Am- herst. But on the whole the alumni were critical—and ill- informed. What shall be the kind of teaching and the nature of the curriculum of the liberal college? What shall be the gov- ernment of the college—trustees, faculties, students? Where does a college president fit in a scheme of government? How can teaching be improved and faculties recruited for the task of teaching in the liberal college without becoming settled and unimaginative? On all these matters American opinion today is confused and vague. President Meiklejohn had spoken clearly and frankly; the board of trustees and a majority of the faculty disagreed with him; and he has had to go. I do not see how men who are busily engaged in their various enterprises were competent to go behind the superficial aspects of a controversy and appraise ade- quately the educational policy, reflected through changes in personnel and curriculum. The statements made by some opponents of President Meiklejohn that they approve his policies but not the administration of those policies is answered by this fact: most of those who have been work- ing toward those policies as teachers are leaving, and those who have opposed remain, Amherst, through its governing organization, has made its deliberate choice; the conse- quences strike beyond the particular college into the broader field of education.

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July 4, 1923] The Nation | 13 Pharisees and Reformers By ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN What follows is part of the baccalaureate address deliv- ered at Amherst College on June 17. Dr. Meiklejohn’s resignation of the presidency of the college two days later is the subject of a signed article on the opposite page and of an editorial on page 4 of this issue. At the commence- ment exercises of June 20, twelve members of the senior class and one graduate student refused to accept their diplomas as a protest against the action of the trustees in forcing Dr. Meiklejohn out of office. S OUR WORLD CHRISTIAN? I am inclined to answer yes and no; to say, it is, but also, it is not. And yet I think a truer answer can be given. I think that in the only sense in which such men as we can take a moral creed we do accept the Christian teaching. In this we do as Buddhists do, and as Mohammedans. We take the teaching as our goal but fall far short of reaching it in acts, in working principles. And this is not an accident which comes from our peculiar weakness. It is the fate of every man, of every people. It is the essential quality of human living. For- ever there is fixed in man the gulf which Jesus found. Forever men are torn asunder in just the way that we have found ourselves to be. May I explain?—and then my ser- mon will be done. I have complained against the world that Jesus was killed by it as soon as people thought they knew what he was teaching. And yet the selfsame world has kept that teaching in its mind, has talked of him and of his words for these 2000 years, has thought of him more than of any other man whom it has known. What shall you say of such a funny, baffling world as this—a world that slays a man, just as the Greeks slew Socrates, and then defines its very mind and spirit in terms of him? The answer to the riddle lies in the very nature of a man. We are not one but two. Much of our modern thinking about men is over simple in its explanation. Man is by nature of the type of a dilemma. He is himself, but also he can think and plan about himself. And thought is for- eign to the nature which it thinks about. So man is foreign to himself. In many ways, of which I must not stop to speak just now, thought is abstract; it leaves the vivid actual concrete world of things and human situations; it deals with principles and universals. By means of these men hope to change themselves, or, as they said in olden days, to save their souls. Man by his thought, his insight, is leading, dragging up from out the depths, himself. And though it is himself who leads, he follows most reluctantly. At every step along the road which men have trod, the hill which they have climbed, there has been conflict. Al- ways the man of active type, the man of common sense, believes that he has reached the goal. This is the place where men should live, he thinks, here they should settle down, master the country, reap its fruits, and live their lives in peace. But always men have found that in the spirit of man there is no peace in this inactive sense. The man who does not climb slips back. Nothing can be more clear than that a thought accepted, put in action, and kept free from criticism, becomes with every day less true, less vital—becomes more false. A thought believed and only that, becomes unworthy of belief. And so man ever goads himself again to travel the winding road. His life is not & state; it is a process. And now before I say my final word to you I must return again to talk of Pharisees, to try to do them justice. They | are the men whom critics criticize. That is their function. They represent the action in our common life. They make the world go round; they make the institution run; they get things done according to the wisdom which the past has given. And meanwhile other men, so-called reformers, find fault with what they do—and there is fault enough to find. But are they made of different stuff—these two? Is one side right, the other wrong? May one of them destroy the other from the earth, sweep it aside, and take the world in charge? Ido not think so. Both groups are men and every man has both these attitudes within himself. To make our life complete each side must play its part. I know reform- ers who complain with bitterness because men will not change the world at once as they demand. They seem to me to argue in this vein: “I wish to differ from every other man and yet I ask that all the other men should see that am right—and do it quickly.” I often wish they had, or shall I say, I often wish we had a better sense of humor. But what of Pharisees again? They are the men of com- mon sense. I wish they had more sense, could see more clearly the need of criticism of what they do. I wish that both these groups could see how silly and futile each would be without the other. And yet it will not do to wish too hard, to set one’s heart on having peace, the peace that comes with understanding. These two will never understand each other. Our human life will never understand itself. But it will always try; and as it tries it will succeed. But if it stopped from trying, the human spirit would be dead. Members of the graduating class: I have tried in these last words to tell you of the road that you must go. I send you out not in the search for things that men can own, but in the search for self, for your own lives, and for the lives of other men. I charge you that you seek to find what human life can be, and that you make the search with high intelligence and sober common sense. You will not reach the goal. Your life is stretched between the least that lies behind and the achievement still before of which each vision that we get seems only a glimmer of the truth that men will some day win. I bid you as you go keep fellowship with other men; no matter what they do, no matter what they say or think, they are your fellows in the common task. You should regard them as you do regard yourself. I have no fear of your discouragement at what I have said. You do not dread the unending road. What I do fear for you is just that lethargy of spirit that cuts man’s life in two, that lets our double nature fall apart. Beware of that. We send you forth on high adventure. This college loves the life of man and it has tried to make you ready for that life. Go forth and play your part and be you worthy of the college which has tried to teach you how to play. j t ; j i F

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——_={—<- - ~~ Governor Nestos came from North Dakota. 14 The Nation Making Wheat Sober Up (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD HE most important political event of the moment went by with little notice. Happening to be in Chicago in the neighborhood of the Sherman Hotel, I walked into it. There were met there a large number of political and commercial and industrial doctors to consider the sad case of wheat. The occasion was called the National Wheat Con- ference. The dark, lean, vivid face of Congressman Ander- son of Minnesota appeared in the chief place about the operating table. Anderson presided. Back of him was the figure of Governor Preus of Minnesota, blond, firm, trim, controlled. Preus is running on the Republican ticket in Minnesota for United States Senator against a Farmer- Labor candidate whose followers grow wheat so unprofitably that perhaps they may succeed in carrying the State against Preus. Back of Preus was James F. Bell of Minnesota, a distinguished miller, rich, suave, alert, broad-eyed, taking a wide view of the milling business and determined to do “something to improve the prospects of wheat and to moder- ate the feelings of the wheat farmer. Brought together by these gentlemen, were numerous other representatives of politics and of business from as far east and south as Georgia and from as far west and north as Oregon. Senator Copeland came from New York. George C. Jewett, cooperative seller of some thirty or thirty-five million bushels of wheat from the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Slope Northwest, came. So did many bakers—gen- tlemen who used to be mere rule-of-thumb tradesmen but who are now on their way to being scientists. At their head was Dr. H. E. Barnard, director of their bread labora- tory, their bread research institution, where numerous uni- versity graduates devote themselves to devising a bread more nutritious than poor dear mother ever baked. Moreover, there were railroad managers, and packers, and Ben Marsh, the pallid and untiring scourge of railroad managers and packers and millers and middlemen. He on the first day of the conference rose to testify against un- righteousness and boldly and conscientiously and truth- fully declared that the membership of the conference had been picked to be conservative or—to put it more conven- tionally—“stacked against the people.” Myself, having heard “the people” try to solve the wheat problem many times, I enthusiastically prepared to witness the novelty of a solution of it by the conservatives. That conservative solution is long overdue. The rural radical revolt, if studied geographically, is seen to center indubit- ably on the support of farmers made wretched and angry by unprofitable wheat. I would that Ben Marsh could in- duce prosperous farmers to take as sublime and as drastic an interest in the public welfare and in politics as is shown by impoverished farmers. In the Bible Jeshurun waxes fat and kicks. In uninspired secular political life, as the horny- - handed hero of our basic business, he kicks only when he wanes lean. Explaining his leanness, there came to this conference a man who is half of him the world’s supreme warehouse of food facts and the other half of him the only known equivalent of Albert Lasker and Herbert Bayard Swope put [Vol. 117, No. 3026 together in number of dynamic mental throbs per minute. This man is Alonzo Taylor, former chief food expert for Herbert Hoover in the United States Food Administration and now chief manager of the Food Research Institute in Leland Stanford University. Dr. Taylor put the National Wheat Conference on a foundation of ascertained and highly uncomfortable but presumably ultimately useful—because now recognized and acknowledged—truth. He tore all the sweet disguising veils away from the homely, rough fact that the American wheat farmer is now growing a great deal more surplus wheat than Europe, by any device of advanced credits or of settled reparations or of funded debts, can possibly be induced to take. He showed that Europe is at this moment taking its full peace-time quota of imported wheat. He showed that Rus- sian agricultural exports into Western Europe are begin- ning to revive. He showed that a disorganized Europe, where transportation had weakened and where impediments to commercial intercourse across national boundaries had strengthened, was more likely to import our present wheat surplus than a revived and restored Europe would be when full railroad service and full and ready internal interna- tional transit had been resumed. He dispelled totally the idea of a reconstructed Europe as the consumer of the sur- plus wheat grown on our recently enormously expanded wheat acreage. The conference did not seem to think it seemly to pass a resolution requesting Mr. Secretary Hughes to please keep Europe in a disorganized condition in order that it might be obliged to import more American wheat to take the place of an existing but untransportable and unavailable local product. It aceordingly left Europe alone. not ask Mr. Hughes to do anything about it whatsoever. Finding that Europe could not come forward to give any further “help” to the Ameriean farmer, the conference abandoned all recent American agricultural political tradi- tions and showed no interest whatsoever in American “help” for struggling, suffering Europe. All governmental, all political, devices for solving the wheat grower’s present woes were shattered by Dr. Tayler. The American wheat acreage must be accommodated to American needs, with no more dependence on Europe’s needs and demands than was customary before the war. Along with this tendency toward contraction, however, there must at the same time be an opposite tendency toward try- ing to expand the domestic internal American wheat mar- ket. Americans are eating less wheat than formerly. The wheat trade and the flour trade and the baking trade must entice them back to their original wheat appetites. Finally, the wheat farmers must sell more of their wheat through cooperative associations which will give that wheat a better grading and which will see to it that only the right grades are offered to the public. Against international and national political expedients of all sorts, this program now stands out as the one toward which the anti-radical saviors of the basic part of Amer- ca’s basic cereal industry will flock. It means that the con- servatives have a program. It means that what with this program, and what with the program of the radicals, and what with the competition between them, the radicalism of the wheat farmers will probably within a few years be turned to prosperity. And to conservatism? It did an

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July 4, 1923] The Nation 15 The Two Sweetheart Dzippies How They Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumber-Yard Fence and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers By CARL SANDBURG OT so very far and not so very near the Village of Liver and Onions is a dippy little town where dippy people used to live. And it was long, long ago the sweetheart dippies stood in their windows and watched the dips of the star dippers in the dip of the sky. It was the dippies who took the running wild oleander and the cunning wild rambler rose and kept them so the running wild winters let them alone. “It is easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies . isn’t it?” the sweetheart dippies whispered to each other sitting in the leaf shadows of the oleander, the rambler rose. The name of this dippy town came by accident. The name of the town is Thumbs Up, and it used to be named Thumbs Down, and expects to change its name back and forth between Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down. The running wild oleanders and the running wild ram- bler roses grow there over the big lumber yards where all the old lumber goes. The dippies and the dippy sweet- hearts go out there to those lumber yards and sit on the, fence moonlight nights and look at the lumber. The rusty nails in the lumber get rustier and rustier till they drop out. And whenever they drop out there is always a rat standing under to take the nail in his teeth and chew the nail and eat it. For this is the place the nail-eating rats come to from all over the Rootabaga country. Father rats and mother rats send the young rats there to eat nails and get stronger. If a young rat comes back from a trip to the lumber yards in Thumbs Up and he meets another young rat going to those lumber yards, they say to each other: ‘‘Wnere have you been?” “To Thumbs Up.” “And how do you feel?” “Hard as nails.” Now one night two of the dippies, a sweetheart boy and girl, went out to the big lumber yards and sat on the fence and looked at the lumber and the running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses. And they saw two big rusty nails, getting rustier and rustier, drop out of the lumber and drop into the teeth of two young rats. And the two young rats sat up on their tails there in the - moonlight under the oleanders, under the roses, and one of the young rats told the other young rat a story he made up out of his head. Chewing on the big rusty nail and then swallowing, telling more of the story after swallowing and before beginning to chew the nail again, this is the, story he told—and this is the story the two dippies, the two sweethearts sitting on the fence in the moonlight, heard: Far away where the sky drops down and the sunsets open doors for the nights to come through—where the running winds meet, change faces, and come back—there is a prairie where the green grass grows all around. And on that prairie the gophers, the black and brown-striped ground squirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting in the spring-song mur- mur of the south wind, saying to each other: “This is the prairie and the prairie belongs to us.” Now, far back in the long time the gophers came there, chasing each other, playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, hop tag, skip tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it. The razorback hogs came then, eating pignuts, potatoes, pawpaws, pumpkins. The wild horse, the buffalo, came. The moose, with spraggly branches of antlers spreading out over his head, the moose came—and the fox, the wolf. The gophers flipped a quick flip-flop back into their gopher holes when the fox, the wolf, came. And the fox, the wolf, stood at the holes and said: “You look like rats, you run like rats, you are rats, rats with stripes. Bah! you are only rats. Bah!’ It was the first time anybody said “Bah!” to the gophers. They sat in a circle with their noses up, asking: “What does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old timer, with his hair falling off in patches, with the stripes on his soft paddy tail patched with patches, this old gopher said: “ ‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.” Then the sooners and the boomers came, saying “Bah!” and saying it many new ways, till the fox, the wolf, the moose, the wild horse, the buffalo, the razorback hog picked up their feet and ran away without looking back. The sooners and boomers began making houses, sod houses, log, lumber, plaster-and-lath houses, stone, brick, steel houses, but most of the houses were lumber with nails to hold the lumber together to keep the rain off and push the wind back and hold the blizzards outside. In the beginning the sooners and boomers told stories, spoke jokes, made songs, with their arms on each other’s shoulders. They dug wells, helping each other get water. They built chimneys together, helping each other let the smoke out of their houses. And every year the day before Thanksgiving they went in cahoots with their post-hole diggers and dug all the post holes for a year to come. That was in the morning. In the afternoon they took each other’s cistern cleaners and cleaned all the cisterns for a year to come. And the next day, on Thanksgiving, they split turkey wishbones and thanked each other they had all the post holes dug and all the cisterns cleaned for a year to come. If the boomers had to have broom corn to make brooms, the sooners came saying: “Here is your broom corn.” If the sooners had to have a gallon of molasses, the boomers came saying: “Here is your gallon of molasses.” They handed each other big duck eggs to fry, big goose eggs to boil, purple pigeon eggs for Easter breakfast. Wagon loads of buff banty eggs went back and forth between the sooners and boomers. And they took big hayracks full of buff banty hens and traded them for hayracks full of buff banty roosters. And one time at a picnic one summer afternoon the sooners gave the boomers a thousand golden ice tongs with hearts and hands carved on the handles. And the

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ee O_o 16 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 boomers gave the sooners a thousand silver wheelbarrows with hearts and hands carved on the handles. Then came pigs, pigs, pigs, and more pigs. And the sooners and boomers said the pigs had to be painted. There was a war to decide whether the pigs should be painted pink or green. Pink won. The next war was to decide whether the pigs should be painted checks or stripes. Checks won. The next war after that was to decide whether the checks should be painted pink or green. Green won. Then came the longest war of all, up till that time. And this war decided the pigs should be painted both pink and green,’ both checks and stripes. They rested then. But it was only a short rest. For then came the war to decide whether peach pickers must pick peaches on Tuesday mornings or on Saturday after- noons. Tuesday mornings won. This was a short war. Then came a long war—to decide whether telegraph-pole climbers must eat onions at noon with spoons or whether dishwashers must keep their money in pig’s ears with pad- locks pinched on with pincers. So the wars went on. Between wars they called each other goofs and snoofs, grave robbers, pickpockets, porch climbers, pie thieves, pie-face mutts, bums, big bums, big greasy bums, dummies, mummies, rummies, sneezicks, bohunks, wops, snorkies, ditch diggers, peanuts, fatheads, sapheads, pinheads, pickle faces, horse thieves, rubbernecks, big pieces of cheese, big bags of wind, snabs, scabs, and dirty sniveling snitches. Sometimes when they got tired of calling each other names they scratched in the air with their fingers and made faces with their tongues out, twisted like pretzels. After a while, it seemed, there was no corn, no broom corn, no brooms, not even teeny sweepings of corn or broom corn or brooms. And there were no duck eggs to fry, goose eggs to boil, no buff banty eggs, no buff banty hens, no buff banty roosters, no wagons for wagon loads of buff banty eggs, no hayracks for hayrack loads of buff banty hens and buff banty roosters. And the thousand © golden ice tongs the sooners gave the boomers and the thousand silver wheelbarrows the boomers gave the sooners, both with hearts and hands carved on the handles, they were long ago broken up in one of the early wars deciding pigs must be painted both pink and green with both checks and stripes. And now, at last, there were no more pigs to paint either pink or green or with checks or stripes. The pigs, pigs, pigs were gone. So the sooners and boomers all got lost in the wars, or they screwed wooden legs on their stump legs and walked away to bigger, bigger prairies, or they started away for the rivers and mountains, stopping always to count how many fleas there were in any bunch of fleas they met. If you see anybody who stops to count the fleas in a bunch of fleas, that is a sign he is either a sooner or a boomer. So again the gophers, the black-and-brown-striped ground squirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting in the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying: “This is the prairie and the-prairie belongs to us.” Far away today where the sky drops down and the sun- sets open doors for the nights to come through—where the running winds meet, change faces, and come back—there the gophers are playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, skip tag, hop tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it. And sometimes they sit in a circle and ask: “What does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old timer answers: “ ‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.” That was the story the young rat under the oleanders, under the roses, told the other young rat while the two- sweetheart dippies sat on the fence in the moonlight look- - ing at the lumber and listening. The young rat who told the story hardly got started eating the nail he was chewing, while the young rat that did the listening chewed up and swallowed down a whole nail. As the two dippies on the fence looked at the running wild oleander and the running wild rambler roses over the lumber in the moonlight, they said to each other: “It’s easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies .. . isn’t it?” And they climbed down from the fence and went home in the moonlight. Our Town and the Champion- ship Bout By G. ROBINSON UR TOWN is the closest town of any size to Shelby, where on July 4 Jack Dempsey, world’s heavyweight champion, will defend his title against Tommy Gibbons of St. Paul. Gibbons has established training quarters in Our Town, a decision reached after a visit when the city brass band, the fire truck, and most of the inhabitants met the heavy- weight aspirant at the train and followed him in admiring throngs as he was shown the advantages Our Town pos- sessed for the establishment of ideal training quarters— | and incidentally after a substantial sum of money for the purchase of tickets to the fight had been promised. Our Town must raise $25,000. There has been no indication that the quota will not be met. Indeed tickets are very much in demand, for everyone is going to the bout, per- haps the only championship boxing match we will ever be privileged to see. Recently there appeared signs in all of the hotels in the enterprising little town of Shelby that after the first of June rooms would be $15 a day. That doesn’t bother us. We shall merely pack up the flivver and pay a dollar a foot or more for sleeping space on the prairie. The mere fact that Tommy Gibbons will train in our midst is enough to make us happy. We like to think of the nation-, yea world-wide, advertising Montana is getting by successfully putting across such a stupendous thing as a World’s Championship bout. Then, too, Shelby is only 105 miles from Our Town, and when the eyes of the sporting world are focused on that place Our Town will be within the visual range. Our Town is situated in what is known as the dry-land farming section of Montana. For miles the prairies are dotted with the forsaken shacks of farmers who have given up after years of struggling against hot winds that sear the grain to shriveled spears before it is ten inches high, grasshoppers that come in clouds and leave the land as bare as an alkali flat, hail that beats even the tough sage-brush into the ground, or weeks of moistureless days that leave the country gasping in brown desolation. Within the past two years two banks in Our Town have

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Se ee a? oe ere July 4, 1923] The Nation 17 99 EL ———————_—_—_—_—_—_—_—_——_——— failed and at least six others in smaller towns in the county have been forced to close their doors. One loan com- pany has foreclosed 100 farm mortgages during the past year, and at one session of our district court twenty-seven foreclosures were signed. More than half of our taxpayers have been delinquent for three years. There are five grade- schools in the town, attended by 600 children. These schools closed after an eight months’ term this year because of inadequate funds. Seventy-five per cent of the teachers in our grade schools have refused to return next year be- cause the school board will require them to teach nine months’ school for eight months’ wages; that is, they will receive the same salary as they did the past year and will have to teach nine months in order to keep our schools on the accredited list in the State. The Red Cross has not had enough money to pay the telephone bill and the secretary has worked on civilian relief and soldier compensation cases for two months without one penny of her salary. The County Agent, whose job it was to organize the farmers in the county, to give demonstrations on various farm subjects, to help the farmers build reservoirs and ditches to hoard the scant spring rainfall, to discover new ways of making dry-land farming pay, resigned his position in January and as an economy move it has been decided that his place will remain vacant. Because of a cut in the appro- priation by the legislature to the State University the work - of the experiment farm, which is a branch of the Agricul- tural College, has been reduced by half, Already from the farming communities come reports that the grasshoppers have appeared in such numbers that many farmers have abandoned all hope of a crop again this year —the seventh in succession. Many stopped their spring seeding. Next fall still more farms will be deserted. The fence posts will be hauled miles to be used as firewood by some farmer more courageous—or more unfortunate in that he has no other place to go. And the range cattle will find shelter in the weathering shacks. But we in Our Town are all going to the big fight at Shelby. We along with all the other towns in Montana are going to get our share of pleasure for our share of the $300,000 paid Jack Dempsey for risking his title. We are going to show Tommy, as we already familiarly call the challenger, that we know how to entertain a celebrity. He will be asked to speak to our school children, our Rotary, our Welfare Club, and our woman’s clubs. The night before Tommy Gibbons leaves for Shelby we will, in all probability, put on a huge celebration with free ice cream and confetti and a gorgeous display of fireworks, costing, we will boast, such and such a sum of money in cold cash but worth every penny of it; for we are showing that our hearts are in the right place, and We Are Putting Our Town on the Map. Contributors to This Issue WILLIAM E. BorAH is Senator from Idaho. Upton SINcLaiR is the author of “The Goose-Step.” JOHN MERRIMAN GAUus has just resigned as associate professor of political science at Amherst College. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN has just resigned as president of Amherst College. CARL SANDBURG is known for his verse and fiction. G. Rospinson is a Montana journalist. In the Driftway ROM time to time the Drifter has had considerable fear for the future of this nation. Things seemed generally to be going to rack and ruin, and the old tradi- tions of plenty and generosity and neighborliness have seemed far away. Recently, however, his faith was re- stored. Man, it appears, is not only lavishly provided with sustenance but he is willing, even anxious, to dispense it bountifully. At least, this is the state of affairs at country hotels. They are all about alike, the Drifter finds: long and low, with potted geraniums along the front windows. Din- ner is served at twelve sharp; none of your new-fangled lunches at midday and dinner at 7:30. The proprietor himself presides behind the desk and himself conducts you to the dining-room. Nor does a three-day growth of beard detract from his hospitality. The waitresses are evidently his daughters and it is they who bear the plenty to the famished guests. * *% * * * m 7 {TH the soup come young delectable onions, rhubarb, raw cabbage, and prunes. The meat follows, accom- panied by the inevitable potato and the verdant pea. There is milk to drink and soft ginger cakes to nibble at in be- tween, and for dessert three kinds of pie and rice pudding! The Drifter has a feeling that he has left out one or two things but the essentials are recorded. And each one is properly seasoned, perfectly cooked, and nicely served. Hav- ing partaken a little too lavishly at the beginning, the Drifter finds himself unable to eat the pie. Swaggering slightly he makes his way back to the desk. “What,” says he, “is the price of that princely repast?” “Seventy-five cents,” replies his host with a kind smile, and the Drifter pays with pleasure. * * * * * HIS is the way he dined half-way across the country. In New York City food seems scarce and the money to buy it scarcer. Out in the country there is more than enough for everyone, and everyone is able to enjoy it. This generosity and courtesy goes hand in hand with the twelve o’clock dinner hour—and with the nineteenth-century sys- tem of interior decoration. No cretonne covers hide the good oak chairs. The walls are frankly light blue with not one red peacock or spotted canary to mar their smooth, clean surface. A few still lifes do hang about, to be sure: a box of strawberries turned on its side; a bowl of oranges; a glassy-eyed fish or two. But on the whole the only decora- tion is cleanliness and order. The tablecloths and curtains are snowy white; the thick, substantial china shines; a faint smell of soap recently applied hangs over the whole room. * * * * * HE sight of a room like this demonstrates how little the twentieth century means to the great mass of the peo- ple. Their sons and daughters may go to the cities and become “modern.” If they stay in the towns they will ob- serve the old ways. They may have automobiles and electric lights, but golden-oak is still their favorite furniture and doughnuts for breakfast still follow the bacon and eggs. They have not even lost their faith in government, and the President of the United States is a good man who fills a hard job as well as he can. THE DRIFTER

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18 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3026 Correspondence Only an I.W. W. To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: The columned walls of the chapel of the Los Angeles crematory softly echoed a new burial ritual on the afternoon of June 2, when young Paul Borgen, martyr I.W.W., was borne to his final rest by his fellow-workers of the Marine Transport Workers of the Los Angeles harbor. The Rev. Fred R. Wedge, Presbyterian minister, who served twelve days in jail for active sympathy in the harbor strike at San Pedro, preached a sermon having the new proletarian in- terpretations of the life and words of the Industrial Worker of Nazareth, the migratory worker of Galilee. Then the shock-troops of the great non-resistant strike, broad- shouldered stevedores and longshoremen and deep-water sea- men, rose. They were all fresh from jail and stockade, 300 having been released the day before. Led by the tuneful voice of fellow-worker Duke, the voice which was one of the balance wheels of the strike, they sang as the early Christians in their caves and catacombs must have sung, the “Prison Hymn” of the I.W.W.: In California’s darkened dungeons, For the O.B.U., Remember you’re outside for us While we’re inside for you. Then they swung to “Solidarity Forever” and, gathering volume, swept into the martial strains and tragic lines of “The Red Flag.” Borgen was arrested in a raid on an I.W.W. hall in Decem- ber, and remained in jail sixty-five days with no complaint filed ~against him. During that time he lost forty pounds in weight. He was finally released without trial only to go to the hospital and die in a few days of pneumonia, contracted, it is believed, “from sleeping on the cold floor of the crowded prison. Los Angeles, June 15 VIRGINIA OWEN School Tyranny in Seattle TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Some eight or ten high-school teachers were nonplussed recently when they received the following letter: I am directed by the board of education to inform you that your name will be withheld from the list of teachers elected until an investigation is completed relative to a meeting of teachers that was held the last of June or the first of July, 1922, at which time a statement was prepared denouncing the board for certain action relative to salaries. I hope this investigation will be completed within a few days. Very sincerely yours, T. R. Coie, Superintendent. Some of the teachers sought enlightenment of the board mem- bers as to the nature of the evidence against them. These gentlemen informed the teachers that in a certain meeting, date uncertain, the accused teachers, acting for the High School Teachers’ League, adopted a resolution denouncing the board for cutting wages, a copy of which resolution they were sup- posed to have transmitted to the Central Labor Council of Seattle, or to one of the affiliated groups of that body. Teachers inquiring at the office of the secretary of the Central Labor Council were told that no communication from the high-school teachers had ever been received there. Board members further informed the teachers that copies of the alleged resolutions had come many months before to three members of that body: to Ebenezer Shorrock, banker; to W. J. Santmyer, Stone and Webster engineer, and to E. F. Taylor, Northwest representative of Dodd, Mead and Company, all notorious for their antagonism toward the teachers. The copies were typewritten, and the signatures were also. type- written. Only a little less than a year ago the board unani- mously approved a resolution to disregard every communication bearing a typewritten signature! When the teachers requested that the board allow them to see the copies of the resolution, they were told that they had been lost! Unable to produce evidence—even anonymous testimony with a typewritten signature, which their own rules forbade them to consider—the board finally, after a delay of two weeks, sent the teachers their contracts. But the contracts were not accom- panied by an apology for the false and baseless accusation. This is certainly due the teachers since some of them have worked faithfully in the system for more than fifteen years, and particularly since no resolution denunciatory of the board of education has ever been introduced in a meeting of the high- school teachers of Seattle. And what have the Seattle papers said about all of this? Not a syllable. The Seattle Daily Times which “Prints all the News That’s Fit to Print” has the entire story, has had it for two weeks from both the president of the board and from the high-school teachers, but has said nary a word. Seattle, Washington, May 15 WEBB FOOTE Ku Kluxism in the Schools To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Through the influence of the Ku Klux, Catholic teach- ers in the Clarksburg (West Virginia) Independent School Dis- trict and the adjacent Coal District schools are being refused positions for next year. Among those dismissed is a Miss , an efficient principal at Tiessing. She has been in the service of the district for a number of years, but the board of directors of Coal District suddenly finds her religion is a barrier. Another to be dismissed is Miss , librarian of Victory high school, Coal District. A third whose position is in danger (I do not yet know whether she was reappointed) is Miss , teacher of French in Victory high school. These splendid women, and others as well, are slated for dismissal. They are Catholics and the Ku Klux is in the saddle. Akron, Ohio, June 4 Davip H. PIERCE Our Free Press To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I was very much interested in your recent editorial concerning the refusal of two Detroit papers to take an ad- vertisement featuring your article on Why Henry Ford Should Not Be President. My publishers have had a similar experience concerning my book, “Crucibles of Crime,” which is an exposé of the iniquitous county-jail system in America. The book covers the jails of practically every State in the Union. When advertisements of the book were submitted to the Daily Demo- crat, Tallahassee, Florida, and the Herald of Miami, Florida— the advertisements setting forth that Florida jails were dis- cussed—both of these papers refused to run it. New York, June 18 JOSEPH F. FISHMAN ‘*Let Freedom Ring!’’ » To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit me to express through your magazine my deep gratitude to the American Legion posts of San Francisco and to the Better America Federation of California for permitting Feodor Chaliapin to appear in two concerts in San Francisco. I hope that the Chaliapin recitals will not prove detrimental to the form of our government, just as the performance of the Moscow Art Theater in New York did not affect the stability of our government. It is indeed a gratifying combination of affairs to grant music lovers the right to pursuit of happiness and at the same time leave our patriotism intact. Sacramento, California, June 1 S. PoTASHNICK

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Cer GRA rah ico rewire ee cet wth. am July 4, 1923] CRS Fi A ERG « The Nation 19 Books The Democrat’s Handbook On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill. London: J. W. Parker and Son. 1859. . 2s. 6d. ees brief but weighty treatise is the work of the distin- guished author of the “Principles of Political Economy.” Mr. Mill, as is generally known, is the son of the late James Mill, who was co-founder with the late Jeremy Bentham of that school of political and moral philosophy commonly called the utilitarian. We preface our remarks thus lest our readers, - astounded at some of the extremes to which Mr. Mill’s reasoning leads him, may think his doctrines the result of French extrava- gance or the vanities of German idealism. Whatever he pro- fesses is drawn from those great traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race which have made the polities founded by the members of that race the admiration and envy of the world. It is the purpose of Mr. Mill in this work to inquire into “the nature and limits of the power which can legitimately be exer- cised by society over the individual.” That there is such a power he, like all thinking men, takes for granted. But he is animated chiefly by his fear of the exaggeration and undue exertion of that power. Those who have fondly believed that democracy, by making the rulers the delegates of the people, has gone far to curb the injustice which society may inflict on its members, will receive a rude shock if they will follow the able reasoning of Mr. Mill. He points out that protection “against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion” is much more sorely needed than protection against that of the magistrate, and that no liberty is worthy of the name that does not leave free “all that portion of a person’s life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it affects others only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived participation.” To that portion of individual liberty he assigns the conscience, all tastes and pursuits, and the right of the like-minded to combine. Nor is this all. Mr. Mill insists that the right publicly to pro- claim the promptings of one’s conscience and the deductions of one’s reason is absolute in its nature and can be abrogated by no conceivable circumstances. For, he reasons, to silence any discussion or forbid the expression of any opinion on any pre- text is to assert the infallibility of that state or majority which issues the edict. But such an assertion is manifestly absurd. We must indeed, for purposes of action, assume the truth of what opinion we hold. But the very condition which gives us the right to make that assumption is that others may have “com- plete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion.” In a long and affecting passage Mr. Mill shows that it was men who were zealous only for their opinion, careless of truth, and intolerant of discussion, good conservative patriots and citizens, who gave Socrates the hemlock and condemned Jesus to the Cross. Hence he sees in such intolerance and in the possibility of the silencing of any opinion or shade of opinion the gravest danger that threatens the corporate life of mankind. In the modern democracies of English speech “the yoke of public opin- ion is perhaps heavier,” Mr. Mill asserts, than it has sometimes been under governments oligarchic or even autocratic in form. The tyranny of the majority over the minority he esteems the most immediate menace of our moral and political life. The ma- jority, conscious of its power, is but little likely to inquire into the truth of its opinions and hence, according to Mr. Mill, “if either of two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens in the particular time and place to be ina minority.” Any one who has followed Mr. Mill’s reason- ing thus far will not be astonished at the ultimate conclusion to which that reasoning leads him: “If all mankind minus one _ were of one opinion, and. only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would no more be justified in silencing that one person tian he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” Those who are somewhat conversant with the utilitarian philosophy will not suppose that Mr. Mill argues for liberty on merely abstract grounds. What he fears for modern society under the tyranny of majorities is the increasing “danger of mediocrity,” the elimination of powerful and original and cre- ative characters, a dead uniformity of taste and opinion and method of life that will finally lead to a more than Chinese stagnation. “The pinched and hide-bound type of human char- acter” the universalizing of which is, Mr. Mill thinks, the aim of the forces of open and stealthy Calvinism in our civilization, will never fare forth to “discover new truths” or “commence new practices.” Yet it is only by discovering new truths and commencing new practices that progress, nay, that the essential life of civilization can be sustained. There is little hope for a society or a government that does not permit or countenance “different experiments of living,” “freedom and variety of situ- ations,” “individual vigor and manifold diversity.” To the timid and conventional this will seem a dangerous doctrine. It is their own timidity that misleads them. “The danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.” Not only will genius and so progress perish in a society which insists on sameness and rigidity of thought and action, but also the happiness of the individual. For “it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being to use and interpret experience in his own way.” We have left ourselves no space to animadvert upon Mr. Mill’s particular applications of the doctrines he upholds. It can be said for him that he is wanting in neither logic nor in- trepidity. Regarding “all restraint qua restraint as evil’ he pleads for the right of men to break all engagements that have become devoid of inner meaning and survive as mere forms, and hence asserts that “the most important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both parties are in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will of either party to dissolve it.” We can promise our readers rich instruction and entertain- ment from the perusal of this little work. Stimulating it may be to them; it should cause no astonishment to the citizens of a republic whose fundamental charter guarantees “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” LupDwig LEWISOHN The Dance of Life The Dance of Life. By Havelock Ellis. Houghton Mifflin Com- pany. $4. ee seven essays which comprise this book are rich in the gold of suggestive thought and fulfilled of the power of expression. With a sanity of mind that is rare among his con- temporary adventurers in the fields of philosophy, Mr. Have- lock Ellis tells us of his own attitude toward life, and in the telling invites us to take our stand with him. So lucid is the exposition and so appealing is the invitation that the impres- sion is left on us of a book which the world will not lightly pass by. This book is not the tale of a traveler’s survey of a country he has viewed from a Pisgah height of distance; it is, in the best sense, the account of an actual sojourn, of a life really lived in a land where work is but a means to an end, and where the end itself is lost in the joy of living. For Mr. Ellis has been writing this book for the past fifteen years. Mr. Ellis is not a philosopher in the academic sense; he is a humanist in the living sense. He has learning, but he has wisdom, the wisdom of the cultured mind that distils the per- fume of the relations between things. He presents the truth rationalized both of poetry and religion. What the artist and the mystic have seen as in a glass darkly is here brought into the common light of day and shown by its beauty to be of the essential values of life for all. He begins by pointing out that alike the joy of accomplishment, the ecstasy of contemplation,

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| 20 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3026 and the enhancement of thought are the results of a rhythmic movement which is in the very nature of existence, and which may be symbolized as dancing. Rhythm and harmony are of the essence of every process by which nature and human nature unfold themselves. In the movements of the waves on the shore, in the combinations of the elements into compounds, in the motions of the stars, in the growth of plants and organized living things, in the activities of man’s thinking and dreaming and aspiring there is evinced a movement which is rhythmic and harmonious. This movement of life, both in its material and spiritual aspects, can be appreciated but not measured. It is only when we view it as art that we precipitate its values. By any other method of measurement the complex of intellec- tual, material, and moral facts which we call civilization is deprived of its validity and stability. The lesson taught by history is that civilizations flourish and then die. They are “a spiritual senility, an end which with inner necessity is reached again and again.” Viewed from their intellectual side, their so-called “progress” winds up in the defeat of the creative instinct by the possessive instinct, and results in misery and suicide. All our civilizations have been measured by quantitative standards—the abstractions of unreality—and the results of our measurements have been but the unreality of abstractions. We must now distinguish between a civilization of quantity and one of quality. A civilization of quality cannot be measured; it can only be evaluated, and the method of evaluating is the method of art. Art cannot be defined, because it is infinite. But whatever we may mean by the word, it connotes the process which makes it the natural midwife of nature. It is man’s way of assist- ing nature in its evolutionary work. “It is the reality of what we imperfectly term ‘morality’.” There are two aspects to this human faculty—the creative and the contemplative. The one is concerned with making, and the other with enjoying. One is art proper, the other is aesthetics. Art does the work; aesthet- “ics evaluates its qualities. If it is the province of art to realize beauty, it is the function of aesthetics to see and appreciate beauty. This seeing of beauty is a contemplative exercise and is akin to that of the mystic in religion, to the poet in litera- ture, and to the lover in life. The development of this aesthetic . sense is indispensable if civilization is to pass safely through its critical period, and attain any degree of persistence. The cultivation of this faculty for distinguishing qualities and en- joying them is as necessary as was the development of the optic nerve for distinguishing separate objects by means of sight, and our evolutionary energy must be directed consciously to that end. For in the power to draw joy from the images of things without possessing them lies the fuller life of man’s future. The mere possession of the thing is a barren relation- ship to which neither the possessor nor the possessed contribute their essential values. But in the enjoyment of the thing’s beauty both are involved in an experience of joy. It is this experience also which confers on the relationship the charac- ters of morality. The aesthetic power is egoistic, but unlike other egoisms it leads to no destructive struggles. “Its powers of giving satisfaction are not dissipated by the number of those who secure that satisfaction. Aesthetic contem- plation engenders neither hatred nor envy. Unlike the things that appeal to the possessive instinct, it brings men together and increases sympathy. Unlike those moralities which are com- pelled to institute prohibitions, the aesthetic sense, even in the egoistic pursuit of its own ends, becomes blended with morality, and so serves in the task of maintaining society.” As the mother soothes her child with some bright object, and not with sermons, so the artist shows us the beauty of the world and fills us with joy. It is in this way that the Adventure of Existence is justified. “Every great artist, a Dante or a Shakespeare, a Dostoevski or a Proust, thus furnishes the metaphysical justification of existence by the beauty of the vision he presents of the cruelty and the horror of existence. All the pain and the madness, even the ugliness and the commonplace of the world, he con- verts into shining jewels. By revealing the spectacular char- acter of reality he restores the serenity of its innocence. We see the face of the world as of a lovely woman smiling through her tears.” It is to M. Jules de Gaultier that Havelock Ellis is indebted for this philosophic justification for his valuation of life as an art comparable to the art of dancing which, in its origin and manifestations, is the most joyous and fullest of all arts and the one that calls for man himself in its exercise. It is the business of society to breed dancers in whom the aesthetic sense is alert, and it is Havelock Ellis’s opinion that it must do so by some eugenic process if human evolution is not to degenerate into devolution. Our utilitarian democracies are doomed if they do not provide the leisure for the workers in which to grow and fit themselves for those spiritual exercises which make for the joy of the dance of life. TEMPLE SCOTT Eternal Rome A History of Rome. By Tenney Frank. Henry Holt and Com- pany. $4.50. The Founding of the Roman Empire. By Frank Burr Marsh. The University of Texas Press. $3.50. Rome and the World Today. By Herbert S. Hadley. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $3. History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theo- dosius I to the Death of Justinian. By J. B. Bury. The Mac- millan Company. 2 volumes. $14. ENNEY FRANK has long been known as one of our fore- most Latinists, but of so discriminating and urbane a type as to set him off from those of the feather of Dean West. He has never allowed an interest in Latin syntax so to absorb him as to cause him to lose sight of the contributions of Roman civil- ization, and his arguments for a cultivation of a knowledge of the Roman life have rested primarily upon an appreciation of the cultural gains to the individual to be secured thereby, rather than upon the punitive pedagogical ideal which has constituted the rallying-point of most classicists. He is probably the closest American counterpart of Warde Fowler in this respect. Mr. Frank had made notable contributions to Roman history before the publication of the present work. He had produced a thor- ough study of Roman Imperialism, an original biography of Vir- gil, and, above all, an Economic History of Rome, which de- serves to rank with the few best American achievements in writing the economic history of any country or any age. It is an interesting and curious fact that while up to 1922 no American scholar had produced a textbook of a college grade on Roman history, two have appeared within the last year, one by A. E. R. Boak, and the work of Mr. Frank under review. As compared with Mr. Boak’s volume, Mr. Frank has made far greater concessions to the conceptions and methods of the “new history.” It is less compressed, and less avowedly and exclu- sively. political, diplomatic, and military. Every phase of Roman culture is treated with relative thoroughness. Some six out of the thirty-two chapters are entirely devoted to economic activi- ties, social life, law, literature, and art, and much culture- history is found throughout other portions of the book. Chap- ter xxI is a marvel of condensation and clarity in treating a broad field of economic history. Though evidently somewhat rapidly composed, the volume is clearly written, the needs of the general reader being kept in mind throughout, sometimes to the exclusion of certain phases of the formal mechanics of textbook-making. There are few points at which the reviewer would care to criticize the work. It would probably be improved by a general organization into major periods of Roman development and de-

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July 4, 1923] cline. Undoubtedly the later Roman Empire is treated too briefly when it is not ignored entirely. One misses the eco- nomic and social material on this period which enriched Dill’s treatment of the last century of the Western Empire. The im- portance of Gaul for the Roman Empire and early medieval institutions, so well brought out by Ferrero, Fustel, and Jullian, is practically ignored. And one who has read W. L. Wester- mann’s notable article on the economic causes of the decline of classical society will feel that Mr. Frank does not adequately assess (see p. 571) the effect of these material factors operating in the complex of influences producing the gradual disintegra- tion of Roman society and culture. Little attention is given to the problems of imperial administration and reorganization, an omission which the author defends. On the whole, however, few competent critics will be likely to question the assertion that - for a combination of modernity of viewpoint, clear exposition, reliability, and proportion the book is not equaled by another of its general type in the English language. The work by Mr. Marsh is a relatively detailed account of the stirring events in Roman history from the time of Pompey to the establishment of the empire by Augustus. While rather conventional in tone and content, the episodical and biographi- cal elements do not loom so large as to obscure the revelation of the development of party issues and leaders, and the evolu- tion of definite new types of constitutional machinery. Julius Caesar, naturally, plays a central role in this drama, and Mr. Marsh devotes a long and discriminating chapter to Caesar’s policies, which avoids extreme approval or disparagement. Augustus is regarded as having triumphed through tact, judg- ment, astuteness, and restraint rather than force and origi- nality. Mr. Marsh contends that the pressure of practical neces- sity, and the force of circumstances, rather than the design or wish of Augustus, led to the end of the Republic and the estab- lishment of the Empire. The economic and social aspects of this important revolution are scarcely touched upon. While the book is not an imposing example of original research or in any sense an illustration of the newer type of dynamic and syn- thetic history, it is a commendable and reliable effort to recon- struct and summarize the political history of this important epoch on the basis of the results of the researches of the last generation of students in this field. Ex-Governor, now Professor, Hadley has made an earnest effort to write pragmatic history. Like others from Dionysius to Bolingbroke, he believes that history is chiefly useful as “philosophy teaching by example.” He has attempted to cheer those despondent concerning European and American society under the sway of Drs. Poincaré and Harding by assuring them that the times were equally out of joint in the period following the civil wars of the later Roman Republic, and yet the Roman polity was saved by the genius of Augustus, who is the real hero of the book, and about whose reign the discussion centers. While critical historians are inclined to view with suspicion and incredulity the overworking of precise analogies in history, it is true that there are interesting similarities between the condi- tions following 31 B.c. and 1918 a.D., and Mr. Hadley has rather cleverly and effectively developed these. While rather over- eulogistic in the treatment of Augustus, the picture of his reign and policies is not inaccurate in its major outlines. Though the book is based on secondary works in English, and these not always the best or discriminatingly used, it is a creditable per- formance for a scholarly publicist. That the term “the scholar in politics” is an elastic and encompassing one may well be observed by comparing Mr. Hadley’s work with a somewhat similar earlier effort, in scope, by Dr. James Hamilton Lewis, “Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States.” The author does not make it clear who is to be the modern Augustus to save us from the impending disintegration of Western civil- ization, but one familiar with Mr. Hadley’s political past may hazard a modest guess that he died on January 6, 1919. Two works more widely separated in nature and content than The Nation 21 Mr. Hadley’s and the ponderous volumes of Mr. Bury could searcely be imagined. Not even Mr. Frank can rank with Bury as an authority on the whole range of Greek and Roman history. He has made important contributions to most phases of classical history from the earliest days of Greek development to the later period of the Eastern Empire. The present work is an intensive and detailed study of the Germanic invasions and the period of Justinian, covering the first part of the era treated in his ‘Later Roman Empire,” published in 1889—his first notable contribution to historical literature. In the first vol- ume he surveys once more the perennially absorbing subject of the infiltration of the “barbarians” into the Roman Empire, on the basis of the most critical use of the original sources. His conclusions are completely disruptive of the old myth of a cataclysmic swarming of myriad Germanic hosts, which has been created and perpetuated by Charles Kingsley and those who have followed him. The Germans came in slowly, were few in numbers, created relatively little additional confusion, and preserved for a considerable time the old imperial fictions. The second volume is devoted chiefly to the exploits and reforms of Justinian, and the author justly claims that this is not only the most recent but also the most thorough treatment of the reign of Justinian to be found in any historical work. The book is a model of patient research, distinguished alike for a mastery of original sources and acquaintance with recent monographs. It is, however, strictly political and military history, embrac- ing little social, economic, or cultural material, and making no extensive attempt at an interpretation of events. In fact, no other historian known to the reviewer possesses the dualistic capacity of Mr. Bury to display conspicuous talent for achieve- ment in cultural and interpretative history along with remark- able patience in grinding out conventional compendiums of in- tensive narrative and episodical history. It would seem that the author of “The Ancient Greek Historians,” “The History of the Freedom of Thought,” and “The Idea of Progress” must possess a most saving and impelling sense of humor to carry him through the tedium of preparing “A History of Greece,” or “The History of the Later Roman Empire.” HARRY ELMER BARNES The Case of the Immigrant The Immigrant’s Day in Court. By Kate Holladay Claghorn. Harper and Brothers. $2.50. HE function of the court and the law should be to secure justice and to create respect for the state whose authority they represent. “The Immigrant’s Day in Court,” which is the ninth volume of the Carnegie Corporation’s Americanization Studies, is mainly devoted to showing how the “court,” which in- cludes also the laws, falls short of securing either of these ends. On the one side are the officers of the court in whom wisdom and justice do not always dwell, and on the other side is the immigrant whose ignorance, crudeness, helplessness, and alien status make prejudice and impatience easy. We must not for- get that the immigrant is maladjusted in a thousand ways which make his case more difficult—in customs, in social and moral codes, in industry, and in language. He is the very summation of exploitability. Miss Claghorn has drawn an accurate and detailed picture of both sides of the shield so that one may learn a great deal, not only about the immigrant, but about the personnel and the methods of the courts which are thrown into high relief by the difficulty of the immigrant problem. Prejudice, corruption, and technicality often sup- plant sympathy, honesty, and flexibility. Exploitability begets exploitation; the corrupt lawyer and his more corrupt “run- ner” hover like vultures over the immigrant in trouble. Ques- tions of money which grow out of a great variety of conditions; troubles of family disorganization which come from the re- placing in American life by irresponsibility the firm social con-

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. 22 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8026 trol of the native village; the troubles of labor which inhere in the industrial status of the immigrants, all these furnish problems of what might be called common justice. Our system was devised to meet the needs of a rural homo- geneous population, and it has never been reorganized to meet the needs of an urban heterogeneous population. People who are interested in bringing about a better adaptation of legal procedure to modern conditions will find in this book a mass of detail and good judgment. In addition to the courts proper there is the mass of regula- tive and discriminatory law which applies to immigration and naturalization. From the point of view of the purpose of these laws, namely, to secure better citizens for America, the meas- ure of success is found in the attitudes of the people to whom they apply. Many of these laws are just and understandable, but some are pernicious, and many are confused and confus- ing, and some, like the alien income tax, are discriminatory, and in individual cases often unjust. The deportations of 1919-20 are described in full, and since they fell in last analysis under the authority of the Depart- ment of Justice they belong to the “court.” Merely feeling ashamed, as all good Americans eventually will, for this epi- sode will not wipe out the harm done to America. Jerome Davis in “The Russian Immigrant” shows that the bitterness aroused by the prejudice and injustice of that period, of which the deportations were the tangible symbol, makes every Rus- sian community aggressively hostile to America. If this re- action were limited to Russians the numerical problem would not be so serious, but it has made every alien nationality feel disillusioned about America. As an Americanizing agency this book shows that the laws and their enforcement have been not only a failure but a detriment. Assimilation depends on the way people feel, not on how they conform. As Miss Claghorn says: “What can be the effect on the immigrant who has gone through these raids and arrests? One effect, as has been pointed out, must be intellectual confusion, resulting from the different decisions of different government officials as to the meaning of the anarchy clauses of the immigration law. ... We have seen, in the study of cases presented here, how some of the people felt about it, and it is to be remembered that for one person actually arrested and ordered deported there are perhaps hundreds of foreign born who have been the object of attack by local au- — thorities, who were not ordered deported, who remain here, but who are learning an unfortunate lesson in government and citizenship. ...If we want the alien to respect government and the orderly processes of the law we certainly do not want to give him examples of mob rule and lynch law, or law mixed with loot.” On the whole the picture is a dark one, but our conviction of sin is not yet deep enough so that the lesson of experience has been learned. Another chapter will need to be added if the bill for the registration of aliens and the payment of an an- nual fee is passed. These measures, with most of the anti- sedition clauses urged by Mitchell Palmer in his evil day but for which native Americans would not stand, were in the bills proposed by Representative Johnson and Senator Shortridge in the last Congress. They are to be pushed again by the De- partment of Labor, urged by Raymond Crist of the Bureau of Citizenship. It would be hard to conceive more pernicious legislation, and yet it is one with the recent applications and perversions of the law in dealing with the immigrant. Miss Claghorn offers few constructive suggestions. A change of attitude toward the immigrant is, of course, the most funda- mental necessity, and that is larger than a question’ of law. There are persons, communities, and organizations whose ac- tivity is mitigating the bitterness which has been engendered. Legal aid societies do a great deal, but their scope is more or less arbitrarily limited. There seems to be no alternative except to reap the whirlwind, but reading this book will show us where to repent. HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER For the Freedom of India India in World Politics. By Taraknath Das. B. W. Huebsch. $1.25. ‘*y HAVE read Das’s book. It is indeed ‘valuable’ and will open many eyes, letting people see that England’s domi- nance of India is a world menace.” So writes an Englishman; and the careful reader of “India in World Politics,” with its authoritative tone, its obvious sincerity, and withal its innumer- able citations from English, American, and other authorities, is likely to incline toward his point of view. With certain minor changes this book might well have been entitled ““An Outline of World Politics” and expanded into a two-volume work. As it stands it is a good source-book especially for all political and academic connections. Could the bock be read and taken to heart by our statesmen it would give this country what it lacks today—a definite foreign policy. Put into the hands of our youth it ought to give us future leaders who might create such a policy. But— Several conclusions are bound to take shape as one catches the drift of the author’s argument: first, that British control of India is an important factor in international relations; sec- ond, that this control has tempted Britain to extend her mastery widely, especially in Asia; and third, that such extended control is undeniably a source of continued diplomatic irritation lead- ing to perpetual war. From the point of view of an Indian, Mr. Das holds that India is morally as well as physically the center of the world struggle for peace, and for that reason should be entirely free from foreign rule; and his conclusions may lead his readers to believe with him that this great country, which breathes the idealism of Rajdharma (ruling based on righteous- ness), must be a factor in bringing about this world peace, which today the “tottering insolence of the West” so seriously threatens. The Introduction which Robert Morss Lovett has contributed to this big little book is a model of clear thinking and straight- forward phraseology. Perhaps the most significant passages are those which deal with that “plunderbund,” the League of Nations, and the “hypocritical imperialism’”—both British and American—which it would buttress and perpetuate. ‘Modern . imperialism,” he says, “is no longer frankly predatory. It... sentimentalizes itself as the white man’s burden.” In the opinion of Mr. Lovett, Mr. Das has given in this résumé of predatory imperialism a judgment and a warning. “With (our) account opened in the ledger of imperialism,” he points out, “we tend to be less critical of the solvency of other imperialistic enter- prises.” A reading of “India in World Politics” cannot but make us more critical, and such criticism will be our safe-conduct to the territory of friendly peoples, and a guaranty that our goal is, not national vandalism, but the internation. BLANCHE WATSON Caillaux on Europe Whither France? Whither Europe? By Joseph Caillaux. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. Peer seems to be in a fair way of solving the vexing problem of what to do with ex-presidents and ex-premiers. She sets them to writing books. Caillaux has the advantage of most of them—he has produced his third post-war book. “Agadir” and “Mes Prisons” took the bitterness of self-justifi- cation out of his system and in “Whither France? Whither Europe?” he is able to consider Europe impersonally. He also has the advantage, rare among politicians, of a really first- class economic mind. He did not, like Viviani, rise to fame as a Socialist and then, when within reach of power, move to a safely moderate position; nor is he so narrowly French. Cail- laux reads English, Italian, and German—he is, in his outlook,

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A GEG . EE A I ee Fk, NE ee ern a July 4, 1923] essentially a “good European.” Political discredit and banish- ment from the capital, with the resultant freedom from political exigencies, have done his mind no harm. What, then, does this ablest of French ex-premiers say? That “absorption of German merchandise and utilization of German labor to reconstruct the devastated regions” would enable France to recover most with least harm to the economy of Europe and the world (the articles of which this book is composed were written in 1921); that 30 to 40 billions of gold francs would be an optimistic estimate of possible reparations; that England and the United States should accept German bonds in payment of their debts; that steps toward federation of the production of nations are necessary, and that while within the states parliamentary assemblies should be main- tained with political powers, complete control of the economic state should be handed over to new organizations—“in a word, to combine western democracy with Russian sovietism.” This is good if rather indifferent liberal doctrine. It would be encouraging if one could believe that such doctrine were common among French politicians. But Caillaux had to write his articles in a little dissenting paper, Le Progrés Civique; and his own party does not yet dare demand the return of his forfeited civic rights. He is still being punished for his pre- war policy of rapprochement with Germany. Nevertheless the hope of those who look for a restoration of the old Europe lies in just such shrewd, cautious, economic minds as Caillaux’s. LS. G: Monumental Scholarship The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine Under the Fatimids. By Jacob Mann, M.A., D.Lit. Two volumes. Oxford University Press. $12. A History of the Church to A. D. 461. Three volumes. By B. J. Kidd, D.D. Oxford University Press. $19.35. SCHOLARLY work should command reverence and awe. Even when it is the product of a seedy gradgrind, of a humorless, nerveless, human source-drill, it is a poetic and magnificent thing. The sheer labor involved in the building of it, the terrible because repressed passion it reveals in him who could spend years in gathering the material and meticulously putting it together, should make a reviewer profoundly humble in approaching it. Especially so, however, when the work ex- plores utterly virgin forest and is as thorough as Dr. Mann’s dissertation on the Jews under the Fatimids. The history of the Jews in Palestine and Egypt during the Dark Ages was practically unknown to us until several years ago some scraps of old Hebrew prayer-books and other writings were dis- covered in an ancient synagogue limbo in Cairo by Professors Schechter and Taylor. It being forbidden to destroy all worn- out prayer-books and other sacred documents, Jews were com- pelled to store them away in genizoth, hiding-places, and thus with the scraps which the ancients rejected the moderns have laid the foundation of the history of the Jews during several centuries. Professor Mann is the first to explore this material with any thoroughness and order, and his work is perhaps the most original contribution in the field of Judaica in a generation or more. On the basis of some two hundred fragmentary docu- ments (they fill the whole of the second volume) painstakingly pieced together and translated from the tortured Hebrew of the period, he fills an hiatus in Jewish history with startling data. It seems that Jewish life in Palestine by no means ceased with the Dispersion, but that literary productiveness and social ac- tivity flourished there for many centuries thereafter and to a degree never dreamed of even by the most daring of past his- torians. For its significance and its consecration to learning, Professor Mann’s work is monumental. Professor Kidd’s three volumes on early church history are of the lesser breed among scholarly works, since they explore The Nation 23 no dark continents or even corners, but merely retread well- trodden paths with perhaps more elaborate attention to the flints and pebbles that make them clear. Still the work is an imposing one, and it commands respect if only because it is the result of almost forty years of research. Even though it re- veals a lack of familiarity with the rich Talmudic material on the period, though it is vitiated somewhat by the evident high- church prejudices of the author, it is still perhaps the com- pletest and most competent account of the early Christian church to be found in the English language. LEWIS BROWNE Books in Brief Suggestion and Medical Analysis. By William Brown. H. Doran Company. $1.50. Dr. Brown is a well-known London specialist in nerves and mental diseases. Incidentally between the first and second editions of this book one notes that Dr. Brown has moved to Harley Street. This little book is designed for the lay reader, but the author has not entirely avoided technical phraseology. Dr. Brown has, however, given us a book which is a very fair- minded presentation of the subject. He discusses M. Coué with considerable, but not unlimited, approval and with a kindly tolerance. On the whole it is a readable book and scientifically sound. George The Fern Lover’s Companion. By George Henry Tilton. Little, Brown and Company. $3. There is a peculiar fascination about ferns. They choose the edges of the loveliest waterfalls, the most magnificent rocky cliffs, the greenest glades, the deepest bogs, and lead their pursuer to the choicest spots in all outdoors. From the mo- ment when their first fiddle-heads begin to uncoil in the warmth of April to the mid-winter thaws which expose the evergreen fronds of Christmas fern and polypody, they light the woods. The amateur botanist delights in them because he knows that at most he may find some thirty-odd species about his home, and familiarity with them all is within the range of amateur possibilities. Mr. Tilton has been collecting ferns for fifty years, and reading the fern-books as they appeared from decade to decade. From one out-of-print book he has culled a key to the ferns, from another a calendar of their time of fruiting, from a third its best photographs. To these he has added a set of descriptions, a few of his own filicological reminiscences, a bibliography with sketches of the men who have written on ferns, and made a book which fern-lovers will want to own. From the Deep of the Sea. By Charles Edward Smith. The Macmillan Company. $5. Dr. Smith has edited the diary of his father who was sur- geon on the whaling ship Diana on her disastrous voyage in 1886-1887. Stefansson tells us that the Arctic is not a land of peril. These mariners were not equipped with his ability to live off the country. The Diana was caught in the ice-pack and the dreaded Arctic night closed around them. The surgeon felt it was his duty to inspire the men. His voluminous diary was a necessary outlet for his emotions. He wrote with an affecting simplicity. This account of the death of Captain Grenville is the equal of any chapter in Melville. He felt it necessary to hide from his patients the fact that they were afflicted with scurvy. He disguised the taste of the lime-juice which was his only preventive with other medicines. He knew that the trouble the men had with their teeth was a symptom of this disease, but he attributed it to smoking tea-leaves. The doctor was glad when he did not succeed in shooting a polar bear, because he believed in the Eskimo superstition that its meat was unhealthy. This story out of the past is one which adds to human dignity.

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International Relations Section Gandhi’s Life in Prison ARJYUT SHANKERLAL, a fellow-prisoner of Ma- hatma Gandhi, has contributed to Young India of Bombay an account of the Indian leader’s life in the Yer- avda jail, from which the following is extracted: MATERIAL COMFORTS So far as material comforts are concerned, there is very little to be said. From my own personal experience I can say that I was kindly and courteously treated by the immediate prison authorities from the two superintendents down to the jailers and wardens. We were given the food we asked for. The doors of our cells were kept open. It was necessary for Mahatma Gandhiji because of his life-long habit of sleeping out in the open and for me because of my nerves. We were allowed an unlimited supply of books also from outside. Later, for health reasons, we were both of us allowed lights and bedsteads, and recently Mahatma Grandhiji has been allowed the use of a mos- quito curtain, because of the trouble of mosquitoes during the season. We had all the clothing and bedding we needed, and we were given the choice, if we so pleased, to have our bedding also from outside. We were allowed to do hand-spinning on our own wheels as a voluntary occupation. MAHATMA IN GoopD HEALTH Mahatma Grandhiji is keeping very good health. While in prison we heard that there were stories abroad of his ill health and melancholia. He was hurt to hear about this. He said he would feel ashamed if he suffered from melancholia. He further said that a civil resister who would feel moody if he had to go to prison has no business to court imprisonment or do anything that would bring it on to him. He must be prepared to treat prison as his home, if he values his country’s liberty above ‘everything else. He added that if he ever fell ill, it would not be on account of any lack of attention on the part of the prison authorities, but because of his own carelessness or some inherent weakness in his constitution. He is taking all reasonable care of his health. THE DARK SIDE OF THE PICTURE So much for the bright side of the picture. It has, I am sorry to say, a dark side, too. While animal comforts are well looked after, he is mentally starved. The allowance of books is no doubt a very great comfort but the unnecessary isolation im- posed upon him is severely felt by him. Immediately after our admission to the Yeravda Prison, I was taken away from him. We reached there about 5 p. m. We had some fruits with us. Even these were not allowed. Things, however, improved the next morning. But we never expected to be separated. Mahat- maji pleaded that I was suffering from nerves and his company would help to soothe me; but all to no purpose. He has given a graphic description of this in his letter to Hakim Ajmalkhanjji, which the Government would not send for that reason. He makes mention therein of Messrs. Deshpande and Verumal who were in the prison at that time. After about two months’ sepa- ration I was sent back to him, and I rendered such humble service as I was capable of. He needs oil massage every even- ing but he would not have it from any but friends. Whilst my being with him may perhaps have been soothing, the isolation from other prisoners remained and still remains till this day. It is so utterly unnecessary. The other ordinary prisoners are not isolated unless they are bad characters. Mahatma Gandhi therefore rightly regards this as an additional punishment. The present superintendent, though a strict disciplinarian, would place all political prisoners in a separate block, but the Government would not listen to it. Till recently all the other political prisoners used to take their meals together, and hold conversation whilst under supervision. The authorities have now separated them—for no cause given by them, so far as I know—and have stopped all conversation. LETTER TO HAKIMJI Not FORWARDED I may here mention that as the Government would not forward his letter addressed to Hakimji unless he agreed to omit pas- sages objected to by Government, even though they bore directly upon the treatment meted out to him, he has refused to avail himself of the right of every prisoner to write and receive a letter once every three months. And there was the danger, too, of his doing the same with the right of seeing friends and relatives. For some time he was allowed to see two friends and three relatives at the interviews, and the conversation at those interviews was limited to non- political matters. But it seems, last December, Hakim Ajmalk- hanji, Pundit Motilal Nehru, and Mr. Manganlal Gandhi, one of his nephews, were among the proposed visitors, and all the three applications were refused. Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Chhan- ganlal Gandhi, who were granted permission, did not avail themselves of it that time. MAHATMA’S WARNING While I am making this statement I am conscious of the warning given by Mahatma Gandhi that there should be no befogging of the main issue, nor does he want any agitation for any special concessions. He is fighting out for what he con- siders to be rights of prisoners. He holds that civil resisters when they go to prison are like prisoners of war and they may and should fight for their rights in a becoming manner. Whether the Government treats them, when they take charge of them as prisoners, as human beings requiring mental as well as material food or merely as animals like cattle requiring only physical comforts, makes no difference in the attitude of the civil resisters who have to bear their lot cheerfully in prison. FLOGGING OF MULSHI PRISONERS The other day we came to learn that five Mulshi Petha men were flogged for doing short task. We were horrified to think that men could be flogged for doing short task. Mahatma Gandhiji took this seriously to heart and immediately wrote to the. superintendent, offering in the name of humanity to speak to these two men and if they claimed to be Satyagrahis to per- suade them to work to the utmost of their capacity. The Gov- ernment thanked him for the offer but would not accept a pris- oner’s assistance even if it resulted in the avoidance of flog- ging. The refusal, as it is, is only a minor affair. The main question is whether there should be flogging for short task or even refusal to work. The public may not be knowing that the authorities have other punishments open to them. There is the penal diet, gunny clothing, simple fetters, bar fetters, standing handcuffs, etc. No PuBuic oR PRIVATE MESSAGE The public would be naturally anxious to know about Mahatma Gandhiji’s present political views. He was at first inclined to give a public message and several private ones. He started the discussion, but he suddenly stopped and would not give any. He felt that as a prisoner he had no right to send any public mes- sages. Coming to private messages, he would want not to omit a single friend, and that was well-nigh impossible. Thus I have no messages from Mahatma Gandhiji, either private or public, but I can say that his views have undergone no change in any single particular. He swears by non-violence, Charkha, Hindu Moslem unity, and the removal of untouchability. He spins regularly every day for four hours, unless his eyes do not per- mit him. He reads largely religious books, chiefly the Gita and the Upanishads. He has read the Koran and he is now re- reading the Bible. He has asked me to send him all the Vedas and the Puranas with translations and he intends to study them | 7 -

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July 4, 1923] The Nation 25 Labor Defense Council FRANK P. WALSH, Chief Counsel for the Defendants NATIONAL OFFICE FEDERATION OF LABOR BUILDING 166 W. Washington Street Chicago, III. “For the defense of the Michigan Criminal Syndicalist defendants prosecuted at the instance of the Federal Secret Service in its drive against organized labor.”’ “To carry on in connection with tha legal defense, a campaign against all infringements upon the right of free speech, free press and freedom of assemblage and all measures restricting the rights of the workers.” National Com mittee ROGER N. BALDWIN New York, N. Y. NORMAN B. BARR Chicago, II. DENNIS E. BATT Detroit, Mich. J. G. BROWN Chicago, Ill. ROBERT M. BUCK Chicago, Il. JOHN C. CLAY Chicago, Ill. LENETTA M. COOPER Chicago, Il. R. D. CRAMER Minneapolis, Minn. EUGENE V. DEBS Terre Haute, Ind. JOHN C. FLORA Chicago, Il. ELIZ. GURLEY FLYNN New York, N. Y. MAX S. HAYES Cleveland, Ohio JOHN HAYNES HOLMES New York, N. Y. DR. JOHN A. LAPP Chicago, Ill. FRANCES C. LILLIE Chicago, Il. MORITZ J. LOEB Chicago, Il. REV. JOHN A. RYAN, D. D. Washington, D. C. JOHN T. TAYLOR Detroit, Mich. HULET M. WELLS Seattle, Wash. GEORGE P. WEST San Francisco, Cal. Co-operating with Committee of the Defendants EARL R. BROWDER Chicago, Il. WILLIAM F. DUNNE New York, N. Y. WILLIAM FOSTER Chicago, Ill. Cc. E. RUTHENBERG Cleveland, Ohio National Officers ROBERT M. BUCK Chairman EUGENE V. DEBS Vice-Chairman REV. JOHN A. RYAN, D. D. Vice-Chairman MORITZ J. LOEB Secretary FRANCES C. LILLIE Treasurer WILLIAM Z. FOSTER c’y Defendant’s Com. OPEN LETTER TO LIBERTY LOVING AMERICANS eS SS a a ee If you have followed the cases of William Z. Foster and C. E. Ruthenberg in St. Joseph, Mich., we believe that you will agree with us that a more out and out free speech fight has never been fought in the American courts. The conditions for this fight were almos perfect,--the charge, not of overt acts committed, but merely of "Assemblage"; the defendants willing to meet and fight the issue squarely; the attorneys for the defense willing to defend the issue without apology for the principles of their clients; a labor movement while not entirely united, still interested and militant enough to give the defense the greatest support that has ever been given ina Similar case. Had the Ruthenberg case ended in any way other than conviction the fight would, in the largest sense, have been completely won. Now, however, the struggle must be continued through the higher courts and in the case of a defeat there carried on in the trial court again for the defense of the other men and women involved. So far, more than 95% of the financial support which made the defense possible has come direct from the labor movement. The labor movement took the responsibility and so far has most generously responded to it. Up until now almost no appeal for funds has been made to anyone not directly connected with the labor movement and as a result very little money has been received from that source. Now, however, with the principal field of activity removed from the public notice to the chambers of the Michigan Supreme Court, it has become increasingly difficult to secure the necessary continued financial support. We therefore take the opportunity to appeal to those, who although not connected with the labor movement, have nevertheless taken up cudgels for Civil Liberties. To the end that the Michigan defense be successful and thus gain an important victory for Civil Liberties throughout the country, we solicit your early and generous financial assistance. Very sincerely yours, LABOR DEFENSE COUNCIL Robert M. Buck, Chairman Moritz J. Loeb, Secretary Labor Defense Council 166 W. Washington 5t., Chicago, Ill. Ene losed you will find $2250 as my contribution, to, the defense fund in the Michigan cases to help carry the Ruthenberg case to a successful appeal. eee ee a Address

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26 in the original. He religiously devotes one hour to Urdu and hopes to carry on correspondence with his Mohammedan friends in Urdu. He rises early in the morning at the stroke of four and begins his day with Ashram prayer and ends it similarly, that is, with the Ashram prayer. He is firmly convinced that the salvation of India is impossible unless hand-spinning be- comes universal; for without that industry it is impossible to get rid of the growing pauperism of the millions of this land, and without getting rid of that, India cannot regain or re- discover her soul. Chileans Condemn ‘‘Yankee Justice’’ N the day when the steamship bearing the delegation from the United States to the Pan-American Confer- ence reached Valparaiso a general strike was called in that city by the Industrial Workers of the World in protest against “Yankee Justice.’ The following resolutions against the confinement of political prisoners in the United States were passed: The Chilean workers, members of the I.W.W., assembled in a public meeting, resolve to make known to the United States Government through the president of the fifth Pan-American Congress the most ardent wishes of the members of this body that all our comrades today languishing in the bastilles of North America for the “crime” of expressing their pacifist opinions at the beginning of the last war be set free immedi- ately. And especially we demand the freedom of those two martyrs of this age, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. We do not forget, Honorable President of the Pan-American Congress, that under one excuse or another the barbarous jus- tice of America has jailed and sentenced workers in your coun- try for the simple reason that they were militants in the ranks of labor. Therefore it is our duty to make it known through you to the Hon. Mr. Harding that we will not stop at anything in the campaign against Yankee justice, and it may happen that in order to condemn by every means at our disposal the arbitrary and despotic law of your country we may have to tie up that commerce which has so promising a future in this small but prosperous corner of the earth. We hope that our cry for jus- tice will be heard by the good people of the great democratic republic of North America. With best wishes to the president and all members of the Pan- American Congress. EMmILio MEZA, General Secretary SANTIAGO Flores, for the Marine Transport Workers PorFIRIO Soto, for the General Confederation Tyranny in American Samoa READER of The Nation has sent a letter received by him from a man who recently visited American Samoa. Conditions there, under Navy rule, are pictured as follows: After twenty-two years of American occupation Samoa can boast of one mile of decent road, one respectable school build- ing, one disinterested American teacher, the medical dispen- saries for 9,000 people on four islands, and constant robbing and exploitation by a small clique of petty grafters supposed to represent the great American nation in the islands. My wife and I took a trip to Samoa this past summer and by constant living and talking with the natives acquired a per- sonal knowledge of their ambitions and desires such as no governor ever has or ever will acquire during his two years of office. The Nation There are sixteen chiefs now doing from five to seven years at hard labor who were sentenced for offenses which would be laughed at in any civilized court in the world. I tried to put some of the beautiful hand-made Samoan articles on the market here when I returned, to enable them to obtain a fair price for their labor and have a little money for a few little luxuries which any human being craves. But no! As I suspected, they are not allowed to ship them to me, as I am suspected of sympathizing with them. They have no way of making a cent, except by working like slaves for the gov- ernor at $1 a day, or cutting copra and packing it to town on their backs and receiving 2% cents a pound for it. They sent $180 of hard-earned money and seven letters back by us, and for that enormous crime three chiefs lost their jobs and two whole villages were confined within their limits for weeks. So now if two or more Samoans are found talking together about Samoan affairs they are sent to jail. And remember, in spite of newspaper reports to the contrary, there has never been any violence in American Samoa. They have had every excuse, but are so kindly and forgiving that they go on from bad to worse government, hoping and trusting for better con- ditions. They listened with doubt and incredulity when I told them of the way the so-called civilized peoples went out and butchered their brothers by the millions in the late war. Also the way the majority of the civilized peoples seemed to think of nothing but chasing dollars. Practically all Samoans are Christians, but even before Christianity came they loved and respected their father and mother, and all members of the family worked in harmony together and shared alike. They are so generous that they will hardly keep a present if they can possibly share it with someone. Life in the Virgin Islands HE following is from the Emancipator (St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) of May 23: Natives may not use fire-arms without a license, but on Sun- day last a marine, in the uniform of this Great Republic, fired a shot at a boy (native). We cannot say whether it was done with intent to scare, kill, or wound. Rumor says the boy pitched a few pebbles at a cat, which to our mind was no busi- ness of this warrior. An altercation followed and while the boy ran off the sentry fired the shot which lodged into the walls of the Council’s office. The hole is about one inch. This brave feat was done not in the land of the Huns but under the Stars and Stripes in the sunny Virgin Isles which form a part of the rich, energetic, and progressive domain of Uncle Sam. Our New Telephone Call The telephone call of The Nation has been changed to Whitehall 7730. friends will find it convenient to make Our a memorandum of this pending the pub- lication of a new telephone directory.

[Vol. 117, No. 3026 qc SS SS ————E rege at miIinronwasa = ne gE PU A a a)

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII Contents MOETORTAL PARAGRAPHS. 0... ec esc cc ee niuwercr eres etcerer ees cons 27 EDITORIALS: Ree CUIC aca aie sine leslie aiecsos 4 oo10.o s.elsyeie eieaialminiviaiele cle wis cnscewieeceee 29 STO MPTESEE INORG WNIT’ o clcre sialalcie cies vec 0 onielc dia eMBlaleidiviesc oe cjainiamaes’aaeneee 30 After” Florida, Alabama... ........-sccecdoecsarercrcscccscrsrccesecs 31 nee Wnite Mans BUtOeIW nes > ~ s% 00%. ctnicisia iepieic'e sce eteccssceessese 81 SLAVERY OR SELF-EXTERMINATION: A FORECAST OF EUROPE’S Piller. By Bertrand Russell. 2... cc. ccnesccieccc cs acncseeseeeenee 32 THESE UNITED STATES—XXXIII. OKLAHOMA: LOW JACKS AND THE CROOKED GAME. By Burton Rascoe...............eeeeseees 84 REVOLUTIONARY DAYS IN BULGARIA. By Theodor Berkes........ 37 Tete Pale AY. § By the Drifter. ....jcs 45 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpITor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ADverRTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SuspscripTION RAtTES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. DWARD W. BOK has instituted a competition which reduces to insignificance his earlier inducements to promote the building of convenient and inexpensive dwell- ing-houses. The prize offer he has just announced is based on the conviction that the chance of winning $100,000 will stimulate the minds of Americans to an inventive activity for which the mere ambition to bring about peace on earth ‘would be an inadequate incentive. Blessed are the peace- makers, it suggests, when they can win a fortune by their peace-making. The conditions of the award will make this the largest sum ever offered for a gold brick. There is to be no awaiting the test of events, but half of the money is to be paid upon selection of the best peace plan by a jury and the rest when the practicability of the approved plan has been “demonstrated” either through its adoption by the Senate or because a sufficient popular response indorses it. It is unlucky for ex-President Wilson that Mr. Bok’s offer is so belated. A few years ago his decision to involve America in the war—as the best means of “cooperating with other nations to achieve and to preserve world peace’’— would have been held to meet one, if not both, of these re- quirements. At the time of the Washington Conference either President Harding or Secretary Hughes might have put forward a no less convincing claim to an immortal repu- tation and the $100,000. Would not Mr. Bok have shown himself more sagacious if he had appended to his offer the condition that the prize money should be refunded by the

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1923 No. 3027

winner if it should turn out—five years, let us say, after the award—that the hopes raised by the scheme had proved illusory? ENERAL GOURAUD has arrived, a valiant, eager warrior whose mission is to convert these United States to greater sympathy with the French war in the Ruhr. Bands will play and crowds will cheer, and the general will be photographed kissing babies, but if M. Gaston Liébert, chief of the new French Propaganda Mission in New York, were to ask our advice we should tell him that the war is over and that the old stuff is too old. Kissing generals on tour no longer stir the American soul as they did in 1917. MARK is worth one two-thousandth of a cent today. é Two years ago it was worth two cents. Prices rose 100 per cent in one week in Germany last month; letter- postage rates were raised 400 per cent, telegraph rates 200 per cent, and telephone rates 600 per cent on July 1. Such facts paint a background for the invasion of the Ruhr. Another bit of background is the publication in England of correspondence revealing a direct connection between the French General Staff and Dr. Dorten’s separat- ist movement in the Rhineland. Still another is the revela- tion in a Munich treason trial that the French invested 100,000,000 marks in a monarchist separatist movement in Bavaria. No wonder the French Senate is forced to resort to the convenient trick of increasing the estimated tax yield in order to balance the budget. Truly effective French propaganda would be news of a strenuous campaign in France against the waste of public funds in subsidies to Polish militarists, German separatists, and nationalist newspapers. Or if Poincaré should heed the Pope’s appeal for common sense or give a direct answer to the British questions as to the precise terms on which he will end the madness in the Ruhr, that too would help General Gouraud in his mission. O judge from some newspaper headlines one might suppose that the outstanding feature of the third ses- sion of the World Court was the appearance of Hiram Johnson one morning in the visitors’ gallery. The proceed- ings at the Hague, however, present other claims to atten- tion. One of the cases for hearing is that of the British steamship Wimbledon, which, according to the plaint of the former Allied Powers, was unlawfully forbidden access to the Kiel Canal when proceeding to Danzig in March, 1921, with a cargo of French munitions for Poland. The decision hinges on whether at that time there was a state of war between Poland and Russia. In the hearing of this case a German sits for the first time on the bench of the World Court. This is consequent upon a provision that, if one nation which is a party to a case has a judge sitting in the court and the opposing party has not, the latter, even if not a member of the League, may appoint a temporary judge. Another case concerns the status of a certain class of Ger- BOR. iINGAME PU BUG 1.) 8,

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28 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 8027 man property-owners on lands which formerly belonged to Prussia but have been ceded to Poland by the Treaty of Versailles. The third and perhaps the most important mat- ter is concerned with the autonomy of Eastern Karelia and the interpretation of the peace treaty of 1920 between Fin- land and the Soviet Government. This problem involves the prior determination of the competence of the League or its Permanent Court to deal with the subject, which Russia claims to be a question of purely domestic policy. In view of President Harding’s plea for American representation on the court, its proceedings will deserve to be followed in this country with the closest attention. INSTEIN has explained his resignation from the League of Nations Committee for Intellectual Co- operation in words that need no comment: The activities of the League so far have convinced me that there appeared to be no action, no matter how brutal, committed by the present Power group against which the League could take a stand. I withdrew because the League of Nations, as it functions at present, not only does not embody the ideal of an international organization, but actually discredits such an ideal. ... May the League in the future prove my harsh words to have been false. . VERYONE who calls himself a Conservative,” said Stanley Baldwin in a recent address to the Chatham and Canning clubs at Oxford, “must look back for his in- spiration to the Disraeli of the last century.” Are we to interpret this utterance as a clue to the political ideals of the new Prime Minister? To a Conservative Party the golden age must naturally lie in the past rather than in the future, but one might have expected Mr. Baldwin to find his stimulus in some memory that would be likely to make a stronger contemporary appeal. This seems scarcely a propitious moment to summon from the shades the ghostly figure of the most Turcophil of his predecessors. Nor is “Back to Disraeli” likely to be a much more effective slogan if it is that statesman’s imperialism that Mr. Baldwin has especially in mind. By this time much of the gilt has worn off those glittering schemes for magnifying British author- ity in India and Egypt which once aroused such enthusi- asm in England. If the Prime Minister were a Bernard Shaw, one might suspect an ironical intent in that section of his speech in which he eulogizes Disraeli for “his amaz- ing prevision, his unerring perception of the essence of things, and his almost superhuman courage.” No char- acterization, one would think, could be less fitting for the clever demagogue whose adroitness won for him a popu- larity unrivaled until quite recent times by that of any other political prestidigitator. If Stanley Baldwin seeks his in- spiration from Benjamin Disraeli, we shall see him lead- ing the English people some strange dances—provided, of course, that he can invest his own personality with some- thing of his hero’s glamor. UR American immigration laws have infused a sport- ing interest into the logs of ocean liners. The open- ing of a new fiscal year on July 1 provided for any airman in the neighborhood the entertaining spectacle of American, British, French, Italian, German, Greek, Danish, Nor- wegian, and Dutch vessels, all immigrant laden, converging simultaneously upon New York harbor in such hustling fashion as to parallel the rivalry of university crews at Poughkeepsie. The schedule of quotas for 1923-24 reflects the continuance of the process of territorial readjustment in Europe. It is a significant commentary on the wisdom of present-day statesmanship that the chief gain is made by Turkey, whose allotment rises from 2,388 to 2,654 as a by- product of her recent military successes. It is expected that certain national quotas, which last year were long in filling, will this year be completed within a few months. This is especially anticipated in the case of Great Britain, where emigration is being stimulated by the persistence of unemployment. Meanwhile, it has been found in England that there is less discomfort in entering the United States across the Canadian border, and the St. Lawrence route is accordingly becoming popular. It will be another example of the irony that dogs the schemes of politicians if one of the effects of the Dillingham Act should prove to be the checking of immigration from Great Britain and other North European countries. N Japan, as in the United States, military-minded men are attempting to use the higher institutions of learn- ing as centers for military training. Here the students usually acquiesce, if with an abundant sense of boredom. We hear other news from Japan. The story of the protest made by the students at Waseda University is told in our International Relations Section this week. Doubtless the manners of these students were very bad indeed, but we wish the news of their bad manners could travel far and wide in these United States. We have here a popular super- stition that every American is peace loving and every Japanese an hereditary militarist, and it would do some of us a great deal of good to read of the howls of derision with which the Japanese students greeted a speaker who at- tempted to satisfy them that militarism and military train- ing were unrelated by citing our example. NE of the drawbacks of service in the Turkish army is, or used to be, uncertainty about getting one’s pay, with a consequent temptation to indulge in looting, when opportunity offered, in order to maintain a proper standard of living. A Chinese brigand, too, has often been only a Chinese soldier who has been driven into unorthodox methods of self-support by the need to make up somehow for the financial deficiencies of a regimental paymaster or provincial governor. It is to be hoped that the 3,100 em- ployees of the customs service in New York City are too well bred to seek any such irregular consolation for the unpleasant experience from which they are now suffering. At the end of June, it is reported, each of them was docked $10 in his or her weekly pay envelope because of the scanty appropriation made by Congress for the fiscal year then terminating. It was at first intended to make cuts propor- tionate'to salaries, but this seemed beyond the mathematical capacities of the pay clerks, so a uniform reduction was adopted, stenographers at $18 to $25 a week thus having to sacrifice the same sum as the highest-paid officials. Pro- testers were informed that the deficiency would “probably” be made up in the next pay roll. HERE was a great deal of talk in the newspapers about the dangerous radicalism of Rinaldo Capellini, who defeated the organization candidate for president of Dis- trict 1 of the United Mine Workers of America. When the anthracite miners held their convention, however, radicalism

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July 11, 1923] The Nation 29 seemed to be on the other foot. John Lewis, the national president of the union, hobnobbed comfortably with Capel- lini, and there were no outbursts of violent passion from the floor. Violence was provided from within the conserva- tive ranks. After an impassioned denunciation by Lewis, representatives of the Progressive International Committee of the mine workers, a semi-Communist group, were driven out of the hall and almost lynched in the streets of Scran- ton. It was a disgraceful affair. Cannot even the United Mine Workers, who have ranked among the progressive unions of the United States in industrial program and organization and who have suffered as much as any group from violation of civil rights and denial of free speech, tolerate opposition, even bitter opposition, without resort- ing to Ku Klux tactics? N a pamphlet entitled “The Intellectual and the Labor Movement,” published by the League for Industrial Democracy, George Soule points out that with a strictly professional attitude and a lack of officiousness the tech- nically trained intellectual could fill an important place in the American labor movement. The 1922 report of the Labor Bureau, of which Mr. Soule himself is a director, is documentary proof of this contention. The bureau’s report, which was made public last week, shows that during 1922 the economists, statisticians, engineers, accountants, and writers who make up its staff rendered professional services to some 144 national and local labor unions and labor papers of various kinds. Including cooperative or- ganizations and other agencies the total number of clients served was almost 200. The bureau’s activities last year extended to twenty-five States and more than doubled in volume over the previous year. According to its report, the bureau, since its organization in 1920, has confined its services to labor and those working in labor’s interest; it has kept free of subsidies and contributions; it has operated on a cost basis; and it has maintained a rigid detachment from factionalism and labor politics. It is safe to say that its success is due in large measure to these policies. The seal of labor’s approval is the surplus shown on the bureau’s balance sheet. ACOB A. RIIS once said that every reform organiza- tion ought to have a professional humorist attached to it to prevent its becoming ridiculous or taking itself too seriously. If one humorist per organization was needed in Mr. Riis’s time, a baker’s dozen would not be too large a quota in this day. What, for instance, shall anyone with a sense of the ridiculous say of the “safety hour” chorus gravely recommended by the Police Department of New York City? Children leaving school at 3 p.m. are likely to be run down by automobiles, it is said; hence at 2:59 drivers are asked to go Squak, squak! with their horns and factories Toot, toot! with their whistles. The resulting din will save life! Well, we have always felt that as be- tween the evil of speed and the evil of noise there was not much to choose, so we have refrained from mounting to the roof and emitting a howl at 2:59. That we may have failed to save some stray lives by this negligence we sadly admit, but we are buoyed up by the thought that we have conserved our own against the ire of some neighbor, who never having heard that noise prolongs life, might have cut short our “safety hour” chorus by a bootjack from his window. Man’s Sphere OT that we are opposed to men. Do not imagine for a moment that we are seeking to prohibit or abolish or even to modify or reform them. They are one of the most common of natural phenomena and we have long since ceased to butt our heads hopefully against a fact of nature. The question, simply put, is this: Shall we continue the experiment of educating them? There are some things that men, obviously, are cut out for. The celestial scissors shaped them to certain definite ends such as handling axes, bayonets, spades, and picks. Trained properly, men are good hewers of wood, good killers, good diggers. With a certain uncomplaining, simple courage, they are ready to endure death or to sweat under a hot sun. These things are their sphere. And it is apparent from the first that education interferes with these ends, even as it detracts from the manliness which is men’s charm. Men were not meant, we fear, for those sedentary intellectual pursuits which hour by hour soften their muscles, and, worse yet, put ideas into their heads. Many a good sticker or digger has been lost in the pages of a book. This is one aspect of the case. The other is even more obvious, though, lest tender masculine feelings be hurt, we will put it in the form of a question. Can men learn? We are not ready to say bluntly to their few defenders: “Men are indeed not the intellectual equals of women.” No, we dislike sweeping generalities; it is only about 60 per cent safer to indict sexes than nations. Men’s brains— let us put it this way—are different from women’s. Give him a gun and a man’s brain functions with apparent suc- cess. Give him a book—but let us again turn to the facts. On June 12 New York University announced its commence- ment prizes—five of them. There was the prize for highest honors in the School of Law. It was won by a student named Catherine Chadwick Noyes. Highest honors in the Medical College went to Ella Hodiger. The Alumni Medal of Washington Square College was awarded to Edna Weil. The Jeremiah Whipple Jenks prize in government was won by Irene Fletcher Richardson. The prize offered by the School of Retailing went to two students, John Williams Wingate and Francesca Smith. There was a time, we recall in this connection, when women were not allowed to study for a degree in medicine at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons. Finally they were admitted. In the first class of men and women to graduate the few women students were all at the top of the class; the highest stand man was a woman. At the time, we accepted this fact without reflection, but the prizes just announced by New York University arouse our suspicions of the reasons for maintaining that long- continued exclusion of women from the “P. and 8.” For here were thousands of students—the New York University graduating class was 1,524—young men and young women, working side by side with no handicaps or favors, prepar- ing themselves presumably for an intellectual career. And with what result? Some of our dearest friends are men, so we will not re- peat the result. But let us, both as taxpayers and as phi- losophers, simply consider the question: Shall we continue to educate our men? a aa ks aad

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80 The Nation “ [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 The Next Next War E live in days when men fear to face realities. Here are England and France, referring to each other as allies, maintaining an appearance of joint action in half of the world and negotiating for common ground in the rest, yet entering a race for the supremacy of the air in which no attempt is made to disguise the ghastly fact that they are bidding against each other, building great fleets of airplanes with which to fight each other in the next great war. Weare not yet five years past the armistice that ended the war to end war, the war that was to teach us so many great lessons and set the world to rights, yet here are the two great Powers of Europe glowering at each other across the English Channel and beginning precisely the kind of armament race which, between England and Germany, prefaced the World War. What else can Mr. Baldwin’s statement in Parliament mean? “British air power must include a home-defense air force of sufficient strength adequately to prepare us against attack by the strongest air force within striking distance of this country.” Mr. Baldwin’s announced intention to in- crease the home-defense air force from eighteen to fifty- two squadrons, almost tripling it, is a direct challenge to France. It is directed against no other Power. France recognizes that fact, and is replying in kind. We are back in the poisonous atmosphere that made the European war inevitable, and we are in imminent danger of repeating, even without the traditional lapse of a generation, that terrific experience. It is not only in the air that England is preparing for the next great war. She is beginning work upon an enormous naval base at Singapore, which can be aimed only at Japan. It is to Japan what the fortification of the Kiel Canal was to England. Japan, perhaps in response, is flirting again with Soviet Russia. The play of the Powers in China all looks in the same direction. The British Government has demanded, according to report, the right to maintain its own guards along the Tientsin-Pukow Railroad. What that is likely to mean past history has made only too plain. Poor China, torn by internal dissension, striving to make in a few years the adjustment to modern industrialism and Western parliamentarian democracy which it has taken Westerners centuries to work out—if we have worked them out—lies like a carcass on the plains of Asia while the Western Powers and the financial powers within the nations wait like greedy vultures, held in check only by their mutual jealousy. It is the old, old story—the story of Morocco, of the Bagdad Railway, of the partition of Africa, and the end of the book is war. Germany is disarmed; Austria is disarmed; Hungary and Bulgaria are partially disarmed; Russia has fewer soldiers than before the war—but Europe has more men under arms today than she had when the Great War found her an armed camp in 1914. She is still an armed camp. France, unable to pay interest on her own debts, unable even to pay the contractors for reconstruction in her own destroyed prov- inces, France, which pleads despairingly for: more repara- tions, lends 400,000,000 frances to Poland and 100,000,000 francs to Rumania, and maintains a military mission in Czecho-Slovakia, and accordingly those young Powers, born of the war to end war, maintain armies greater than those of their imperial predecessors. We ourselves have a larger army than before the war, and are constantly being urged still further to increase it. According to President Harding himself—whose figures Secretary Weeks will hardly attempt to dispute—we spend 85 per cent of our national revenue on wars, past and future. Nothing can be gained by sugary optimism. We must know where we stand. Nor will mere machinery help us. A world court, useful as it may be, will not get us very far without a new spirit in international relations. While France is in a mood to feel insulted and peevish when the Pope and the British Government indorse Mr. Hughes’s suggestion for expert determination of what Germany can | pay; while the representative of the United States can thump his fist upon the table at a Pan-American Confer- ence and rule out the Monroe Doctrine from discussion by the American nations, declaring that it is a “unilateral’’ policy of the United States; while even the League of Na- tions, hailed by so many as a mechanical solvent of the world’s ills, still bars Germany and Russia from the right- ful position of full equality with the Entente Powers in the world’s councils; while the Powers barter for oil rights in Turkey when talking of protection for Armenians, there is small ground for optimism. Yet there are steps which may be taken, and it is in the power of the United States, fortunately removed from the immediacies of European hates, to take them. It may be impossible, for the present, to stop the economic and finan- cial rivalries which are such fertile breeders of war, but there are indications that the financial powers are tending to become internationalized and to adjust their differences without intervention by governments, and meanwhile there are things that governments may do. We believe that Mr. Harding is sincere in his respect for the principle of judicial settlement of international disputes for which his speeches plead so fervently. Let him join hands with Senator Borah, with’ whom he finds himself in unexpected agreement, in the Senator’s plea for submission of all disputes to a court. Suppose, instead of hemming and hawing about reservations designed to safeguard the isolationist policy of the United States, he should call a conference which would exceed in dramatic interest and in historical significance the Washing- ton Conference with which he began his Administration, and that he should open it by saying to the representatives of the Powers assembled: ‘Gentlemen, there is no issue which cannot better be settled by a court than by a war. There is no national right or interest so sacred that it can stand above Right. I have consulted with the members of the Senate of the United States and I am able to say that the United States is prepared to submit every dispute which may arise between it and any other nation, great or small, to a world court. That, gentlemen, means that we are prepared to outlaw war, and that in turn opens the way to larger measures of disarmament than we have yet dis- cussed, and to new hope for us all.” It sounds wild and chimerical? It is a possible step. And unless we conceive and take some such step, something which will catch the emotion of the world and give it one of those dramatic wrenches which sometimes do lift it out of its crusted ruts, we will bear our share in condemning the world to a repetition of the murderous cycle through which we have just passed, on an even more colossal scale.

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cay July 11, 1923] The Nation 31 After Florida, Alabama HE ghost of Martin Tabert of North Dakota, killed in a convict camp in Florida, has not yet found peace and where it walks society is troubled. Alabama citizens are asking their legislature why their State should be the last in the Union to cling to the barbarities of the convict- leasing system. After damning reports by legislative com- mittees in 1915 and in 1919, it voted to abolish the prac- tice, but twice since that time pro-leasing forces have man- aged to have the old leases extended. The anti-leasing forces are replying with reports of working conditions and cruelties in the convict-operated mines. They are con- cerned that convicts have to walk four miles after entering the mine, down the rough, wet, dripping slope to their work, and at night toil back, with the result that they seldom see the light of day except on Sundays. They are concerned that 25 per cent of all mine deaths in Alabama were among convict miners, although more than 250 mines employ free labor and only four are convict operated. They are con- cerned that 90 per cent of all cripples and 80 per cent of all the tubercular patients in the entire convict department come from the mines. They are saying that death, mutila- tion, and disease should not be added penalties to the sen- tences imposed by the courts. They are asking where lay the value of abolishing the lash in July, 1922, since wooden clubs and metal pipes have taken its place, and a common punishment is a coffin-like box in which convicts are fas- tened by their hands, their feet scarcely touching the floor. But Alabamans are apparently little concerned with the creeping into the State of the insidious “contract” system that quibbles at the law and perpetuates all the evils of the old “lease” system. It matters not a jot whether the con- tractor buys the labor of the convict or the product of that labor. Workers are still speeded up under the piece system, and the brutality and graft arising out of dual supervision remain. A few weeks ago a private manufacturing com- pany—sometimes called the “convict labor trust” from its use of 1,600 prisoners in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, as well as Alabama—began operating the new shirt factory in the Kilby prison. They propose to pay the State seventy-five cents a dozen for shirts made and packed, which, according to the National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, is not more than half the cost in free factories, with $150 per month for cartage and over- head charges, which will mean an actual loss to the State. We do not contend that the able-bodied prisoner should not work—in all kindness he should, Alabama could do no better than to adopt the program laid down by the National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor and adopted, almost without exception, by the seventeen States represented at the first national prison industrial conference at Washing- ton last March. The plan separates the mentally and physically unfit from the able-bodied, and provides for train- ing or treatment so that the convicted may be returned to society “cured” persons. Economic and industrial considera- tions stand first, and, to this end, the “States’-use” system ealls for a standardization of specifications for commodities needed by the departments of all States and the manufac- ture of those commodities by State prison factories, State managed, and paying a proper pro-rated wage to the prison employee. This is not a mere theory; it is developing in Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio. The White Man’s Burden OME of the most troublesome controversies in the his- tory of the British Empire have centered in the rela- tion of the white settlers to the indigenous colored races of Africa. Scarcely less vexatious is the question of the civil rights to be allowed to the Indian subjects of the Crown. When these two problems present themselves simultaneously in the same area, there results a complica- tion of exceptional difficulty. This is what is happening in the Crown colony and protectorate formerly known as British East Africa and now called Kenya. This is a tropi- cal district of 245,060 square miles, with Abyssinia on the north and the Tanganyika mandate area on the south. It has a population of 2,630,000, of which only 9,650 are white Europeans and 36,000 are Asiatics, mostly Indians. The occasion of the triangular duel being fought in Kenya between Europeans, Indians, and Africans is the demand of the Indians for equality with the Europeans as regards the franchise, conditions of land tenure, and re- strictions on immigration and residence. They back their claims by appealing to a resolution of the last Imperial Conference in favor of removing the disabilities of British Indians in various parts of the empire. Their demand was recently expressed in a resolution of the Indian Council of State, on the motion of Mr. Srinavasa Sastri, the repre- sentative of India at the Washington Conference. Prin- ciple apart, it is urged on their behalf that Indians colon- ized the East African littoral before the whites, that the establishment of a British protectorate was due to the influence of Indian traders with Arab rulers and native chiefs, and that they perform a useful service by acting as intermediaries between the Europeans and the Africans. The European settlers are almost unanimous not only in opposing these claims but in demanding the exclusion of Indian immigrants altogether. They declare that those who come to Kenya are of a most undesirable type, hinder- ing rather than assisting the development of the country. On the ground that Indian labor lowers the standard of liv- ing, the few European wage-earners of the colony are as hostile to the Indians as are their employers. Certain pledges made by Lord Milner in 1920 are quoted by the whites in defense of their position. Meanwhile, what of the original inhabitants? The his- tory of African exploitation forbids one to attach much value to the professed solicitude of the Europeans for the welfare of the native population as the main ground of their objection to the Indian. What the natives them- selves think of the matter is in dispute; many of them are said to regard with disfavor any suggestion that these outsiders should be admitted to a civil status higher than their own. There can be little love lost between these blacks and either Indians or Europeans. The final authority in the matter lies with the Colonial Office in London. The decision will be a critical one. The question has aroused acute feeling in India, where the dis- abilities of Indians in Africa are resented as an intoler- able indignity, so much so that their continuance will cer- tainly stimulate revolutionary agitation. On the other hand, the handful of Europeans in Kenya affirm their de- termination to drive the Indians out anyhow—if necessary, by making Kenya a territory over which the Union Jack will no longer fly.

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eS. aS es a. ee SIN ee a 32 The Nation ~* [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 Slavery or Self-Exxtermination A Forecast of EKurope’s Future By BERTRAND RUSSELL ROM the dawn of civilization until the present day almost everything of value to art and literature and science has been produced in the neighborhood of the Mediterranean (with the exception of the art and literature of China). Europe has decided that this is now to cease, and that the old homes of culture are to revert to barbar- ism—for how long a period no one can guess. This will produce great changes, some good, some bad. What is per- ishing in Europe naturally looks to America—with what hope it may—to keep alive whatever may have had value in our way of life. ‘“Morituri te salutamus.”’ It is customary, in philosophizing about history, to at- tribute great events to great causes. This is due to our prejudice in favor of rationality, not to any valid reason. It is said that Napoleon fell because he ate a peach after the battle of Dresden. The peach gave him indigestion; indi- gestion made him omit to order the pursuit; the failure to pursue made him lose the battle of Leipzig, which made his fall inevitable. I do not vouch for this story. I only say it is just as likely to be true as the more respectable ac- counts of “serious” historians, i.e., historians who will not admit anything contrary to their conception of the dignity of history. I believe that the Great War and its consequences have throughout been affected by accidents just as trivial as Napoleon’s peach. If another man than Sir Edward Grey had been British Foreign Secretary in 1906, he might not have helped the Czar to suppress the first Russian Revolu- tion, and a democratic Russia would have been less anxious for war than the Czarist Russia of 1914. If the Austrian Emperor, who was a very old man, had happened to die a few years sooner than he did, his successor’s pro-Entente sentiments might have sufficed to prevent the ultimatum to Serbia. If the British Government had announced either that it would intervene, or that it would not intervene, no war would have taken place; in the first case Germany would have given way, in the second case France and Rus- sia. The fact that our policy [Great Britain’s] was what it was—namely, to assure France and Russia that we should intervene while allowing Germany to hope we should not— was not due to any large causes, but merely to the fact that there was an inner clique in the Cabinet which was engaged in deceiving the rest of the Cabinet, and was there- fore obliged to proceed by discreet whispers. If the war could have been averted for a few years, socialism in Ger- many and revolution in Russia might have prevented it permanently. If America had remained neutral in 1917, Kerensky would have obtained the reasonable peace de- sired, at that time, by Russia and the democratic elements in England and France. If we had had, at the armistice, a prime minister who preferred the survival of European civilization to a few more years of office, we should not have had a general election at the end of 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles would have been so different as to be a possible basis for reconstruction. All these misfortunes required small personal idiosyncrasies as an essential part of their cause. Since the Treaty of Versailles things have been differ- ent. Europe has marched to its fate like a hero of Greek tragedy, inevitably and by the force of destiny. The pas- sions enshrined in that document were such that only a miracle could have prevented disaster. At the moment of writing, the French are in the Ruhr with the benevolent neutrality of England. Our benevo- lent neutrality is necessary in order to secure French sup- port against the Turks, whom the French made strong in order to put us in this dilemma. For the sake of our im- perialistic aims in the Near East we are willing to see Germany annihilated. All thinking people in England, of whatever party, are strongly anti-French, but most people are unthinking and are still anti-German as the result of war-time propaganda. Moreover those who are most anti- French are withheld from vigorous action by the fear of war with France, which no one desires if it can be avoided. The French, strange to say, are not much impressed by our belated mood of generosity to Germany. They know that we went into the war with three objects: (1) To destroy the German navy; (2) to destroy German trade and ship- ping; (8) to annex the German colonies. Having secured these objects we naturally became indifferent to the French objects, which took longer to secure. But until we restore the German ships and the German colonies to their former owners, the French can hardly be expected to believe in our altruism. Meanwhile we are reckoning that the ruin of the Continent need not involve our ruin, since we can still trade with the Far East, South America, and the British Empire. We reckon that France must come to grief in her present ‘policy, and that Germany and Russia can be counted on, in the long run, to produce that weakening of France which we require for the balance of power. We do not propose, therefore, to do anything to avert the final ruin of the whole Continent, which we clearly perceive to be coming. The Labor Party, of course, takes a different view, but unfortunately it is not in power. Assuming, as I fear we must, that France remains un- reasonable and England remains passive, it seems probable that the French will be drawn further and further into Germany, that they will be forced into considerable ex- penditure, and that they will not get another cent from Ger- many by way of reparations. They may attempt to work the Ruhr coal themselves, but they are not a great indus- trial nation and they are not likely to make a success of it. Gradually the Germans will be driven into the arms of the Bolsheviks; if the French are to keep us neutral they must antagonize the Turks. France is already on the verge of bankruptcy, not because the French are poor, but because they dislike taxes. If the Government attempts to tax them sufficiently to balance the budget, it will fall and be re- placed by an anti-imperialistic government. This alterna- tive is desirable, but very improbable; what is much more probable is that no attempt will be made to make both ends meet, and that the franc will go the way of the mark. In that case, the French peasants who have lent to the Govern- ment will ultimately become indignant, and there will be

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July 11, 1923] The Nation 33 civil war. Before that stage is reached, France will cease to be able to support her partisans in Poland and the Little Entente, which, perhaps under Italian leadership, will veer toward Germany. We shall then have 1914 over again, with France in the place formerly occupied by Germany: The end can only be complete collapse of all the belligerents, decay of industry, death by starvation of the professional classes, and survival of a much-reduced population almost exclusively composed of peasants. From that stage it will be possible to begin reconstruction, as in Charlemagne’s time. It is not possible for England alone to prevent this development, because, even if we threatened the French with war, they would not stop in their present mood, so that we should have to fight and be involved in the universal ruin. It is possible for us to remain spectators and survive as a satellite of America, just as Holland survived as a satellite of England after her brief glory in the seventeenth century. It is possible for the Americans, should they so desire, to decree a different development for Europe from that which seems probable if we are left to ourselves. If Amer- ica chose to take a firm line with the French about the invasion of Germany, the French would certainly give way, just as we gave way about Ireland and naval supremacy in 1921. America could insist upon a revision of the punitive clauses of the Versailles treaty, and could give Germany a chance to revive. I understand that such a course is desired by finance and big business, but is depre- cated by most other opinion throughout the United States. Perhaps it will not be considered impertinent if I set out the pros and cons as they appear to an internationally minded European. There are, of course, two obvious arguments, one on each side. For taking part in the affairs of Europe, there is the argument that America has invested a great deal of money on this side of the Atlantic, and that all except the part invested in Great Britain is likely to prove a bad debt; on the other hand, if Europe could be stabilized, there would be room for the investment of vastly larger sums than have been already invested. This argument is straightforward and sound from its own point of view. On the other side there is the argument that any participation in European affairs means the beginning of a career of imperialism, economic if not military and naval. This is undoubtedly true, and it is also true that imperialism of any sort is regrettable from a liberal point of view. Nevertheless I cannot attach much weight to the argument, because I think that, human nature being what it is, America is absolutely certain to embark upon an imperialistic career within a few years. The only question to my mind is whether American intervention shall happen now, while there is still some- thing to save in Europe, or whether it shall happen some years hence, when we shall have sunk to the level of Haiti and be treated in the same way. It is not, however, quite true to say that this is the only question. There is another, namely: If America inter- venes now and “saves” Europe, will Europe be any better off than if she damns herself? This is not such a simple question as it seems. If Europe is allowed to collapse into chaos, European industry will collapse, and American pro- tectionism will probably be strong enough to hinder Amer- icans from reviving it. All that has happened to Europe _ Since the Renaissance will drop off like an outworn skin, to be succeeded by communities of poor and pious peasants. Such communities would offer little temptation to economic imperialism, which would turn rather to South America and the Far East. After some centuries of repose, they might again give birth to art and science, as after the Dark Ages; perhaps they would learn them again from Chinese missionaries. After a half-century of horror, during which the non-agricultural population would be dying of hunger in the intervals of killing each other, the reduced popula- tion might become fairly happy, and be forced into sanity by penury. This is the most optimistic view of the future if we are left to ourselves at this crisis. Now, let us consider the other alternative. Suppose America were to intervene with a view to keeping the present states of Europe in being and preserving our in- dustry from collapse. It is fairly clear that this would be to the interest of our American creditors, among whom the government is the chief. It is certain, however, unless one assumes that Americans do not share the ordinary frailties of homo sapiens, that intervention would not be unselfish and that the capital by which our industries would be kept going would be increasingly American. The result of this would be to make us poor, which matters little, and to make our culture American, which matters a good deal. But perhaps it is not clear why our culture should become American, nor why it should matter if it did. I will say something on both points. The culture of a country in the narrow sense—its paint- ing, theater, music, literature, science, etc.—may be sup- ported by the state or by private patrons. Certain forms may be supported popularly—cinemas, music-halls, senti- mental fiction are cases in point. But it is generally agreed that the popular forms are not, as a rule, the best; even those who only go to cinemas admit that Shakespeare is better. Most of the best poetry and music of the past is a product of court life—for example, Homer and Mozart. In our own day all that is best depends upon state endowment or the support of rich men. This applies to science quite as much as to art. It follows that, if Europe is very poor and America is very rich, patronage will go to those who please American taste, and higher education will be so con- ducted as to produce a result which can obtain money from Americans. Universities will be endowed by men like Mr. Rockefeller, whose ideals will gradually percolate into ele- mentary education and imbue the whole population. Euro- peans who go to America rapidly become 100 per cent Americans, and those who remain in Europe will do so some- what less rapidly if the capital by which their industries are kept going is American. I cannot suppose that any patriotic American would see anything to regret in such a consummation, and I am there- fore compelled, with all possible politeness, to explain why I should regard it as regrettable. American civilization is not a special kind, like the civilizations of India and China; it is merely the result of mechanism applied to Europeans. European countries become like America in proportion as they become industrialized. America, owing to the fact that it is a new country, has offered less resistance to mechanism on the ground of old tradition than European countries have, and has therefore shown sooner than we have what sort of culture industrialism tends to produce. I think myself, for many reasons, that industrial culture has grave defects which are not likely to be remedied ex- cept by contact with non-industrial communities or ideals. In the absence of such contact I believe that it gradually kills all instinctive joy of life, and will lead, by war, revolu-

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34 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3027 tion, or sterility, to race suicide. For this reason, I would rather see Europe composed of ignorant peasants than see its complete conquest by the mechanistic outlook. There is, of course, another possibility. There may be, in America, a revolt against mechanism, an increasing desire to enjoy life without sacrificing everything to effi- ciency. The popularity of books like those of Sinclair Lewis makes this not unthinkable. But I doubt whether Puritan ideals—which are those best suited to industrial- ism—can be eradicated under several generations, in view of the immense momentum of the educational system. Such questions, however, are more cheerful than those which our folly has brought upon us in Europe. Only two alternatives remain for us: mutual extermination or slav- ery. If we were wise, no doubt we should choose slavery. But we are not wise. These United States—X X XIII* OKLAHOMA: Low Jacks and the Crooked Game By BURTON RASCOE OLITICS in Oklahoma are, if anything, not much more corrupt than they are, say, for instance, in the city of Boston. The economic parity in Oklahoma is, if any- thing, not much more out of balance than it is, say, for in- stance, in the city of New York. The averages of literacy and intelligence in Oklahoma are little lower than they are, say, for instance, in the city of Chicago. The difference is that whereas in these great urban communities one may easily live in comfortable ignorance of the socio-economic condition that sustains one, there is in the State of Okla- homa no city large enough to conceal the hideous aspect of its fundamental organization. The sinister and discom- forting skeleton is not only devoid of all the draperies, rouge, rice powder, and mascara of civilization; it is not even presentably filled out with the fat and tissue of human illusions. It is not that Oklahomans are men and women set aside as an especially enigmatic exhibit in the mysterious way God moves “His wonders to perform. They only seem so. That is because the State is so young and unpopulous as never to have acquired a social fabric with a nap of culture: it is a haphazard homespun every thread of whose woof is vis- ible. An Oklahoman knows, if he keeps his eyes open at all, everything that is going on about him and he knows that it is not conducive to respect and solicitude for his fellow- men. It is the worst possible place for an idealist and, since most people of normal intelligence and decent instincts are weighted in adolescence with the impedimenta of illu- sions, they either shed their burden and become Oklaho- mans or shake the State’s dust from their feet at the first opportunity. As a result the Oklahoma towns and cities are constantly being drained of their young and vigorous blood, blood which might redeem them from the mental, moral, and spiritual torpor into which, since statehood, they have fallen. Even in the larger towns such as Tulsa, Okla- homa City, Muskogee, Okmulgee, and Shawnee, the popula- tion, on the whole, is transient. People come and go in them with such rapidity that it is often difficult for one to dis- cover a familiar face in the streets after a few years’ ab- sence. Only those who are anchored by real estate and resignation remain. The reason is fairly obvious. Oklahoma has been, from the first, a boomer State, even before it was a State—when. old Oklahoma Territory was first thrown open to settlers. It was peopled largely by land gamblers instead of home seekers. Like other boomer States, since the days of the * Reproduction forbidden. 1923, The Nation, Inc. Quotation limited to 300 words. All rights reserved. Copyright, California and through the Alaska gold rushes, Oklahoma was, when it first attracted attention, the goal not of people who wished to till the land, build homes, and develop a com- monwealth on secure foundations, but of people who wanted to get rich suddenly and with as little effort as possible. That was the situation before oil was discovered in the State and that discovery intensified rather than diminished pre- existing conditions. The State’s cattle and agricultural resources are hardly more than self-sustaining, much less exploitable; but this fact did not prevent the land gamblers from inflating prices out of all proportion to the value of the land’s increment. Towns, like Lawton, sprang up overnight with populations of 15,000 or more, on absolutely arid land, unfit even for grazing. 'They died out, of course, when the inhabitants discovered they could not live solely by trading real estate among themselves. In other towns, like Okla- homa City, more advantageously situated, on intersecting railway main lines and in reasonably productive districts, the boomer spirit was equally disastrous. Such towns were not permitted to grow normally. Their population figures were distorted into an aspect of metropolitanism and the optimistic real-estate boomers set about making the towns live up to these false figures. They sold bonds and erected skyscrapers for which they had no use, and these buildings sometimes remained vacant for years. They sold stock and erected great meat-packing, canning, tanning, and other in- dustries which seldom got farther than buildings and equip- ment when bankruptcy revealed the enterprises as plain financial swindles, fostered often enough by local chambers of commerce to attract immigrants and sell them real estate. One naturally asks how it was that plain, common foresight did not tell the business men in communities where such things were going on that crashes and depression were bound to follow; but the answer is that there were almost never in these communities any business men in any acceptable use of that term, no business men mindful of the credit sys- tem, contented with a legitimate margin of profit, careful of future security; they were boomers, eager to make their immediate pile even at the cost of their established resi- dences, stores, and reputations, and skip elsewhere. They took chances, that is all; they gambled, because the State has been from the first one vast roulette wheel played by ad- venturers from other States. True enough, it has its farmers who bear the burden of producing the food, its manual laborers, small shopkeepers, clerks, and other accretions of industrialism which give some semblance of a permanently organized society; but be- hind them all is the gambling spirit producing probably the

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July 11, 1923] vulgarest low comedy offered anywhere under the name of democratic government. Where else is afforded a spectacle similar to this: The theft by night of the State papers from the Capitol in Guthrie by automobile bandits from Okla- homa City who sped back and established the State capital in the Lee-Huckins hotel; the indictment of a governor and a State bank examiner for graft arising from false state- ments of solvency of banks under State supervision; the emptying of the State prison overnight by a lieutenant gov- ernor who held the reins of government for a few hours in the absence of the governor and issued pardons at so much a head; all the important State officials selected by a lawyer for a great oil corporation, to whom they are in debt for campaign expenses incidental to their jobs and for whose laws and political wishes they are merely the agents and office boys; graft so prevalent and inalienable a feature of State government that the only citizens who are not par- taking of it are the stupid or unlucky? Let us consider for a moment the history of a State in which such a spectacle is possible. When the western part of the territory which the United States Government had reserved as a haven for the Indians who had been driven out of the other States was thrown open to land grabbers, certain portions were designated as Indian reservations and as school land. The remainder, up to a stated number of acres, was his who first staked it out as a claim. The west and southwest were suitable only for cattle raising; the northern and northeastern sections were soon a rich grain-producing region, yielding wheat, oats, barley, corn, alfalfa, and milo maize. The central, eastern, and southern sections of the territory were given over to cotton, corn, alfalfa, and potatoes. There was coal to be mined near El Reno, Oklahoma City, and Guthrie. At first, except in the extremely fertile districts, there were extensive ranches and cattle ranges, acquired by the enterprising, and these were in due time fenced off and converted into small farms. Settlers out of the bleak hills and rocks of Arkansas, the dry prairies of Kansas and Texas, the swamps of Louisiana, and the barren lands of scuthern Missouri came through in covered wagons, prepared to establish homes. They found that the better portions of the land had already got into the hands of people who were holding them for speculation— town residents, bankers, real-estate operators. To acquire land one had either to pay a whopping price for it or marry an Indian woman. This latter method was a favorite one with a great many who were not already burdened with a family. Each adult Indian woman had 160 acres in her own right, as a government land grant, and for each child she should have there would be additional grants of 160 acres. At first there was also a government allotment of money to full-blooded Indians and to such children as they bore. This proved an allurement not only to a great many white men but to Negroes as well, and as a consequence black and white squaw men and their progeny came into possession of such desirable lands as had not already fallen into the clutches of speculators and land operators. There was established then almost from the first an agricultural caste system, divided into landowners, tenant farmers, and share-croppers. Less than 30 per cent of the farmers of the State own the land they work. The land- owners rarely live on the land they own. They rent it to tenant farmers or leave its yield to the industry and intel- ligence of the share-croppers. A tenant farmer has his own teams and implements, cows, hogs, and chickens; The Nation 35 he undertakes to till the land, pay for the extra farm labor, and market the crops. If he does not rent outright he pays over to the landlord a stated share of the gross proceeds on the farm for the year. The share-cropper is among the most pitiable of human beings. He owns nothing what- ever except the clothes on his back. He usually has a wife and numerous children. These, and his own bodily strength, are his assets. The landlord provides him with a house in which to live, teams and implements with which to work, and, often enough, an advance of money for food while he is laying in the crops. He and his wife and chil- dren perform the labor in the fields and get in return a fraction of the yield of the crops. The only way he knows of meeting the situation is that of voting the straight Democratic ticket if the Republi- cans happen to be in office, or of electing Republicans if the administration is Democratic. Mankind, to him, has three constituents: Democrats, Republicans, and the others, roughly classified as Reds. Without differentiation he in- cludes among the Reds: socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, I. W. W.’s, Catholics, Jews, pacifists, labor unionists, athe- ists, and what not. If he is a Republican it is conceivable to him that a man may be a Democrat without being a menace to the community, or if he is a Democrat he will concede that a man may be a Republican and still be only misinformed politically; but it is not conceivable to him that a man may be neither a Democrat nor a Republican and still hold a shred of honor. The most persistently and mercilessly exploited human being in the country, he is the most zealous and intractable upholder of the politico- economic system that exploits him. Let him hear that some other share-cropper as illiterate as himself has been converted to socialistic doctrines and he will help his fellow Ku Klux Klaners that night give the poor wretch a tar bath and a coat of chicken feathers. He will not suffer for a moment anything that threatens his privilege of be- ing mulcted. Although the State has the most rigid banking laws, bring- ing all banks under State or Federal supervision, most banks in all but the larger cities are not banks at all; they are the offices of a group of men whose principal business is real-estate speculation, horse-trading, and mortgage fore- closing. Their depositors are not farmers; they have noth- ing to deposit. The bank officials are their own depositors who lend their money out at usurious rates. The State usury law limits the interest rate to 7 per cent. But this is the way it works. Farmer Brown has a span of mules worth in the market $650 and farm implements worth a couple of hundred dollars more. He needs $200 for food and for the salary of farm hands to tide him over until he has finished bringing in his crop. Early in the season he has already mortgaged his crop at the bank for the money necessary to live on while he is planting his crop. He applies for a loan of $200, giving as security a mort- gage on his mules and implements. He receives $175 in cash and is obliged to sign a note promising to pay back $200 at 7 per cent. In other words, $25 in interest is col- lected from him before he gets his money. The amount subtracted from the original loan varies according to the pressure of the farmer’s need and the negotiability of his securities. Sometimes the amount deducted from a loan of $100 is as much as $30. If he invokes the usury law (as some poor devils have done) he is blacklisted by every bank in the State and thereafter cannot borrow a cent, no ee ee eee | i | hy

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a aS Se Set -2 hee ee eee Te 36 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 matter what security he has to offer. If his crops fail or if the market price for his produce does nof enable him to pay off his note or notes at the bank and he is unable to dig up more security, the mortgage is foreclosed. A generous national government reserved the most fer- tile sections of the country for those Indians which it had hopes of making over into good and industrious citizens. It had been unable to tame the Apaches, Comanches, and Arapahoes, so it permitted them to die out of boredom in great numbers, under the armed surveillance of Federal troops in the arid regions of the southwest part of the State. The Osages, heirs to fertile broadlands in the north- central section, and good farmers by inclination and train- ing, became, proverbially, the richest nation, per capita, on the face of the globe. Discovery of oil upon their lands and upon the lands of many of the Creeks and Cherokees (who had been granted nice rocky hills to roam around in) made millionaires of many of these original citizens of the country. The Seminoles and Creeks intermarried freely with the Negroes; and the Pottawottomies, Shawnees, Sacs and Foxes, and Cherokees intermarried equally freely with the whites. The Cherokees had a language and even a literature of their own; but with rare exceptions the Indians have not taken cordially to the blessings of the civilization which has been offered them. The Apaches, Comanches, and Arapahoes actively resented it as long as they were numerous, and even after they were shut up in stockades they occasionally broke out and scalped a few settlers. The Osages and the mixed breed Seminoles, Pot- tawottomies, Cherokees, Shawnees, and Creeks tilled their land, or had it tilled for them, and complied in some de- gree to the customs of the whites; but the full-blooded Indians, even of the younger generation, have consistently refused to embrace white culture. They live in tribal com- munities; they wear their beads, moccasins, and blankets; they hold such ceremonial dances as the government will permit them (they are denied the privilege of the war dance); and they allow themselves to be cheated out of their land by the enterprising whites. Under the Federal law, an Indian may dispose of his inherited land, but not of his original allotment, when he has reached the age of twenty-one. Knowing this, in every county seat in the State, land sharks literally sit around on the doorsteps of the county buildings waiting for old Indians to die and young ones to come to the age of twenty-one. These sharks know how much land each Indian can dispose of, what it is worth at the current land valuation, the date of the Indian’s birth, his guardian, and his personal dispo- sition. Here is a typical instance of what goes on every month in a dozen different counties. The two leading bank- ers, which is to say the leading land sharks, in rival towns had their eye on the property of an Indian who had 800 acres of bottom land, worth at the lowest estimate $300 an acre as prices go. Two weeks before the youth’s birthday one of them stole a march on the other, invited the boy on a trip, took him to Chihuahua, Mexico, got him drunk, showed him a riotous time in the redlight district, crossed the border back into the State on his birthday, had the deeds drawn up for him to sign, giving him $8,000 in cash for $240,000 worth of property, got his signature, and rushed the deed through the probate court the next day. So much, in sketch, for the productive complexion of the State exclusive of its bonanza of gas, oil, and coal—a com- paratively recent discovery, and already, according to many expert estimates, a source of wealth that is rapidly being exhausted. The general features attending the discovery of oil in the Tulsa-Sapulpa and Ada-Ardmore districts do not differ in essentials from the turn of events such a dis- covery brings about in every State. There was, of course, the rush of adventurers, oil promoters, highjackers (an oil-region term for murderous robbers), laborers, and camp followers. Until Tulsa amassed a wealth in its local banks which compared favorably with that of St. Louis and Kan- sas City it was, like most of the smaller oil towns now, a gay and lawless community, with gambling houses running wide open, a redlight district in full blaze, moonshine whis- key readily obtainable throughout the periods of senatorial, State, and national dryness, and the frenzied excitement prevailing which is always a concomitant of sudden visions of wealth. Millionaires were made overnight, and men and women who had until yesterday toiled barefooted in the fields trying to wrest a meager living from the sandy and rocky soil suddenly found themselves in possession of incomes from oil leases amounting to thousands of dollars a week. This sudden acquisition of unexpected wealth on the part of illiterate white settlers had its comic aspect: they knew but two or three ways of spending it—buying high-priced and luxurious automobiles and tearing them up on the rocky roads, only to buy new ones; chartering special cars for a trip to Niagara Falls or to Washington; and buying diamonds. They tell of a wealthy Osage who inspected the cars for sale in Oklahoma City and found nothing to please him until he chanced upon a white hearse, which he purchased forthwith. This vision and fact of sudden, immense wealth has also its tragic side. The farm- ers, the normal producers of the State, live buoyed up by the hope that some day oil will be discovered on their land. Meanwhile they persist in the most backward agricultural methods obtaining in any State in the Union, and market their produce through the most inefficient and wasteful channels of middlemen and profiteers it is possible to imagine. ; Within the last year the Oklahoma Cotton Grow- ers’ Association, a sort of farmers’ union, has been perfect- ing a.cooperative scheme for marketing and warehousing which may check some of the losses the farmer ordinarily sustains in the disposal of his cotton. Another part of the plan of the association is to limit the acreage in cotton to prevent overproduction. I was privy to one such agree- ment by the assembled farmers of one county. The follow- ing spring every single one of them increased his cotton acreage by at least a third, on the theory that every one else would decrease his acreage, the price of cotton would go up, and he would be the gainer. There was an excess of cotton produced throughout the country that year; the price slumped, and these men who had solemnly agreed to cut their production and raise corn for their stock and potatoes and other vegetables for themselves all but starved. After such a demonstration of stupidity and covetousness, such a general indifference to the common weal, one grows skeptical of any profound change for the better in the source of wealth, the land; and this skepticism is deepened by the knowledge that, so long as reports come from time ~ to time that another well has been sunk by oil-stock pro- moters, hope will spring eternal in the farmer’s breast that he will not have to plant either cotton or corn; so he sinks back in sloth and squalor, living principally upon cornbread, salt pork, and sorghum molasses—a diet so ee ee

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— —s. CUCU July 11, 1923] The Nation 87 preponderatingly of corn that pellagra epidemics spread through the State every year and children, who by all rules of hygiene should wax strong in the fresh quiet and pure food of the farm, are emaciated, rickety, weak, and sallow, easy preys to malaria, tuberculosis, and pneu- monia. This because the mass of the farmers are at once so poor and so greedy that they do not keep cows, and the bulk of such eggs and chickens as they raise they sell in the town markets. There are plenty of schools, good schools for these children to go to; belief in education amounts in Oklahoma to a superstition. The State is heavily burdened with school taxes; a great portion of the land of the State is reserved as a source of income for the maintenance of schools; and there is in force a modification of the Indiana school system which offers probably as fine a public means of education as is to be found in any State. But the physique and minds of the bulk of the farmers’ children are stunted by malnutrition; and education in the towns and cities only leads the young men and women to a disenchant- ment and disgust with a social-political and economic scene from which they are glad enough to escape. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of July 25, will be Kentucky: Where Men Die Standing, by Ben Lucien Burman. Revolutionary Days in Bulgaria By THEODOR BERKES The writer of this account is, we believe, the only correspondent of an American publication who was on the spot when the recent overthrow in Bulgaria took place. Sofia, June 17 UROPE, which had heard so many false tales of over- turns in Bulgaria, may not have been surprised by Stambuliiski’s fall. Sofia was. Toward three o’clock in the morning on Saturday, June 9, a few hundred shots were fired in Sofia and soldiers marched through the streets; when dawn came the police had disappeared and had been replaced by military patrols. The Bulgarian capital looked like an army camp. Stacks of arms were pyramided in front of the castle as if in preparation for a campaign, and soldiers armed with hand-grenades and accompanied by “goulash-wagons” were drawn up beside them. Circulation in the streets was forbidden, shops were ordered to shut, and when foreigners tried to look out of hotel windows they found themselves face to face with bayonets. The discom- fort of the situation was aggravated by the uncertainty as to the future. A few days previously Stojanoff, one of the ministers of the old Peasants’ Party cabinet, had replied to threatening letters from some of the Macedonian Komitadji that if they ventured to attack the peasant regime, Sofia and the two Macedonian cities of Kustendil and Petritsch would be turned into cemeteries and not one stone left upon another. : Stojanoff is now in prison and his bloody fantasies re- main unrealized. It was only natural that there should be opposition to so arbitrary and violent a regime as that of Stambuliiski. It was plain, after thirty former cabinet min- isters had been arrested and some of them condemned to death, after a long series of political murders, after a political and economic dictatorship, after hundreds of Mace- - donians had been arrested and the Macedonian organiza- tions declared illegal, that a change must come. Stam- buliiski, a man of extraordinary energy and power, had, to be sure, won the election six weeks before with 544,000 votes against 460,000 for all the opposition parties put to- gether. He held 212 out of 245 seats in Parliament. He had built up an army out of members of his own party and had added the so-called Orange Guard of peasants. Natu- rally many responsible Bulgarian politicians, however op- posed to the Government, were disinclined to gamble under such circumstances with their own lives and with the fu- ture of their nation. Despite the fact that the opposition had won its few electoral victories in strategically impor- tant cities, it had lapsed into a kind of pessimistic hate of the Government and seemed almost resigned to believing Stambuliiski’s boast that he could rule another twenty years. But unknown even to their own sympathizers a bold com- mittee of action had been formed of one hundred determined opponents of Stambuliiski, led by the present city com- mander of Sofia, General Lazaroff, the present Prime Min- ister, Professor Zankoff, and the present Minister of Justice, Smiloff. The Peasant Government had a whole army of spies, but these men carefully sounded out politicians and army officers and worked so successfully and so suddenly that even the army officers who played the decisive role in the overturn were informed of the plan only half an hour before it began. At two o’clock in the morning the army units broke out of the barracks, disarmed the Orange Guards (who surrendered immediately) and the police (only in one quarter was there any opposition and only a few were killed) —and that completed the job in Sofia. The government offices were next occupied, and at three o’clock a revolutionary committee waited upon the King, who knew as little of what had happened as any other citizen of Sofia. After all, ever since Stambuliiski came to power, the King had been only a puppet, accustomed to being threat- ened with exile if he did not behave; so he signed on the dotted line and issued a ukase dismissing the peasant Min- istry and naming the new Government. This new Government, hoisted into office on the points of bayonets, is a nationalist coalition, including five neu- trals, five representatives of the bourgeois parties, and one Socialist. Its chief is the former rector of the university, Zankoff, an able economist, hitherto unknown in politics but reputed to be an extremely energetic man. General Russeff, the new Minister of the Interior, began his career by putting the entire civil administration under military orders and instructing them to proceed relentlessly against all disturbers of public order. Smiloff, the Minister of Justice, a Radoslavist, is one of the ablest orators and one of the most capable men of the young Bulgarian generation. The public seems to approve the new cabinet, particularly since it contains no one too well known in the past. It was natural that the cities should approve any alternative to the Peasant Government, but it seems that opposition even in the villages has not been very keen. It is significant that men like Turlakoff, Tomoff, and Manaloff, who were formerly associated with Stambuliiski but turned against him because of his violence, have declared that if the new Government respects the liberties and interests of the peasants they will not oppose it. The Communists, who always despised the Stambuliiski system, have as little re- spect for the new Government which they call a bourgeois regime dominated by soldiers and policemen—and the par- ticipation of Socialists in this Government only increases their dislike of it.

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38 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 All but two of the peasant ministers have been arrested. The former ministers whom Stambuliiski kept in prison have been transferred to their homes and will soon be set free. Stambuliiski fled to his country estate and after a few days’ uncertainty was captured and, according to the official report, killed while attempting to escape. Huge crowds gathered in Sofia yesterday expecting to see him arrive as a captive, but their hope of hissing and howling at the man who had lately ruled them was vain. A detachment of ten men was sent to arrest him at his home. They arrived, fired a salvo, and demanded the sur- render of his military guard. The commander of the guard agreed to surrender, but first informed Stambuliiski. Stam- buliiski insisted that the soldiers were mere bandits and ordered that they be fired upon. The soldiers thereupon hastily retreated, but Stambuliiski, accompanied by a quickly assembled troop of peasants led by a priest who carried a crucifix in one hand and a hand-grenade in the other, retired to the woods fearful lest the soldiers return with reinforce- ments. There were small engagements in the woods, and it is reported that the four soldiers captured by Stambuliiski’s men were outrageously mutilated. But Stambuliiski’s fol- lowers gradually deserted him, so he dressed himself up in a raincoat and tourist’s cap and appeared in the village of Golak ostensibly as a builder looking for tiles to buy. The mayor of the town, however, recognized him and he had hardly left the village when a group of peasants led by the mayor came after him and took him captive. He denied his identity, but his face was only too familiar. Upon his forced return to the village, he composed a telegram to the new Prime Minister as follows: “I have just learned that my government has fallen and I hasten to surrender. Please send automobile. With greetings, Alexander Stambuliiski.” _ The auto was sent, but on its way back to the capital, ac- cording to the official account, it was surrounded by armed adherents of the former Premier and he, while attempting to escape, was accidentally killed. There can be no doubt that the Bulgarian revolution will have a great influence abroad. tions before the Entente embassies in Sofia in order to show that the revolution is not anti-Ally, but it has certainly broken many bonds which linked one or another of the Powers with Stambuliiski. No new government is likely to be so loyal to its neighbors or so hostile to the pro- Bulgarian aspirations of the Macedonians. The Little Entente is not likely to be pleased by the rebirth of the old Bulgaria, especially since it owes its existence to bayo- net-tips. What the relations of the new Government to Russia—General Wrangel was in Sofia when the revolu- tion took place—and to Turkey will be, remains to be seen. In any case, there is undoubtedly what the diplomats call “a new situation” in the Balkans, and it is not a very reassuring one. Contributors to This Issue BERTRAND RUSSELL, English philosopher and scientist, is the author of many books and magazine articles. BuRTON RASCOE is the literary editor of the New York Tribune. THEODOR BERKES is the correspondent in the Balkans of the Berlin Tageblatt and of The Nation. The new Government has promoted demonstra- In the Driftway HE Drifter has been motoring again, this time away from the city; and in the course of a long tour not many days ago he had occasion to reflect upon the institu- tion of hard roads. Concrete, asphalt, brick, and macadam pavements across the country were once the fondest dream of drivers who had to bump from town to town in dry weather and who’ in wet weather either splashed through a thousand puddles or did not venture forth at all. And now that a number of those pavements are laid and alive with cars, something of the dream does linger about them. You can go so fast and so far, so easily! The road lies smooth and hard ahead. There is plenty of room for other cars to pass, at any speed they like; and the best curves are gradual, with banked sides so that no driver need slow up seriously for a turn. Better yet, the road is becoming more difficult each year to lose. Signs of every color and shape and size are up; there is no longer the necessity of stopping at farmers’ houses and asking the way. Delays are fewer and fewer. You now may make a schedule for yourself and be reasonably sure of arrival in Buffalo or Cincinnati at a certain hour of a certain day. * * * * * HE Drifter is not unappreciative of these improve- ments. He relishes ease, and wishes the world more of it. But as he rolled without anxiety or interruption be- tween two cities the other day he could not help wondering if the future of hard roads would not be that they should make travel too easy. Nothing is less adventurous to the Drifter than an ordinary railroad; and here he was com- paring the concrete highway with an ordinary railroad. The car ran so evenly, hour after hour, that the driver grew sleepy at the wheel. There was never any question about the way. Neat signs on solid posts at convenient intervals told the miles, and even the tenths of miles, to the next important town—one might almost have said station. Had there been such a question, the route book—one might almost have said time table—lay under the seat to be con- sulted. Now and then a road gang, looking very much like a section gang, stood aside to let the traffic go by. Great signboards lined the right of way to remind the public of the best in hotels, garters, and breakfast food. In towns, garages and filling stations were more or less perfect images of round houses and water towers. And the Drifter’s party arrived at its destination only forty minutes late, after an all day run and one slight mishap with a freight train—or a truck. * * * * * N general the Drifter is not one to lament the good old days, or to see any advantage in adversity. Yet it seems plain to him that a certain exultation no longer is possible to the motorist. You do not exult these days over getting somewhere; you could not have stood still. Purely in the interest of pleasure, the Drifter will avoid the main-traveled roads next time—they are only the city indefinitely extended —and take to the byways, some of which he hopes will conduct him to a region where the roads are alternately bad and good, where few strangers have been before, where the natives have not been bored in advance, and where he can lose himself as often and as completely as chance desires. THE DRIFTER

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July 11, 1923] The Nation 939 Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. An Amherst Graduate’s Answer To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I have just learned that the trustees of Amherst Col- lege have forced Mr. Meiklejohn to resign his presidency of that institution. Knowing something of the condition of the college at the time of his coming to it, the declared purposes for which he was brought there, the support pledged him in the -earrying out of his policies, the many ways in which the col- lege has been improved under his guidance, and the genuine distinction brought to it by his leadership, the news of the trus- tees’ action comes as a great shock to me. Two years ago at the time of the endowment drive, having faith in the program and ideals of liberal education which Mr. Meiklejohn was attempting to establish, I pledged a small amount to help the college in its work of carrying out those ideals. Since, to my knowledge, the trustees and opponents of Mr. Meiklejohn have advanced no ideals of liberal education superior to his, and since no other intelligible reason for his removal has been brought forward, I am forced to conclude that his repudiation amounts to a repudiation of the ideal of liberal training at Amherst. Under these circumstances, in order not to embarrass the trustees, I feel constrained to withdraw my subscription, pledged to the support of an ideal no longer ac- ceptable to them. EVERETT GLASS, Amherst College, Class of 1914 University of California, Berkeley, June 20 The First Woman Ambassador To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Reviewing some numbers of your paper I find a note concerning the first woman ambassador which should be cor- rected. When the Karolyi government came into power in Hungary Madam Rosika Schwimmer was appointed ambas- sador to Switzerland—November 19, 1918—until March 21, 1919, she held that position. At that date the government passed into the hands of the Communists, the pacific govern- ment of the Karolyi group was at an end, and Madam Schwim- mer returned to Budapest. Chicago, June 9 FLORENCE HOLBROOK Mental Overfeeding To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Lectures on Oriental rugs and on engineering problems of the Catskill aqueduct may indeed furnish intellectual pabu- lum for the college student, but are they not part of that already too heterogeneous diet of the non-academic which is causing mental indigestion? One solution would seem to lie in the direction of giving the students less food for thought and more leisure for thinking. Colleges like Bryn Mawr, where the student takes three five- hour instead of the customary five three-hour courses, and like Smith, where the superior students are allowed to do concen- trated work rather than attend many classes, have taken a step on the right path. However, the reform must go further than that, and colleges which are raising the hue and cry against so much dissipation of energy in athletics and non-academic activities need to realize that the many extra-curricular inter- ests offered by the colleges themselves under the guise of “broad- ening” the intellectual life of the students merely serve as part of that overstimulation so pandemic in college and univer- sity life today. What will be the thought product of under- graduates living in the atmosphere suggested by the. following schedule of one of the leading women’s colleges? Monday. First of a series of four lectures on politics and gOv- ernment—12 m. Maids’ play—8 p. m. Tuesday. Lecture on Oriental rugs—4:30 p. m. Wednesday. First of six lectures on India. College party—8 p. m. Thursday. Lecture on ethics and government—12 m. Lecture before an open meeting of the Science Club on “Engineering Problems of the Catskill Aqueduct” —4:30 p. m. Lecture on “Student Movements in Europe in 1922”— 8 p. m. Friday. Piano recital—8 p. m. Saturday. Glee Club Concert—11 a. m. Junior Promenade—4:30 p. m.-12 midnight. Sunday. Chapel—11 a. m. Organ recital—6:45 p. m. Lecture on “Some Forces Under the Surface of the Lives of the Working People’’—7:30 p. m. Monday. Lecture on the modern drama—4:30 p. m. The mentally as well as physically overfed American students present a strange contrast to the young men and women of Central Europe who worry more about their inability to afford paper on which to take lecture notes than their lack of food. New York, April 5 JANE PERRY CLARK Why They Subscribe TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: It is a cause of genuine pleasure to learn that Los Angeles has a board of education sufficiently intelligent to look behind your smoke-screen of “honest journalism,” and to appre- ciate, at their true valuation, your efforts to publish “what is really going on in the United States and the world.” The board of education, apparently, has divined the real purpose of your activities, namely, the teaching of communism under the disguise of liberalism, and the fostering of literary ideals which, if they were generally adopted, would create an atmos- phere redolent of Gomorrah. My purpose in continuing to subscribe to The Nation during these years is solely to study the activities of parlor bolshevism. It is true that there may be more profitable pastime, but it will be difficult to find more interesting phenomena for the observa- tion of the amateur psychologist than the “carryings-on” of our own unwhiskered soviets. THomMAs L. KELLEY Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco, April 28 TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: It was several issues back I saw in The Nation a note from some one of your subscribers who lived in the West. He was complaining bitterly about the stand The Nation was taking in behalf of the darker races—‘The Rising Tide of Color,” as he was pleased to call it—and stated in the same letter that on account of that stand you would please him very much if you would discontinue The Nation when his subscription ran out. This subscription is to take its place. New York, April 28 Who Wants Some Magazines? TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: If any of your readers can place a quantity of maga- zines where they will do some good, I shall be glad to hear from them. I have several thousand copies of various kinds and dates, and will be glad to send them prepaid on request, and if preference as to kind is stated, supply them according to that preference so far as possible. Shiner, Texas, May 29 W. W. WoLrFE, M.D. HARTLEY H. HEPLER

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40 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 Books An Eminent American My Thirty Years in Baseball. By John J. McGraw. Boni and Liveright. $2. [* is a pleasure of most agreeable smack, after groaning through such flabby, stupid biographies as that of the late Thomas Nelson Page by his brother, Rosewell, and that of Cyrus H. K. Curtis by his son-in-law, Edward W. Bok, to find the life story of a man of salient and charming personality told simply, honestly, and winningly. Such a man is John J. McGraw, A.B., the distinguished manager of the New York Giants; such a book is his present autobiography. I have heard the usual whispers that he did not write it—that its actual author is a New York sporting reporter. The fact is unimpor- tant if true. In every chapter of it, and almost on every page of it, there is matter that no outsider, however gifted, could have dredged out of the subject without his active and intelli- gent assistance. He, and he alone, is the man talking, even though he may not be the scribe writing it down, and so he deserves nine-tenths of the credit for the volume’s peculiar vir- tues. He has made, it seems to me, an autobiography that is almost a model. Every reasonable inquiry about his career that an admirer might ask is answered succinctly, and his opinion upon every question within the range of his profes- sional interests and talents is given frankly and clearly. But there he stops: no man could avoid the irrelevant more dili- gently. He has met in his time, I daresay, most of the great heroes of the newspapers, from Presidents up and down; if so, he forgets it. He has his private views, no doubt, upon the League of Nations, the coal problem, the Ku Klux Klan, bap- tism by total immersion, the training of children; if so, he withholds them. His book is devoted to baseball, and to base- ball alone. It is the best book upon the subject ever printed. - This is simply because Mr. McGraw is the most reflective and ingenious man who has ever devoted himself to baseball as a profession—because his natural talents as a player of the game have been reinforced from the start by a quite unusual capacity for analyzing its problems and devising solutions for them. When he first entered big-league company baseball was still in a relatively primitive stage, despite the high develop- ment of individual prowess. Pitching had been brought up to great perfection, catching had emerged from the era of mere human backstops, and there was a growing improvement in fielding and base-running, but there was very little effort to coordinate the skill of one player with that of his fellows, and to make the whole team play as one man. The best pitching was frequently made vain by unintelligent fielding, and even the best fielding was simple, cbvious, and devoid of plan. Mr. McGraw’s native intelligence made him see the weakness of this scheme of play; combined with his increasing skill and experience, it enabled him to devise a better one. The club- house of the old Baltimore Orioles constituted his seminary and laboratory. There he called the first councils of war ever heard of in baseball, and there he gradually developed the first mass plays in the grand manner. The Orioles, in the main, were not great stars; McGraw himself, indeed, was a player of very decided limitations. But when he and his colleagues went on the field with coherent plans in their heads, instead of the old simple trust in God’s gifts and the fortunes of war, their playing instantly became five times as effective as it had ever been before, and in a few short months they had mowed down all the visiting stars, revolutionized baseball, and won the national championship. In his book Mr. McGraw describes some of this now ancient strategy in detail, showing how it was evolved out of the earlier chaos, how it achieved its devastating victories, and how, in the end, as its victims began to penetrate and imitate it, it had to be changed or abandoned. Most of it seems simple enough, viewed from this distance, but as one who witnessed its first trials I can bear witness that it was by no means transparent then—that it not only puzzled and flabbergasted the poor morons who fell before it, but also stumped the illuminati in the Baltimore stands, many of them professors in the Johns Hopkins University and at least 250 years old by the Simon- Binét test. Mr. McGraw is by no means modest about his share in this revolution; in fact, he blows more than one exult- ant blast upon his bugle horn. The music gives no offense; he was actually the moving force he says he was; not one of his colleagues had half his acumen. To this day, I believe, he remains without a peer. Individual players of enormously greater skill have come and gone, but none of them has ever left such brilliant marks upon the game. The lively ball is his enemy today. It makes things easy for the heavy swatter of the truck-driver or Babe Ruth type, and so tends to con- vert the game into a mere clown show for the mob. But even this difficulty, I am confident, will fall before the McGrawian ingenuity. One gathers that his mind is busy with the prob- lem, and that he is not without hope. On some bright after- noon, perhaps not far distant, the Cré-Magnon batsmen who now flourish will suddenly wither and die, as the impregnable pitchers of 1893 withered and died before the scientific bunting and base-stealing of the old Orioles. McGraw used to put in his winters keeping a saloon—no low doggery, of course, but an establishment befitting a philosopher and a bachelor of arts. His own steam beer, olives, pretzels, Blutwurst and Kartoffel- salat shortened his wind and gave him a paunch, and the con- versation of his clients whitened his hair. He has thus made his last slide and bitten off his last umpire’s ear. But his head is still working. H. L. MENCKEN European Celebrities Eminent Europeans: Studies in Continental Reality. By Eugene S. Bagger. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2.50. M R. BAGGER’S book gives full-length portraits of ten Euro- pean rulers and statesmen: of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Rumania and of John Bratiano, the most powerful - of Rumanian statesmen; of Eleutherios Venizelos and the iate King Constantine of Greece; of Thomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and Edward Benes, Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs of that country; of Count Michael Karolyi, President of the short-lived Hungarian Re- public, and Nicholas Horthy, the present regent of Hungary; and of Ignace Jan Paderewski, Premier of Poland in 1918-19. Imbedded in the larger canvases are subsidiary sketches, the most notable of which are those of Count Stephen Tisza, Hun- garian Premier at the outbreak of the World War, a typical Hungarian magnate of the old school, and of Prince Ludwig Windischgraetz, who was Hungarian Food Minister at the close of the war and who acquired immortality as the “potato prince,” because, when the revolution came, he left the country calmly carrying away with him twelve million kronen of state funds destined for the purchase of food for the starving people. Noblesse oblige! It will be noted that Mr. Bagger’s list of political eminences is drawn from the second-rate states of Central and South- eastern Europe. Most of his subjects are but little known in this country; but that is no reason why they should not be made known, or pilloried, according to their deserts. It might be objected that the ridiculous Ferdinand, the complacent Bratiano, the White Terrorist, Horthy, even those perfect saints of the Czech lower middle class, Masaryk and Benes, are not represen- tative 100 per cent Europeans. But who can tell? To compare things unknown with things known, are we quite sure that Roosevelt and Wilson, those fine political artists, are more repre- sentative of America than the clumsy Taft and the normally mediocre Harding? Is it quite certain that Messrs. Burleson

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July 11, 1923] The Nation Al SS SSL ————— and Palmer, Daugherty and Lusk are less typical Americans than the editors and contributors of The Nation, New Republic, and Freeman? Even Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn is not quite sure that his genius is more truly representative of America than, say, the genius of Brander Matthews. I may prefer to read of the titans who are battling and toiling for a new social order; but Mr. Bagger prefers to write of the eminences who bear the burden and reap the profits of the old. That being the case, the only proper question is, How has Mr. Bagger done his job? He has done it, all the difficulties of contemporary biography considered, surprisingly well; throughout with spirit and vivacity, occasionally with a deep insight into the nature of things. The futile Rumanian royalties are exhibited in all their futility, the effect of which is heightened by amusing anecdotes of more or less authenticity. Venizelos and Constantine fight over again their world-renowned quarrel, for which millions of Greeks, Armenians, and Turks, too, have paid in misery, star- vation, and death. Proudly Bratiano struts past, held up by his wealth, the name of his father, his princely wife, his high financial connections. Paderewski lives his life over again, sacrificing his composer’s ambition for the applause and the emoluments of a great popular virtuoso, sacrificing his pos- sessions and his art for his beloved Poland, sacrificing himself in the pursuit of a political ambition, only to be beaten by the virtuosi of intrigue and demagogy. We see Count Karolyi, one of the greatest magnates of Europe, fleeing with his wife and children, pushing their belongings in a little cart, robbed of everything, but sure of his soul, his pure motives, his benevo- lent intentions; the one truly noble figure in this gallery of eminences. We see the country squire Horthy rising, ever ris- ing, with Hapsburg aid, with Allied aid, until he is able to send forth his detachment chiefs with blanket warrants “to pronounce and execute sentence on the guilty.” The portraits of Masaryk and Benes are not quite so well done; somehow they lack vigor, the sap of life. But what is one to do with such moral, model citizens? So much virtue and goodness, so much adaptability and serviceability may have honestly earned its successes and triumphs, but if you undertake to depict it you do so at your own peril. In his papers on Venizelos and Constantine, which are among the very best hitherto penned, Mr. Bagger very justly points out that, among Western liberals and radicals, Venizelos is undeservedly in ill repute. They regard him as an imperialist, whereas in reality he is a nationalist, pursuing aims similar to those of Pachitch and Masaryk in our day, or of Mazzini and Cavour in the mid-nineteenth century. The ideal of Venizelos, the union of all the historic seats of Hellenism in one state, seemed at one time on the very verge of realization, although now, after the Ionian catastrophe, its total shipwreck is ap- parent to all. But Mr. Bagger is at his very best, achieves his finest effects, in the papers on Karolyi and Horthy. There he is on his own native heath—beg pardon, puszta—and his analysis of the historically active groups and classes of Hun- garian society—the great Catholic landowners, who had made their peace with the Court; the country squires, largely Calvin- ist, who constituted the official opposition; the army officers, a subdivision of the country squires; the oppressed nationali- ties, who constituted more than one-half of the total population; the Jews, the intellectuals, the rising trade unions—this analy- sis, scattered though it is through these two papers, constitutes the most brilliant and delectable as it certainly is the most searching portion of the whole book. It is impossible to con- vey an adequate idea of it except by quoting a few of Mr. Bagger’s sentences: “Stripped of its romantic trappings of race superiority and historic mission and all that sort of thing, Magyar supremacy meant monopoly of land.” Since the Aws- gleich with Austria, the national, i. e., the Magyar, cause had been championed by an oligarchic opposition, which assumed to speak in the name of “the people.” The opposition’s battle- ery was 1848, the year of revolution and separation from Austria, while the battle-cry of the Government party was 1867, the year of compromise with Austria and the dynasty. And what was the social meaning of this political division? Mr. Bagger tells us: “Roughly speaking, 1867 was the party of large landowners, Jewish high finance, and the Budapest bourgeoisie; 1848 that of the middle and small landowners, the Calvinist clergy, the burgesses of the smaller cities, and such peasants as had the property qualification for the franchise.” And what is the meaning of the counter-revolution and the White Terror? “It was in reality a reaction against Karolyi, not Bela Kun; against the Westernism, the new-fangled ways, the alien, French and English, notions of the Budapest intel- lectuals. . The 100 per cent Magyarism of the country dis- tricts, manipulated by the officers of the army and the clique of Budapest politicians, put Admiral Horthy into the saddle.” HERMAN SIMPSON The Diplomat at His Best Social and Diplomatic Memories, 1884-1895. By the Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell Rodd. Edward Arnold and Company. I T is a sign of the times that the author of this volume thinks it necessary to preface his recollections with an apologia for the old diplomacy. The effectiveness of the traditional sys- tem is no longer taken for granted. Indeed, the more popular assumption today is that this system. has broken down. Sir Rennell Rodd takes up not so much the cudgels as the rapier in defense of his profession, but more cogent than any of his direct arguments will be the indirect persuasiveness of his de- lightful picture of the activities and interests of himself and his colleagues. He presents to us here a portrait of the ortho- dox diplomat at his best. Certainly the old system has been able to draw into its service not a few men of the highest culture. Educated under Jowett at Balliol, where three other future ambassadors—Cecil Spring- Rice, Arthur Hardinge, and Louis Mallet—were members of his own class, as one would say in America, Sir Rennell has preserved throughout his career the tastes not only of a gen- tleman but of a scholar and an artist. We find him, while filling a junior post at the Berlin Embassy, relieving the monotony of deciphering telegrams by discussing the history of art with the commercial attaché, Sir Joseph Crowe. His term at Athens is followed by the publication of a book on the “Customs and Lore of Modern Greece” and by another embody- ing the results of diligent researches in the history of Greece during the Middle Ages. Having four days to spare between boats at Brindisi, he makes a pilgrimage to the home of Horace. Even at Zanzibar, of all places, he gains an unexpected thrill by discovering an unpublished lyric of Heine’s. In respect of culture, the “shirt-sleeves diplomatist” will have something to do to catch up with the standard set him by his predecessor. Perhaps on another side of his interests Sir Rennell will not be so hard to rival. He is not only a scholar, a poet, and an artistic and literary critic but a connoisseur in wines and tav- erns. He expresses some regret that circumstances have made him a courtier, whereas nature had meant him for a Bohemian. He becomes quickly at home among the habitués of an artists’ kneipe at Munich, where he finds the company as good as the beer. In his own country as well as abroad he gets into touch with circles remote from either Buckingham Palace or White- hall. Whistler, Burne-Jones, Mowbray Morris, and Pellegrini are among the names that appear in his records of London life in the eighties. There are some piquant stories of the youthful pranks of Lord Curzon and other Oxford intimates who have since become famous and dignified. This volume is, indeed, a treasury of diverting anecdotes about men and women, known and unknown, whom Sir Rennell has met in England and on the Continent. He entered the diplomatic service in 1884, when he joined the embassy at Berlin under Lord Ampthill. The general reader

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—— 42 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3027 will be keenly interested in his impressions of the old Emperor William, the Emperor Frederick, and the younger William, as well as of the Bismarcks, father and son. The historian will find some useful material here concerning the Morell Mackenzie controversy, of which Sir Rennell, through his friendship with the Empress Frederick, had first-hand knowledge. The publica- tion of Sir Rennell’s biography of the Emperor Frederick brought him into the black books of the younger Emperor Wil- liam, and it was long before the offense was forgiven. After Berlin came Athens, Rome, and Paris. In Greece, as may be inferred from what has already been said, diplomatic duties at the capital offered less attraction than expeditions in exploration of the country, including the islands. The fascina- tion of these journeys did not wholly lie in their archaeological or antiquarian interest. In Crete, for instance, Sir Rennell met a lady who had had a long and intimate association with Garibaldi and who had many remarkable stories to tell him of the liberator of Italy. In Italy his chief was Lord Dufferin, whom he accompanied to Paris on his transference to the embassy there. Lord Dufferin, we are told, was reluctant to make the change. He quoted to his attaché the story of some famous character who, when asked what life he would have wished to live if he had been free to choose, replied that he would like from twenty to twenty-five to be a reigning beauty, from twenty-five to thirty-five a successful French general, from thirty-five to fifty a wealthy English nobleman, and the rest of life a Roman cardinal. As he could not become a car- dinal, Lord Dufferin said he would like to have remained the next best thing, an ambassador in Rome. It is with a shock of surprise that one finds Sir Rennell, after this diplomatic apprenticeship at the historic capitals of Europe, suddenly switched off to East Africa. At the end of 1892 he was appointed to the charge of the Agency at Zanzibar, which carried with it the High Commissionership of the whole coastal area administered by the East Africa Company, from the Equator to the boundary of German East Africa. From court “balls and Balkan imbroglios the chronicle now turns to the sup- pression of the slave trade and the prevention of the smuggling of fire-arms and hasheesh. Of all the unfamiliar problems that now confronted him the most critical and dangerous was that involved in the succession to the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Sir Rennell, with the cooperation of the officers of the warships in the harbor, met the emergency makes a story whose sensa- tional incidents would make it fit to be “featured” in the sup- plement of a Sunday paper. Modestly told as it is by the chief figure, it arouses in the reader a keen admiration for the courage and resourcefulness of all concerned. The occasion made a call for qualities that one does not by any means asso- ciate with the characteristics of the conventional diplomatist, but Sir Rennell Rodd laid his plans and carried them out with the skill and sangfroid of an old campaigner. With his de- parture from Zanzibar in 1894 at the age of thirty-five the present record stops. We are promised a supplementary vol- ume telling of his subsequent service in Egypt under Lord Cromer, in Stockholm, and again at Rome, where he spent three years as secretary of the embassy and eleven as am- bassador,. which last included the period of the Great War. With all its attractiveness, this picture of the old diplomacy, as drawn by one of the most accomplished of its practitioners, is not likely to convert anyone who believes that international relations in the future will need to be conducted by men of more democratic sympathies and outlook. Wherein the tradi- tional system was lacking is sufficiently indicated by .an inci- dental allusion of the author’s to the “alleged infamies” of the collection of rubber on the Congo. For a book dealing with so many names of persons and places there are few errata to be noted. But Sir Rennell’s wits must surely have been wool-gathering when he attributed the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to “Harriet Ward Beecher”! HERBERT W. HORWILL How . After-War Novels Time Is Whispering. By Elizabeth Robins. Harper and Broth- ers. $2. The Wrong Shadow. By Harold Brighouse. Bride and Company. $2. The Return of Frank Clamart.. By Henry C. Rowland. Harper and Brothers. $1.90. HE philosopher’s “revaluation of old values” may legiti- mately become a function of the novelist. It is, however, an open question whether the exposition of specific current problems, as such, may not rather facilely descend to the level of the diagrammatic editorial. Especially is this true if the writer succumbs to the too obvious expedient of hawking some pet household remedy for the social condition thus indicated. These three novelists are concerned with after-war states of mind in England and the United States. Miss Robins adopts the angle of the older generation; she as well as Mr. Brighouse, who champions youth, is engaged by the conflict of the British landed aristocracy and the new war-made millionaires, the latest phase of the battle between agriculture and industrialism. Mr. Rowland is apparently an ardent newspaper reader; his United States is in the throes of superhuman struggles against insidious foreign drug rings, murder syndicates, and “crime waves,” all of which are the “aftermath of the war.” In “Time Is Whispering” Miss Robins develops her thesis in terms of events years before in India, modified by memory and brought to bear upon the matured personalities of her protagonists. Her heroine suggests irresistibly a softened Charlotte Bronté; Miss Robins’s character is still “weakness preyed upon by bestiality,” still pursued by love-mad men wherever she goes. The flashing melodrama, however, is lack- ing. Miss Robins’s pleas for married love in the middle years are sufficiently generalized without bringing in endless argu- ments regarding the relative merits of passion and affection in relationships, whether Understanding or Happiness is the summum bonum, Near East and Far East politics, Anglo- Indian life from the woman’s viewpoint, the taste of the young in art and literature, the place of women in English after-war economics, and ‘the colonizing Englishman. It may be a pretty picture of the ideal of service, but it is hopelessly sentimental- ized out of focus. Mr. Brighouse’s competent observations on the habits and outlook of the clerk-and-stenographer school of bohemianism have already furnished him the materials for several of his plays and novels. “The Wrong Shadow” is an excursion in the familiar field, with the addition of a war profiteer. The profiteer is a patent-medicine quack who has both a conscience and an Robert M. Me- ideal. The conscience refers him constantly to the early partner | who discovered his formula for him and disappeared. The ideal involves welfare work for a healthy England. Mr. Brighouse has developed scenes of delightful comedy, and is not too seri- ously devoted to the solution of the larger issues. The en- counter between his profiteer and the long-lost partner is deftly delivered of all its amusing incongruities. As is proper in a summer novel everyone is happy and rich at the end. The well-worn formula of the reformed crook who turns upon his old associates of the underworld is the basis of “The Return of Frank Clamart.” Mr. Rowland brings it up to date by dis- cussions of the prohibition amendment, of the increasing drug traffic, of the need for military preparedness, of the essential “cleanness and right-mindedness” of his fellow-citizens, and of the “crime wave.” ; Mr. Rowland is a serious-minded young man. The reader is not allowed to have his red-blooded-action yarn until he has fully digested Mr. Rowland’s opinions on the score of boot- leggers, contraband liquor, the observance of the law, the topsy- turvydom of war, and the “national good sense.” Then he is plunged into narrow escapes from death, dealings with un- scrupulous intelligences with Mexican or German names, and tl ellie Nee

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July 11, 1923] The Nation 43 daring rescues of beautiful women. He is introduced to in- sidious and deadly new gases and to picturesque characters in high and low life. He is furnished with an unanswerably crushing rejoinder: “Go to Hell!” Try it on the landlord. Mr. Rowland writes with dash and assurance; his novel was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. It seems a shame that so much energy should be dissipated on arid and superficial ideas. JOHN W. CRAWFORD Colors of Spain Terassa of Spain. By Horace Fish. Mitchell Kennerley. $2.50. ORACE FISH’S first novel, “The Great Way,” disclosed a spirit strange to contemporary America, unhurrying, given to exploring and recording sentiment, of which American writers seem so much afraid when it is not a matter of “love story” merely. The passion of his book and its humor distin- guished it. It was so thoroughly felt throughout. In “Terassa of Spain” he is again vindicating the humanity that subsists between people, old or young men, women, children, in the feel- ing they have for one another. Possibly the town of Terassa about which these ten stories are grouped has existence only in Mr. Fish’s imagination. It is again, as was Dulce in “The Great Way,” a vehicle, as the benevolent padre Pedro, the loving, suffering human beings and amusing little boys of Terassa are vehicles of the subtlest propaganda of the fiction writer—persuading of the loveliness of people. The realm this writer’s mind inhabits is neither modern America nor dusty and sun-baked Spain. He draws his colors, of the vividest, from a sunny Spanish hill town, it is true, from the bull ring of Barcelona, from word and trait of old priest, wayward girl, circus clown, or bandit. But it is not Spain, it is fiction one encounters here, suited in phrasing sometimes heavily ornate to its romantic content, in sharp contrast with the incisive literalness of a James Joyce in “Dubliners,” for example, or even of Proust. If the passion of words causes Horace Fish at times to over-write, it also gives the richness of master- pieces to The Fighting Iris and The Horns of El Dilemma, stories less written than modeled out of the golden atmosphere of Barcelona with its rags and destitution, its gorgeous crowd, its black-garbed padre, and the vivid tragedy of the bull ring. Of Apasionada one can say only it is sheer music. This book of stories makes one wonder what Mr. Fish’s progress will be— since another novel is already announced—whether farther into the sentiment of exotic realms, or toward the hastening, noisy, struggling modern world from which his spirit seems so distant. He is one to be watched, for he is now one of our most dis- tinguished prosemen of fiction. HERBERT J. SELIGMANN A Philosophical Detective Story The Emperor’s Old Clothes. By Frank Heller. Translated by Robert Emmons Lee. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $2. ay EN the book in question is a novel which has no lit- erary pretensions, but wants to be judged purely from the point of view of so-called “entertainment,” then the ques- tion naturally is—especially in detective stories like this one— whether the idea is plausible, and whether the mystifying ele- ment, that is the suspense, is worked out well enough for the interest to be held to the end. And if these principles are adhered to, and the story is well written, then the book can lay claim to be called “good light fiction.” But if in addition to all these points the author permeates his work with a delight- ful sense of humor, not too proud to joke on his own account, interpolating into the speech of his characters mellow bits of philosophy, then it becomes the duty of the reviewer to re- move the book from the rank of light fiction and set it into a place of its own, not too far from the so-called serious books. This reviewer will not tell the story for fear of spoiling the pleasure of the reader. He will content himself with saying that it deals with the adventures of a writer of detective stories, a man of sedentary habits, who becomes conscience stricken over the fact that he has never witnessed a murder, nor even seen an honest-to-goodness burglar. If a philosophical romance is possible, there is no reason why there should not be a philo- sophical detective story. And that is what this is, NATHAN ASCH Gipsy Tales Murdo. By Konrad Berecovici. Boni and Liveright. $2. TT say that the short stories of Konrad Bercovici are better than the work of most of his contemporaries is to say little. In the Gipsy sagas which he relates is the breath of freedom, the rhythm of poetry, and the sense of intimacy that proves the close imaginative relationship between author and his wild creations. Such a combination is obviously impossible to him who finds subject matter in the current of civilized and humdrum life, and it is not for him who seeks to report the incidents observed in alien surroundings. It is therefore a foregone conclusion that “Murdo” will have an enthusiastic reception from discriminating readers. Yet it is just as certain that the book will not enhance Mr. Ber- covici’s reputation. For “Murdo,” valuable and interesting in itself, adds nothing to the stature of the author of “Ghitza”; it is an enlargement, not a growth. Moreover, the proportion of stories in this volume which are constructed rather than realized is an indication that Mr. Bercovici has now emptied the bin where the seeds of these tales were stored. Let us hope that the Death of Murdo is the last of his adventures, that he will not return like Sherlock Holmes or Mr. Dooley to sadden us with dull and trivial repetitions of former successes. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Books in Brief The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. Edited by H. S. Milford. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $3. This volume, in the admirable Oxford Poets series, is the first “fairly complete” edition of the verse of a minor poet who is also a minor essayist. The two minors come close to making a major. Self Healing Through Autosuggestion. By Dr. C. F. Winbigler. American Library Service. $1.25. The impression that one gets from this book is that Dr. Winbigler would have the reader believe that he, Dr. Win- bigler, has just stepped down from the Olympic heights where he wrote what he calls his “large work on suggestion” in order to chat patronizingly with ordinary folk. At the end of the book he gives some formulae for the relief of insomnia and constipation and a few similar common ills. While M. Coué is mentioned but rarely in the text there is obvious similarity in much of the subject matter. Some of the physiological state- ments in the book are quaint. English Words and their Background. By George H. McKnight, Ph.D. D. Appleton and Company. $2.50. This is a most interesting book. Mr. McKnight makes the study of words a fascinating, romantic sort of adventure. He gives us no suffocating textbook, no philological dry rot, but shows rather how words “illustrate the cultural progress of the race, not only the development of the material elements of civilization, but the progress in knowledge and the changes that have affected modes of thought.” Nor does he assume the role of a word dictator. Always accurate and scientific in his presentation, Mr. McKnight is able by means of suggestion and analogy to build up a story of words which, in their infinite possibilities, in their continual state of flux, make up a story of mankind.

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International Relations Section Japanese Students Show Their Opposition to Militarism PROAR and expressions of opposition from students took place at the inauguration ceremony of the Waseda University Gunji Kenkyu-dan (Society for the Study of Military Affairs) on May 10, last. As the Japan Chronicle tells the story, Several automobiles of the War Office carried about thirty army and navy officers to the school, including General Shira- kawa, the Vice-Minister for War, Generals Nakashima and Ishi- mitsu, the commanders of the Imperial Guard Division and the First Division, Admiral Furukawa, the director of the education bureau of the Navy Office, Admiral Tsuneda, of the Naval Gen- eral Staff, and others, their breasts shining with decorations. At the entrance of the university was hanging a flag with char- acters: “Down with Militarism! Capture the Meeting Hall! Anti-Society for the Study of Military Affairs.” When the military officers were entering the hall of meeting, one of the anti-society members cried: “Behold those human butchers!” At the appointed time there was, besides the professors and seventy members of the society, an audience of nearly a thou- sand students. Professor Aoyagi, the president of the society, took the ros- trum and began: “I——” A student from the audience com- pleted the sentence with “—am a militarist.” Loud laughter greeted this sally, which was followed by: “Be ashamed of yourself, Aoyagi!” ‘He feels no shame; he has sold his soul to the militarists.” Professor Aoyagi turned pale, says the Asahi, but he courageously said that liberty and discipline never “were in conflict. They (the members) were not proclaiming militarism, but nationalism. The rest of his speech was drowned in the noise. The military officers compressed their lips and looked darkly at the disorder. ‘Who admitted these swash- bucklers into the students’ school?” one cried. ‘Drag them out!” - shouted others. Dr. Shiozawa then took the rostrum and said the audience misunderstood something. “Nothing whatever!’ shouted the students. “Was not Marquis Okuma the president of the Soldiers’ Friends Society?” asked Dr. Shiozawa. “Don’t misrepresent the spirit of the marquis!” shouted the students. The doctor con- cluded his speech saying that militaristic national defense was international. Look at Russia. Look at America. They were devoting all their might. Dr. Takada [the new president of the university], who had been fidgeting in his chair with impatience, betook himself to the platform and gazed on the students fixedly. “Reflect, Ta- kada!” the students shouted, “Have you forgotten the 16th year of Meiji?” (when he stoutly attacked militarism). Dr. Takada turned scarlet with anger and cried that a nation constitution- ally governed should respect the liberty of speech at public meetings. He recounted the views of the late Marquis Okuma concerning the army, and said that when you saw the present condition of America which strongly advocates liberty and equality: (“There! That’s militarism.” Another noise.) If there were militarism actually, it should be destroyed-as soon as possible. It must be part of the business of the society. But, he cried, the Waseda University ought to be ashamed of their conduct. He returned to his seat trembling with excitement. General Shirakawa, the Vice-Minister of War, then read an address on behalf of the War Minister. A voice cried that blood was dripping from the decoration on the breast of the speaker. Another student sang: “Thousands die to raise one hero to fame.” Then the members of the anti-society began to sing the school song in chorus. Several more officers made speeches, but they were drowned in the noise, and the meeting was closed at 4:20 p.m. in confusion. The Japan Chronicle goes on to say that the opponents of the Society for the Study of Military Affairs at Waseda University, having converted the meeting of that society into a mild riot on May 10, called a meeting of their own two days later. They were in turn raided by the advocates of military advancement, and the interruptions led to blows. Six students were seriously injured. The next day the Kensetsu-sha (Construction Society) of the university, having among its members some of the younger professors, including Messrs. Kitazawa Shinjiro, Oyama Ikuo, and Mr. Sano Manabu, called an emergency meeting and passed resolutions, in the course of which it was said: We disapprove of the attitude of Dr. Takada and Dr. Shio- zawa at the inauguration of the Society for the Study of Mili- tary Affairs. They should be impeached in the presence of the Construction Society. The Society for the Study of Military Affairs invited militar- ists, including General Shirakawa, the Vice-Minister of War, to the inauguration ceremony. We have reason to suspect that the society has joined hands with the military clique, and has been made the cat’s-paw of the militarists. The society should be accused. Both the Mainichi and the Asahi state that the police are preparing for action against the Socialists at Waseda and other universities. The former paper makes special men- tion of the Waseda professors who are on the official black list for their socialistic activities, and it happens that three of them are those who supported the anti-militarist students in their protest against the manner of organizing the So- ciety for the Study of Military Affairs at the University. The militarist students seem to have taken this as an en- couragement to themselves and have demanded the punish- ment of professors and students who “inculcate unpatriotic ideas.” The Mainichi states that the special higher section of the metropolitan police considers that four professors of the Waseda University, Messrs. Sano Gaku, Inomata Tsunao, Oyama Ikuo, and Kitazawa Shinnosuke, who are on the black list, have gone beyond the bounds of theoretical study of socialism, and entered into the practical movement. They are alleged to be developing a tendency to bolshevize Japanese students. On account of the opposition to the Society for the Study of Military Affairs, its organizers at the Waseda University dissolved it, but were later understood to be looking toward reorganization. The Japan Chronicle has this to say of the seheme which has led to so much opposition: According to report, the scheme which is supposed to be under discussion between the War Office and the Educational Depart- ment, the Home Office and the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, consists not only in extending the term of obligatory education but administering thoroughgoing military education at the universities, middle schools, and elementary schools with the object of reducing the term of barrack service, officers in active service being dispatched to the schools for the purpose and the enforcement of the training being regulated by Imperial Ordinance or War Office Ordinance investing the army with full powers. If so, this would be an attempt at making preparatory military training a compulsory part of school education—at mili- tarizing the nation rather than nationalizing the army.

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July 11, 1923] The Nation A5 The Japanese Cotton Mills SURVEY of labor conditions in the cotton mills of Japan has been made by a Japanese welfare agency, the Association for Harmonious Cooperation, an account of which appears in the Manchester Guardian as follows: Four-fifths of the workers employed in Japanese spinning mills are women or girls, and of these nearly two-thirds are under the age of 20. Out of 177,476 women and girls employed in 1919, 79 were under 12 years, 32,722 were between 12 and 15 years, 79,656 between 15 and 20 years, and 65,016 over 20 years. The number of men and boys employed was 55,330, almost all over 15 years. For more than ten years factory owners have been finding difficulty in obtaining women workers, partly through the rapid growth of the industry, partly through the short period the women work. Over 60 per cent of the workers are “recruited” through agents sent out by the owners, who receive so much a head, and who advance a sum to each worker recruited, which apparently is intended to bind them firmly to the em- ployer. In spite of this contract system and the fact that over two- fifths of the women employees and nearly a fourth of the male workers live in dormitories attached to the factories, the labor turnover is very high. Thus in 1921, in proportion to the 229,- 038 workers in cotton-spinning mills, discharges were 74.11 per cent and engagements 90.87 per cent. Mills now run either 22 or 20 hours a day. The operatives work in alternate shifts, each of 11 to 12 hours, with 30 minutes’ rest for meals and 15-minute breaks at 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. and 3 am. or 3 p.m. Four days’ rest a month is given, and “there is an increasing tendency to adopt the Sunday rest sys- tem.” As food is often supplied to the workers by the employer or by outside agents authorized by him, it is clear that some- thing not far removed from the truck system exists. Tuberculosis is very prevalent among the dormitory workers, although things are reported to be improving. “Owing to the low standard of education and the slow progress of any feeling of self-reliance among the women workers, very little headway has been made in the organization of workers in the industry.” The only union of spinners in Japan has a membership of 200. Factory Hours in Japan N its new regulations on the minimum working age Japan has followed the Washington Hours of Work Con- vention, says the Manchester Guardian. The working age is put at 14, but children over 12 can work when they have finished the course of an elementary school or if they are in employment when the act comes into force. This wipes out the provision of the Japanese law that children between 10 and 12 can be employed “in certain light and easy work.” But in its regulation of hours the new Japanese factory act falls far short of the Washington convention. It provides that children under 16 and women are not to be employed more than 11 hours a day, which is one hour less than at present; excep- tion is made in the case of the silk industry. The Washington convention limited the hours of children under 15 years to 48 a week. The act places no limit on the hours of work of male workers over 16, or of male workers over 15 for the first three years, which, of course, means that for that period there need be no change. The Washington convention put a limit of 57 hours a week, except in the raw silk industry, which was allowed a 60-hour week. The Washington convention insisted on a weekly rest period of 24 consecutive hours to all classes of workers The act makes no provision for male workers over 16 (or over 15 for three years), but gives two rest days a month to children under 16 (or 15) and women; women and children on night work are entitled to four rest days a month. Likewise there is no pro- vision for rest intervals during work for men and boys over 16, but children and women are to have half an hour’s rest for a 6-hour day and at least an hour for a 10-hour day. On night work the Washington convention sought to secure the prohibition of all employment of children under 16 (or under 15 until July 1, 1925) and women for a period of 11 hours, including the interval between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., but modified this for Japan to make the period 10 hours for a pro- visional term of three years. The act prohibits work between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. for children under 16 (or 15 for three years) and women, but allows work up to 11 p.m. with the sanction of the authorities. The World’s Chief Navies HE London Economist prints a tabulation of the navies of Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy as they were on February 1, last. The return, which is based on a White Paper issued by the British Admiralty, omits obsolete ships. The following comparisons are shown: British ° Empire U.S.A. Japan France Italy 2 Bultic 18 30 11 9 9 Battleships, 522%,..2.. 2 rte tae + Baitaiae 2 0: > Wo. 0h ID Battle cruisers ...... Built .... 4 0 7 0 0 Building. 0 4 2 0 0 GYaISPES 4664. oes es Built .... 2 10 0 6 3 Building. 0 0 0 0 0 Light cruisers ...... Built .... 48 9 15 5 10 Building. 4 10 Stes 0+ Flotilla leaders...... Built ee 16 0 0 1 8 Building. 2 0 0 6 3 Torpedo-boat destroy- (Built.... 185 315 71 51 51 TS) ere ease Shs sve Building. 4 0 278. 12 8 Calta eae. Built... : GGumelOtw 40: 47. 49 Building. 8 2 Ak 138 Or Gunboat and dispatch (Built.... 0 4 A Ties 9 WESSCIND: seicuiAs cxevt.e Building. 0 i 0 1 0 Of her battleships, the United States is to scrap, under the Washington treaty, eight of those actually built and seven of those building, while five are on sale and being dismantled. This brings her battleship strength (built and building) down to 19, as against the British Empire’s 20. Under the Washington treaty Japan is to scrap five of the existing and the two building battleships; she is also to scrap three battle cruisers, and to con- vert into aircraft carriers the two battie cruisers now building. Similarly, the United States is to scrap the four battle cruisers now under construction. In light cruisers, the British total is large; but an outstanding feature of the table is America’s tremendous preponderance in torpedo-boat destroyers. In submarines also she has a big lead. The White Paper does not tell us how many of the various classes of vessels are actually manned and in commission. An- other important point about the above table is drawn attention to in our footnotes. In the Japanese list, in addition to the ves- sels built or building, six light cruisers, 21 torpedo-boat destroy- ers, and 28 submarines are projected. The latest date of com- pletion of the vessels to be scrapped under the Washington treaty by the United States (apart, of course, from vessels now building) is 1909; while the torpedo-boat destroyers show a rather remarkable number of American craft of this type com- pleted between 1919 and 1922. * Not including six projected. + Two are projected. {Four projected. § Not including 21 projected. || Not including 28 projected.

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The Nation . 46 [Vol. 117, No. 3027

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JUL 17 1928 PUBLIC LIBRARY The Nation FOUNDED 1865 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1923 No. 3028 Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS. .........ccccccccccccrcccscccssscccensscece AT EDITORIALS: What AS) a TIN Party Pies ciieislarreleisis on sama ccviswsicnacisecccaeeesiccwce 50 The Newspaper Game............- 51 Me cl Mr Meo a | ha atalel wie aici nistaveus.c.e eledeveie wseiele/ esa lone) els] sje) sis \siale/aie.0 ofa\dlaio alam «\\e!eje 51 The Servant Problem Solved 52 WOMAN’S 75-YEAR FIGHT. By Alice Stone Blackwell.............+.+ 53 BEFORE THE PAN-AMERICAN BAR. By Pierre Hudicourt........... 54 THE “LOG’ UNSEATS “MARK HOPKINS.” By Fred Lewis Pattee.. 55 THE PEOPLE LET DOWN. By William Hard.............-eeeeeeeeeees 58 THE WILES OF DESTINY. By Sholom Asch...........-eceeeeeeeeees 59 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter.........s.ccscccesccscecs an BL ONDE SOND ING BAe. le tarslocc: alee laievevele wlafeielsje/a.sieanla jolie) oe 6 eele|se.e shave .ein vin'sie)s.eve 71 SWALLOWS PASS THROUGH ROME. By Leonora Speyer............ 63 BOOKS: ; Life and Letters of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. By Martha Gruening.. 63 A Cheerful Russian Poet. By Roy Temple House.................... 64 MhrearOrivicseby. samuel CG. WOM Wiese o)6:\cr4 oo) efeie 6 since m ste sie else «ser eis/ajeie 65 Being Respectable. By Katharine Sergeant Angell.................- 66 A Malicious Panorama. By John W. Crawford..........sseeeeeeeees 66 SEREIE A METTNMER EV TEU cre aictev ote, eloiotere’ sy cieiells..s; «Cexelele\c)eicyoiat ad ’siele/aic¥eislave ole si eisia's\einielcje ce 66 MUSIC: The Symphony Players. By Allan Lincoln Langley................ 67 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Russia’s Economic Revival. By Alexander M. Krasnoschokov......... 69 RRR UMRE TMM EN SEIU tay ai foe letallatel eralainia's«icv0ip auus elev siejarecn ie e'esieravatele's’e,d @ elelers's eys'eis 70 Re me DUA RIMMEL CEI COn tinal sve cists) binve! a chellals)e\ ala eie wiwlshelere'Sya'e wisiisic e eelee els mwielalee 71 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprror ASsocIATe Eprrors LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EpITor IRITA VAN DOREN, ApvertTIsSING MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SusscrieTIon Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HE British Government does not seem to find its experi- ment in diplomacy by catechism very successful. Try- ing to get from M. Poincaré plain answers to plain questions is like calling spirits from the vasty deep. The precision of a cross-examination in a court of justice is altogether alien to the style of negotiation most in favor in foreign offices. The Pope’s intervention may ultimately achieve something, in spite of France’s polite suggestion that His Holiness should mind his own business. Though technically he may have no status in international politics, if a ministry of reconciliation is none of his business, what is? Meanwhile, it is abundantly clear that what troubles France, in the Ruhr situation, is not sporadic bomb-throwings and sabotage, which she can readily cope with, but passive resistance, for which there is no effective weapon in her armory. It is com- paratively easy, if you are physically the more powerful, to compel your antagonist to stop fighting or working, but it needs more than the stronger arm to induce him to stop not fighting or not working. How confidently we have been as- sured, of late years, that patient and persistent abstention from violence is a wholly futile method of gaining one’s point! Yet here is the Ruhr population practicing this method with such tenacity that the most powerful govern- ment in Continental Europe has to confess herself non- plussed. “Abandon your Quakerism,” she says in effect, “and then we will begin to talk.” URKEY wins. That is the significance of the peace signed at Lausanne. Almost nothing is left of the Treaty of Sevres. Great Britain agrees to evacuate Con- stantinople and Chanak; the warships, arms, and munitions now in the hands of Allied forces are restored to Turkey; and no mention is made of the Ottoman debt. Turkey is left to settle that with the bondholders—and it is under- stood that they will agree to payment in French francs. The Armenians are entirely forgotten, but Allied conces- sions are the subject of a protocol. This treaty is as great a triumph for the Turks as the Anatolian campaign. What its effect upon Europe will be is still a question. At least it means peace where war seemed imminent. Following so closely the overthrow of the Francophile Stambuliiski Government in Bulgaria it involves a profound realignment of forces in the Near East. The fundamental fact in the anthracite coal problem is that heretofore these limited and exhaustible natural deposits have been in the absolute private possession of their legal owners to be developed at will, to be leased for such royalties as could be exacted, to be transferred and distributed at such rates and in such manner as a double-headed railrcad and coal combination might find most advantageous from the point of view of private profit, to be sold at such prices as could be maintained by the restriction of output and elimination of independent competitors through such means as maintenance of freight rates, burdensome except to those who, owning both mines and railroads, could afford to be indifferent as to whether their revenues came from the one source or the other.—United States Coal Commission Report on the Anthracite Industry. HE Coal Commission’s report frankly recognizes that such a limited natural monopoly as coal cannot be treated as a private concern of the few owners but must be supervised by the government. That marks forward prog- ress. The commission suggests “the creation of a gov- ernmental authority with power to require financial and operating reports, to prescribe uniform accounting, and to determine the conditions on which coal may be shipped in interstate commerce.” That, we believe, would be only an entering wedge; further steps in public control would in- evitably follow. Such a permanent fact-finding commission as this report suggests would, however, help the necessary process of public education. We are not much concerned with the commission’s suggestion that the President be authorized to seize and operate the mines in case of a strike; we doubt if Congress would vote such authorization before the event, and if it did the act would only serve to emphasize the need of greater public control at all times. RESIDENT HARDING has gone to Alaska. There was something almost provocative in his last days in Oregon. In Portland—while the law officers were arresting fifty men and women who had sufficient of the spirit of 1776 in their veins to protest against the continued imprisonment on American soil of men whose sole crime was their opinions —he made a Fourth of July address which included an attack upon men “seeking to destroy American institutions,”

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48 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3028 which was obviously the lowest kind of pandering to class prejudice against the I.W.W. The next day he stopped at Centralia to lay a wreath upon the tombs of the Legion men who were killed in what has since been disclosed as a Legion attack upon the local I.W.W. headquarters. And finally, on the same day when he was denouncing, as if it came from immigrants, the “gospel of envy and hate,” he accepted with sweet words Judge Gary’s cheap promise to use “every effort” to abolish the twelve-hour day in the steel mills “at the earliest time practicable’! (It is curious that Judge Gary, who has insisted that so few men worked twelve hours in the steel mills, now feels that reduction of the working hours would require 60,000 more workers.) LEVEN of the twenty-seven political prisoners granted conditional amnesty by President Harding have re- fused to accept it on his terms. His requirement of a pledge to be loyal and law-abiding seemed an insult to these men. We have seen no finer statement of their position than that contained in a letter from “Red” Doran to Mrs. Anna N. Davis of Brookline, Massachusetts: Had Christ accepted Pilate’s offer there would have been no crucifixion. The tragedy at Calvary gave Christianity to the world. Luther at the Diet gave life to that which became the Reformation, when he refused to smother that “wee sma’ voice” within and conform. George Fox gave new force to the same thing, Truth, when he refused to remove his hat in the English courts. Gandhi smashed one of the most intolerable barriers when he followed the dictates of conscience, and as a result the caste system in India crumbled. In the light of such inspiring precedent, surely I can stand by my conscience and contribute my small mite to the noble end seen by the greatest of men. I refused the “conditions” on principle solely. Any “condition” would be for me a degradation which my standard would not permit me to indulge. Do you recall Emerson’s “A genuine act explains itself and explains your other genuine acts’? Conformity explains nothing. Of one thing I am cer- tain to my satisfaction: that the greater joy comes from being square with oneself, because thus one knows Truth. Truth is a growing thing: it expands and presents new facets as one advances one’s acquaintance with it. The trouble with the church brand of Christianity is that it has always been a game conducted on the profit basis. Be a “good” man or woman and you'll get to Heaven. Here’s a reward, a material advantage, offered to be “good.” Why not be humanly good and decent because it is good to be good? That’s what Christ lived. Leavenworth Prison, June 28 J. T. DORAN EWS that a group of “leading citizens” resent Presi- dent Harding’s order that Negro doctors, dietitians, dentists, and X-ray specialists attend the Negro ex-service men to be cared for in the new Federal hospital at Tuskegee, Alabama, is surprising. In another mood these Southern- ers bade the Negro serve himself and passed a law prohibit- ing the attendance of white nurses upon Negro patients. Can it be that the hysterical delicacy of the white man has been calmed by the dollar sign? The United States Treas- ury allotted $2,250,000 to this hospital. The physician in charge is to receive $10,000 per year, according to the Omaha, Nebraska, Monitor, and will supervise a yearly budget of $1,250,000. The Atlanta Independent (colored) says, “ ... in every matter pertaining to the hospital, the white man has had only one point in view, the economic end.” He is also consumed with fear—not physical fear of shell-shocked Negroes, but fear of any change in the status of the races, fear of the spectacle of trained Negroes suc- cessfully treating 600 Negro patients. On July 3 hooded Klansmen paraded the streets of Tuskegee as a silent threat. The Montgomery Advertiser helped fan the flames by an- nouncing, as if it were predicting, that “‘there has been no overt act, no clash as yet between the races.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has telegraphed President Harding asking that troops be sent to protect the colored doctors and Major R. R. Moton, suc- cessor to Booker T: Washington, whose life has been threat- ened by masked mobs. Some members of the Tuskegee staff have already fled North. Will the South still deny its own responsibility for the northward exodus of self-respecting Negroes? N another part of the South a Southern jury has gone far to rehabilitate confidence in Southern justice. Martin Tabert of North Dakota was a white boy, but he fell victim to a convict-leasing system from which Negroes suffer even more, and the same forces which make it well-nigh impossi- ble to convict lynchers in the South fought to exonerate Thomas W. Higginbotham, the whipping boss who flogged Tabert to death. The Lake City, Florida, jury which con- victed him of second-degree murder carried on the work of the legislature which swept the leasing system from its statute-book. The jurors honored Florida and themselves. NE more lie has been nailed. Frederick H. Gibbs, of Gibbs Bros., who reconditioned the Leviathan, de- clares flatly that the elaborate stories of German sabotage of the big ship just before the United States entered the war are myths. The former Vaterland, he says, was damaged in backing away from her pier at Hoboken on her second trip in 1914. He explains: The ship was new and the crew had not had time to become expert in handling her. Too much steam was turned on in backing out and the boat shot across the river, almost crashing into a Southern Pacific pier. One of the astern turbines was badly damaged and there were other damages. The German crew attempted repairs but they were badly handicapped, lack- ing materials that could be had only in Germany. In this work some machinery was dismantled. Although it was still dis-. mantled when the vessel was taken over by the United States there was no evidence of malicious sabotage. A naval officer who apparently was responsible for much of the newspaper excitement about the sabotage in 1917 contradicts Mr. Gibbs. He says, however, that The Leviathan probably was the least damaged by sabotage of any of the seized German ships. This was due to the fact that her commander supervised her building and simply could not bear to see his beloved ship injured. This sounds a little lame to us. We are, indeed, so skeptical that we should not be surprised to hear that all the sabotage tales were Hoboken fish stories, invented in the homely saloons that used to line River Street. S an example of the enterprise of modern news agen- cies in spreading enlightenment about foreign affairs one may cite one of the first items published here concerning the recent conference of the British Labor Party. An Asso- ciated Press cablegram from London reported that “a capi- tal levy on a graduated scale on fortunes from £5,000 up- ward became an integral part of the Labor Party’s program today.” In many of our daily papers appropriate headlines made sure that the most casual reader should not miss the ed 4 Y

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July 18, 1923] The Nation 49 ~ significance of this notable departure in Labor policy. Noth- ing, evidently, escapes the vigilance of the A. P.’s London office—except such trifles as that the same proposal, iden- tical even in the sum fixed for the exemption limit, was one of the most prominent planks in the Labor Party’s platform at last year’s election. Will not the New York correspondent of some London paper reciprocate by cabling across that Senator Lodge has become a convert to the policy of Ameri- can abstention from the League of Nations? RITISH airplanes, sent to bomb villages of the recalci- trant Waziris on the Afghan border of India the other day, lost their bearings and bombed instead an Afghan village on the other side of the frontier, effectively destroy- ing men, women, children, and cattle. This distressed the Afghans so much that the British Government felt con- strained to issue a handsome apology. Lord Curzon, who recently complained of anti-British propaganda conducted by the Bolsheviks in Afghanistan, may well have felt that his own airmen were going the Russians one better. While Mr. Hughes proclaims new regulations for air war, and the Franco-British air rivalry fills the columns of the press, it would perhaps not be out of place to attempt to put our- selves in the place of the Afghans and Waziris and to meditate with them upon the marvels of Western civiliza- tion. The British use their planes to bomb Waziris, Hotten- tots, and Arabs; the French use theirs against African tribes; we Americans bomb Haitian villages with ours. We are all of us, we “civilized peoples,” bullies and thugs. KE are more than that; we are hypocrites. Last week The Nation referred to the controversy in Kenya Colony, British East Africa, where 9,000 Englishmen rule 2,000,000 black Africans, and are fighting to bar 30,000 Indians from civil rights. These Englishmen are of the dominant Nordic, Anglo-Saxon type which America cele- brates in the Saturday Evening Post, in Arrow-collar ad- vertisements, and in Ku Klux Klan demonstrations. They plead the necessity for their control on the ground of superior interest in the welfare of the natives, just as we justify lynchings, tar-and-featherings, and the conquest of Haiti and Nicaragua on similar moral grounds. And then comes such a revelation of the indecency of the kind of man who pleads the “white man’s burden” as this Reuter dispatch from Nairobi, in the Kenya Colony: A painful affair, which resulted in the death of a native farm worker up country, has aroused general indignation here. It is alleged that the native concerned rode a mare in foal without permission, thus causing the animal’s death, and that the European owner of the farm, a settler at Molo, was so enraged that he and three assistants thrashed the culprit, with the result that the man died. HOMAS REED POWELL, professor of constitutional law at Columbia University, and Dr. Henry A. Ladd of Oxford have withdrawn their acceptance of positions in the Amherst College faculty next year as a consequence of the forced resignation of President Meiklejohn. It is to be hoped that other men who care for academic standards will show the same independence. It requires courage, particu- larly for young men who have not yet established positions, to make such refusals. The academic blacklist has outlasted most war-time atrocities; men who stood for freedom in 1917 still find themselves barred from the universities. Men who stand out against the medieval-minded trustees of one college are unlikely to be welcomed by. the purse- holders elsewhere. Four professors have just been dis- missed from the University of Tennessee, it is reported, because they expressed sympathy with Professor James W. Sprowls, removed last spring for teaching evolution and recommending “The Mind in the Making” to his students, and petitioned the American Association of College Pro- fessors to investigate Dr. Sprowls’s dismissal. O man living is more competent than Graham Wallas to discuss “the art of political thought,” and Dart- mouth College has been fortunate in securing him to de- liver its alumni lectures on that subject this summer. It is on the necessity of creative thinking in politics and social matters that he has laid most stress during his course. He sees civilization in danger of collapse if it con- tinues to proceed by “the blind animal method of trial and error” instead of developing, by conscious effort of will, powers and processes of creative thought for the guidance of society. While as pessimistic as Bertrand Russell in-his reading of the present situation, Professor Wallas is more hopeful for the future. The body of knowledge concerning the control of civilization by rationalized human purpose is so vastly greater than ever before that, in his opinion, no such complete débacle as befell Rome can overtake the world today. “It is impossible now,” he reminds us, “for any one great catastrophe such as the burning of the Alexandrian Library to wipe out of existence the entire accumulation of human knowledge.” And, whereas the fall of Rome meant the fall of the world, there are now “islands of civilization”—America, for instance—which can remain for a long period unaffected by catastrophes that may overwhelm many other nations. Such consolations, how- ever, do not absolve us from the duty of so developing our processes of thought as to build a better civilized life. Pro- fessor Wallas puts his finger on the source of many of our troubles when he declares that we have scarcely begun to use the imagination in our social and political thinking. O be President of the United States is not a normal ambition of boyhood, despite some belief to the con- trary. Most city boys would prefer to be policemen or “smoke eaters,” while country lads, constrained to pick up potatoes and feed the chickens, long to run the twine-binder or look down on the rest of the world from the driver’s seat of a tractor. And all boys, city or country, have a consum- ing desire to hold the throttle of a locomotive. They can- not understand why these pleasures should be denied them merely because they do not understand the machines. But take notice, boys, that on his recent transcontinental jour- ney a certain Warren Gamaliel Harding, of Washington, D. C., was in Kansas allowed to drive a tractor—without knowing how, and in Montana was privileged to run a locomotive engine—likewise without training. Apparently the sole reason was because he was President of the United States. There may be something in this job of President at which no boy should turn up his nose, especially since— once elected—he is allowed to turn on the power whether he understands the machinery or not. Does not the expla- nation of Mr. Harding’s whole administration lie in the fact that, as with the tractor and the locomotive engine, he has swung blithely into the driver’s seat and cheerfully under- taken to run the nation without knowing how?

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SS ee i it it EES = 50 The Nation .- [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 What Is a Third Party? HEN Theodore Parker was thundering against slav- ery in Boston in days when anti-slavery was by no means a popular issue, some wise friend placidly assured him that slavery would disappear in God’s good time. ‘‘The trouble is,’”’ Parker replied, according to the legend, “that God isn’t in a hurry, and I am.” The advocates of a third party in the United States are very much in Parker’s posi- tion; they are in a hurry, but the mysterious tides of public opinion are not. Outwardly the hope of a third party is very slight indeed. Yet it may be fortunate that the recent ‘Unity Convention” of the Farmer-Labor Party at Chicago did not achieve more unanimity of purpose. That convention, to which various farm and labor organizations were invited, was captured by radicals who were ready to cooperate even with the Commu- nists. The result was the formation under new leadership of a Federated Farmer-Labor Party, leaving a part of the old guard of the Farmer-Labor Party to continue its sepa- rate way under the old and simpler name. The Socialists held aloof from the beginning. Obviously groups which maintain such mutual suspicion and show such utter incapacity for cooperation are not ripe to act except as leagues for political education. But while the individuals who preach a third party see little return for their efforts, there is an undertow that is cutting into the old parties. The danger may even be less that the organization of third-party sentiment may be too slow than that it may be too fast. While those who should be building from the ground up are squabbling with each other, the Fords and the Hearsts, whose only real difference from the old parties is that the old-party machines will not take them in, may run away with the third-party spirit and discredit the whole enterprise as effectively as Theodore Roosevelt did when he converted the progressive ground- swell into a personal Roosevelt party in 1912. The Nation’s readers are well aware that we are not inter- ested in the formation of a third party simply in order to have a three-cornered fight. The essential is to force into our political campaigns discussion of those fundamental eco- nomic issues that are the promise and the peril of Amer- ican life. We want to avoid the empty futility of another Harding-Cox campaign. We want to make it impossible for a candidate to dodge issues as President Harding has done on his Western trip. We want to hear candidates discuss the railroad issue as if they had convictions, not as if they were tossing a hot potato from one hand to the other. We should like to see a candidate less occupied in proving to the farm- ers that he had enabled them to get deeper into debt than ever before in their history than in suggesting ways of get- ting out of debt. We want voters to have an opportunity to make a real choice, and to be in a mood to use their oppor- tunity effectively. The encouraging aspect of the political situation in this country today is the prevalence of this restless mood. How- ever feeble may be the efforts to organize discontent with the old parties, the discontent is there. Voters who have always voted as their grandfathers voted are today as cynical about Republican promises and Democratic pledges as a Socialist soap-box orator. The Western elections last autumn revealed an extraordinarily independent selection of progressive candidates regardless of party; the popu- larity of the Ford candidacy, however misguided the Ford partisans may be, registers the same unreadiness to follow the old hacks of politics. Minnesota provides food for political reflection. The Sen- atorial election there is admittedly a fight between Governor Jacob Preus, inheritor of Knute Nelson’s Republican mantle, and Magnus Johnson, standard-bearer of the Farmer-Labor Party. The Democratic candidate is as assuredly out of the running as a Prohibition Party nominee for President, and the political wiseacres seem to be hinting at another Farmer-Labor victory. Governor Preus has been struggling to make his a personal campaign and to keep national issues out of sight. President Harding offered to speak in his behalf, but was zealously kept out of the State. He was not even permitted to write a letter in behalf of his party’s candidate. Indeed, one of the leading Republicans of Minne- sota told newspaper correspondents that if the Senatorial election this month were a Presidential fight, President Harding, to whom Minnesota gave a larger majority in 1920, relatively, than any other State, would be overwhelmingly defeated. This Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota is a State organi- zation, distinct from and little concerned with the disputes of the Farmer-Laborites in Chicago. It represents the pro- ducers’ class-consciousness which is the backbone of the whole Northwestern progressive movement. It represents a movement which men who still hold to the old parties recog- nize as their movement, and their outspoken sympathy is as significant as the movement in Minnesota itself. Senator La Follette is the leader of the Republican Party in the neighboring State of Wisconsin, but he is doing all he can to defeat the Republican nominee in Minnesota and to elect Magnus Johnson, who would be of his progressive bloc in Congress. Senator Wheeler of Montana is a Democrat according to party label, yet he is ignoring the Democratic nominee and stumping Minnesota for Johnson. Throughout a dozen States pregressives in the old parties have realized the u1.importance of party names and are working together, with or without the name and organization of a party, for common economic ends. The standpatters have always done that; the progressives are only beginning to stand together. There, after all, is the essence of a third party. The business of organization, of converting labor to the belief that it can be helped only if it will help continuously and systematically, will take time. But the outward form of organization is less important than the existence of this readiness of forward-looking men of like minds but different affiliations to cooperate for a common economic program. Where that spirit exists the third party is already a living thing. The political leaders who are the symbols of this inde- pendence of spirit will bear a grave responsibility in the coming year. It may today be more important to cultivate this inter-party cooperation than to move toward the crys- tallization of a third party. But crystallization may be too long deferred. The vague third-party sentiment instinc- tively looks for a leader, for a definition of its aims and intentions. If those whose record gives them a right to claim the political loyalty of liberals, progressives, and radi- cals in America do not soon take the lead, less worthy men are likely to take it from them.

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. July 18, 1923] The Nation 51 The Newspaper Game IXTY years of editorial work for one newspaper! That is the record of Sir John Merry Lesage, who has just retired as managing editor of the London Daily Telegraph. Sixty years’ work of any sort for any number of persons— that in itself would be worth celebrating. But sixty years’ work in one place, and that a newspaper Ho, hum! It makes the American newspaperman rub his eyes and ask, Can it be true? The average scribe on Park Row who has lived half of Sir John’s eighty-six years has been hired and fired so many times that he has lost count. Sometimes he has worked for nearly every ‘“‘sheet” in New York, not to speak of several in other cities, and often he has been on and off the same newspaper three or four times. Uncertainty of tenure is the great tragedy of the modern wage-worker, but the position of the American journalist in that regard is probably more pathetic than that of any other worker of whom a similar amount of mental ability and vigor is demanded. Clean, or almost clean, sweeps of the editorial personnel are periodic in some newspaper “shops,” even without change of ownership or policy, and the hundred and one occasions that may lead to the dropping or resignation of an individual worker are notorious. At the time in life when a lawyer, a merchant, a farmer, or even a teacher feels that he has attained some security and position in his work, an experienced and faith- ful journalist is likely to find himself on the street some evening with a few days’ pay in his pocket and the neces- sity of going forth hat in hand to hunt another job on terms laid down by somebody else. A recent dispatch, chronicling the death of a journalist forty-six years of age, spoke of him as a veteran newspaperman! Do they order those things better in Fleet Street than on Park Row? Or is Sir John just a rare exception? For that matter there are rare exceptions here. It used to be said of the old Sun—the luminary of the Danas—that after a man had served a probationary period of two years his job was good for life provided he could keep sober until the paper went to press in the morning. To this day the New York World takes pride in long service among its employees. At the celebration this year of the fortieth anniversary of the purchase of the paper by Joseph Pulitzer there were ten persons on its rolls whose service covered the entire period, although few were of the editorial staff. Two of these men had reached the half-century mark. The men with a service record of twenty-five years have organized a Quarter Cen- tury Club. Until a few years ago the New York Evening Post was a place where few resigned and fewer still left in more summary fashion. Even today there are four who have worked there in an editorial capacity for from thirty-two to fifty-three years. The fifty-three-year man is J. Ranken Towse, the dramatic editor. Henry T. Finck, the music critic, has forty-two years to his credit, and Charles Pike Sawyer, who writes The Mirror of the Stage, has thirty-seven years. Arthur F. J. Crandall has held for thirty-two years the post of news editor, one of the hardest and most nerve-racking jobs in the office. But those are the rare exceptions; the rule is otherwise. And that is one reason—perhaps the most important—why every newspaperman who has reached middle age does his best to dissuade any youngster from entering journalism. It is the worst occupation in the world, he says—and comes near to believing it. It is a tradition that everyone should —and the best do—get out of journalism before passing forty. Nobody insists so vehemently that the best journal- ists never fail to do this as the individual who himself has not accomplished it. He is wrong. The wisest men may get out early, but the best newspapermen stay on; stay on because they can’t help it. Richard Harding Davis once described a good newspaperman as one who believed that the sun rose each morning solely to supply light for a wait- ing world to read his journal. And what every newspaper- man knows is that he is what he is because he is unwilling to be anything else. The true journalist is like an old fire- horse. He may retire or be retired to still waters and green pastures, but when he smells smoke he would give the re- maining years of his life to race with the others to the scene. A newspaperman of forty believes mighty little in this world and less in the next, but if he ever gives a thought to heaven at all it is not as a place of harps and halos and eternal rest; it is with the hope that he may be able to persuade the good Lord to let him cover the Day of Judgment for the Celestial Gazette. It ought to be a pippin of a story. The average newspaper office is thick with cynicism, and every journalist is its prophet. Yet there must be something else in the work than disillusion. The journalist does not call his occupation a profession, or a business, or a trade. Mostly he speaks of it as the “newspaper game.” And somehow the game must be worth the candle, for, unlike some other occupations, journalism is not cluttered with dead wood nor troubled to find fresh timber as the years go on. The best young men, as they leave our schools and colleges, clamor at its portals. In these post-commencement days they are besieging, dozens of them every day, the ante- rooms of the metropolitan newspapers, hoping that even in the humblest capacity they may get a chance. Treat them kindly, these young men; for they are the evidence that your jobs and ours are worth the while— despite our firm conviction to the contrary! They and Sir John Merry Lesage rise up to confound our pessimism; to prove that there is something more in the newspaper game than we old cynics who curse it and belittle it—yet stick to it!—ever realize. Heroes HE protagonists of the most famous modern novels of American origin are a queer lot. There is hardly a safe or sane citizen, male or female, among them. These creatures of the imagination whose characters and experi- ences have spoken so obviously and so directly to and for millions of hearts and minds, how shabby and problematic they are, how little they seem to illustrate Mr. Stuart P. Sherman’s definition of moral idealism! The mischief started long ago. Mrs. Edith Wharton was given an honorary doctorate by Yale the other day; nothing is more certain than that the university honored itself in the act. She has been famous so long that the Yale trustees probably forgot the kind of men and women who peopled her exquisite and unsurpassed early stories, that they for- got that dainty derelict, Lily Bart, and the scathing satire of Main Street implicit in every syllable of the story of Undine Spragg. ‘The House of Mirth” appeared in 1905. The definitive publication of “Sister Carrie” took place in 1908. For some years the public that had any intelligence

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| | . i i 52 The Nation or taste was almost exclusively absorbed in the doings of those people, from Carrie Meeber to Eugene Witla, whose behavior Professor Sherman has likened to that of the animals. What, in truth, most readers felt was that Dreiser, above all else, showed the difference between man and the animals by illustrating how the human love-life is immitigably implicated with the higher nerve-centers and thus tends to make or break the whole man. Dreiser’s protagonists were, from any safe and sane point of view, a sorry lot. There is no denying the fact. But their progeny has not improved. Carol Kennicott would have said that moral idealism was precisely what the na- tional genius didn’t show in Gopher Prairie; George F. Babbitt knew in his inmost heart that it was the “bunk” of the sort of moral idealism that was fed him that had prevented him from doing a single thing he really wanted to do in all his life! And that was what Lee Randon, the Philadelphia manufacturer who bought a doll and called it Cytherea, felt no less. He wasn’t living his own life but one that had been imposed on him from without. At the same time in the prairies of Nebraska Claude Wheeler felt something incurably external and ignoble in the life and the moral atmosphere about him and, but for the brute accident of the war, would probably have come to grief through an adventure with some Jennie Gerhard if not with some Savina Grove. Extreme cases, like those of Mr. John Webster, who manufactured washing-machines in Wisconsin, may be omitted. You may avert your face from the Greenwich Villagers so sharply etched by C. Kay Scott in “Sinbad.” The fact remains that the heroes of the best American novels by the best American authors are all, from a plainly conventional aspect, no better than they should be. The national genius as defined by Mr. Sherman does not speak through them. There isn’t one of them who, if the truth were known, would be permitted to teach beside Mr. Sher- man in a reputable American college; even Randon made himself socially impossible by that desperate episode with Savina Grove. But something must speak very powerfully through these people, something that, whether it conforms to Mr. Sher- man’s national genius or not, affects profoundly hundreds of thousands of the most intelligent and sensitive people who make up this nation. Well, all of these characters, even the disreputable Eugene Witla, even the heavy, fleshy, blundering George F. Babbitt, are in some sort dreamers and seekers. They are unhappy; they are dissatisfied. They are all looking for a better life; they are all looking for some kind of salvation. Perhaps that is moral idealism; perhaps that and not the discipline of a narrowly inter- preted national past. And perhaps the sort of moral ideal- ism that these Babbitts and Randons and Witlas and Wheel- ers illustrate is a sort of idealism which is human rather than national, the sort that has driven men whom the respectables of their age and country always held to be out- casts and even jail-birds into strange adventures before now and whose feet it has always set upon untraveled paths. Perhaps there is indeed a great deal of moral idealism in America. Only it is not the moral idealism of conformity and possession but the moral idealism of adventure and creation, not of the professors but of the prophets who have always denounced the Zion of their day, have never been at ease in it, have always sought to destroy and then to build anew. ae [Vol. 117, No. 3028 The Servant Problem Solved HILE unemployment in England keeps the press and the public and the Parliament busy for three days in the week, an acute shortage of labor occupies their minds for the other four. The shortage is in only one field— domestic service—but it is severe enough to have occasioned a parliamentary inquiry to discover why, when thousands are out of work, no one will be a servant. The answers have been many: Teachers are teaching girls to despise domestic work; they are learning dancing and music instead of dusting and making beds. They have no place in which to see young men to whom they are engaged, in fact they have no place in which to become engaged. They are tired of being called by their first names. They are looked down upon by shop-girls and factory workers. They decline “liv- ing in”—their hours are too long; there are too few electric washers in England, too much scrubbing and too many coal stoves. Well, these and dozens of other factors may have their share of responsibility for the walkout from the British kitchen, but without having been invited to testify we har- bor our own ideas as to the real reason. We would banish these complaining lady-employers. ‘Take the mistress out of the home and the maid will go into it. An intensive study of the “want ads” in our own newspapers reveals the fact that a large and increasing number of women advertising for domestic positions want to work in the home of a “busi- ness couple.” They want to work where they are not for- ever under orders and forever under foot. They want to act as something less ignoble than a small auxiliary motor in a showy three-masted schooner—doing the grubby, neces- sary work and getting neither admiration nor credit. They want, in short, a real and responsible and honorable job— and they can be sure of it only when they are alone in the house. We may be suspected of using this argument as a mere pretext for forcing middle-class women into business and the professions. But no; we recognize the fact that some women like domestic work, and that many more don’t know how to do anything else. What, then, we may be asked, are such women to do? It is a knotty problem. Our only sug- gestion is that they had best go out themselves and find employment in other women’s kitchens—providing, of course, that they have left home as well—leaving their own houses in the hands of competent, hired houseworkers. Then at least they will be out of the way and will in turn be earn- ing an honest living. They will feel more pride in their own work and have more respect for the work of other working women. There is food for thought in this idea. Meanwhile, lacking our advice, things go from bad to worse in England. The unemployed, poor and rich, their numbers augmented by these wilful domestic strikers, threaten the foundations of society. We hope that a recent notice in the personal column of the London Times did not go unobserved by those members of the upper classes who are perennially out of a job. It does not offer a solution of the problem, but at a time like this every little job helps. The notice reads: Tory, married, independent means, WANTED by keen M.P. in live, poor London constituency, help voluntarily, convince workers Disraeli preferable Marx—Write Box D, 549, The Times.

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ae ar July 18, 1923] The Nation 53 Woman’s 75-Year Fight By ALICE STONE BLACKWELL A convention has been called by the National Woman’s Party to meet on July 20, next, at Seneca Falls, New York, the place where seventy-five years before the first woman’s rights convention took place. A story of that first conven- tion, and the sex prejudices of the time, is given below by a pioneer in the woman’s movement. T is good for us sometimes to look back to see how far we have come. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which is about to be commemorated, marked a milestone on the long rough road toward equal rights for women. It is a road of which we have not yet reached the end; but in looking back at that early convention we see how amazing has been the advance. At that time it was a different world for women. All of a married woman’s property and earnings belonged to her husband. He was the sole guardian of the children, and if he died before her he could bequeath them away from her to strangers. She could not sue or be sued, could not make a will or contract. He had the legal right to lock her up, and to beat her in moderation— which was interpreted as meaning with a stick no thicker than a man’s thumb. Women were shut out from almost all opportunities for higher education. Oberlin, the first college to admit women (and also the first to admit Negroes), had been open only for a few years. There were no free public high schools for girls. There were almost no organizations of women, except church sewing circles. It was thought unwomanly even to belong to a temperance society. The Abolitionists were the radicals of their day, yet, only a few years before, the Anti-Slavery Society had been split in twain because Abby Kelley, a saintly young Quakeress, had been appointed on a com- mittee. Women were shut out by public opinion from all but a few ill-paid occupations; and all the learned profes- sions were closed to them, of course. Elizabeth Blackwell, who was to be the first woman to take a medical degree, was then a student in the Medical College of Geneva, New York, and had a year more to work before her graduation. Antoinette L. Brown (afterward the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, D.D.), who was to become the first ordained woman minister, was still a student in the Oberlin Theo- logical School. Susan B. Anthony was actively working for temperance, but was inclined at this time to ridicule the woman’s rights movement, in which she was later to bear so distinguished a part. Brave women here and there had made pleas for equal Woman's Declaration of Independence FROM THE RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED AT THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION OF JULY 19-20, 1848 That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsi- bility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instru- mentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held: and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind. rights—among them Margaret Brent of Maryland, in 1647, and, later, Margaret Fuller, Frances Wright, and the beau- tiful Polish Jewess, Ernestine L. Rose. But all these had been voices crying in the wilderness. Except among the Quakers, public opinion ridiculed and condemned unspar- ingly any woman who addressed an audience, even for the noblest object. The brunt of this opposition had been met and partly broken by Abby Kelley and the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke of South Carolina, who freed their slaves, distributed among them most of the fortune earned by their unpaid labor, and then came north to write and lecture against slavery. Circumstances soon withdrew the Grimkes from the lecture field, but Abby Kelley kept on. At the time of the Seneca Falls Convention she had been speaking for many years, under a fierceness of oppo- sition that we can hardly conceive. Lucy Stone said of her that Arnold Winkel- ried gathered the spears into his breast only once, but she gathered them into her con- tinually for fourteen years. At one of the early women’s rights conventions Abby Kelley said: ‘My sisters, bleeding feet have worn smooth the paths by which you came up hither!” In 1847 Lucy Stone had graduated from Oberlin and had begun in the same year to lecture for woman’s rights and against slavery, with a voice of singular sweetness and simple but wonderful eloquence. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said of her, long after, that she was the first person by whom the heart of the public had been widely and deeply stirred on the woman question. But she was then only at the beginning of her work. At the time of the Seneca Falls Convention, and long afterwards, the early champions of equal rights had to undergo every sort of persecution and abuse. That convention—the first organized effort to secure equal rights—was chiefly due to two remarkable women, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mrs. Mott was a noble and eloquent Quaker preacher, highly respected in her own denomination and outside it. She was the wife of an excellent man who was in full sympathy with her. Some- one said: “I never saw such an expression of beatitude on any other human face as on that of James Mott while Lucretia was preaching an eloquent sermon and he sat holding her bonnet.’”’ She had been lecturing against slav- ery for years, and had had to meet the inevitable persecu- tion that assailed a woman speaker. Elizabeth Cady was the daughter of a distinguished law- yer. A girl of uncommon intelligence and courage, as well --

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i Sess = eS es 5A The Nation ‘ [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 as of exuberant and overflowing physical vigor, she had listened with indignation to the stories that her father’s women clients told him of their wrongs under the laws, and she very early determined to destroy these unjust laws by tearing them out of her father’s law books. Enlightened by him as to the futility of this childish plan, she bided her time, but never forgot her purpose. In 1840, soon after her marriage to Henry B. Stanton, she and Lucretia Mott were thrown together under memor- able circumstances. In that year the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention was held in London. The American Anti-Slav- ery societies had elected Lucretia Mott and several other women among their delegates. But the prejudice against women’s taking part in public affairs was even stronger in England than in the United States. In spite of able pleas by Wendell Phillips and others it was voted, amid great excitement, that the women delegates should not be allowed to take their seats. William Lloyd Garrison and Nathaniel P. Rogers also refused to take theirs, and sat in the gallery with the excluded women. Mr. Stanton was a delegate, and, oddly enough, he hap- pened to be a delegate from that branch of the Anti-Slavery Society in America which was opposed to public work by women, though he was personally in favor of it. His young wife, though not herself a delegate, felt with hot indigna- tion the injustice shown to the women on this occasion. She and Mrs. Mott became warm friends, and took long walks together in London, discussing what could be done to promote equal rights for women. They did not meet again for eight years. In 1848 Lu- cretia Mott attended the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Western New York, and visited her sister, Mrs. Martha C. Wright, at Auburn. Mrs. Stanton had lately moved to Seneca Falls. Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Wright, and Mrs. Mary Ann McClintock, sitting around the table of Richard Hunt, a prominent Quaker, discussed equal rights for women, and decided to hold a meeting. The call for the convention was published anonymously in the Seneca Falls Courier of July 14, 1848. It read: Woman’s Rights Convention—A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of woman will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wed- nesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July current; com- mencing at 10 A. M. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen will address the convention. It was not every religious edifice that could have been had for such a purpose. Bishop J. W. Hamilton says he has always been proud that the first woman’s rights convention was held in a Methodist church. When the audience ar- rived, they found the doors locked. Says the “History of Woman Suffrage’: An embryo Professor of Yale College was lifted through the window and unbarred the door; that done, the church was quickly filled. It had been decided to have no men present, but as they were already on the spot, it was decided, in hasty council around the altar, that this was an occasion when men might be preeminently useful. The women were unaccustomed to conducting meetings, and asked James Mott to preside. He took the chair, tall, dignified, and wearing the Quaker dress. Mary McClintock was chosen secretary. Lucretia Mott stated the purpose of the meeting. Elizabeth and Mary McClintock and Mrs. Stanton spoke—they all read their speeches—and Mrs. Martha C. Wright read some satirical articles that she had contributed to the papers in answer to diatribes on woman’s sphere. A “Declaration of Sentiments” had been drawn up, mod- eled upon the Declaration of Independence, stating eighteen grievances of women, as the Declaration stated eighteen grievances of the colonists. This was adopted, with a series of resolutions that took advanced modern ground and de- manded among other things an equal standard of morals. The only resolution not passed unanimously was that for woman suffrage. It was strongly championed by Mrs. Stan- ton and Frederick Douglass, and was finally carried by a small majority. One hundred men and women signed the Declaration. “Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this Decla- ration,” they said. But many of them withdrew their names when the newspapers ridiculed the whole affair. The New York Herald joined in the ridicule, but added: “We are much mistaken if Lucretia would not make a better President than some of those who have lately ten- anted the White House.” This was the first local women’s rights convention. Local conventions were held soon after in Rochester, New York, and Salem, Ohio, and in 1850 the first national convention met in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Call was headed by Lucy Stone and signed by eighty-nine prominent men and women from six States, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. This marked the launching of the national movement. The reports of the speeches in the New York Tribune are said to have completed the conversion of Susan B. Anthony to the cause. They also prompted Mrs. Taylor (afterward the wife of John Stuart Mill) to write her famous article in the Westminster Review, which started the modern move- ment for woman’s rights in England. Looking back at the small beginnings and the seemingly hopeless situation that the pioneers had to face, we may well take heart for all the struggles in behalf of human betterment that still lie before us. Harriet Beecher Stowe, at the celebration of her seventieth birthday, said that nothing ever looked more hopeless than the effort to abolish slavery, and she added: “Remember, whatever ought to be done can be done!” Before the Pan-American Bar By PIERRE HUDICOURT Port au Prince, June 21 re was as a messenger of the Haitian people, sent by the Patriotic Union of Haiti to inform the fifth Pan-Amer- ican Conference and the peoples of South America about the American military occupation of Haiti, the destruction of our independence, and the waste of our resources by American politicians, that I left Port au Prince for Santi- ago, Chile, on March 29. In the harbor of Callao I met Mr. Morillo, general secre- tary of the Dominican Nationalist Mission, who was ful- filling the same mission for our Dominican brothers. Henceforth we worked arm in arm, Haitian and Dominican, while the intrigues of the American occupation were creat- ing a so-called frontier incident between Haitians and Do- minicans—as if these two peoples, subject to the same

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See July 18, 1923] The Nation 55 slave yoke, could interest themselves in such trifles while they had a common enemy to fight. It was our purpose to present the situation of our coun- tries at the conference in an official memoir, but we were informed that, upon the suggestion of the delegation from the United States, a rule had been made that no protest could be received by the secretary general unless it came directly from an officially accredited delegate. But Morillo and I had sworn to bring the sufferings of our countries before the conference in open session. This is how we did it: Our memoirs were printed. We put six Haitian memoirs and six Dominican memoirs together in each of eighteen envelopes addressed to the eighteen dele- gations to the conference, and we penetrated into the con- ference hall just when the president was opening the ses- sion. We placed -our envelopes upon the desks of each of the eighteen delegations and, bearing another envelope addressed to the president of the conference, we mounted the platform. Morillo declared in Spanish: “Mr. President, my Haitian brother and I have come 4,000 miles to bring you this envelope which contains the protest of the Haitian and Dominican peoples against the occupation of their territory by the troops of the United States of America and against the destruction of their independence and their sovereignty. We ask the entire world for justice against this international crime.” “Gentlemen,” the chairman, Mr. Agustin Edwards, re- plied, “I can only accept this envelope to transmit to the executive committee, which will order that note be made of “it.” Our protest had been public. But considering that this was insufficient, we took our places on May Day in the press box, and when a resolution had been read, and the president called for discussion, Morillo and I stood up. Morillo in a thunderous voice addressed the entire confer- ence: “Gentlemen, we have come here to protest against the occupation of Haiti and Santo Domingo by the United States and against the mutilation of their independence and of their sovereignty!” And in a still stronger voice: “Pidemos justicia!” (We demand justice!) The chairman hammered with his gavel; the galleries cheered; there was a general uproar. When order was re- established a police official took our names, but that was all. Two thousand copies of our memoirs were sent to three hundred newspapers and magazines in South America, to all the presidents and foreign ministers, to all the legisla- tures and senates, to the municipal administrations of the larger cities, to the supreme courts, and to the leading universities. I dare hope that at last the conscience of man- kind is awaking to the reality of this crime against our peoples which all the disarmament conferences in the world cannot wipe out. The “‘Log’’ Unseats ‘‘Mark Hopkins’’ By FRED LEWIS PATTEE HE most hackneyed, perhaps, of all American apothegms pertaining to education is that defining a college as a log with Mark Hopkins on one end and a student on the other. It has survived its generation and has entered into our common speech partly because of its picturesque con- creteness and partly because of its obvious truth. “Obvi- ous,” I repeat, though I am aware that each of its three elements is open to challenge. Plato, confronted with the dictum, might have asked, What need of any log? The modern State university trustee, fresh from an inspection of the athletic field and the extension-school offices and the fraternity houses, might ask, What need of any Mark Hop- kins? And the old-fashioned teaching scholar, viewing the horde that has invaded his classroom, might ask in help- less sarcasm, What need of any student? j To Garfield, however, when he made the definition, and to all of the men of his generation educated under the old academic system, it admitted no debate. As he made it, he had in his imagination’s eye a struggling small college of the earlier type, his own Hiram doubtless, himself the presi- dent, or Williams his alma mater, Mark Hopkins the presi- dent—teaching presidents both of them, meeting day by day large sections of their students in those vital classroom contacts that come only to the actual teacher. The defini- tion in its concrete imagery smacks of primitive conditions. The “log” stands for the frontier, for improvised conveni- ences, for ability to do much with very little; the “Mark Hopkins” stands for the primitive type of teacher, happily not quite extinct, the man with individuality and scholar- ship and character and contagious power, the teacher who chose his profession deliberately because he considered it superior to any other profession open to the college-trained man, the teacher who would have been a leader of his gen- eration in whatever profession he might have chosen; and the “student” in the definition meant stuwdent—not merely a matriculant of a college; it carried with it the connota- tion of congenital aptitude for scholarship and enthusiasm for learning for learning’s sake. It is not too strong a statement to declare that we have today completely outgrown Garfield’s definition, so completely indeed that it seems like a bit of American humor or at best a specimen of early American idealism. The “student” has been amazingly multiplied and it is time now for a new name for him, for of all things he is not a student. “Mark Hopkins” has become a president without a classroom; he never meets the “student” at all save at opening or closing convocations or at athletic mass meetings. He has become a mere administrator, the business manager of a great plant, a lobbyist often at the General Assembly of the State, a peripatetic raiser of funds, an applauded lecturer before women’s clubs and rotary clubs and boards of trade, a dig- nitary in gorgeous robes at intercollegiate functions, re- splendent at commencement, an absentee for long periods from the college campus. Or, failing this, ‘“Mark Hopkins” has become a dean, a functionary who also does no teaching, or he has been “elevated” into some other executive office that carries with it no classroom duties. And in the old chair which each of these men once efficiently occupied sits today a subordinate instructor whose chief qualification for his position is his willingness to work his whole life long for small wages. And the “log’—the log has been sawed and quartered and miraculously multiplied and piled toward heaven and bedecked and embellished until it has become the dominating element in the definition. EO —_—$—$— as a

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56 The Nation ~~ [Vol. 117, No. 3028 esses eee ere ee eee ee eee ee ec eT TTT a Could some representative from a newly discovered civili- zation come to our shores and ask to be shown over one of our great educational institutions, nine-tenths of all he would be shown would be what Garfield termed the “log.” All that Clemenceau saw of Yale was the “bowl” at one of the periods when it was brimming full. The best time to see Harvard is in the vacation period. But it is not my purpose to dwell on this phase of college life. My indictment goes far deeper than these surface conditions. Let me misquote Goldsmith: Ill fares the college, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. It is the decay of men in our colleges that fills me with alarm. This is my indictment: The enormous emphasis put of late years upon the “log” in American college and uni- versity education has unseated “Mark Hopkins” and ren- dered all but extinct the type which Garfield designated the “student.” Let us begin where all campus discussion begins, with the college president. Almost invariably he has been chosen because of distinctive success in some professional field, most often educational. He has spent years preparing him- self as a specialist in some highly technical branch of hu- man knowledge; he has attracted attention to himself by the brilliancy of his specialized work, and as a result he has been called to the presidency of a college. He has reached the head of his profession; he has attained now the su- preme reward of the educator; and with the consciousness of having taken a long step in advance he abandons the specialty to which he has given his preparatory years and to which he is just ready to render the highest service, and at the same time he ceases forever to be a teacher. And the new profession which he now enters is one for which he has had little preparation. One thinks at this point of Dr. Nichols of Dartmouth, who at the moment when he had made himself an interna- tional figure by his discoveries in the physical laboratory of the college and was just at the point where he might have advanced the frontiers of his subject and impressed himself upon his classroom with compelling power was called from his laboratory to the presidency of the college, and from that moment was no longer a discoverer, no longer a teacher, but merely an administrator. A great scientist lost; a great teacher lost. Count the colleges and universi- ties of the United States and in a general way you will have the total number of those who have deliberately dropped the specialty for which the best part of their lives has been a preparation, deliberately ceased to be “Mark Hopkinses,” teachers, molders of the new generation, and have become merely custodians of the “log,” raisers of funds, makers of budgets, directors of business, wearers of academic cos- tume, workers merely with material things. Almost identical is the case of the deans: the dean of men and the dean of women, the deans of schools under- graduate and professional, all of them drafted from the teaching staff because of work distinctively done in the field of their specialty. Practically all of them have aban- doned their classes, practically all have ceased to be edu- cators, the administrative duties of their deanship absorb- ing the totality of their time and powers. A large univer- sity may have as many as a dozen of these deans, presum- ably the strongest men that could be found in the faculties, and all of them have ceased to teach in order that they - ration? may, at an increased salary, do work that a clever graduate of a good business college might do with equal effectiveness. But the indictment goes deeper still: the list of teachers so effective that they are not suffered to teach does not end with the president and the deans. College vice-presidents, comptrollers, secretaries to the president, registrars, ex- aminers, librarians, curators, and others are all drawn from the most efficient end of the teaching force at an increase of salary, until the non-teaching corps is a whole faculty in itself, and what is more it is the only really well-paid part of the college staff, always excepting the athletic directors. An experienced department head once complained to me that in thirty years every really distinctive teacher he had ever evolved had sooner or later been drawn off into an ad- ministrative position. And one may add still another class to the administrative force semi-non-teaching in its functions: department heads, thirty or forty of them in some institutions, for the most part relieved of all save a minimum of classroom work be- cause of the administrative work believed to be inseparable from their position. And these department heads, like the president and the deans and the executive heads, are the best teachers the college possesses, the ones best fitted day by day in actual classroom contact to impress and inspire and direct the plastic student in the most effective way. The efficiency, the personality, the power that brought them their administrative position should be exerted to the full upon the student body in the classroom and the laboratory. Any other use of their powers is distinctively inferior, no matter how profoundly these men may impress the mature world. Why is “Mark Hopkins,” the teacher whose supreme am- bition is to be a teacher and only a teacher, disappearing from our colleges and universities? Why do specialists with individuality and creative power, scholars in the ancient sense of this abused term, drop all in a moment their work and enter a new field for which they have had little prepa- Salary for one thing. The plums on the educa- tional tree are with few exceptions reserved for the admin- istrator. The mere teacher who does not care to dissipate his power as a dean or a department head will work all his life long for the wages paid a bricklayer or a chauffeur. The president with his secretaries, the vice-president, the deans with their office force, the heads of departments with their stenographers, and all the other executive heads with their clerks and helpers—these are the ones who cut most deeply into the salary roll of the college. To do the actual teaching on what is left after these huge bites have been made means the employment of a large force of very young instructors, apprentices, callow neophytes just graduated and almost totally without experience, added to the force at a wage ridiculously low because of the privilege given them of securing in the odds and ends of their time the master’s or the doctor’s degree. No wonder the “student” exclaims: “Don’t let your studies interfere with your education.” The classroom has become a joke. The freshman meets no other teachers, and even the senior often finds them in charge of his “major” courses. It means, too, impossibly large sections of the upper-classmen in history, economics, literature, and the like—fifty, a hundred, sometimes two or three hundred. The instructor becomes a mere speech- maker, a droner over a manuscript, an endless talker rather than a teacher, doing all the work for his class save the slovenly taking-down of “notes” on the part of the listless

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July 18, 1923] victims condemned day after day to sit and be pumped into like passive buckets. But salary is not all that tempts the superior teacher to leave his classroom. The honors of the academic world today, all of them, go to the administrator. The honorary degrees at commencement are seldom for the mere teacher, however effective he may have been in shaping and directing the young lives put into his charge. But let him be elected to the presidency even of a fashionable fitting school, or to a deanship in a college, and at once some institution re- wards him with its degree. All this in the face of the fact that university administration could be done effi- ciently by one not fitted at all to be a teacher, by a man, moreover, without a college degree; by any man indeed who could take charge of any other equally large institution, be it manufacturing or military or financial. Most of the routine in the offices of the deans could be attended to by mere clerks, most of the lobbying at State capitals and most of the soliciting of funds from various sources could be done as well by non-college workers as by college presi- dents. Registrars, president’s secretaries, financial officers, and the like differ very little from the employees in business houses, and they could better be furnished by business col- leges than drawn from the ranks of the specialized teach- ers. Even college presidents could be secured from the mer- cantile or the military professions with greatly more prom- ise of success than from the teaching ranks. With men in our classrooms, men picked as presidents of railroads are picked, or as leaders in the industrial world, or indeed even as football coaches are picked, the advanced men of their generation, the men best fitted to do the work regardless of what salary they may demand, then it will be that the classroom will make the chief imprint upon the finished product turned out by the university. That this should be the supreme aim of the college there can be no question. The idea is by no means a new one. Old Roger Ascham in the early years of Queen Elizabeth voiced it with emphasis: It is a pity that commonly more care is had, yea and that amongst very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. They say nay in word, but they do so in deed. For to the one they will gladly give a stipend of 200 crowns and loath to offer to the other 200 shillings. God that sitteth in heaven laugheth their choice to scorn and rewardeth their liberality as it should, for he suffereth them to have a tame and well ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children, and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their children. The most appalling effect of the Mark Hopkins de- thronement is to be found in the manifest deterioration of the undergraduate body. One does not have to depend upon the reports of the departments of English and mathematics and chemistry, or the statistics of registrars, for informa- tion concerning this degeneration. Army leaders during the war complained that the college graduates upon whom they had chiefly depended for their supply of under-officers were men untrained, smatterers, youths incapable of long concentration and impatient of restraint. Many of our young engineers came home from Europe amazed at the breadth and the thoroughness and the accuracy of the equally young French engineers with whom they had been thrown. The American graduate from a State university knew in a general way his civil engineering, but he was not a thorough master, and he knew little else save this one The Nation 57 area. He had not been educated, at least in the classroom, and the European engineer to his amazement was a broad scholar as well as a thorough specialist. Tens of thou- sands, to cite a single example, study French from one to six semesters in our American colleges, yet not one of them leaves college actually speaking French and very few of them are able even to read the language with any compre- hensiveness or ease. Thoroughness, accuracy, scholarship, concentration to the point of mastery are to be found in so few college undergraduates that they may be said to be all but wanting in our modern education. It is needless to go into detail. Every college atmosphere is heavily charged with criticism of the student body. Ev- ery instructor has his pet theory concerning the causes of the present college “slump.” College presidents like Wood- row Wilson complain that the side-shows have swallowed up the circus; others dwell much on the decadence of the old ideals and “the belligerent younger generation”; still others lay the blame upon the fitting schools and the grades below; and there are those who dismiss the whole matter as one of the unavoidable accompaniments of democracy. To educate all of the people, these philosophers contend, to bring all of Main Street into the high school and even into the college classroom is a leveling-down process that is bound to lower tke old aristocratic standards. All of these arguments are mere evasion. The cause of the “slump” in our colleges is fundamentally this: ‘Mark Hopkins” has been pushed from the “log’’; the “log” has been made king; the teacher is disappearing from the American classroom. When the emphasis is placed again upon the teacher and not upon the “log” and the extra-classroom activities of the student, efficiency and scholarship will come again to our colleges. To prove that this can be done, one need cite but a single example. The football coach today is an actual teacher with a small class and he is paid an adequate sal- ary, one that will draw the desired man from any other pro- fession that may be holding him. He is chosen with extreme care and always because he is considered the best available man in the whole country for the particular task in hand. As a result he does efficient work; he brings to his small class thoroughness and discipline and self-control and accu- racy, and when he has completed his three years’ course with an individual player he has developed that man to the utmost of the man’s powers. Whether it has been worth while to develop the man for merely gladiatorial ends has. no place in my argument. The essential point is this: the man has been educated by a master until he has himself become a master. Better Mark Hopkins in a miserable barn without a shred of equipment than a half-baked instructor in a marble laboratory equipped with the last word in apparatus. Honor where honor belongs. Let the president delegate his work to skilful clerks and let him teach the senior class as of old. If he is not equal to this highly masculine task, let him resign. Let the dean, the high-salaried fifth wheel of the university chariot, appoint a committee of his school to determine academic policies and delegate the rest of his duties to a stenographer, and teach if he can classes of stu- dents as they should be taught. Limit the student body to a number that can be adequately handled in small sections. Give the degrees and the salaries and the public honors to the actual teacher who is worthy. Bring back Mark Hop- kins, whatever he may cost, for not until he appears again shall we have students in our colleges and universities.

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SS SSS on 58 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 The People Let Down (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD RAVELING into the West as far as Chicago and Minne- apolis and St. Louis and Kansas City, and returning to Washington and gazing once more upon its really more or less successful mirroring of the country, I seem to myself to perceive a people in process of being let down from the remote and the grandiose to the local and lowly. The idea, for instance, that the United States by the vibrant waving of its mighty moralities in the air of Europe can bring calm and reason to Europe’s infatuations is much less prevalent, I think, than it was a year ago. I now meet fewer voters to whom the settlement of Europe seems easy. There is a certain subsidence of the ecstatic spirit which saw the United States delivering Europe from its woes by simply baptizing it in the Jordan of Americanism. If this is a loss in idealism, it is also a gain in realistic modesty. In Chicago I attended a hearing in the case of the United States Department of Agriculture against, or regarding, the merger of Armour and Company and of Morris and Company; and here again the impression produced was that of a collapse of soaring ambitions. The great packers—the “Big Five’’—have not been engaged in gathering the pack- ing business of the United States more and more into their grasp. They have been engaged in losing a certain con- siderable percentage of it out of their grasp into the hands of smaller competitors. The idea of an irresistible integra- tion of all slaughtering and of all packing into a unified industrial edifice owned by ultimately one private firm and transferred then to national ownership and to national operation by the United States Government is at this mo- ment a dissolving dream. The path immediately before the packing industry is not toward a glittering focused centralization, but toward a diffused multiplicity of firms. In Minnesota I observed that the farmers and the laborers of the Farmer-Labor Party are not engaged really in at- tempting a new heaven and a new earth. Projects like the Plumb Plan for solving the railroad question through the drastic application of the principle of nationalization, plus the principle of employee management, have receded from the middle of the stage to a waiting position in the wings. The fight that is being fought in Minnesota is not a fight for establishing a new United States, but for overthrowing and punishing certain tyrannies inflicted by Minnesota cap- italists upon Minnesota farmers and Minnesota laborers. Our national government as a means either of saving the world or of saving the country is becoming obscured with doubt. It is true that the farm bloc has just succeeded in taking the government into the regulating of stockyards and of packers, and also into the regulating of grain specu- lators, and also into a new part of the rural banking busi- ness. It is further true that the farm bloc has taken the farmer to the tariff trough, and has caused him there to drink his fill of governmental protection along with the thirsty Eastern manufacturer. I observe, nevertheless, that at the end of all this using of governmental power, and at the end of all this using of governmental money, the repu- tation of the government as an economic savior has not increased but diminished. In Kansas City the audience that greeted President Hard- ing was quite firm in its applause of his denunciation of government ownership. It also additionally was quite firm in withholding all applause even from his plan for assem- bling the railroads into larger units of operation. The idea that the larger the unit the greater the efficiency is getting dimmed. It is contradicted now by the experience not only of the packing industry but of certain other manufacturing industries. It is also contradicted by the experience of the Southwest in reference to certain railroads. A sentiment is springing up to’ the effect that a railroad managed by persons inhabiting the very ground where it gives its imme- diate service to a given familiar region may be better than a railroad which is operated by transportation emperors inhabiting remote heights, and serving many regions but intimately understanding none of them. In Kansas City and in St. Louis also I observed among old friends of mine a quite new increase of distaste and dis- gust for Federal government intervention of any sort in local matters. Even the Federal child-labor amendment seemed to some of them to be objectionable in spite of their enmity to child labor. The local self-government ideas of Senator Reed, of Senator Borah, of ex-Senator Beveridge, and of Governor Al Smith seemed to be winning converts. In Ohio, among those sincere Cincinnati wets who are willing to suffer all sorts of raidings and burglarizings by prohibition-enforcement officers rather than surrender their thirsts into the keeping of a beneficent government, I observed a certain new thoughtfulness regarding not indeed the prohibition law, but the naked and pure idea of law as law in contrast with governmental despotism. Licensed marauders who under color of a statute may go from the county which licenses them into a county which has not licensed them and may there make seizures and arrests; courts which under color of a statute may without a jury impose fines compelling those who cannot pay them to serve many years in jail; Federal inspectors employed in vast numbers to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment relating to _a matter of the throat and of the stomach when no Federal inspectors are ever sent out to enforce the rights of political freedom granted by the Fourteenth Amendment and by the Fifteenth Amendment—these situations and developments have produced a certain new thoughtfulness and a certain new skepticism about the desirability of further Federal constitutional and legislative adventures. Returning eastward from Cincinnati I now notice in the Baltimore Evening Sun a daily impassioned celebration of a week called ‘“Too-Much-Law-Making-Week.” I also notice, in Judge Hull, chairman of the Democratic National Com- mittee, an enthusiastic concurrence in the idea that the'true order of the day is a return to true Jeffersonianism. He tells me that for many months past he has not made a speech in which he has failed to emphasize local immediate self-government as the proper tonic to be taken by those who too long have looked for their salvation to government from afar. I accordingly begin to suspect more than ever that Mr. Justice Brandeis is a great living book of wisdom. For years he has informed me that the day of the smaller nation, the day of the smaller business firm, and the day of a greater attentiveness to local government, in contrast with distant government, was a day demanded by the stars in their human courses. He thought so a long time ago. I grubbingly, as a reporter, pick up multiplying signs from year to year of the veracity of his vision.

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July 18, 1923] The Nation 59 The Wiles of Destiny By SHOLOM ASCH E are at the preliminary festivities of an orthodox Jewish wedding in pre-war Russian Poland. The prelude is staged in the spacious parlor of the bride’s home in a typical provincial town in the midst of the warm colors and dramatic setting dictated by the hallowed traditions of the race. The bridesmaids are here in force, giving the final touches to the central tableau in which the leading character, the bride, is sitting in state on the chair of honor in all the glory of her bridal gown. She is sitting here under the admiring gaze of the guests awaiting the veiling ceremony. The wedding band of provincial musicians are here to a man, lined up around the bride with their instru- ments in position. The violins are tuned up and poised clear for action, From time to time the tension is broken by the growl of a violin string under the temperamental pinch of its master’s finger. The double-bass groans in a painful, low-pitched plaint, and Yankel smothers his impa- tience in the silvery, rolling response of his clarinet to his tuning up. The wedding bard is also here and ready to do his part. But the interminable wait has set his nerves a-tingling down to his finger-tips. These finger-tips of his are plucking and twitching away at his racial goatee—that poor little taper- ing bunch of beard-like, nervous, jerky strands framing the restless and bony minstrel-chin—as if to vent all their irate fury on this innocent tuft. But the bridegroom with the silken veiling cloth is not yet in sight. His absence acts like a wet blanket upon the festive company. All become depressed and gloomy. The mother of the bride is sulky and restless. Her angry scowl suggests some grave trouble with the bridegroom, but no- body knows just what it is all about. The poor bride, tor- tured by dark forebodings of her maiden dreams cruelly blasted, is sitting and waiting, pale and trembling in an agony of shame, with her eyes and face buried in her hands to hide the rush of hot tears and smother the sobs con- vulsing her frail, delicate frame. The girls, overcome by pity for the bride, are doing their best to cheer her up and dispel the all-pervading gloom. They laugh and romp and shout in transports of glee, calling upon the band to play. But the musicians, on their part, are sunk in a brown study tinged by fear and worry at the loss of the money staring them in the face in case the match is called off. They chase off the bevy of girls with their violin bows. “Move on, girls, no dancing just now; bide your time.” The mother of the bride stands bent over the weeping form of her daughter, cooing and crooning at her consol- ingly: “The Lord will redeem your shame, my child, He will make good all you’ve suffered.” The sordid end of the affair in all its naked, unredeemed, commercialized brutality is going on at the same time in the next room where the fathers of the bridal pair are threshing out the business details of the marriage agree- ment. Oiser, the groom’s father, an undersized specimen of the race, is sitting, with his withered, bloodless lips tightly closed, his small boyish head supported by the palm of one hand, and his other hand placidly stroking his scrubby beard. He is as dumb and unresponsive as the rocks. The father of the bride is a tall, husky man with a large, spread- ing face framed by a long beard of russet strands, with the ruddy complexion of the sturdy semi-blond Jew typical of western Poland. He is standing before his puny pros- pective kin-in-law pleading with him appealingly to come to terms: “Qiser, don’t disgrace me before the people. Within eight days after the wedding, as soon as I clinch my wheat sale, you'll get the hundred rubles. Please take the note; for mercy’s sake, accept the note,” he begged, and shoved it into Oiser’s hand. But the weazened, scrawny bit of a Jew does not budge. His hand keeps stroking his beard without making the slightest move in response to the plea. He sits there just as before, with his body rigid, without raising his eyes or moving his head, his mouth tightly shut. From time to time one of the bride’s relatives pokes her head through the door, speaking into the room: “Well, family, the bride and groom, as you know, are having a long summer’s day fast.” “Family, the guests are breaking up; we’ll be disgraced before the people.” “What shall I do? He is sitting there like a brigand”—— the father of the bride pointed at Oiser. ‘Well, I have an idea. Let’s appeal to the groom. If he insists that I don my long coat outright, take my cane, and go out into the street to scrape together a loan of one hundred rubles for the balance of the dowry, right now, before the marriage service under the canopy, where my child is waiting for the veil, well, then, I will do it, I’ll do it,” the irate father of the bride bursts out. “The groom will do as I tell him,” was Shorty Oiser’s curt, unruffled reply. “No, I must have it from his own lips; I want him to tell me he won’t step up to veil the bride until the last one hundred rubles of the dowry are put down in cash,” he insisted. “Well, you can have it if you must,” Shorty Oiser again said in his unruffled manner. Rising and coming up to the door, he called out: “David, David, just step in.” The groom sat surrounded by the young Jews invited to hear him expound the prepared forensic piece of abstruse Talmudic lore prescribed by the marriage canon. But his innermost thoughts and heart-stirrings were fixed else- where. He understood that something was amiss and that the match might fall through. He did not sense it as real disaster. If his father should stop the performance before the canopy-service, why, of course, he surely knows what he is about and means it for his son’s good. The young groom did not know his bride as yet. He had seen her a couple of times at the betrothal when he and she signed the marriage contract and wished each other good luck. Of course he felt overcome with pity at the idea that a daughter of Israel was to suffer disgrace; but his father surely knew what he was about, and there must be sufficient ground for it. He felt bored by the long day. He took another try at his nuptial lecture with now and then a wistful and furtive peep into the next room where the bride was sitting. He saw nothing but a white dress. No doubt the bridal dress appealed to his emotions in a somewhat pleasurable way, helping him to a realization of the fact that she was his heaven-decreed bride. But, of course, the dress could not as yet evoke anything deeper. When his father called him in, he was sure the match was to be won or lost by his de- cision, and so his heart-beats began to quicken. SE tenes een —

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60 The Nation - “David, do you want to marry on a three-hundred-ruble dowry?” his father asked. “What do you mean? It’s four hundred; here is the note” —the bride’s father shoved the note into the groom’s hand. “What’s in a note, a beggarly note? It’s nothing; the dowry in spot cash is only three hundred rubles. If you, Dave, are willing, well, then I won’t object.” David’s blood rushed to his face. In the three hundred rubles he sensed a deep slur, an affront to his worth. Why, any common ruck of a fellow nowadays gets his four—five hundred in cash, and could he, with the phenomenal brains of a talmudic erudite, a real intellectual prodigy assidu- ously conning and poring over the formidable folios of abstruse lore, could he accept a paltry three hundred? Time and again he had rejected the most brilliant matches on the sole ground that the dowry didn’t soar above the three- hundred mark. And should he now marry with this amount as his dowry, why, he’d be disgraced before his own friends, the young Jews gracing the sanctified study-halls of the synagogue. Think of it, a beggarly three-hundred-ruble groom! He was quite ready then and there to take off his coat and quit together with his father. But he hesitated to scandalize the young Jews and the guests in the next room. He kept twirling his side-locks, saying: “Father knows better what’s good for me; I depend upon him.” And so the bride’s father, confronted by stern necessity, had to make the best of a bad bargain. He donned his long coat, took his cane, and went out into the street to scrape up a hundred-ruble loan for the balance of the dowry. The ‘bride had to keep on sitting with her hair loosened waiting for the groom to veil her until the hundred rubles, scraped ‘together in silver and copper coins from the widely rami- fied kith and kin of the bride’s family, was safely tied up in the handkerchief of the short-sized, puny, freebooting, and tongue-tied specimen of a Jew. “David, go and veil the bride,” said this undersized son of Abraham with the silver coin in the knotted kerchief in - his tight grasp. At night, when the bridal pair were alone, the bride swooned in a fit of nausea. When David had sprinkled some water on her face and she had come to herself, she opened her eyes and looked at him bewildered and fright- ened. Her look seemed to beg him for something. David could not make out what was wrong with her and asked: “What is it, Dora dear?” Instead of answering him, she took his hand and pressed it to her heart. David felt her heart pound hammer-like under his hand and became frightened. He asked her anxiously: “Are you sick, Dora? What is the matter?” She kept still. Her big eyes looked at him in mute appeal. He saw the pupils of her eyes gleam in the dark. She took his hand again and put it to her heart, whispering in the night hush: “T am sick, David.” “What ails you?” he asked in fright. a Her eyes now implored with still greater intensity. “My heart!” “Your heart?” he shuddered, as he moved away from her. “Why didn’t they tell me anything about it?” he asked angrily. “Father was afraid you wouldn’t like the match.” a [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 “A bride with heart disease,” he muttered to himself. He kept still for a minute; he did not know what to do with himself. Dawn was still far off, yet it was too late at night for him to dress and go out. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been duped,” he muttered to himself. “I am not to blame. Father told me to keep quiet. Now you’re my husband, you’ve got to know it, and so I told you.” David didn’t say a word. He gazed at the window in search of a single light ray to herald the dawn. He thought he would surely go home with his father in the morning. A bride with heart disease, why it was out of the question. It wasn’t his fault. He was trapped. But the rabbi would grant a divorce at once. He felt with a sense of pain the slow, snail-like pace of the night; here he was with a stranger in the same room, with one whom from tomorrow on he would never see again. “David, you’re angry?” she asked him. He did not answer her, but he thought it was not her fault that God had punished her. “Does your heart still ache?” he asked without looking her in the face. “A little,” she answered in a subdued tone. “And what do your folks at home do when you have these spells?” “A cold wet towel helps.” “Do you want to have one now?” he asked again without looking around. “Yes, over there are a bowl of water and a towel.” Groping in the dark, David found the bowl, wet the towel, and handed it to her. “Put it over my heart, David.” “Where?” “Right here where my heart is.” David applied the towel. Unwittingly his hand touched her bare, warm breast. He felt a wave of affection for her. “Ts there no remedy for heart disease? One could go to a great medical specialist,” he said aloud as if to himself. “No, I have been to doctors, to great doctors—they know no remedy.” David sat in silence. He now visualized a future inter- minable round of living with an invalid wife, tied down to a woman who would always keep to her sick-bed, always, on Saturdays and holidays, always sick and always sad, and perhaps this would harm the children as well; they would be born weak and sickly, or, perhaps, there would not be any children at all, and he alone would live with a sick wife. Outside the sun would shine, holidays would come, such as Easter, Jews would be merry, rejoice and sing, the young married women would take walks in front of the synagogue while his wife would be confined to her sick-bed. He thought no more of divorce—he saw himself already tied down to a sick wife and felt sorry for himself. Why, just a while ago he was a free young bachelor, happy, full of bright visions of the future, and now he was already so burdened with sorrow. What had he done that such a lot had been meted out to him? What crime had he committed to deserve such punishment? He now accused or blamed no one but his unlucky star. He now felt pity for his young wife. Poor thing, it was not her fault, He only wanted to save himself from the im- | pending doom, to find some ray of hope, and so he said: “Pshaw! doctors don’t know everything. The Lord’s mercy may restore you to perfect health.”

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July 18, 1923] The Nation 61 “The doctors said if I found a husband who would be good to me, I would regain my normal, healthy heart.” He sat on in silence. Her words cut into his heart with the sharp sting of love. There was so much soft, soothing sweetness in her voice that he felt quite overcome with emo- tion and muttered: “Well, what of it, the fact of the matter is, we two are heading for the same port under the same star.” He heard subdued weeping behind his back. Her tears hurt him, and he said: “Dora darling, don’t cry.” “Why shouldn’t I when my lot is so bitter and God has punished me so?” David could no longer resist. breast and wept. “Tt is my star, my destiny too, Dora dear.” And he did not know whether his tears welled up from the fount of misery or bliss. In the Driftway NFORTUNATELY the Drifter did not get to Shelby, Montana, in the fight-days. He has never been able to stir up much interest in dog fights or boxing matches, but he would like to have seen Mr. Kearns, Jack Dempsey’s manager. The picture of that poker-faced gentleman placidly smoking a Pittsburgh stogie while all Montana was being raked for coin roused even the Drifter’s hot- weather admiration. Jack Kearns finally took $210,000 and the gate receipts, but the Montana men, wild poker men as they are reputed to be, apparently did not believe he would. Kearns got every cent out of them that was to be had. “T’ll not fall for any tear-jerking stunt on my shoulder,” he told the world in choicest American a few minutes before the fatal hour. “I will not shade our end one whit. If these fine, upstanding men of the open spaces and the hairy wrists have been walking on stilts and tripped, that’s their business. They don’t seem to have sense enough to make good $300,000 for a $5,000,000 deluge of advertise- ments for their oil.” (Some of the correspondents failed to stress the fact that Shelby is not merely a ranch town but an oil-boom town, and that the generous mayor who so nobly sacrificed his $100,000 is also a partner in Moore and Ropers, “real estate and oil-land investment,” with offices on Main Street, Shelby.) * * * * * F the movies that are to make the fortune of the de- feated hero be warranted to include close-ups of the inimitable Kearns chewing his cigar while coin committees struggled and all Shelby besought him to relent, the Drifter will consent to accept free tickets from any devoted reader who may send them in. (And if he be drifting far from New York when the tickets come, The Nation has an office boy who might be persuaded to substitute.) He would not care much to see the pictures of Tom Gibbons being initiated as an honorary chief of the Blackfeet Indians, but if any imaginative camera man turned his machine upon the scene when one of his fellows, in true movie-man style, inter- rupted Chief Curly Bear’s opening prayer to seize the good chief by the shoulder and spin him around to face the cameras, the Drifter would like to see that. He would like too to see the expressions upon the Blackfeet faces when the camera man thus showed his real American respect for religion. He hid his face in her T must have been a great sight. The neglectful corre- spondents omitted to obtain figures upon the amount of business done by the Dakota-Montana Oil Company, Moore and Ropers, and the Sunburst Oil and Gas Company, all of Main Street, Shelby, during the days of Shelby’s greatness, but they did give one a picture of the wild and woolly West in 1923. It is peopled, it appears, almost exclusively by farmers in Ford cars and their daughters, who wear silk stockings and natty knickerbockers. * * * * * HE umpire ruled Jack Dempsey victor, and the crowd insisted on awarding the moral victory to Tom Gib- bons, but the match, despite a few votes in favor of Shelby, really went to Kearns. It was a gigantic game of bluff from beginning. A few Shelby oil speculators had the inspiration one night in the good old days before public attention forced respect for the Eighteenth Amendment upon Shelby. They wired Kearns, bidding $200,000 for the match; he raised them $100,000, and they called. After that it was a new game between Shelby and Kearns: how much would Shelby have to pay him to keep him from calling the match off? Whenever the Shelbyites suggested compromise Kearns chewed his stogie negatively, and they struggled on. The Drifter suspects that Kearns, who thus outbluffed Montana, is a mere effete Easterner, but he can- not tell, for Who’s Who in America pays no tribute to that worthy. For that matter, you can search Who’s Who in vain for any information about Jack Dempsey, champion heavyweight boxer of the world, Tom Gibbons, the chal- lenger, or even about THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. A Word on Tax Exemptions TO THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: In your last issue, in commenting on the decreased number of taxpayers returning incomes of one million dollars and over, you attributed this fact to the large issues of tax- exempt securities and expressed approval of the suggestion that the Federal Constitution be again amended to prohibit the further issue of tax-exempt securities. I believe that all tax exemptions should be abolished and, if a constitutional amendment were needed for that purpose, I for one would heartily favor such amendment. But I am not convinced that such an amendment is needed. I still believe that the Sixteenth Amendment, if properly construed, abolishes all exemptions from taxation so far as the powers of the Fed- eral government extend. That amendment has, however, been so construed as to thwart its purpose in so far as it seeks to do away with tax exemptions. The circumstances under which that construction of the amendment was adopted are such that in my opinion a concerted effort should be made to resubmit the question to the United States Supreme Court and thus se- cure a proper interpretation of the Sixteenth Amendment. You are no doubt aware of the fact that the exemption of salaries of State, county, and municipal officers and employees, and the exemption of income from securities issued by States, counties, and municipalities from the Federal income tax, rests solely on judicial interpretation of the Federal Constitution and not on any explicit provision for exemption contained in that instrument, and that the provisions making such exemp- tions found in the revenue act were inserted therein by Con- ee EO ee eo ec: = = SS a

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62 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 gress in pursuance of the supposed want of power on the part of Congress to subject income derived from these sources to Federal taxation. I feel safe in saying that most of the people of the United States (including Justices Holmes and Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court) were of the opinion that when the Sixteenth Amendment authorized the taxation of incomes, “from whatever source derived,” it really meant that all incomes “from whatever source derived” were made subject to taxation. How- ever, it remained for the United States Supreme Court in the case of Evans vs. Gore, 253 U. S. 245, to demonstrate in that most astonishing opinion that this provision so carefully worded and so clearly expressed is utterly meaningless. According to the construction of the Sixteenth Amendment in the case of Evans vs. Gore, the meaning of the amendment would be exactly the same if the words “from whatever source derived” had been omitted therefrom. The case of Evans vs. Gore should be called to the attention of the entire bar of the country and of all intelligent and patriotic citizens. It should be thoroughly discussed in the press, and in this way it is possible that a proper construction of the amendment may be obtained and the necessity for further cluttering up the Constitution with pernicious amendments be avoided. ; St. Louis, June 20 HENRY H. FURTH Ireland To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Str: In a recent editorial you refer to De Valera’s ‘‘content” with the “substantial measure of self-government obtained by Ireland under the new constitution,” but doubt his conversion to this “content.” Apropos of De Valera’s “last word” to Free Staters and England, you observe: “Saying one’s last word may appear a less heroic attitude than dying in the last ditch, but the friends of Ireland will hope that, after all, the con- troversy may reach its final stage in speeches and manifestos rather than in deeds of violence.” The real friends of Ireland cannot see a “substantial measure of self-government” in the new constitution. That such an expression can find a place in the columns of The Nation is a tribute to the thoroughness with which pro-British propaganda in this field has worked. We have the word of a British au- thority in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica that “indifference to truth is a characteristic of propaganda, that it is to promote the interest of those who continue it... [which] differentiates it from useful knowledge.” The so- called treaty divides Treland arbitrarily with two hostile camps, with an army of occupation in each. No referendum vote has been taken on the treaty. The constitution gives ‘‘Southern” Ireland but the status of a slave state. We have no control over our parliament, our judi- ciary, or even over the spending of our own money. Our judges are appointed by the king’s governor general. The parliament is called and dismissed by the king, who has a veto on all legis- lation. As for the “deeds of violence” of the Republicans, would it not be more to the purpose to emphasize the deeds of violence of the British Government which has precipitated all this? When it is realized (as it ought to be) that the Free Staters are and have been all along simply the tools and puppets of the British Government, one will be able to get something like a real perspective on the situation. New York, June 80 HANNA SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: “Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.” English veneer is equally thin. From Lord Curzon up or down, every class and school of political opinion in England exposes its fun- damental savagery when the name of Ireland is mentioned. So it is with Henry W. Nevinson, writing in your issue of the 13th instant. Mr. Nevinson and his ilk on both sides of the Atlantic have thus “championed” the cause of Ireland, of India, of Egypt, up to a point where it appeared that the patriots would triumph, whereupon the “champions” have invariably thrown their weight and their pens in favor of a “moderate” settlement, which equally invariably proves to be a victory for the British Gov- ernment. Nevinson and Company come close to the role of agents provocateurs. New York, June 15 JOHN E. KELLY TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Nevinson speaks of his love for Ireland and the Irish people and “the shameful history of their oppression and persecution at the hands of England for so many centuries” down to the “Black-and-Tan tyranny.” Then he speaks of December 6, 1921, as the day “the very happiest of my life” because “the news came that the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland had at last been signed.” One wonders if on that day Mr. Nevinson knew the terms of the so-called treaty and by what happy magic he thought England had been trans- formed overnight from tyrant to benefactor. Is not this the question at issue? Does the so-called treaty guarantee Ireland’s liberation from the oppression of England or does it perpetu- ate it? In the first place the document signed December 6, 1921, over which Mr. Nevinson waxed so happy, did not purport then to be a treaty, but in the document itself is called articles of agreement. It was signed by the three Irish delegates in excess of their authority and against positive instructions from the Government of the Irish Republic which they represented and under threats of an immediate and devastating warfare on the part of Great Britain. For these reasons two of the three delegates, after returning to Ireland, repudiated their signa- tures. The constitution, built on the articles of agreement, was not drawn up by delegates from the Irish people and has never been submitted to the Irish people either for amendment or approval, so that in no sense can the government instituted by these documents be considered a government of and by the Irish people. The so-called treaty and the constitution forced on Ireland from without change the situation not a whit to the lover of ‘Irish independence. These documents can no more bring peace to Ireland than the Treaty of Versailles can bring peace to Europe. Just as always we have Great Britain standing for a world-wide empire from which she does not dare to lose Ire- land, and Ireland, now as ever, passionately ready to sacrifice her very life blood for the “right of self-determination.” Oakland, Cal., June 28 CHARLOTTE ANITA WHITNEY Governor Russell on the Press To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I have noticed throughout the nation for many years the unmistakable signs that the money power of this govern- ment was controlling the policy of the press. It is rare indeed to see a journal with any circulation and with any standing that would dare to speak out in behalf of the great masses of the people. From the first along to the last there is unmis- takable evidence that these papers are subsidized. They speak the language of their masters, the predatory interests. In our own State we haven’t a daily paper that would dare to champion the cause of the common people upon any question, and they follow the wishes of the “big interests” always. The big fellow that is a well-known tax-dodger has their sympathy and support. These newspapers take great delight in abusing any person, official or private, who would dare to demand that these tax-dodgers pay up their just dues to the government. When it comes to the reduction of freight and passenger rates, telephone and express rates, and the like, these same journals always maintain a strong argument in behalf of these corpora- tions, trusts, and combines. Recently we have gone through

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4 Julv 18, 1923] a siege with the insurance trusts. This is the most pernicious, arrogant, and criminally inclined lot of fellows I have ever seen infest this State. They did their best to overawe and sand- bag our people. In this they were repulsed, but the fight is still on. The fight in this State now and in the years to come is against this sort of octopus and others of this kind, and if we had an honest and fearless press we would run these criminals out of the State at once, but unfortunately we have but few editors that will take up the fight against this common enemy. The small country paper has come under the same criminal in- fluence of these predatory interests as have the larger papers, until now our State has only a very small percentage of honest- to-goodness newspapers. These are making a valiant fight, but the common enemy is continually closing in on them, and unless a revolution takes place it will not be long before they are all silenced—I pray this revolution may come soon. Jackson, June 23 LEE M. RUSSELL, Governor of Mississippi Our Rule in the Virgin Islands To THE EpiToR oF THE NATION: Sir: The intelligent Virgin Islanders of New York have fol- lowed the articles which have been appearing in The Nation on the naval rule now in vogue in the Virgin Islands with consider- able interest. It heartens us in our fight for a democratic status to know that such an internationally respected journal as The Nation is on our side. Mr. Arthur Warner’s article on Political Peonage in the Virgin Islands in your issue of June 6 was espe- cially valuable. It sums up succinctly the chief evils from which the people of the islands suffer under American rule as admin- istered by the Navy Department. The Virgin Islands Congressional Council was organized more than a year ago to get the searchlight of publicity turned on the dark corners of this naval rule. We have found the naval mind a rather queer piece of furniture. In the Negro newspapers amenable to its manipulation (two in the Virgin Islands and one in New York) all our citations of fact—official orders, rul- ings, and records—are cavalierly condemned as “propaganda,” while the naval regime, in the method made familiar by propa- gandists during the war, seems to think that, like Humpty Dumpty, words can be made to mean anything that we want them to mean. Thus to call an administration selected exclu- sively from the Navy and by the Navy for the people a “civil” administration evidently makes it civil. Mr. Warner has done a conscientious piece of reporting. He has entered sympathetically into the problems of the people, and does not stand Olympian-like upon that high mount of super- cilious condescension upon which most white Americans stand when discussing darker people of the West Indies. It is the earlier humanism which you have preserved for us almost alone in America and renamed liberalism that must serve as the sol- vent of our inter-racial problems. For only in that manner can they be solved with mutual good-will and respect. New York, June 13 CASPER HOLSTEIN, President, Virgin Islands Congressional Council To Students of Carl Robert To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Will former students of Carl Robert, who was for many years professor of archaeology at the University of Halle, Ger- many, until his death in January, 1922, kindly send either to the undersigned or to Professor Otto Kern, Robertinum, Halle, brief accounts of their recent academic activities? These are intended to be incorporated in a forthcoming biography of Professor Robert written by his successor, Dr. Kern. WALTER WoopBuRN HYDE University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, May 20 The Nation 63

Swallows Pass Through Rome By LEONORA SPEYER The swallows flying north have come to Rome, The sacred city; wing to wing they flit About its golden walls, nor care a whit For Forum, Coliseum, Catacomb. Unmoved, they skim St. Peter’s shining dome, Brushing the Cross; and did great Angelo sit Beneath that leaning cypress? What of it? Tell the gray dove, that dreaming stay-at-home! What are Rome’s marble monuments to them? Its fallen columns crying on dead gods? Dead or alive, here’s shelter for a night, A rag’s a nest as warm as purple hem; A peasant’s crumbling eave, well-stuffed with clods, As good as martyr’s niche, or Caesar’s might. Books Life and Letters of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Diary, Letters, and Reminiscences. Edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch. Two volumes. Harper and Brothers. $6. a | COMMENCED the struggle of life under favorable cir- cumstances,” wrote Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the open- ing sentence of her diary. She could, however, as she also records, “enjoy life under the most adverse circumstances” and “with no abatement of her indomitable spirit turn these or any circumstances to good account.” Perhaps no words that could be quoted from the rich record of these two volumes better indicate the buoyant vitality that carried Elizabeth Cady Stanton through more than fifty years of ceaseless revolutionary activity as well as of an unusually full domestic life. Born in Johnstown, New York, in 1815, the daughter of a conservative and learned judge, she early displayed her rare faculty for dominating circumstances. Con- stantly depreciated by her father as a girl, in spite of achieve- ments uncommon in a girl of her day; confronted constantly through the incidents of his law practice with the injustice of woman’s legal position, she acquired, while still a child, that hearty disrespect for legalism and authoritarianism, for all time-honored and senseless obstacles to human happiness that was to distinguish her through life as one of the greatest and wisest rebels of her century. It was not in vain that she learned during these formative years that her simplest wish and impulse were likely to be in conflict with rule and prece- dent, tradition and convention, for she soon developed the habit, invaluable in a revolutionist, of heeding no authority and following no prompting save that of her own intelligence. It was this outstanding quality in her that made her through the introduction of the famous ninth resolution at the Seneca Falls convention, against even the advice of Lucretia Mott, the founder of the American Woman Suffrage Movement, and later in the eyes of some of her coworkers its enfant terrible. It was this that led her to recognize and welcome every progres- sive and liberating tendency of her time as well as many that were far in advance of it, and that frequently brought to her not only the hostility of her opponents, but the disapproval of her friends and associates. Thus, during Reconstruction days, she temporarily estranged ardent Abolitionists with whom she had worked because they could see no relevance to the Fourteenth Amendment in her question: “Is the African race composed entirely of males?”—(a question not without interest today A A A a <a 2 ana es i a LL

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64 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3028 when a considerable number of feminists apparently believe that only the Caucasian race has any females). She lost the presi- dency of the temperance society she had helped to found be- cause of her radical views on divorce, pained her relatives by wearing bloomers publicly during the early years of her mother- hood, and when past seventy shocked the respectable majority of a suffrage convention into sanctimonious silliness by pub- lishing “The Woman’s Bible.” Profoundly social in her outlook, she was intensely individual in spirit and method, and because she was passionately committed to the cause of human freedom she was passionately consistent in her demand for self-expres- sion and self-fulfilment. Skeptical and challenging where creeds and codes were concerned, her reverence for human life and per- sonality was of inestimable value in combating the congealing tendencies that so often threatened the movement with which she was associated. That these tendencies sometimes carried the day in spite of her, only heightened the exhilaration one feels in reading her record of unbroken opposition to bigotry and snobbery, compromise and toadyism whether these appeared in the ranks of her opponents or in those of her fellow-workers. In 1840, after a girlhood of outward ease and inward turmoil, she married Henry B. Stanton, characteristically omitting the word obey from the marriage ceremony, and sailed with her husband to the World’s Anti-Slavery Congress to which he was a delegate. This convention may have achieved notable things for the abolition of Negro slavery but it is chiefly remembered today for the impetus it unwittingly gave to the emancipation of women by its exclusion of the women delegates. For Eliz- abeth Cady Stanton as for others of the excluded women the action of the convention was a turning-point. It brought to a focus the vague aspirations and stirrings of discontent they had felt and kindled in them the determination to fight without ceas- ing for the full emancipation of women. It was not until 1848, however, after some intervening years of concentrated domestic life, that she definitely launched the woman’s movement at Sen- eca Falls. It was shortly after this that Mrs. Stanton met for the first time her great coworker, Susan B. Anthony, and that “the life-long friendship of these two women began. From that time on the record shows her as living to the full of her mag- nificent powers both in her personal and in her public life. She had seven children, six of whom survived her, to whose health and education she applied the same radical and fearless intel- | ligence with which she met other problems. She agitated con- tinually for abolition, for divorce, for better property laws for women, for suffrage. She addressed innumerable legislatures and drafted countless memorials. She edited The Revolution. She wrote and edited a large part of the official “History of Woman Suffrage.” She traveled through the West on Lyceum Lecture tours under pioneer conditions of almost incredible hard- ship with the same zest that she did in Europe. She founded and was for many years president of the National Suffrage Association. Throughout her life she was a constant con- tributor to magazines and newspapers, not only on topics relating to women, but on any that stirred her never-dormant sense of pity or of outrage at injustice. She was the ardent champion not only of movements but of those individuals who stirred her loyalty or aroused her protective passion, and no connection with any movement could force her to silence when she felt called on to speak. She took up her pen in defense of Parnell when those she termed “canting saints” were hounding him, and one of the most touching of her letters was her mes- sage of sympathy and respect to a young colored cadet at West Point for persecutions endured at the hands of his white fellow- cadets. It is in her letters indeed that her many-sided and stirring personality is best revealed. Interesting as is the record of her diary, and charming as are the more formal reminiscences intended for publication, it is the letters that are richest in characteristic and spontaneous utterances, in those ringing phrases struck from her in the heat of controversy, in the un- forgettable expressions, at once so terse and so eloquent, of the qualities that made her great. One wishes that all leaders of public movements might read and take to heart the letter on compromise she wrote in 1880 to Miss Anthony: “Ah, be- ware Susan lest as you become ‘respectable’ you become con- servative” and note the cheerfulness with which she always received the news that someone or something had once more “killed” the suffrage movement. Her letters, too, are rich with indications of the warmth and breadth of her personal affec- tions, her steadfast uncompromising friendship, and her wise and light-hearted motherhood. A biography of Mrs. Stanton could not fail to be an impor- tant historical document, as Bernard Shaw once said of his own, for, like Shaw, she “lived up to the chin in the life of her time.” The present biography is memorable, however, not only as an historical and social document, but as the extraordinarily living record of a rare personality, a pioneer among pioneers, whose gaiety, courage, and intensity so animate every page that it is not, as biographies too frequently are, the record of “old, unhappy, far-off things,’ but packed with significance for our own times. It is memorable too for the sympathetic and skilful editing it has received at the hands of Mrs. Stan- ton’s children, in particular for their wide and discriminating selection from her letters. MARTHA GRUENING A Cheerful Russian Poet Visions Solaires. Mexique—Egypte—Japon—Inde—Océanie. Par Constantin Balmont. Traduit du Russe avec une préface par Ludmila Savitzky. Paris: Editions Bossard. 1923. Pere we should have begun our title with the definite article, since cheerfulness is not frequent in Russian litera- ture. But Constantin Balmont is not pure Slav. Of Scotch ancestry on his father’s side and Mongolian on his mother’s, he is, for all his affection for Russia, an endless traveler and a citizen of the world; and it is the world’s gay variety of color and enthusiasm, rather than the world’s monotony of disillusion- ment, which moves his pen. “I love the faces of Negroes”’— “I love Herodotus’—“I love islands’—“I love the grass-blade and the mosquito” (save the mark!)—this friendly investigator has belted the planet, carrying back to Russia a store of voluble comment on Aztec mythology, Egyptian agriculture, Japanese art; and the best of his travel essays have just been opened to a wider public than the Russian intelligentsia by their transla- tion into French. The translator informs us that the title of the collection was the author’s own suggestion; which proves that Balmont has an instinct for titles. ‘I came into the world to see the sun,” runs a line from one of his exuberant poems; and this collec- tion is the diary of an amateur in physical sensations, particu- larly the sensation of sight. Nowhere else in literature, unless it be in a story of Poe’s, do we remember to have read so breath- takingly vivid a rendering of the feeling which seizes a nervous person when he looks down from a height as in Balmont’s ac- count of his descent of the pyramidal Maya temple in Yuca- tan called the Casa del Hechicero. And there are not many more engaging pages in literature than the one describing the meeting with the half-buried statue in the Casa de la Vieja, in the same region. “I crawled into the subterranean passageway, bent to half my height. . . . In the passage, which was half choked with broken stone, against the left wall I dis- covered a remarkable piece of sculpture, a severe female face with only the bust visible beneath it. It seemed ... that all the lower part of the body had been buried in the rubbish. Coming face to face with this visage I experienced a strange emotion, something like a reminiscence. ... It was a wonder- ful face, of a Judeo-Egyptian type. Fine features, eyes living and deep, not lively but full of life, a fine nose with clean-cut, expressive nostrils, lips which had known how, which still knew how, to speak in silence. ... This figure seemed alive. It ex- pressed a thought, a sentiment. I was filled with hesitation and

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July 18, 1923] trouble. It seemed to me impossible to leave it thus, as one moves away from a lifeless picture, from a statue of stone. With an indescribable emotion I pressed my lips against the face, and a strange sensation of vivifying coolness permeated my being at the moment when those sculptured lips received my kiss and gave back a supernatural response.” The best chapter in the book is the one on Japanese poetry. This race-conscious Slav who reckons the Russians “the noblest people, and the most delicate, in existence’”—this lover of his country who was wounded to the heart by the surrender of 1905—becomes a good friend of the ‘““Poem-Land” and an enthusi- astic admirer and translator of her writings. Even at third hand—for the French version is an artistic achievement—these tankas and hokkous are touching and beautiful, and as critic the lavish Russian shows the most accurate appreciation of an art which is worlds apart from his own. It is to be hoped that Balmont will shortly be introduced to the English-speaking public. He seems to bear translation well, and his point of view will be more sympathetic to Anglo- Saxons than that of certain of his formidable fellow-country- men. Roy TEMPLE HOUSE Three Critics Three Studies in English Literature: Kipling, Galsworthy, Shakespeare. By André Chevrillon. Translated by Florence Simonds. Doubleday, Page and Company. $2.50. Suspended Judgments. Essays on Books and Sensations. By John Cowper Powys. American Library Service. $3. Thirteen Worthies. By Llewelyn Powys. American Library Service. $1.75. HESE three books came to me together; it is convenient to review them together; yet there is little in common be- tween them beyond the fact that they all belong within the large and vaguely limited field of literary criticism. Criticism of criticism is at best at second or third remove from real appre- ciation of literature; and I am tempted to recommend M. Chevrillon’s Studies heartily and without reservation and to recommend the volumes by the Powys brothers less heartily and with considerable reservations—and consider my duties as a reviewer done. But something more than this needs to be said, if only to point the contrast between the brilliant and assured mastery of the distinguished French critic and the journalistic informality and ease of the other two books. The student of literature must know Chevrillon’s opinions; he can without much danger dispense with the Powys books, which will find most of their readers in women’s literary clubs in the smaller cities of this land. Chevrillon’s three essays in criticism were written quite in- dependently with no thought of combining them into a volume. At first impression there appears to be little in common be- tween Rudyard Kipling, John Galsworthy, and William Shake- speare that, when the Studies were collected together, could produce a well-defined and unified volume. Yet the book holds together admirably, because it is founded upon clearly reasoned and lucidly formulated principles of criticism and upon a knowledge of English literature and character that is, I believe, unrivaled in France. In a word, the unity of the book is to be sought in Chevrillon’s visualization of the two contrasting sides of the Englishman: realism and mysticism, the seemingly irreconcilable traits which produce on the one hand force, grossness, pride, self-control, and a sense of duty to the race; on the other hand, sentiment, a tendency to moralize, a deeper feeling for the mystery of the world than other nations pos- sess, and, at its highest, poetry of an imaginative quality and a profundity that is unequaled elsewhere in the modern world. Chevrillon tends to hark back to the old Arnoldian method of analysis; the modern Anglo-Saxon type showing the divergent traits of the Saxon and the Celt. One may leave such ethno- The Nation 65 logical speculations to one side, and note that the critic writes with great acuteness of the contrast between the Englishman of the Renaissance and the modern type which has gradually emerged through the discipline and subordination of traits of character which in Shakespeare’s day appeared upon the sur- face of English life. The modern Englishman, with his energy, his instinct for government, his world-wide grasp, his pride of race, his ideal of duty, is reflected in the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. It is perhaps too much to expect that any foreigner, and especially any Frenchman, should possess that native instinct whereby we can recognize great poetry and keep it apart from rhetoric, more or less admirable, more or less blatant. It is enough to say that Chevrillon ranks Kipling higher than the judicious among those to whom English poetry is a racial inheritance have agreed to rate him. Moreover—though this is a criticism of Kipling rather than of his French interpreter—there is no effort to reveal the less excellent aspects of Kipling’s doc- trines; there is no rebuke forthcoming for the hypocritical cant about the White Man’s Burden and the Lesser Breeds; there is much said of Kipling’s warnings and prophecies of the coming clash with Germany, but it seems never to have occurred to Chevrillon that Kipling’s unexampled hold upon the atten- tion of Englishmen might in the early years of this unhappy century have been employed in bringing about the sympathetic and generous understanding between the two peoples which, had it been effected, might have made this world a fitter place for decent folk to dwell in. Galsworthy, in Chevrillon’s penetrating analysis, is seen to be probing below the surface of the modern Englishman, to be reaching down to those traits so long smothered by the national ideal which yet exist as the real motive forces of character and action. The novelist’s technique is related cleverly to that of Meredith. Throughout his work, and especially in “The Forsyte Saga,” his method is indirect; action and character in the principal persons of his stories are seen as reflected in the subordinate persons. An interesting comparison might have been drawn between Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad; between the methods of the two novelists there is something in common but more that is contrasting. But Chevrillon does not make this comparison, and there is no space to develop it here. I find the elder Mr. Powys’s essays solemn, rather dull, and more than a bit pretentious. His title puzzles me, for his judgments are seldom suspended. Rather, they are frequently delivered ex cathedra with an assurance which the academic and professorial critics whom he so frequently abuses must re- gard with envy not unmingled with alarm. He is inclined to refuse “the noble title of real Fiction-Lovers” to our whole generation, instancing in support of his refusal “the frivolous craze for short books.” Yet I seem to remember that “Ulysses” and “The Forsyte Saga” and “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” have been much talked of of late. He declares that “disillusion is the mark of civilized eras as opposed to barbaric ones.” In- deed! The fifth century B.c.? The thirteenth century A.D.? “Don Juan would be a hodge-podge of indecency and senti- mentality if it were not for the presence of genius.” My marginal and unsuspended judgment of this remark is “Stuff!” “There is not the remotest trace of snobbishness in Henry James.” On the contrary, James reeks of snobbishness. “France —always the protector of civilization.” Come now!—in 1923? Mr. Llewelyn Powys is less ponderous than his brother, and though his matter is thin, he is lively, genial, and entertaining, having a happy gift of apt quotation from the author he is appreciating which brings the good old “worthy’—Coryat or Urquhart or Woolman—vividly before us. He is less excel- lent when dealing with greater folk: Chaucer, Montaigne, Mar- lowe, Hardy. He is apparently fascinated by death-beds; we learn how a dozen of his thirteen worthies passed to their re- ward. May it be long before he can add the final paragraph to his final chapter! SAMUEL C. CHEW ee eee epee in ee Pee esti, I I A te RE Ae

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66 | The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3028 Being Respectable Being Respectable. By Grace H. Flandrau. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2. HIS is a novel of the Main Street school, another critical study of a phase of American life. It is the portrait of the plutocracy of a Middle Western city, the indictment of that oligarchy to which George Babbitt aspired in vain. The picture which it gives of a provincial, respectable, mean-spirited, over- fed, over-comfortable, and under-thinking existence seems per- fect to one reader at least whose lot was cast for a time on just such a plane. The truth of Miss Flandrau’s Columbia is exact and fine-drawn. Here is the city so many of us know, the leafy avenues, the ginger-bread houses whose cupolas and porticoes are being supplanted by a new Middle Western brand of “Colonial” architecture, here are the purring Cadillacs, the self-righteous churchgoers, the gluttonous overdressed women, the cocktails, country clubs, gossip and flirtation, the factitious interest in the book or the uplift movement of the moment, and here beneath it all are suffering, repression, and horror be- cause life cannot quite contain itself within the deadly limits of that fashionable mediocrity. “Being Respectable” is well constructed, it moves within a rounded form, yet it never fails to give a sense of continuity, of life spreading beyond the front and back covers of the book. Some of the characterizations are admirable—Darius Carpenter, the sentimental, half-dazed, lovable father of the family; his son Charles, a correct and successful rotter; Louisa, the elder daughter, unattractive, energetic, miserable Louisa, eternally straining in the pursuit of her gods of church, “society,” and respectability until the death of her daughter leaves her broken at last in the loss of her one genuine, decent emotion. The people drawn within the circle of that narrow life are alive and real, but where the novel fails to become really momentous is in the portrayal of those who revolt from the bleakness of such an existence. Deborah, the younger daughter, supposedly the heroine of the book, the protestant against conventionality and provincialism, is an uninteresting person, devitalized, un- ‘important. To borrow the jargon of the stage, Miss Flandrau has found that it is easier to write, as it is to act, a “char- acter part” than a “lead.” KATHARINE SERGEANT ANGELL A Malicious Panorama Through the Wheat. By Thomas Boyd. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $1.75. AR is a panorama of “grim comic imbecility” to the eyes of Mr. Boyd’s character Hicks. Toplofty idealism is brought into the picture, only to be shattered by a barrage of deftest malice. A pompous captain, with a Napoleonic vision, or a zealous top sergeant, actuated by a crusading delusion, becomes helplessly ridiculous in the face of a platoon of un- impressed and “kidding” soldiers. The antithesis is given a more sharply ironic twist in the spectacle of men under fire becoming vocal in photographically trivial conversation about mail, food, and cigarettes. The popular sentimentalism of a bitter and personal hatred for the Germans is dismissed with a hilarious gesture: “Possibly for an hour during his whole life he [Hicks] had hated the German army. Now he only disliked them. And for one reason: because they marched in a goose-step. He felt that for any people to march in that manner was embarrassing to the rest of humanity.” The author permits himself a broader view than would be provided through the personality of Hicks. Mr. Boyd takes a dive into the mental processes of a subordinate character to heighten the absurdity of his self-importance and his ponder- ously grave acceptance of war hokum. What these excursions over a wide field cost him in immediacy in terms of Hicks he recovers in his total effect of a tragic buffoonery. Mr. Boyd further contrasts the recruiting-poster with actuali- ties in a cumulative series of episodes. He begins with the grumbling of the soldiers at menial tasks. A night raiding party loses a man to the clumsy artillery attack of its own trenches and is thrown into a panic by a false gas-alarm. The commanding officer responsible for these blunders is touched off with a slight sneer as “a former professor of English at a Texas college.” In the same casual tone, instance after instance is given of unprotected, meaningless advances in the midst of machine-gun nests. Hicks thinks it would save time and ammu- nition simply to offer all their necks to the kaiser’s ax. All the while, the pallid boyish witticisms and the endless suc- cession of rumors of their destination are interrupted only by the dead silence of physical exhaustion. Hicks is paralyzed with fear while he is slowly advancing; he feels his “‘spine bare with scorpions parading along the flesh” when he is forced to wait upon orders from headquarters. At other times Hicks walks among dangers with the same irreverent unconcern that marks his offhand dubbing of President Wilson “old horse-face.” Without having the attention jerked toward them, the reader becomes aware of fields of yellow wheat as background to march- ing men, fighting men, hiding men, and dead men. The wheat lends an impersonal indifference and a serene sense of growth to a pageant of unrelated waste of life and energy. Hicks in the wheat-fields sees his friends shot away, gassed, shell-shocked. He is strung to an unbearable nervous tension, waiting, hungry, deafened, not knowing why he is there or where he is going. His mind patters off in childish games with words. He talks to dead men with a mock solemnity born of fatigue-drunkenness. Hicks is left with a foolish smile on his face and his stumbling, undirected feet guiding him away from an approaching line of German soldiers. ‘ Mr. Boyd falters at the end. Hicks is a little undefined and his spiritual disintegration is thereby rendered less poignant. The author seems to hesitate between a finality and a progres- sion and achieves neither. “Through the Wheat” is nevertheless a remarkable first novel. JOHN W. CRAWFORD Books in Brief Jefferson Davis: His Life and Personality. By Morris Schaff. - John W. Luce and Company. There was room, if not need, for a biography of Jefferson Davis, and this book contains a good deal of interesting per- sonal data. Unfortunately, the superficial treatment of Davis’s public career, joined to outspoken hero worship and a quite too familiar and personal literary style, make Mr. Schaff’s work one of slight importance as an historical contribution. The student of American slavery, however, will find some interest in what the author has to tell of Davis’s relations with the Negroes both before and after the Civil War. Europe in the Middle Ages. By Ierne L. Plunket. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. $1.85. A praiseworthy attempt “to make medieval Europe live for the many who, knowing nothing of her history, would like to know a little, in the lives of her principal heroes and villains, as well as in the tendencies of her classes and in the beliefs and prejudices of her thinkers.” The book is apparently intended for use as a textbook, although that purpose is not stated. A World History for the Workers. By Alfred Barton. London: Labour Publishing Company. 3s. 6d. Mr. Alfred Barton is certainly well within his right in think- ing that “working people” ought to have a history written by “one of their own,” and in writing a book to fill that need, but his “World History for the Workers” cannot be accorded a very high place as either an historical or a literary perform-

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eS ee _England Under the Restoration (1660-1688). July 18, 1923] The Nation 67. ance. Mr. Barton begins with the theory of evolution and the emergence of man and ends with the problems of yesterday, today, and the future, the narrative of events between these extremes being devoted to a rapid and rather disjointed account of the struggles of the “disinherited” against capitalism and class, with liberal quotation of Karl Marx and other writers. We do not object to sensible propaganda and we think highly of the value of history, but the percentage of propaganda in Mr. Barton’s volume is so high that the purely historical por- tions are relatively unimportant. Expenditures of the Sino-Japanese War. War and Armament Expenditures of Japan. By Giichi Ono. Oxford Univer- sity Press, American Branch. $2.25 each. Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese War. By Gotaro Ogawa. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $2.50. Military Industries of Japan. By Ushisaburo Kobayashi. ford University Press, American Branch. $2.25 The history of recent warfare, particularly on its political, administrative, and economic sides, prior to the Great War of 1914-1918, is enriched by these four publications lately issued under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for Interna- tional Peace. Neither of these works is primarily devoted to technical military or naval operations, and their exhaustive study of what may be called the civil side of war forms a per- manent contribution to the recent history of Japan in its rela- tions with China and Russia. Three additional volumes of this Japanese series are promised. Ox- By Thora G. Stone. With a preface by A. F. Pollard. Longmans, Green and Company. $3.50. A collection of extracts from contemporary sources, forming No. IV of the University of London Intermediate Source-Books of History. Les Sources de Histoire de France: XVIIe Siécle (1610-1715). Par Emile Bourgeois et Louis André. III. Biographies. Paris: Auguste Picard. The first volume of Part III of this monumental bibliography of French history, containing a list, with critical annotations, of contemporary biographies, with references to later works of special importance. A brief introduction treats interestingly of the value of biographies as material for history. The Dancer of Shamahka. By Armen Ohanian. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2. To read this book is to behold a long panorama of mosques and minarets, of dreaming villages under brilliant blue skies, of palm-lined hills, of struggling caravans, and of glaring yel- low sands; and at times, breaking the peacefulness of the scene, one sees bearded Cossacks snap their brutal whips, ob- serves terrified women and children trembling at the threats of massacre, or watches an earthquake shaking a beautiful town to ruins. Armenia, Russia, Persia, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt constitute the setting of this novel, which is autobiographical in method and tells of the adventures of an Armenian woman harried by misfortune and reduced in the end to becoming a professional dancer. The story is told in a style glowing with ardor and imagination. The Wrong Move. Company. $2. A mystery story of elaborate design and an ambitious outlay of characters, motives, and clues. This embarrassment of riches maintains the mystery through the greater part of the book by diffusing the reader’s suspicion. But the frequently used method of presenting a number of characters all ap- parently innocent is more successful in sustaining a prolonged interest, for it is more stimulating to discern a criminal be- neath a cloak of guilelessness than to choose him at random from a group of equally vicious persons. By Anna Robeson Burr. The Macmillan Music The Symphony Players N EARLY two years ago the National Symphony Orchestra 1 was merged with the Philharmonic, ostensibly because the cost of its maintenance was too high to be met. At that time there was a great deal of talk about the alleged venality of musicians. They were denounced in all manner of ways, one prominent conductor taking part in traducing them in the press. Throughout private channels the prevailing theory was, and is still, that the musician should remember that he is an artist, always be sincere in his work, not assume the role of agitator, etc. Now the musician would like very much to conform to such theories, but any desire to do so has been knocked out of him by the unequal struggle he has to fight to get a bare living. His employers seemingly expect him to be satisfied with praise, while compelling him to suppress his impulses to better him- self by the implied threat of losing his job. Due to recent intra-union activities in New York, there arose a demand for new wage-scales in the theaters. The conserva- tives won; there was no increase; theater musicians will work the year round at existing prices. But for the symphony musi- cian such negotiations can have little significance. For him it it is not a question of raising his wages for yearly employ- ment, because his season lasts barely half a year and he is always face to face with the difficulty of making the other half remunerative. It thus appears that the symphony musician constitutes a peculiar problem when viewed in comparison with his fellow-craftsman. To begin with, a symphony player must possess the actual or potential ability to play the most difficult music that has been written for his instrument. He must also be a thorough musi- cian as well, understanding the rationale of orchestral ensemble and the many and varied ramifications of different schools of interpretation. To these must be added an attentive and studious demeanor, a reliable memory, continuous energy and enthusiasm, and a prodigious degree of elasticity in both theory and performance. His individual artistry is only half of his equipment; the remainder lies in his capacity to subordinate himself to the conductor, who besides requiring perfect obedi- ence often alters in a concert things the musician supposed settled in rehearsal. It is thus evident that to give satisfaction in a symphony orchestra involves an amount of training that is not even required of a solo performer, who is responsible to no one but himself. Having fulfilled these necessities (and woe betide the man who has managed to enter an orchestra without them!) the musician is then confronted with the actual life on the job. This article being principally concerned with New York affairs, it can be stated at once that the symphony season covers but 23 or 24 weeks. Unless he is a wind-soloist, or a first-desk string player, or perhaps one of a limited group whose services seem to command a higher salary than most, he is paid the union minimum, $60. Obviously, whether married or not, he cannot subsist the year round on $1,440 for a 24-week engage- ment. To augment his earnings, therefore, he turns to the theaters or hotels. Here, if he choose to work practically all day and evening, he may, if well enough acquainted with the contractors, enlarge his salary by 50 or 75 per cent. The win- ter months, from October to April, are most favorable for ob- taining theater jobs; from spring to fall some theaters and picture-houses reduce their orchestras, or shut down altogether. And the competition among New York musicians is so strong that during the off season a first-class man often walks the streets when his inferiors are well provided for. However, it is within the limits of symphony employment itself that con- ditions are most unfavorable. The two major orchestras of New York are allowed by the

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68 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3028 A ————————K§ union at present a minimum of five rehearsals and four con- certs a week. Their official aim is apparently to give as many concerts as possible during the 24-week season, to make the orchestra pay as much of its way as it can, and to supply the public with all it can absorb with a view to increasing enthu- siasm and subscriptions. There is nothing theoretically objec- tionable in such a policy, but in its working-out it contributes materially to the present deplorable rebelliousness of the or- chestra musician. To give four concerts and rehearse often three different programs in one week is too much for consist- ently superior performance. Even if the musician had nothing else to do, the mental responsibility would far surpass the physical. It has already been shown that he cannot restrict his earning capacity in favor of a single allegiance; the result is that under such a strenuous regimen he is traditionally fatigued and below par. Therefore success from the conductor’s view- point is achieved only at the cost of unquestionable exhaustion and its attendant disadvantages of irritability and dissatis- faction. This impairs the morale of the orchestra and en- genders hard feelings against the management and promoters. A casual observer might remark that the possibility of earning $2,000-$2,500 a year compares favorably with many other sal- aried professions, but such a conjecture takes no account of the essential well-being either of the man or his work. Further handicaps are imposed on the musician by the erowded concert season. If he be fortunate enough to hold a theater position, he must send substitutes three or four times weekly. This often offends the theater-conductor, who is apt to object if substitutes are sent more than once or twice a week. Thus, not infrequently a symphony man finds his orchestral position a definite drawback when seeking a steady outside en- gagement. His symphony is the work which in his heart he enjoys most, and is proudest of; but when he discovers that its demands restrict his additional earnings he begins seriously to wonder if art for art’s sake is not too idealistic a theory to support. What might be said of the symphony man who would like to make his entire living from his orchestra, and devote all his efforts to it? He would like a season of at least 35 weeks with a minimum salary of $3,500 yearly. He would prefer to be able to bring true enthusiastic energy to his work, without drawing continually on his reserve vitality. He would choose as a mat- ter of course, to please the conductor as much as possible. He would be glad to keep his musical ideals, eager to retain the sheer happiness of playing that made him take up his profes- sion in the beginning. And he would welcome a reasonable se- curity in his position. All these considerations are becoming more and more im- possible at the present. No matter how laudable are the public professions of promoters, they do not ring true to the musician. He is not allowed to be happy in his work; his fidelity to ideals is taken for granted; he is kept going like a machine. He knows that if he protests in the slightest any irritation he may be replaced by another. He is made to feel his impotence, forced to the bitter realization that while he may furnish the public with education, enjoyment, rapture even, his individual worthiness is lost sight of in a vague and sentimental collective fame which renders him no personal reward. He gets into a mental and emotional rut; what began as artistic ideals be- comes mere routine. And this is all wrong. Conductors play a considerable part in his troubles. The authority vested in a conductor is often systematically abused. Only once in a long while is he appreciative of how much of his own success is due to his men. In too many cases in America conductors are riding rough-shod to fame over the very musicians who make their success possible. We need not go into details or personalities; the simple statement that in almost every symphony orchestra in this country the conduc- tor, not the orchestra, is the sine qua non in the eyes of the management and backers, is enough. Dr. Muck of the old Boston Symphony was one notable ex- ception to the general rule. He was wont to give public signs of his appreciation of his orchestra by sometimes laying down his baton and allowing the orchestra to play certain virtuoso passages with no other guidance than his eyes. This always electrified the audience and contributed in large measure to the orchestra’s reputation. Given such a compliment by its con- ductor, any orchestra would literally break its neck to justify the implication of its virtuosity. It is asking too much of: the orchestra player, however, to expect him to keep at high pitch considering the trials he has to undergo. Most musicians are men of distinctly peculiar temperament, which can be developed into an asset or a lia- bility in accordance with the way it is handled. In order to achieve artistic results, the musician must retain a spontaneous naivete, as well as mere mechanical perfection. ‘The conduc- tor too often takes his good intentions and performances for granted; but at the same time his imperfections and lapses from good-nature are treated as deliberate offenses. No al- lowance is made for their possible justification; they must simply not exist. Yet numberless times the musician submits uncomplainingly to the pettiest exhibitions of ill-temper and childishness on the part of a conductor. He realizes that the latter is in a delicate position, and nearly always cheerfully admits a fault. This the conductor will rarely do; and yet, season after season, he walks off proudly appropriating the public and private plaudits, the press talks about him only, and the orchestra is left in the background. Let me not grow sentimental. It is evident that these mat- ters will probably always remain much the same, and there is no reason to rave about it. Musicians, too, should rejoice that their path is free of the public and social responsibilities of their leader. But what the orchestral musician cannot bear is, not that he is not lauded and praised and feted by press and promoter, but that he is not given due respect and recompense for his life of service. He more than anyone else is responsible for the fame of conductors and the success of orchestras. He more than either is the foundation on which the very life of music is built. There were musicians before there were con- ductors; there were individual instrumentalists before there were orchestras. What is ideal for the one should be made ideal for the many. The musician, like other beings, is only human after all. Naturally he rebels as long as a conductor can de- mand and receive a salary running from twenty to forty thousand dollars, while he is almost entirely neglected and not considered worth more than fifteen hundred for the same length of season. It is not with any inimical spirit that these opinions are given. It is not to demand or expect a self-centered Utopia for musicians that these facts, suggestions, and correctives are adduced. There is a deeper motive, a more vital desire, in this as in any other crusading. We in America are too nearly sub- merged, from our very birth and traditions, in complacency and self-satisfaction not to heed the desirability of putting as much puissance as possible into our art as well as into our general life. It is worse than deplorable, it is more tragic than un- fortunate, that those who sponsor the greatest musical forces in our country have not the will or the foresight to make their beneficence as comprehensive in fact as it professes to be in theory. It is inconceivable that the prominent financiers and successful entrepreneurs who control American orchestral af- fairs could not devote their business acumen and initiative en- terprise to reorganizing the entire symphony proposition. The present system gets results, it is true: as witness the brilliant performances so often given by the New York orchestras. But few realize that it succeeds in spite of, rather than on account of, its conditions, and that it is undermining all the artistic sincerity and idealism of the very men whose ability alone should make membership in great orchestras a proud and satisfying possession. ALLAN LINCOLN LANGLEY

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5) ¢ International Relations Section Russia’s Economic Revival By ALEXANDER M. KRASNOSCHOKOV Moscow, April 1 HE economic situation of Russia has improved greatly in the last year and a half. This improvement in- cludes agriculture, industry, commerce, and finance. The last harvest of breadstuffs, fodderstuffs, and potatoes amounted to 2,833,000,000 poods, an increase of one billion poods over the previous year. Up to a short time ago the area of cultivated land was but 55 per cent of the peace figure, but today the agricultural production is nearly 70 per cent of the pre-war production. The result of the har- vest played an important part in the general improvement of the situation, but by no means the only part. The meas- ures taken by the government were of great effect. Par- ticular attention is being devoted to agriculture this year by the government. Thus far 20,600,000 poods of seed have been placed at the disposal of the farmers by the govern- ment as a loan. The budget of 1922-23 appropriates 55,- 000,000 gold rubles for loans to farmers, and another 25,000,000 gold rubles will be used for the organization of a credit system for the small peasants. In industry we find improvements along every line. Dur- ing 1922 the production of coal rose 24 per cent in com- parison with the preceding year, of naphtha 20 per cent, crude iron 41 per cent, iron and steel 90 per cent, rolled metals 66 per cent, raw textile wares 243 per cent, yarn 180 per cent, woolen stuffs 32 per cent, and linen stuffs 82 per cent. The productive capacity of all industries has in- creased importantly. The wages of the workingmen in Petrograd and Moscow and also in some important indus- trial centers in the provinces have risen to 78 per cent of the pre-war figure. In certain branches of industry with a quick turnover of capital, industries that are dependent on the consumption of the masses, the leasing system has developed. About 40,000 undertakings have been leased. Of these, 40 per cent are in the food and leather industries, and private individuals make up 50 per cent of the lessees. The reconstruction of industry commands the chief atten- tion of the Soviet Government. Under the current year’s budget, industry is to receive loans amounting to 89,000,000 gold rubles. The financial system has improved greatly. The budget carries one billion gold rubles, and is closed with a deficit of but 25 per cent, whereas the deficit of the last previous budget exceeded 80 per cent. The rate of emission is falling relatively, and the actual value of the paper money outstanding is increasing. On January 1, 1921, the paper money in circulation had a value of 41 million gold rubles; today it is worth 105 millions. Covered banknotes in cir- culation have today a value of more than 45 million gold rubles. Along with the development of agriculture and industry goes an improvement of commerce, especially the national- ized commerce. If one assumes 100 as the turnover of the nationalized commerce in January, 1922, the turnover for last December amounted to 359. Private commerce has de- veloped strikingly. Not only has the flight from the cities stopped, but it has been replaced by a stream of inhabitants from the villages to the cities. The latest census enumera- tions of urban population show that the increase in popula- tion everywhere has been at least 10 per cent. This pro- cess has brought with it a bettering of public order and the raising of the cultural standards of life in a manner that is evident even to the casual visitor to Russia. On the political side the period just passed through is marked by a fact of the greatest historical importance. I refer to the organization of the U.S.S.R.—the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. This step will mean an economic consolidation in the internal affairs of Russia and the strengthening of the country’s influence in international affairs. It must not be thought, however, that we have gone back to the methods of pre-revolutionary centraliza- tion. On the contrary, along with the complete, unlimited unity of the federation, the most far-going independence in matters of economic activities is assured to every member. The recent reform increasing the rights of the local gov- ernmental authorities has also been carried out along the same line of decentralization. The new arrangement of administrative districts, the adapting of administrative units to the economic needs, and the economic and political regrouping contribute to the perfecting of the official ap- paratus and the heightening of its effectiveness. The im- provement of the entire social situation of the country cor- responds with these political improvements. The contact between laboring man and peasant, between city and coun- try, has been made firmer and closer under the influence of the introduction of the tax in products, which replaced com- pulsory collection of taxes, and also under the influence of the increased production of the farmers. The matter of taxation is today the basic problem of the state’s policy. Its importance rests on the transition from barters in kind to barters for money, and upon the profound changes which this evokes in the country’s economy and the formation of its budget. For the Soviet Government, which is a socialistic Power, the progressive income tax and the receipts from property owned by the state are the most acceptable sources of revenue, and our financial policy is built upon these. But the country, which was exhausted by an imperialistic war, revolutions, blockade, and isolation, is so badly weakened that it would not be possible to erect the fundamental parts of the budget upon this basis. The greatest part of the industry needs subsidies, the incomes of the citizens are not sufficiently differentiated and definite, and the taxation machinery is not adequately organized. Up to recently the lion’s share of the state’s income con- sisted of taxes in kind. What could not be obtained in this way had to be obtained by printing paper money. But now the situation has altered radically. The furnishing of the work of horses by the peasants has been completely re- placed by a money tax. The tax on necessaries of life plays already a much less important role in the budget. In the course of this year we shall replace these in part for the non-agricultural governments by the money tax. The part played in the budget by note-emission is steadily decreasing, that played by taxation is steadily increasing. In January, 1922, the note-emission amounted to 91.5 per cent of the total receipts of money; at the end of the

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- some excesses. 70 | The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3028 year to only 50 per cent. In January, 1922, receipts from taxation amounted to but 1.8 per cent of total receipts; at the end of the year to 25 per cent. The receipts from prop- erty and businesses owned by the state rose in the same period from 7 to 26 per cent. In January, 1922, the aver- age monthly increase of the money in circulation amounted to 56.2 per cent, and in February of the same year to 56.6 per cent, but in January, 1923, it had dropped to 33.5 per cent, and in February to only 29 per cent. The emission is dropping in rapid tempo. At the same time the circula- tion of covered paper money—the banknotes—is increasing rapidly. As mentioned before, these notes already in cir- culation amount to 45 million gold rubles, compared with a purely fiat circulation of 105 millions. These results were made possible only by carrying out a consistent taxing policy. The budget for 1922-23, carrying one billion gold rubles, contemplates receipts of somewhat more than 500 millions through taxation. Receipts from undertakings and property owned by the state will, it is estimated, bring in more than 400 millions. It would be incorrect to assume that the greater part of the taxes falls on industry and commerce. Of the 500 mil- lion rubles expected from taxation, 140 millions will come from indirect taxes and 15 millions from customs duties. These taxes fall entirely on the consumer. Direct taxes amount to 375 million rubles, the main part coming from the taxation of necessaries of life. Thus, considered in retrospect, our taxation policy means a decided step for- wards from taxes in kind to taxes in money, and from in- flation to deflation. The revolutionary years destroyed our taxing machinery utterly, civil warfare altered the inner structure of the masses, and it is natural that the first steps in the direction of restoring our taxation system were accompanied by These came especially in the cities. The destroyed municipal administration and the sanitary situa- tion demanded great outlays at a time when the people’s purchasing power was small and all settling of accounts and inventorying were completely lacking. But these ex- cesses are steadily diminishing. A number of legal decrees define strictly the powers of the central and local officials and prescribe the manner of assessing and collecting taxes. The whole machinery of the commission for domestic trade and of the supreme people’s economic council has been adapted to the r-gulating of the constantly shifting prob- lems of taxation. A vastly more complicated problem is the social side of the taxation policy. Our might, that is, the might of the workmen’s and peasants’ government, rests on the basis of harmonious relations of heavy industry with agricul- ture to achieve the aim of mutual work for the rebuilding of the state’s economy upon a socialistic foundation. The development of industry requires enormous means. The sources of the state’s income are taxes. In a country of peasants the peasant is the chief taxpayer. In view of this it might appear to the superficial observer that it is necessary to increase the peasants’ taxes as much as pos- sible in favor of the city. But that would be a shortsighted policy. Industry cannot be restored by state subsidies, but through the sale of its products in the domestic market under a strong demand. It is necessary to restore the purchasing power of the agricultural population, and this lays upon our government the duty of protecting the inter- ests of that part of our people. The compulsory requisition of foodstuffs was replaced by an orderly tax to be paid in produce, and by requiring a certain amount of work with draft animals. The latter is now being altered to a pro- gressive money tax, and in the course of this year a begin- ning will be made in substituting a money tax for the food- stuffs tax also. An income tax is gradually being intro- duced which will eventually be the only form of tax raised. At the same time the government is taking all measures to lower the costs. of production in the state industries, to bring about closer relations between industrial and agri- cultural producers, and to better the condition of agricul- ture. A great part of the money taken from the peasants returns to them in the form of services performed for them by the state. We are adjusting ourselves to the steadily diminishing role which the emission of paper money plays as a source of revenue for the state, to the substitution of money taxes for all forms of taxes in products, to a separation between central and local receipts, and to the introduction of exacti- tude into our taxing system. Our chief aim, which we keep ever in view, is to make the receipts from the state’s farms and other natural resources, forests, industries, and com- mercial undertakings, and from the markedly increasing export the big, central item of our income. Foreign capi- tal has no reason to fear our taxing policy. The day of excesses is past, and our whole system is directed toward the work of reconstruction and toward the creation of fa- vorable conditions for economic development. Joffe in Japan . HE conversation between Viscount Goto and Mr. Joffe at the end of March, and the Viscount’s visit to Premier Kato on April 10, formed a basis for a pre- liminary exchange of opinions, admittedly unofficial, be- tween the Japanese Government and the representative of the R.S.F.S.R. in the Far East,” says the New Russia, of Shanghai, in its issue for May. “The news of the conversa- tion of Viscount Goto with the Premier got into the press about a week later, in connection with the consideration in the Council of Ministers of the question of Russo-Japanese relations, but at once the Russian question took a place of first importance.” In this connection the New Russia reproduces an inter- view between a correspondent of the Tokio Nichi-Nichi and the Russian visitor. Some of the questions and answers, which were exchanged in writing, follow: Q.—Many look upon the coming economic cooperation of Japan and Russia pessimistically, not only because of our dif- ferent economic system but also because in Japan at the pres- ent time the prices of goods are so high that it is scarcely possible to dispose of them on the Siberian market. There are expectations of fishery concessions, forestry concessions, etc. But the conclusion of these concessions depends mainly on the Soviet Government. You, in your article published in a certain journal, wrote of the necessity of the creation of “cooperation between the Soviet Republic and capitalistic states.” Do you look forward to the possible creation and development of just this kind of cooperation in the Far East? A.—In my article I wrote of the problem which stands equally before the capitalist and the Soviet world, not touching upon the concrete form of solution of this problem. It may be under- stood that the problem itself is one of similar nature both in the West and East. ¢

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July 18, 1923] The Nation 71 As to pessimism with regard to the possibility of purely com- mercial relations between Russia and Japan, the facts do not appear to confirm such pessimism, as according to Japanese figures there passed through Tsuruga in three months mer- chandise of a value of 18,000,000 yen, which is not so bad if we take into consideration that normal commercial relations between the two countries do not as yet exist. But, aside from this, it seems to me that this pessimism is not justified even theoretically; goods cheaper than Japanese could be obtained by Russia only in a country with a low exchange rate, i. e., in Europe; the cost of bringing these goods from Europe to the Russian Far East would probably equalize the prices. I do not think that Japan can seriously figure on the European Russian market, but the Far EHastern—theoretically—must belong either to Japan or to America, depending upon which country sooner comes to an agreement with Russia, and shows greater atten- tion to her condition and her needs, Q.—In political circles in Tokio in the last few days it is said that the principal obstacles to the renewal of Russo-Japanese relations are, first, the intervention in Sakhalin, and, second, the non-recognition of the governments. As to the first question we have already received your reply. As regards the second question, in just what way must the recognition of governments be made? By the publication of a special declaration or by agreement on the conditions of exchanging diplomatic repre- sentatives, as defined in the Rapallo treaty? A.—In the history of international relations there have so far been known only cases of internal political revolutions in which the new governments appeared as unreservedly and wholly the successors to the old in all questions of international relations; for this reason the custom was, as it were, estab- lished, that other governments should declare their recognition or non-recognition of the given political revolution and the government arising from it. The Russian revolution went far deeper, and involved an overturn not only in internal but also in international relations in that, first, it annulled all the debts of the Czarist regime, and, second, annulled all treaties concluded with Russia at any time prior to the revolution. In this way, if at the present time some state should desire to declare its recognition of the Soviet Government de jure, this would be insufficient, as there would still not exist between Russia and the given state any treaty relations whatever, and it would be absolutely necessary to conclude a treaty of some kind. On the other hand, almost all the bourgeois states of the world carried on war against Soviet Russia, and war, as is well known, according to international law cancels ipso facto all pre- vious relations. In no peace treaty concluded since the war is there ever any clause of recognition, the fact of recognition flowing out of the treaty itself and the establishment or renewal of normal diplomatic and consular relations. In all normal treaties concluded so far by Soviet Russia, in- cluding Germany, Afghanistan, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Persia, Esthonia, Finland, Poland (and even in the treaty con- cluded with Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey at Brest-Litovsk), this question was settled in just the way in- dicated, in full agreement with international law. I think it must be settled in just the same way between Russia and Japan. May Day in Mexico HE following declaration by José Vasconcelos, Minister of Education, was read in the schools of Mexico on May 1: On this date the workers’ holiday is celebrated, and it is necessary that the children give a loving thought to their parents to whose labor they owe their sustenance and the hours which they dedicate to study; and also to all those in this world who work to earn their daily bread and to better gradually the world’s conditions. Man would possess nothing, neither humble homes nor the poorest food, were it not for the labor which dis- tinguishes us from the animals, which permits us to dominate and regulate the appetites and create the tools with which we build houses and extract its products from the earth... . A life, modest but comfortable, and time to conceive beautiful things—that is what the society in which he lives ought to give to every worker, and that is attainable only by means of energetic labor intelligently orientated. The children ought to venerate labor as a mysterious instru- ment of human salvation; nevertheless, labor, which is the most sacred of the powers of man, has been prostituted and defiled. Labor, which is an instrument of liberation, has been employed by some evil men to enslave their brothers. The accumulation of disproportionate riches for personal benefit has converted labor, which ought to be sacred, into a satanic plague which occasions the unhappiness of the monopolist and of his victims. Labor produces riches, and if such riches, in place of being employed in works of general benefit, serve only as a means by which one man may try to satiate all his appetites, then he who accumulates riches prostitutes his soul by devoting all his attention to the physical—he himself loses and causes others to lose, condemning them to the misery which fills their souls with anguish. This reciprocal harm, this lack of equilibrium, produces hatred of one toward the other and conflict between them. And one of these conflicts, a bloody conflict, originated this holiday which the workers celebrate on the first of May. It commemorates one of so many occasions on which the ex- ploiters did not limit themselves to diminishing the wage of the exploited, but, making use of force, sacrificed the workers who were demanding more equitable adjustments in the distribution of the products of labor. Since then the workers of the entire world reaffirm on this day their proposal that riches be distributed with equity in order that there exist no bitter disputes, in order that labor may benefit all men and improve all men. And the children who are the sons and daughters of the workers, and who ought to aspire to be the workers of the future, must feel themselves bound to the worker who constructs, to the mason who erects walls, to the mechanic who manufactures machines, to the thinker who organizes peoples. Therefore, today is also the holiday of the children because it is the holiday of tomorrow. Mexican boys, Mexican girls, place your affection and your gratitude in the workers who are making the world advance, and prepare your arms for future labor. Reverence labor, but without prostituting it with egoism. Work, not so much to be richer, but for the benefit of all men and in order that on the morrow the entire world may be better. Contributors to This Issue ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, daughter of Lucy Stone and a niece of Elizabeth Blackwell, has for more than forty years been a leader in the woman’s rights movement. PIERRE HuDICOURT was a delegate from Haiti to the sec- ond conference at The Hague and was formerly the head of the bar association of Port au Prince. FRED LEWIS PATTEE is professor of American literature in the Pennsylvania State College. SHoLom AscH is a Polish Jew now living in America whose novels and plays in the Yiddish language were acclaimed in Europe before they gained recognition in the United States. His play “The God of Vengeance” was produced in English last winter in New York. ALEXANDER M. KRASNOSCHOKOV was formerly president of the Far Eastern Republic and is now the general director ‘of the Russian Bank for Commerce and In- dustry.

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72 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3028 - ES N the brief time which has elapsed since the Straw Vote for Liberals was announced almost two thou- sand ballots have been returned to the Editor, of which somewhat over a thousand six hundred have been counted as this page goes to the press. Both the num- ber of responses and the character of the supporting letters which accompany many of the ballots are strong indications of the value and importance of the ques- tionaire, for Liberals and for the Liberal press. For those readers of The Nation who have not yet voted the ballot form is reprinted below. Help find out what the Liberals are thinking. The outstanding change from last week’s tabulation is the gain of Henry Ford as a presidential choice. He has now outstripped Borah and is only two votes be- hind La Follette among the candidates for the existing parties. Mr. McAdoo, however, still safely holds the lead. There is little change in the attitude toward the third party, the surprising thing being that in the East the sentiment seems to be almost as favorable as else- where in the country. A marked gain also is shown in the number of advocates of the League, particularly in the East and Mid-West. The results of the Straw Vote for Liberals are being published regularly in The New Republic. B To head Choice of candidate L : 3 > 3 Third Ticket existing parties & % - Se aes Ee ame me | at, on es Bb orb (SD cR ee mss Eh ge Ze e an ne Si u o vo =.5 = Site vian teeny eae «id x ie 3 Be on ee SO iat eae gutters Sieh RI Yr ger io e/a) ap ar! vc = @¢ ‘o) > eee eee a. gt 8 8298 8 -2 8 @ Boe 8 4 2 8 2S ee SECTION 2 eee fl Ug ews 6B Be Ss 8 6S 8 Bee ce eee Sood ee oe en | | fesey) Ceiiands, Dele. 201240 292 | 302| 407} 609] 190] 193|166} 7| 57|113} 43|214| 85|106} 67 92| 86 | so 135 ca | 19 ware; West Virginia .... | | Bee eek: Obi Indiana; | | Rav iowe: Kandy Me ee 162 | 132] 203} 302} 78]110|] 65} 8] 51] 44] 25}108| 53] 36] 13 66 | | 4 | x3 79 souri;Oklahoma;Kentucky f | | Northwest: Minnesota; eee ie aes lack | ‘| | | 7A) $45) 31,|- 20 eel 5 | 2| 8 7 | a1 11| | | | 18 tana;Oregon; Washington. | | Southwest: California; Rice eitenioai Nevada’ | | | | | 0 a| 0 8 ‘ 17) 2A | x 2| 2) | ny "7 105 2| 100 26 Arizona; Utah; Colorado. South: The Old South; rroindine Avance; Veit | | a] a] ‘| | | 2 | | 7 | | | 6 0 | D i a 2| | 26 MESSEE 4) LEXAS:. civ aiccresn'e soe | s42 | a1 | 11321 | 173] 1280 260 | 1199 | | 499 | 444 | 598 | 542 | 781 | 1132 343 | 388 | 294 | an {351 | 185 | 79 | 403 | 200 | 186 | 97 | 202} 173 1280 260 | 1199 | 338 Note: Not everyone replied to all the ques- tions on the ballot, so that oe a bal- t out h il t lots counted does not agree with the total num- Gut ONT RSNA o ae A ber of votes on any given question.—The New Straw Vote Editor Che “Set” New Republic. VOCUUOUUUCCCOCCC ECC R E P U B LI Cc NCCC CUCU ee 421 West 21 * Street THE LIBERAL © wrecy STRAW BALLOT 1. Do you favor joining the League (a) as now constituted?............... , (b) with reserva- (yes or no) RUS ce etter tad ee , or (c) are you definitely opposed?............... Note: To insure accuracy and prevent any possibility of duplication, ballots must be signed (with address) and mailed to the Straw Ballot Editor, The New Republic, 421 West 21st Street, New York City. A letter of explanation or comment would be wel- come. Also names of other Liberals to whom the ballots may be sent. This ballot;is secret —your opinions are confidential and will not be quoted. SSC (name of candidate) Of the presidential possibilities now being discussed, which one would you be most likely to see ee eee eww eeee CSCSKeSSee ees evwdeses 006488 8 6 6 6» @ Bee eee Nation 7-18-23 ONQ0 EAN UNNO OETA ANNAN a OAAMUADUAEUEVAAASOANASDUDEOANSEAMEOOOUANSONEOENS AAO OEOEOOEAEOSELOS EEE SEA OEE E PETE

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Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1923 No. 3029 Contents RANCE Ratifies Washington Treaties’—on the front ee ee a page. “French Deputies Vote Serbian Loan’”—in EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHSG...........ceseereccceecees Bier eraretetata olay vial slsvald 13 very small type on an inside page. “Just before ending the © EDITORIALS: : : me Whither Francé? Whither Germany?..........sceceeseeeeeeeseneees 16 session the Chamber of Deputies voted by a large majority British Labor Surveys Its Task. ......csesceccsccccssnscsescsceeceens a ea 7 - z be Pe aTI OD, | dL os ces Mn ata teelenec dieses scene vee 17 a 300-million france credit for Jugoslavia. This credit is

ai aine) Lp sO Aten. ee THESE UNITED STATES—XXXIV. J ENTUCKY : WHERE MEN DIE SAND PNG oy Ben) Tniclen) BUTiIAN ts .\sisttilsleje/nc ss ciccicicnesttececses 8 SrRAWS AN DICONFE TER “By Walliamd Hardee cs cccccicecccccccceces 86 ANYHOW DEBS SPOKE IN CINCINNATI. By Mary D. Brite.......... 87 RUMEN TORO VVEAs) | ES) DHE (DETECT: cloiclc ie sl edcicic ced ac vad vecnceecece 88 eR LED MUN Ty IN Ch ly Wer et aealave el toletaiala’eleie:s mieiors lalels- afe,) wislajsvelsieleyls\s 0 anid ee ses 88 BOOKS: PI TINGS Haiti esys ic Wal MEULCH oe ayclcleiieeciciciclsélacascecescccccccce 90 A Great Queen. By William H. Scheifley...........ccccccccccccsses 90 _ Essays and Reminiscence. By Gerald Hewes Carson........sesssee0% 91 Follies of Imperial Germany. By Hermann Lutz..............e00008 92 A Textbook on Literature. By Johan J. Smertenko................ 93 Presbyterian Demons. By Clement Wo0d.......s.sesseseeseseveces 93 The Tramping Methodist. By Katharine Sergeant Angell............ 94 Reality and Imperfection, By Laura Benét. ........ccccccccesccsece 94 Criminological Wisdom and Unwisdom. By John Koren.............. 94 Cn PPMMPESE ETT ay, ae aiaiciale) 01a cateyereyd fale aietwiw vied lelsini eis vl6is6. eis s e\s.vieee eee 95 DRAM tiny. ERS EIU AEE PSEIBONIN craic cists cfeicldiclelee ac outelee's cdcicceccevcvee 95 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Poland SoA Anger (SpOte BY TODErt Dell. ccc cccoccccewsceccecccccce 96 TPR MMC IO DEA UAC) DAYOUCLEE . o)6\0 6 ois edin\c[o.6 «10 bcieieeiele Cedisececceccce 97 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpITor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY ; JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN LITERARY EDITOR H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SUBSCRIPTION RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 86, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. AGNUS JOHNSON’S sweep of Minnesota as Farmer- Labor Party candidate for United States Senator is like the roar of thunder heralding a great storm. It is a warning to both old parties that the people of the North- west are tired of standpattism. The Democratic candidate was out of the running from the start; the Republican kept his party’s leader, the President of the United States, out of the State, and disavowed its national platform on the tariff and other issues in a desperate effort to save himself. But the Farmer-Labor alliance held out. Undoubtedly the last-moment fall in the price of wheat played a part. As certainly the farmers and workers knew what they were doing. They were voting for the La Follette progressive bloc as against the two old parties. La Follette’s son and half a doze “Republican” representatives from Wisconsin stumped the State for Johnson; so did Lynn Frazier, Non- partisan League “Republican” Senator from North Dakota; so did Montana’s “Democratic” Senator, Wheeler. Magnus Johnson will swell the ranks of the progressive bloc which these men have already formed. July 16 was a great day for those who long for a real third party in America, in which country and city producers may join hands to realize a fundamental economic program. to cover deliveries of military material made by France to Jugoslavia in the last two years.” Jugoslavia is a part of the French bloc in Central Europe. One hundred million francs to Rumania for military expenditures; four hun- dred millions to Poland; three hundred millions to Serbia; unknown millions to Czecho-Slovakia—all to be spent on French-made munitions, and all advanced as freely as war- time loans by a Power that pleads poverty and whimpers that it cannot pay a sou on its own debts. If France wants to convince America that she is ready to help the peace of the world she will have to do more than ratify Mr. Hughes’s “disarmament treaty” (which limits neither cruisers nor submarines nor airplanes nor land armies) ; she must stop promoting the militarization of the lesser Powers. N English commentator observes in the Contemporary Review with surprise that the French loan to Poland has provoked American opinion more than all the reports of excesses in the Ruhr. We are dulled to atrocity stories. But one detail of French militarism in the Ruhr is new, and Americans of all people should understand its peculiar cruelty. In the midst of the terrific heat wave which has been sweeping Central Europe the Chicago Tribune reported the protest of the German trade unions against a French military order that all windows in Essen and other Ruhr towns must be closed from 9 p. m. until 6 a. m. Probably the order was intended to prevent midnight sniping upon French soldiers; but the callousness of such an order in midsummer is striking evidence of the thoroughness with which the French have acquired the military mind. NOTHER tiny news item of large import was the report that Professor Georg Fuchs had been convicted of treason at Munich. Professor Fuchs had contacts with an amazing range of people in Bavaria from commanders in the Reichswehr to the police president and intimates of the Bavarian Crown Prince. To all of these people, he admitted during his trial, he exposed his plan for a Putsch which should overthrow the republican regime, establish a dicta- torship 4 la Mussolini, restore the monarchy, and separate Bavaria from the German Reich. For two years he main- tained intimate relations with a M. Richert, a French offi- cial in the Sarre coal mines, who was in touch with the French Foreign Office. From Richert he and his confeder- ates—two of whom committed suicide rather than face trial —received sums amounting to a hundred million marks in times when marks were worth more than they are today. His last conference with Richert occurred in February, after the Ruhr occupation had begun, when Richert urged the strategic importance of hurrying his plans. A date was set for the Putsch; but Fuchs and the others were arrested

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74 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3029 before plans passed into action. The significance of the revelations is twofold; it is amazing that such plans as Fuchs’s should be so much as listened to by the officials with whom he conferred; and it is striking that France sub- sidizes the bitterest nationalists in Germany. The men of the Bliicherbund and similar “patriotic” leagues upon whom Fuchs relied hate France, though they are ready to use French gold for their own ends; in subsidizing them France subsidizes the anti-French movement in Germany to which she points when complaining of her need of “security.” HE landed interest in Great Britain has won a great victory. It has destroyed the last vestige of the famous land-tax legislation of 1910, which was not placed on the statute-book until after a long and fierce struggle, involving two general elections and the curbing of the power of the Lords. If Lloyd George had died before the war, that legislation would have been regarded as the crowning and most permanent achievement of his career. Today not a scrap of it is left. The taxes themselves, imposed on incre- ment in value due to public enterprise, were abandoned in 1920 with the consent of their author, whose acquiescence was part of the price he had to pay for Tory support of the Coalition Government. There remained what he called the new Doomsday Book—the compulsory registration of the values of the land or property concerned whenever sales or transfers took place. This was retained in order to secure a truer assessment for death duties and to check the rapacity of sellers when land was required for public pur- poses. Year by year the landowners have tried to regain their freedom to place one value on land for purposes of national or local taxation and quite another value if a pro- spective purchaser appeared. Parliament has now decided, by a vote of 260 to 187, to abolish compulsory registration. Henceforth Great Britain will, it is said, be the only country in the world left without the data provided by such machin- ery as that of the repealed clause. HERE is scant support in recent events in Italy for the predictions or assertions of the decline of Musso- lini’s power. His electoral reform bill went through the Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 335 to 139, and after his speech in its favor he was carried in triumph on the shoulders of his adherents. The new system gives him undisputed control as long as the Fascisti can maintain themselves as the most numerous faction. That is, what- ever party obtains a plurality of the votes—not necessarily a majority—will be entitled thereby to a two-thirds bloc in the Chamber. This will prevent the defeat of a plurality party by a combination of minorities against it. On top of the new electoral bill comes news also that at a recent meeting of the Grand Fascisti Council the secretary-general stated that in spite of local quarrels the enrolled member- ship of the organization was 1,000,000, and growing. The adoption by the Cabinet of a regulation prohibiting the publication of “false” or “biased” news promises a press censorship more drastic than ever, and thus a growing con- trol of public opinion. MOST amazing attempt to misuse the power of the courts to gag the press has been made in New Mexico. Carl C. Magee, editor of the Democratic New Mexico State Tribune of Albuquerque, has been attacking a group of Re- publican politicians. He charged misuse of State funds by a clerk of the Supreme Court. Calling the attention of two judges to the abuses he said of a third that he had “grown too accustomed to old methods to see anything wrong in what happened.” For this he was tried and sentenced to eighteen months at hard labor, by a jury of Mexican-Ameri- cans not one of whom could read English. When his attor- neys came to court they found that the pages on libel had been cut out of their law-books; when his chief counsel made speeches in his behalf he was cited to show cause why he should not be disbarred because he “attempted to create pub- lic sentiment”; when Magee editorially denounced his own conviction the trial judge cited him for contempt of court and, without jury trial, sentenced him to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. The Governor has pardoned Magee but the outrageous judge who sentenced him still holds office. EPORTS of 2,500 whipping parties in Oklahoma in a twelvemonth, of a whipping squad in one county with more than 200 names on its list for visitation in the near future, of victims afraid to report their injuries because of threats, and of local authorities who refuse to act, have led Governor Walton to put Okmulgee County under martial law and to threaten three other counties with like procedure. The acting governor of Texas, T. W. Davidson, has sent rangers into Burleson County where recent acts have been a “challenge to the very foundation of law.” The climax came when Otto Lange, a quiet, home-loving farmer, pro- tested against being ordered out of his house at nine o’clock at night by four hooded, masked men, and was thereupon shot to death, the bullet passing through his body and hit- ting his three-year-old baby. The mob spirit which has held northern Arkansas in its grip since the Harrison attacks upon railroad strikers a year ago broke out anew in Poca- hontas when unidentified men riddled a priest’s home with bullets, injuring four priests and a church official. There seems to be no one in Arkansas with the courage and wis- dom to meet the situation. Senator Jacob R. Wilson, of the legislative committee which investigated the Harrison out- rages, deplores the fact that in spite of plenty of evidence the committee preferred to recommend no legal action. VER against such pusillanimity must be set a striking example of courage and public spirit on the part of a young private citizen. On Independence Day, as the New York World tells the story, there had assembled at Houston, Texas, a crowd of 4,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan to hear an oration by “Emperor” William J. Simmons. The announced speaker was more than two hours late, and sev- eral Klansmen talked themselves hoarse to fill in the time. When they had finished, the master of the ceremonies asked —doubtless without the least anticipation of a response—if there was an anti-Klan speaker present who had nerve enough to come to the platform. Luther Evans, senior law student of the University of Texas, promptly accepted the challenge, and, amid angry cries of dissent, made excellent use of his opportunity. He twitted the Klan on its assump- tions of a monopoly of patriotism, its professions of concern for freedom of speech, and its absurd apprehensions of Negro domination. What, he asked his hearers, were they going to do with the Negro? There were eleven million Negroes in the South. Did the Klan want to murder them all? It could not dispose of the problem by merely declaring that it was for white supremacy. “Finally,” said this plucky young fellow, “your Klan speakers say that you stand for

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July 25, 1923] The Nation 75 the chastity of womanhood, and for all high ideals. I stand for the chastity of womanhood, myself, and I practice this ideal; but there are thousands of you Klansmen who don’t.” No wonder that the audience was stunned for a moment by so plain-spoken an impeachment, and that its outcries then became so threatening that it was thought expedient by the master of the ceremonies that Mr. Evans should leave the platform. After all, the age of chivalry is not past. AIR WEEK... “Air week,” which began on Sunday, has al- ready produced evidence of the wide popularity of the idea of creating an air fleet for civil and defensive ends among all sections of the population. The labor organizations are display- ing special interest, entering the “Society of Friends of the Air Fleet” in large numbers. The workers in many undertakings are collecting a percentage of their wage in aid of the air fleet dui ng the week, and are collecting subscriptions for their own : Great interest is also taken in civil aviation, It is hoped to use fo/ economic purposes, particularly in agriculture. ... Yy\HREE guesses, gentle reader, as to the whereabouts of this “air week.” It reads like typical booster stuff of the American Legion or Navy League, and you might guess that it emanated from Des Moines, Iowa, Galveston, Texas, or Los Angeles, California. All wrong. It is dated Moscow, June 26, and is sent out by the semi-official Russian Tele- graph Agency (Rosta). The language of militarism is the same the world over, and the methods of the propagandists are as tawdry and corrupting between the White Sea and the Caspian as between the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes. RESIDENT HARDING has sold his control of the stock of the Marion Star. That is not surprising. The curious part of the sale is that the same interests which have bought the Republican Star have also pur- chased the Star’s Democratic rival, the Marion Tribune, and will continue to publish both papers. More than that, Messrs. Brush and Moore, the purchasers, already own a Democratic and a Republican newspaper in East Liverpool, Ohio. Newspaper publishing to them—as to Mr. Harding apparently—is a business and it is nothing more. (Mr. Harding is to continue “editorial association” with the Star.) They are apparently good Democrats and good Re- publicans, realizing and accepting the utter lack of prin- ciple in American journalism and of real difference between Republican Tweedledum and Democratic Tweedledee. HE University of Delaware is not our largest or best- known educational institution, but it has inaugurated an experiment which may give it fame as the pioneer of a most important movement. It has permitted eight students to go abroad for a year with a member of the modern- language staff of the university. They will study in French universities, the time to be credited as their junior year in college. The scheme provides what American students so much need, the chance to study modern languages and ac- quire an international outlook while retaining their connec- tion with, and maintaining their standing in, a college in the United States. Our only misgiving is that, if acquiring a foreign language is the chief end, the period of residence ought to be two years instead of one. But this is a detail subject to modification. Our hope is that the idea will spread to other colleges and become a general and accepted part of American educational technique. OU can always tell a New Yorker, some say, wherever you meet him. That is not so. Nicholas Murray But- ler has been mistaken for a Southerner. During his present lecturing tour in England he has been announced as presi- dent of Columbia University, an institution not commonly regarded in this country as hiding its light under a bushel. In one of his addresses Dr. Butler made some remarks about prohibition which evoked a protesting letter to one of the English weeklies from Mrs. Milne, the national president of the British Women’s Temperance Association. She says they are out of harmony with the opinion of the vast major- ity of the people of Dr. Butler’s city and State, and she ought to know, she suggests, because she stayed for three weeks last autumn in Dr. Butler’s city, Columbia. There was an election in South Carolina at the time of her visit, and the results showed that his views on the subject are not representative. What would Mrs. Milne have said if Presi- dent Lowell or President Angell had spoken on prohibition? The Century Atlas gives seven Harvards in the United States and thirteen Yales. N the conviction that a “refusal to consider necessary reforms will not perpetuate outgrown conditions” in American life but “will only tend to make the changes vio- lent and catastrophic,” and believing that the ideal of democracy must be “something more than a tradition, a prejudice, or a slogan—it must conceptualize the vague but real longing of the mass of men for a type of social life in which the wants and needs of men are recognized and pro- vided for”—ten editors have launched upon the journalistic seas a new bimonthly, the American Review. That the major part of the editorial board is drawn from universi- ties, cities, and small towns of the Middle West promises a unique point of view in the field of magazines and journals of opinion. The American Review avowedly seeks to clarify opinion, not immediately to crystallize it. In the first issues the editors have already presented from the pens of authoritative persons a provocative gamut of subjects— war and peace in the industrial world; the social problem of labor education; international relations today; religion as a cooperative quest for the good life. They have chosen to review the more stimulating of recent books and they have not neglected the arts. The Nation cordially welcomes the American Review, and is glad of an added force at work to arouse Americans to a consideration of themselves, their times, and their habits. E had thought that the craze for marathons had sub- sided until we noted a news item from Chicago describing a contest there in long-distance whiskers. As the crowning event of its convention, the International Associa- tion of Specialty Salesmen sought to produce the man with the longest beard in the country. One was discovered in Elko, Nevada, with whiskers eleven feet, seven inches, but he was out of the running when Hans W. Langseth, seventy- seven years old, of Barney, North Dakota, walked into the convention. Besides the whiskers which Langseth wore, he carried a bag which he opened—and out tumbled what the news item describes as a “hirsute Niagara.” “I haven’t seen ’em myself for a year,” observed the patriarch. “They were seventeen feet when I looked at them last.” Langseth was awarded the championship, and hereafter, no doubt, will swear not by the beard of the Prophet, but by the profit of the beard.

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76 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3029 Whither France? Whither Germany? REMIER STANLEY BALDWIN’S clear statement of the European situation is startling for its frank gloom. Statesmen in office seldom speak so frankly. Readers of this paper might almost imagine, when reading his words in the House of Commons, that they were reading extracts from editorials which have appeared in The Nation in the past three years. “Germany herself appears to be going fast toward economic chaos, which may itself be succeeded by social and industrial ruin.” “It is not too much to say that the recovery of the world is in danger.” “The Allies are obtaining less reparations than they did before the occupa- tion.” ‘We and our Allies will be the main sufferers. And we are firmly convinced that methods which can only result in the ruin of Germany will be fatal to this country, to our Allies, and to the whole of Europe.” It is progress when the Conservative Prime Minister of England, known for his Gallic sympathies, speaks thus. But we wish he or his predecessor had done so long ago. It has taken more than six months to force the British Government out of an almost benevolent neutrality into this avowed pessimism. In those months unemployment has grown in England, the French franc has fallen, and in Germany the results which Mr. Baldwin now predicts have already oc- curred. The time to predict them has passed. Germany is in economic chaos today. Social and industrial ruin are following. The mark has dropped, since the poilus entered the Ruhr, from one-tenth to four ten-thousandths of a cent. The sober basis of national economic life in Germany has gone. Only a few bloodsucking speculators, many of them allied with French industrialists, have profited by the chaos which France has wrought, and these swollen captains of industry have won the real power. The government is bank- rupt; how could a government be otherwise when its tax schedules are made out in advance, and it may have to spend fifty times as many marks as was anticipated? The German note of June 7 accepted unreservedly the Hughes proposition to leave the amount and manner of German payments to an impartial neutral commission. It required a stout struggle between opposing forces in Ger- many to get that far. But the Allies have not even replied. Now, six weeks later, Mr. Baldwin comes reluctantly to the point of threatening a separate reply unless his Allies will cooperate in drafting one together. His argument is irre- futable; the only difficulty is that it was as true and might have been said more effectively six months ago. M. Poincaré replied emotionally in a speech made at the unveiling of a war memorial at Senlis. It was the old de- mand for the pound of flesh, a reiteration of the demand that Germany abandon passive resistance before France will talk business (a curious recognition of the power of paci- fism), and a point-blank refusal of the expert commission. In other words, France will go her own road regardless of British fears that it may mean the ruin of Germany and of Europe. It seems unlikely that further British negotiations will much change M. Poincaré. But other factors may be more potent. There is the internal situation in France. There is, of course, no hope of a liberal overturn in the present French Chamber; that body, elected four years ago in an ecstasy of flag-waving, is an irremediably jingo body. But the national- bloc candidates, boasting of their support of Poincaré, have been decisively defeated in two recent by-elections to the Chamber, and the protest vote has shown itself in some fifty local contests in which André Marty, leader of the mutiny in the Black Sea fleet in 1919, has been elected to various minor local offices upon a Communist ticket. These elections are regularly annulled by the Government, which keeps Marty in prison, but they have their significance. The next general election is still nine months away, but depu- ties who hope to be reelected are already trimming their sails and they might be ready to follow Poincaré or such a man as Louis Loucheur in a saner liquidation of the Ruhr policy. What hope is there of that? To understand the real hope of such a solution we must look beneath the political symptoms which absorb the atten- tion of our newspaper correspondents to the titanic indus- trial struggle which is determining the fate of France and Germany. In each country two great groups of industrial- ists are battling for control. Within the French steel trust there has been a break. The meaning of such breaks is not aired in the press, but apparently the replacement of M. Schneider as president of the Comité des Forges by M. de Wendel, whose brother is a naturalized German, means a victory for forces which are ready to form an industrial partnership with Stinnes and the German magnates. With- out Ruhr coke the Lorraine blast furnaces cannot operate. De Wendel seems willing to come to terms, and Stinnes, whose patriotism is hardly skin-deep, is reported ready to give French interests a 40 per cent partnership. Schneider apparently believes that France, by holding out and destroy- ing German industry, can win all. Within Germany Stinnes is opposed by a group, strongest in the electrical and finish- ing industries, which is readier for a genuine reparations settlement based upon an international loan. For such an international loan these industrialists would be willing to pledge their industries as a guaranty. Not so Stinnes— unless, perhaps, he could win the German railways from the government in exchange. For him the fall of the mark is unimportant—he sells raw materials abroad; to the finish- ing group, which has to buy its raw materials in foreign exchange, the stabilization of the mark is all-important. M. Poincaré may speak a different language when he gets away from politics and war memorials. What his answer will be is likely to hinge largely upon the industrial strug- gle to which we have referred. A new, more moderate tone which has slipped into the semi-official editorials of the Paris Temps is explained by the Manchester Guardian as due to the appearance in that office of M. Robert Pinot, agent of the de Wendel faction in the French steel trust. We can only hope that this underground diplomacy of indus- try will move more rapidly than the British Government. For there is no longer any good solution of the Ruhr busi- ness possible; the only hope is that there will be some solu- tion soon. General Allen, former commander of the Ameri- can troops on the Rhine, declares flatly that the situation is “Black. There is not a ray of rose-color in the whole out- look.” It will take, at the best, far more than six months to get back where Europe was six months ago when M. Poincaré made his ghastly decision to order his troops to march. There is no reason for nations which have sat by and watched to be proud of a record of indiscriminate im- partiality.

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July 25, 1923] British Labor Surveys Its Task T was in cheerful mood that the British Labor Party met for its annual conference. True, there was reported a drop in membership of 700,000 from last year and over a million from 1920—due to the decline in trade-union mem- bership—with a corresponding reduction in income, but such losses were almost forgotten in the face of the party’s gains in political strength and influence. Its successes at the general election have made it no longer a third party but a second, and its parliamentary chief now holds the semi-official rank of Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition. Moreover, as Sidney Webb pointed out in his address from the chair, the by-elections since November have still further improved its position, and a continuance of the rising curve of Labor votes since 1910 would place the party in the lead somewhere about 1926. Mr. Webb, indeed, would have been justified in adopting Gladstone’s famous boast: “The flow- ing tide is with us.” This conspicuous advance in public favor has not turned the heads of the Labor leaders. They recognize, without any self-deception, the magnitude of the task still before them. As Lord Rosebery once warned his followers that Ireland would not get Home Rule until “the predominant partner” had been converted, so Sidney Webb today re- minds his party that, before it can be called upon to form a government, the bulk of the electors must be convinced of its capacity to undertake the responsibilities of office. At present, the weakness of Labor is in the rural constitu- encies, where its candidates have hitherto been nothing like so fortunate as in the industrial centers. The confer- ence accordingly decided to inaugurate a special election fund for a campaign in country districts and to prepare a definite agricultural policy that would appeal to the farm laborer. Nothing could have been better devised to reassure the timid middle-class voter than Sidney Webb’s presidential address. Sane and temperate, it emphasized “the inevita- bility of gradualness” in the attainment of the ends to which the party was devoted, and disclaimed—indeed, al- most ridiculed—the idea that the party, when it came into power, would want to do everything at once. It was aim- ing, he said, at no violent or revolutionary overturn, but at “the translation of socialism into practicable projects, to be adopted one after another.” Mr. Webb laid great stress, too, on the impossibility of achieving much unless what they did was done in the right spirit. “We must always remember,” he insisted in his closing passage, “that the founder of British socialism was not Karl Marx but Robert Owen, and that Robert Owen preached not ‘class war’ but the ancient doctrine of human brotherhood—the hope, the faith, the living fact of human fellowship.” The confer- ence gave a practical indorsement of its chairman’s dis- avowal of extreme courses when it rejected by an over- whelming majority—the figures were 2,880,000 to 366,000 on a “card vote’—an application for affiliation from the Communist Party. The attitude of the conference on foreign affairs was such as might have been expected from at any rate the post-war record of the party. It welcomed the amalgama- tion of the Second International and the Vienna Union of Socialist Parties into one International; it characterized the Ruhr occupation as an act of aggression and war, and The Nation 17 called for negotiations or arbitration; it urged the calling of a world conference to revise the peace treaties—Mr. Webb declared that Paris, in 1919, was “a factory of inter- national inefficiency on a calamitous scale” and that the treaties failed because they ignored economics on the one hand and morality on the other—and it advocated full recognition of the Soviet Government. It further resolved to request the British Government to take the initiative in making a proposal for immediate universal disarmament, to be laid before an international conference on that sub- ject, but rejected a suggestion that the Labor Party in Parliament should vote against all military and naval ap- propriations. There was nothing novel in the domestic program adopted. The plan of redeeming a substantial proportion of the national debt by means of a capital levy—which expedient, by the way, the Prime Minister was almost simultaneously describing to a Conservative audience as not robbery but “ a perfectly legitimate form of taxation” —was reaffirmed. A resolution on unemployment empha- sized that it was due mainly to foreign policy. The present Government was condemned for its inadequate housing schemes and its crippling of national education. The mod- erate and practical temper of the conference was shown not less clearly by what it turned down than by what it ac- cepted. It negatived, for instance, as involving a breach of contract, a proposal that the burden of the war debt should be diminished by reducing the rate of interest on war loans, and it shelved, by means of “the previous ques- tion,” an attempt to commit it to a declaration of repub- licanism. J. Ramsay Macdonald succeeds Sidney Webb as chairman of the national executive of the party, and during the next twelve months will combine that office with the leadership in Parliament. His election is a guaranty that the blend of idealism and common sense that was so notable a feature of his predecessor’s address will continue to guide the British Labor movement. Man and Folk HE intellectuals are not loved in any country. The in- tellectuals do not love themselves. They are martyrs; they are martyrs to what they themselves have created. Yet they have created it for the good of mankind. Things of use and wisdom are their products. By their efforts man cleaves the air and conquers disease and sees his span of life lengthened and sees order and beauty where chaos prevailed. The creators of these benefits are left isolated, jeered at, outcast, often a weariness to themselves. For the intellectual remains a man. He has all the bio- logical, all the atavistic urges. He wants the comfort of being at one with his folk, of acting, at times at least, out of folk-instinct, communal passion, of being leader rather than rebel and martyr. It does not, except by an inverted psychical process, really please him to outrage the Philis- tines, bait the Babbitts, bully the “booberie.” How he would like the comforts of neighborliness of the spirit, to drop the wretched veiled condescension forced upon him by his own character in all intercourse but that with his fel- lows; how, at moments, he needs, in this fundamental and ancient sense, the simple life! He envies the men of other ages. The subtlest school- man, the greatest prelate of the Middle Ages did but more

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—————— Eee 78 The Nation thoroughly and completely understand what the clown at his gate and the hind in his fields believed without understand- ing. Schoolman and cobbler held the same views both physi- cal and metaphysical. They could converse upon a common basis. No gulf of misunderstanding separated them. They could be neighbors and friends. The twentieth-century intellectual is cut off from com- munication with his folk. The people still have myth; he has none. The myth may be merely some shabby absolute in questions of conduct and government. It sunders the believer hopelessly from the confirmed relativist. No com- mon ground is left, not common ground enough even for disagreement. When the myths become thick and hot there is no possibility of speech. What will you say to a man who believes in hell, or that the Pope of Rome wants to run this country, or that the Jews caused the war, or that Darwinism is a devilish device to undo the pure in heart, or that the authority of the majority should be absolute, or that want of flat conformity should be penalized by expul- sion from the state? How would you argue with a Method- ist minister from an Arkansas village, with a Kleagle of the Klan, with a “this-is-a-white-man’s-country” politician from central Georgia? Nor is this all. Can you contend with a billionaire industrialist who thinks, and avows his thought, that “history is bunk’? No common speech is left, no common ground. The scien- tific and philosophical discoveries of the past hundred and fifty years with their accompanying perceptions have caused men who exist simultaneously to live in different ages, ages that have little power of communicating with each other. They have robbed the intellectual of folk, country, tribe, home. When ultimate decisions come he has, in self- defense, to act with his people, even to try to act through them. He cannot be left dangling in the void. But he can never be whole-hearted, never whole-heartedly at one with the mass. He has infinite mental reservations—he is, in- deed, a creature of mental reservations—and must first build up a philosophy which will permit him to act with his fellow-men without wholly destroying the honor of his mind. He is a democrat and fears the power of the democracy, a libertarian who knows that when the people speak of liberty they mean liberty to do the conventional will of any ma- jority, in village, county, State, where the test happens to be applied. He is a humanitarian and knows that they who echo his words will always make exceptions that destroy his notion—unbelievers, public enemies, those guilty of sedition. He is passionately loyal to truth. But he cannot display that passion. Heresy-trials are conducted on osten- sibly the same principle. He employs all words in special senses, lives in the flowing and creative world whose very existence is hotly denied by every word and act of his fellow-citizens, and finds his final refuge in silence or mild irony. All the while he suffers, unless he has a divine Miltonic arrogance or a Goethean serenity, from malaise and home- lessness. That explains his occasional romantic yearning for Periclean Athens, for medieval Rome. His golden age is either a past or a Utopia of oneness, union between him- self and others, outer harmony and so inner peace. He wavers, in proportion to his vitality, between Novalis and Wells. He is always escaping into past or future. He is pitiable and magnificent, destined to creativeness and gloom, to service and to isolation. [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 Hall Caine Up to Date HE great Roman Revolution of 1900 was led, readers of Hall Caine will recall, by David Rossi, son of a mar- riage contracted—in his non-clerical youth—by a saintly pope and a woman of the people. The disturbances grew, as is always the case, out of bread-hunger and desperate suffering, but the militarism and brutality and corruption of the Italian Government and the class-consciousness of the city proletariat combined to bring them to their vic- torious conclusion. The amazing feature of the whole up- rising was its peaceable character; the people took over power quietly and soberly. Except for a few clashes insti- gated by the military, the republic was declared and the new government formed without any of the horrors that have so frequently marred revolutionary achievements. And this, as we recall, was due entirely to the almost religious pacifism of David Rossi. He was one of those rare spirits who com- bine revolutionary fervor with fairness and gentleness. It is possible that some of our readers have forgotten that revolution—and not unnaturally, since so many more noisy ones have intervened—led by a saint who sought to establish the principles of the Lord’s Prayer. But if they have they should refresh their memory by turning to the story of those great days written by Hall Caine—now Sir Hall Caine —under the name “The Eternal City.” They should read this story and read it fast—for “The Eternal City” is about to be filmed. An old account of an old revolution obviously must be brought up to date for the screen and a popular moral at- tached to it. And so, according to the London Daily Herald, “The Eternal City” is now undergoing alterations at the hands of Miss Ouida Bergére, “the famous American film scenario writer.” Sir Hall Caine need apparently have no concern lest Mr. Hall Caine’s revolution be allowed to look like an old 1900 model. ‘This wonderful work of his,’”’ Miss Bergére explained to the Herald reporter, “is to be used in combating socialism.” “How?” inquired the reporter. She elucidated: By the very simple process of turning the hero from a Socialist into a Fascist! Besides, you see, the Italian Government is going to be very helpful in giving permission for the taking of “shots” of his- torical buildings and in generally helping the production of the film. And so in return Sir Hall Caine has agreed that his Socialist shall be converted into “something like Mussolini.” And after the scenario writer has successfully turned David Rossi, pacifist and democrat, into a Fascist dictator, and the people’s uprising into a military coup, she can doubt- less improve the rest of the book. That part needs revision, for instance, in which the American Ambassador says to the Prime Minister: In my country, your Excellency, we don’t look upon popular demonstrations as an insult to the powers of the State. ...We regard them as you regard the hieroglyphs on your obelisks, as so many writings on the wall, and we set ourselves to decipher them. Miss Bergére is guaranteed to be a famous writer of scenarios and so we have no doubt that she will be able to substitute blood and castor oil for the Lord’s Prayer, and some of the more recent sentiments of Mr. Daugherty, per- haps, for the dangerous suggestions of Mr. Hall Caine’s out-of-date American Ambassador.

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ROPE ror Ts July 25, 1923] The Nation 79 Company Unions or National Unions?—A Debate The Pennsylvania’s War on Labor By PAUL BLANSHARD N May 28 President Samuel Rea arose before the United States Railroad Labor Board, removed his cigar, and announced that company unions had come to stay on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The announcement was a defiance of the Labor Board and indirectly of the United States Supreme Court. No Attorney General, however, rushed to get out an injunction. Unlike the railroad strikers last fall, the Pennsylvania occupies an impregnable position; after more than two years of bitter fighting the owners have attained the ideal of General Atterbury, “‘com- mittees of employees whose orders come from the bottom, from the men at work on this railroad, and are not handed down from the top by some people we know nothing about.” The story of those two years is one of the most significant chapters in the record of the open-shop movement. In the spring of 1921 the Railroad Labor Board terminated the national agreement under which organized labor on the rail- roads had built up an effective system of collective bargain- ing. The board ordered the railroads and the employees to open direct negotiations for new agreements. The Penn- sylvania refused to open negotiations with System Federa- tion No. 90 of the American Federation of Labor, which had hitherto represented its shop-craft employees, and held an election in June, 1921, in which the name of the System Federation was not printed on the ballots. The company insisted that the shop-craft workers should vote for indi- viduals only. It maintained that as long as the employees were able to choose any union or non-union worker the elec- tion was valid. By an overwhelming majority the shop-craft workers re- fused to indorse the company-union plan and demanded that the name of System Federation No. 90 be printed on the ballot. The Railroad Labor Board sustained the union’s de- mand, but was prevented from publishing an official con- demnation by an injunction secured by the company. That injunction was finally vacated by the United States Supreme Court, but like most injunctions it had already done its damage. The condemnation of the Labor Board is now too late to be effective. The unions, facing annihilation, called a shop-craft strike on the Pennsylvania on the issue of com- pany unionism versus labor unionism. The fight was bitter, the union claiming that more than half of the workers were out at the peak of the strike, the company claiming that only one-third left their places. The strike has cost the company millions of dollars and the fight is not entirely over yet, since thousands of skilled mechanics are still on strike. The methods adopted by the Pennsylvania in making effective its plan of employee representation show the power of a corporation in time of depression. The “rump” elec- tion of 1921 was held in the middle of a period of unemploy- ment when thousands of active union men were on fur- lough. Ballots were distributed to the workers and they were told to vote for any employee as an individual. Only about 10 per cent voted the company ballot, and of these many cast their ballots for union leaders who refused to accept the election. The signed report of tellers in the Northwestern Region is illuminating, especially since the result is more favorable to the company than the outcome in other regions. About 19 per cent of those eligible to vote cast legal ballots, electing 115 representatives, among whom were fourteen foremen and an assistant foreman who had not been allowed to represent the union. Twenty- six of those elected refused to serve, leaving seventy-four bona fide workers and fifteen supervisory officers. Several of these were elected by one vote, presumably their own. Meanwhile System Federation No. 90 took a vote of all active employees on the whole system, including those on furlough, with the result that 37,238 voted for the union and seven against. The total vote on the company union ballot had been 3,480 cast for individuals. The company was not embarrassed by the results. It proceeded to “bargain” with “its employees.” It prepared the terms of a new wage and working agreement for sub- mission to the rump organization. Those committeemen who accepted their election were sent among the workers with little slips of paper which read: “This is to certify that I am willing to serve as a committeeman to represent the machinists on this division for the unexpired term,” etc. Thus the vacancies were filled supposedly by the com- mitteemen who had received a 10 per cent vote of confidence but, according to the affidavits of union men, by the solici- tation of foremen and other company officials. The company then summoned conferences of these em- ployee representatives, whose expenses and salary were paid by the management while they solemnly discussed and adopted the terms of a new agreement altering the condi- tions of employment in the Pennsylvania shops, reclassify- ing certain operations, and, incidentally, bringing millions of dollars into the coffers of the company. In the South- western Region they summoned to St. Louis a divisional committee from Columbus, Ohio, which was not authorized to negotiate a wage agreement even for its own division. When the company attempted to impose upon this commit- tee the terms of a regional agreement, the committee with- drew in a body and issued a statement exposing the com- pany. Even this did not embarrass the Pennsylvania; the new rules for the region were issued over the name of the general manager and there was no one to dispute them. With its employee representatives chosen by 10 per cent of the workers, the Pennsylvania then agreed upon a definite plan of employee representation, a plan which is admirably democratic in details and totally farcical in meeting general problems. All workers are allowed to vote for any employee of their choice. They can elect a solid union committee if they wish. There are committees for crafts and divisions and regions, all elaborate and perfectly constructed. But the plan has three obvious jokers: 1. Even if 100 per cent of the workers belong to a union, they cannot vote for that union to represent them and they cannot bring the research experts and officers of that union in to help them bargain with the trained executives of the company. 2. The Joint Reviewing Committee, which is described by the railroad in its official pamphlet as “the highest authority on the railroad in the settlement of matters in dispute be- tween employees and management” and which is composed of an equal number of employee voters and company voters, requires a two-thirds vote to reach a decision. The workers

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80 The Nation .- [ Vol. 117, No. 302 must win over to their side one-third of the managers before they can change the interpretations and rules of the com- pany. The railroad officials can deadlock the reviewing com- mittee at any time that they see fit. 38. There is no real provision of arbitration of vital issues. The Joint Reviewing Committee nominally has the right to refer deadlocked cases to arbitration, but the company can block the choice of any impartial arbiters under the two- thirds rule or it can “sit tight’? and declare that there is nothing to arbitrate. When the Pennsylvania had adopted its new rules and regulations in conference with its employee representatives, it became necessary to win over the workers to the scheme. Coercion was liberally employed. Furloughed men were called back and compelled to sign the new regulations or face discharge. At least fifteen leading union officials who were serving the System Federation while on furlough were summoned back to work and discharged when they refused to quit their union posts. Employees who were elected under the company’s plan and who refused to accept the new agreement were frozen out. The stenographic record of the secret (?) meeting of the Central Regional Commit- tee on December 8, 1922, in Pittsburgh shows that the chair- man, H. E. Custar, called upon the divisional chairman from Buffalo to withdraw from the session because he had not signed the new company agreement. The Buffalo chairman withdrew. The workers in the Pitcairn shops “voted” for the new piecework schedules as follows: Foremen distributed bal- lots in the form of petitions asking the management to adopt piecework, the signature of each worker being asked. The workers repeatedly voted by a great majority against the piecework plan. The management promptly posted notices abolishing the jobs of many of the skilled mechanics and creating “helpers’ ” positions in their places. Then the men were told that they might continue as mechanics under the piecework system or as helpers; otherwise their posi- tions were abolished. They voted for piecework. The controversy came to a head in the railroad strike. After the strike had dwindled the task of the company was easy. The workers who returned to work were naturally compelled to accept the company plan. Many of them were strike-breakers; some were good union men starved out. Many of those who now accept the plan and try to work out their salvation through it are sincere advocates of employee representation as the best thing under the circumstances. Recently a general election has been conducted in the Cen- tral Region in which the leaders of the company union claim a vote of 82 per cent of shop-craft workers eligible to vote. That is a victory for the Pennsylvania, a victory which has cost the road many millions, a victory in which the workers had to choose between company unions and nothing. The railroad has stressed the “outside agitator’ as a cause of disturbance and has sought to eliminate him from the system. It has held that there is a distinct virtue in dealing with men on the pay roll of the company and no others. The result has been peculiar. N. P. Good, the able head of System Federation No. 90 of the A. F. of L., is a machinist from the Pennsylvania shops. H. E. Custar, head of the employees’ organization in the Central Region, is a car man from the Pennsylvania shops. Both have offices in Pittsburgh. Both work full time for their respective organizations. It is not likely that either one will work in a Pennsylvania machine shop again for years. But Good is an “outsider”; Custar is an employee. Why? Good is paid by union dues and is responsible to the labor move- ment; Custar is on the company’s pay roll. His salary and expenses are paid by the company. The company supports thirty-five committeemen as active propagandists for the employee-representation plan. There is no equivocation about it. The chairman of the Central Region told his committee at a meeting held last winter: “You are given a six weeks’ leave of absence if you so desire to use that time to help convince the men at home that this body has acted in the best way they saw possible.” The men accepted the invitation at full pay and overtime. Inside agitators! . The fight on the Pennsylvania verifies the beliefs of the orthodox union-shop advocate. Union leaders have always held that the outside organizer is a necessity in making col- lective bargaining effective, especially in shops which are not 100 per cent union. The worker in the shop is usually too tired and too ill-informed and too subservient to bargain with power and knowledge. His treatment in the shop usually depends on his being nice to the boss. The outside union official is better informed and more independent. He has many faults but these are his virtues. He may be dis- pensed with in some situations in which the union is so strong that its representatives act as a unit without guid- ance, but these situations are rare. The transportation brotherhoods who deal with the Pennsylvania without the presence of national organizers are virtually 100 per cent organizations with years of tradition and discipline behind them. The shop-craft unions have never been so intrenched; they developed largely under the protection of Federal con- trol and never claimed more than 85 per cent of the workers on the Pennsylvania. For them the company union with its exclusion of national officials and its special favors to non- union workers means annihilation. The Railroad’s Reply By SAMUEL REA HE difference between the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany and the United States Railroad Labor Board is a fundamental difference in their respective points of view which goes to the very essence of successful relationship be- tween men and management. Apparently the Labor Board considers itself to be the arbiter of rules for carrying on what it conceives to be a perpetual struggle between a railroad and its employees. The purpose of the management, on the other hand, is not to struggle against or to triumph over its employees, but to gain their loyalty and cooperation by a policy of fair dealing, mutual consultation, and just compensation. In like manner there seems to be a fundamental difference in the point of view of Mr. Blanshard and that of the vast majority of the Pennsylvania employees, which may be ex- pressed as follows: The management and the employees have the same stake in the Pennsylvania Railroad. Their interests are mutual. Their success and prosperity depend upon the success and prosperity of the railroad in its service to the public. The other view seems to be to create hostility between management and men, to stigmatize the so-called “company man,” to make men feel that only by industrial warfare can they obtain fair play. Neither the company nor its employees subscribe to such a conception of our relations, and if the Transportation Act

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July 25, 1923] ~The Nation 81 in its labor sections means anything it means that men and management should endeavor to settle peacefully between themselves and without annoyance to the public whatever disputes may arise. As far as our employees are concerned, the issues in the Pennsylvania Railroad-Labor Board case have long since been settled to the satisfaction of the vast majority. As far as the public is concerned, the policy jointly pursued by the management and the employees main- tained uninterrupted, and, in fact, greatly increased service at a time when nearly every railroad in the country was seri- ously affected by a national strike. Two-thirds of the Penn- sylvania employees refused to answer the strike call. How the employees themselves regard the Pennsylvania plan of employee representation is indicated by their par- ticipation in recent elections to fill the expiring terms of em- ployee representatives among the shop crafts and the clerks and miscellaneous forces of Eastern, Central, and North- western Regions and Altoona Works. These three regions and Altoona Works represent more than three-fourths of the total number of employees in these classes on the entire sys- tem. It was the original elections in these classes to which the United States Railroad Labor Board objected. The fact is that in the elections just held more than 80 per cent of the employees affected voted in the election of employees’ ‘representatives to deal with the company. Apparently the desire of Mr. Blanshard, of the La- bor Board, and of others, who continue to agitate the is- sue, is: 1. To make people believe that the company was under obligation to comply with the decisions of the board on -account of the Supreme Court’s decision in the matter. The fact is that the United States Supreme Court made it very plain that our company was not obliged to observe the Labor Board’s decision if it felt that its constitutional and legal rights were being invaded. The management was firmly convinced that the constitutional and legal rights of the com- pany and its employees would be invaded if it complied with the decision of the board in the shop-crafts’ and clerks’ cases. 2. To make people believe that the company is anti-union. The fact is that its relations with employees who are high officers in national labor unions are, and have been for many years, eminently satisfactory to both. The company is now dealing with committees, all of whom are employees, repre- senting signal men, telegraphers, and engine- and train-ser- vice employees, composed entirely of union members. 3. To make people believe that the company and its em- ployees are at war. The fact is that under our system of ‘employee representation employees and the management are working in the closest harmony. There is now no dispute -of any consequence with our employees which we believe will not be amicably adjusted. 4. To make people believe that the company has denied its employees certain rights to which they are entitled. The fact is that the employees on the Pennsylvania have a more influential voice in determining matters affecting their wages, rules and working conditions, and other questions of mutual concern than the employees of almost any other large industry. Reference is made to “more than two years of bitter fight- ing.” Undoubtedly it is desired by outside agitators to create such an impression, but the employees themselves, the shippers and passengers who, because of the peaceful rela- tionship between the Pennsylvania men and management, ~ were served by this railroad when other railroads were handicapped by the strike, know better. They know, too, the facts about the national agreements to which the article refers, and which the Labor Board itself abrogated. It is stated that System Federation No. 90 “hitherto rep- resented” the Pennsylvania shop-craft employees. With the Railroad Administration, yes. With the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company, no. System Federation No. 90 was imposed upon the Pennsylvania Railroad employees during Federal control, and acted for them in dealing with the Railroad Ad- ministration. It was never recognized by the management as representative of the wishes of the Pennsylvania shop men. Referring to the shop-men’s strike of last July it is stated that the “fight was bitter” on the Pennsylvania. It is com- mon knowledge capable of substantiation from public records that during the strike this railroad handled more freight than before, and that its service was never seriously af- fected. Is that evidence of “bitter fighting’? And yet the Pennsylvania men who were called upon to strike would not have been out alone. They would have been part of a na- tional strike, but two-thirds of them stuck to their posts. It is stated that the rules adopted by the Pennsylvania show the “power of a corporation in time of depression.” What about the power of the so-called company unions since that depression, when wages were raised under the Pennsyl- vania plan, and rules and working conditions negotiated which, for fairness and justice, stand comparison with those on any other railroad? A great to-do is made about the number of employees of the shop crafts that voted for individuals in the first shop- crafts elections, and those who are alleged to have voted for System Federation No. 90. The fact is, however, that every one had an opportunity to vote by secret ballot for any indi- vidual, union or non-union. In several cases, all union men were elected and recognized as representatives of the em- ployees by whom they were elected. In no civilized country in the world does the failure of its citizens to exercise their right of franchise invalidate the election brought about by those who do exercise that right. If the Pennsylvania plan was unfair, what was the inducement to the signal men, the telegraphers, the maintenance-of-way men to accept it and to elect solid union-member committees of employee repre- sentatives? The shop men had the same opportunity to name union employees as candidates, to vote for them, and to elect them if they could. But the union officers said, No. One might just as well say that if the Republican or Democratic Party heads refused to participate in an elec- tion and urged their party members not to vote, therefore the candidates named and voted for and elected by their parties would not be validly elected. As far as voting for individuals rather than organizations is concerned, it is well to remember also that in this country we do not elect parties. We vote for individuals nominated by the parties, and meeting the requirements of the various election laws. Mr. Blanshard states that the Pennsylvania plan “is ad- mirably democratic in details and totally farcical in meeting general problems.” Let us see what are the facts: 1. The company and its employees have successfully and satisfactorily negotiated wages, rules, and working condi- tions. 2. Transportation service has been maintained without interruption, even during a period of a national strike seri- ously affecting other railroads. 8. Means have been established for the peaceful settle-

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99 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 ment of all controversial questions. The highest authority on the railroad in the determination of these matters is a Joint Committee equally representative of employees and management, a two-thirds vote deciding any question. No executive officer nor board of directors can veto the decisions of this committee. If it cannot settle a question itself, it has the last say as to what tribunal will settle it. 4. Grievances are settled more amicably and with greater dispatch and mutual satisfaction than ever before. 5. Every employee has an opportunity to have a voice in deciding matters of most vital concern to him through the election, by secret ballot, of employee representatives. 6. The records of the settlement of disputed questions are unanswerable evidence of the success of this plan, of its sat- isfaction to the vast majority of Pennsylvania men, and of its importance to the employees, the company, and the public that we all serve. It is stated in the article that the company can “deadlock” the Joint Committee. The answer is that, as far as the em- ployees are concerned, scarcely any more vital questions are conceivable than wages, working rules, and conditions of employment. Yet all these matters have been satisfactorily adjusted without the deadlock that Mr. Blanshard fears. It is stated that certain union officers were discharged “when they refused to quit their union posts.” The truth is that these men were released because they failed or refused to report for duty when ordered to do so. As regards Mr. Blanshard’s reference to piecework, the fact is that even the matter of piecework prices on the Pennsylvania is subject to consideration and adjustment by a committee equally repre- sentative of employees and management. It is impossible for any fair-minded observer of the opera- ‘tion of the Pennsylvania plan and the results which have been accomplished through the joint efforts of both man- agement and men to escape the conclusion that our policy serves the best interests of the employees, the company, and the traveling and shipping public. In carrying out this pol- icy the company and its employees have complied with the Transportation Act in letter and spirit, and we have made what we believe to be a very advanced step in the establish- ment of most valuable industrial relations. The National Union’s Viewpoint By N. P. GOOD RESIDENT REA’S attempt to defend the management in what it has done centers around two things. First, there is the allegation that the Labor Board and other “agi- tators’” want to make people believe that the company is under obligations to obey the Labor Board’s directions. Is it not true that the Pennsylvania Railroad is under obliga- tion to obey the board’s decision and any other provision of the Transportation Act, just as it is obligated to obey the provisions of any statutory law? The only difference is that the obligation concerning a decision of the Labor Board is moral while, with respect to other laws, there is a penalty imposed for violations. Are we, therefore, to understand Mr. Rea to imply that obligations for the violation of which there are penalties are the only sort of obligations recog- nized by the Pennsylvania management? If this is true, then let me call attention to the mandatory provisions of the Transportation Act concerning procedure before a dis- pute goes to the Labor Board. Section 301 requires con- ' parties. ferences between management and organizations of em- ployees, but nowhere does it provide that the management may, much less shall, designate who these representatives shall be or how they shall be chosen. The obligation to carry out these provisions is not moral; it is mandatory. These provisions of the act have also been violated by the carrier. In the second place, Mr. Rea would have the public believe that the road was not seriously affected by the suspension of work of the shop men on July 1, 1922, and that the vote cast in the late so-called election is evidence of approval by the employees. Whether a majority of the shop-craft employees sus- pended work and whether the railroad was seriously affected can best be attested by the fact that commissaries and bunk- rooms established in July, 1922, were still in use at some points in July, 1923. On July 1, 1922, several hundred stored locomotives were in white lead and the general con- dition of power was normal; which means that 15 per cent of it was not serviceable and 85 per cent serviceable. At the present time no serviceable locomotives are in storage, sev- eral hundred new ones have been purchased and delivered, and still the Interstate Commerce Commission’s inspectors have reported during the past few months approximately 85 per cent of all locomotives inspected in a defective con- dition. In other words, the figures of a year ago and today have been reversed. In addition to this there was a general disregard of safety laws, which became so bad that a protest meeting was held by the transportation brotherhoods last February. Mr. Rea likens the election conducted by his railroad to the election of candidates by the Republican and Democratic In this he fails to consider that our national elec- tion laws were made by those authorized by the people to do so, while the employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad were required to vote (if they voted at all) under regulations established by company officials and a few political hench- men who had no authority under the Transportation Act and no mandate from the employees to create such laws; therefore, the refusal of such a large number to vote should properly be accepted as a protest against such illicit dealings. Mr. Rea says: ‘Means have been established for the peaceful settlement of all controversial questions.” The means of “peaceful settlement” of which he speaks are not approved by a majority of the employees and will not endure, because he and his associates have utterly disregarded the constitutional and moral rights of all those who opposed them and because they are endeavoring to mold public opinion in their favor through a campaign of misrepresen- tation. The outstanding feature, however, was not touched upon by Mr. Blanshard and certainly would not be mentioned by Mr. Rea. This is the attitude of the United States govern- ment administration toward the striking shop men who were charged by the Labor Board with having violated the law and against whom an injunction was obtained by the United States Department of Justice. Compare the attitude of the President of the United States and his Attorney General toward the shop men in this instance with the attitude to- ward the Pennsylvania Railroad, which has more openly and brazenly repudiated the provisions of the Transportation Act but against which not a public word of criticism has been issued, except as it has come from the Labor Board itself.

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July 25, 1923] ~The Nation 83 These United States—X X XIV* ) KENTUCKY: Where Men Die Standing By BEN LUCIEN BURMAN HE limited, Boston bound, roared over the flat Ohio farms. The melancholy New Englander in the seat opposite us, a boy returning East for a first year in Har- vard, shook his head. ‘Kentucky,’ he repeated, gloomily. “No. Not as my home. All the people there are savages. Aren’t they?” We spent an earnest ten minutes in proving the falsity of this belief. At the end of which time, opti- mistically, we rested our case. The grave youth thought a moment, then again shook his Mayflower head. “Well, any- way,” he said, “it isn’t a Christian country.” A remark which was probably prompted by thoughts of the well- known but mythical old lady of the Cumberlands whose acquaintance with religious figures was limited to a certain mysterious God, familiar only through his last name “Dam.” The doleful New Englander’s indictment was pronounced before the Darwinian tempest swept down the Blue Grass; now a serious sophomore, the youth probably condemns the State as too Christian. Belief in its savagery, however, he will undoubtedly hold until his death. For to a diminished degree his verdict is the verdict of the nation. Is not Kentucky the land of grizzled feudists and defiant moonshiners; of soft-hatted politicians who recite poetry and tote pistols; is it not the land of dashing Night Riders and tobacco-chewing Methuselahs; is it not Wild West on Main Street? It is. All of these. But it is not savage: merely romantic. Therefore let a mechanized world be grateful. The mountaineer who—if he can draw the faster—slays on sight a cousin in war over a pig three generations dead, is not a fiction: he is a fact. Yet he is the same moun- taineer who to a weary, hungry stranger will give all his rickety bed and more than half his scanty corn pone. He is hospitable, kind, noble, even at the starvation point. His violence arises from the single passion which masters his existence—he must not be trod upon, he must be free. His cousin’s kin, he argues, cheated his kin; they are tres- passers upon his family’s, and thus his own, kingdom of self; they must be annihilated. By no means is Kentucky all mountainous, nor all its dwellers mountaineers, yet from the misty heights of Pine Mountain on the east to the mud- lapping Mississippi on the west, the creed is one: I will be myself. The laws that please me I will obey; the laws that suit me not be damned. “A Kentuckian kneels only to his God,” declaimed Crittenden, doomed for aiding the Cuban insurgents, as he faced the rifles of his Spanish executioners. Alas that the Kentuckian forgets that the doctrine of “You let me alone” connotes “Then I’ll let you alone”; cer- tain of his own righteousness, he is not content until he is transfigured into an exalted crusader, off for the battle. Willy-nilly, he would then ram baptism by sprinkling, bap- tism by immersion, or whatever the momentary credo, down his townsman’s throat, with revolver as ramrod. Intense, passionate, pious, his emotions are easily stirred, and the unschooled evangelistic parson, with his jeremiads of literal * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1923, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. blood, fire, and brimstone, can whip him into acts, if not of violence, of ridiculous stupidity. Such are the black- frocked clerics who would make of Kentucky a virgin gold- field for the Ku Klux Klan with nuggets lying beside every tobacco plant—were it not for one fact: a Kentuckian revels in a fight, but it must be a fair fight. One glossy laurel these rustic churchmen almost won: the law to prohibit the teaching of evolution—a law the bare mention of which should cause the giant pine trees, whose ancestors heard the Kentuckian bitterly assail the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts, to turn their spiny tops from the sun. The history of the Darwin episode is illumi- nating. A veteran Kentucky legislator’s daughter enrolled at the State University. The time arrived when she re- turned home. One afternoon parent and child were con- versing. “Father,” the girl announced, “what you and mother taught me is wrong. All wrong. I’ve studied science in college. There isn’t any God.” And the father wept. But mere weeping is vain, he knew. He decided to act, and deliver the youth of Kentucky from these lethal educators who taught that men were no better than mon- keys or dogs, with the same hope of heaven. The battalions of the pulpit rallied at his jousting cry. Bryan entered the capital. He addressed the legislature. The Nebraska breath was fire; the silver tongue scattered vitriol. The lower house heeded, with ears acute, and minds on the little church back home, thronged with voters. Enough votes were pledged for a victory. When at the last dramatic moment the thrice-blessed figure of independence and free- thinking rose from the corner where it had been pushed and sat upon: the bill was defeated by one vote. In the Senate, had it not been smothered in committee, the measure would have passed. A fact we confess with shame. With shame, because the law would have violated every tradition that has brought the State glory. The tradition, for example, of the Kentucky which when still an unweaned, unprotected infant, surrounded by Indians, many times verged on a break from the Union because of Federalist autocracy; the tradition of the Kentucky governor who at the outbreak of the Civil War, when commanded by the Union’s military chief to send troops, telegraphed the haughty officer a courteous “Go to,” and sent the same valiant message to the Confederates; the tradition of the Kentucky militiamen who in the early conflicts of the na- tion, disgusted with the campaigns’ conduct, told the chiefs their opinions, packed up their kits, and went back to the Blue Grass; the tradition of a Kentucky which, when the decision of the State’s highest court did not satisfy the people, abolished the court. After all the anti-Darwin bill was defeated and tradition saved. Let hosannas ring! High up in the Cumberlands where men live in the log houses their forefathers chopped from the shadowy forests, where there are no doctors in a county, no automobiles, no railroads, no telephones, there reigns liberty unfettered— and systematic scorn for law. It is moonshiners’ para- dise. Back from the creek bottom serving as a highway sits Steve Miracle, rifle at his side. In his pigmy clearing,

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84 / The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 deserted except for a hissing rattler, or a “blowin’” viper, he watches stoically as the mountain “dew” drips from the rusted still into the jug below. Maybe, if Steve isn’t con- scientious, he adds a bit of alkali. Certainly the gun is there. Kept handy, too. Et’s his liquor, ain’t et? His corn, his still, by God, it’s all his’n. What right’s them folks up in Frankfort or way out East to say he cain’t make liquor ef he wants to? Let a dam revenuer come aroun! He’ll show ’em, by God. The Kentucky mountaineer shoots first and thinks after- ward. In a county whose voting population was eleven hundred, three years saw twenty fatal shootings and six- teen woundings. No conviction followed. Amazingly trivial are the causes of this deadly gun play. A farmer kicks his neighbor’s dog. A father gives his intoxicated son an unwelcome order—orders are not popular in the mountains. One ingenious highland merchant after a quarrel, knowing his life to be in danger, constructed a stockade the entire distance from his house to his store. He died from a bullet nevertheless. The statute-books denounce gun-toting: the law is futile as a sun parlor in Mammoth Cave. In this year of grace nineteen hundred twenty three, of subways, radio, and chewing gum, every man taking the oath of office in Kentucky must swear he has neither as principal nor second participated in a duel! When the last constitu- tional convention assembled in 1890 obsolete enactments came up for repeal. The dueling law was retained; the legislators believed revocation would be dangerous. More than once has a judge rendered a decision and afterwards affirmed it with his life. The vigorous breath of this warn- ing in the columns of an old newspaper still blows up the Licking. “I... thus publicly give notice to all sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, marshals, and their deputies, that if they do serve any precept on me preparatory to coercion that I will . . . put a period to their earthly career. .. .” Withal, the Kentuckian is kind, devoted, lovable. Though his only books be the Bible and the Sears Roebuck catalogue, he is never uncouth. He is always the gentleman, Woman, beautiful, black haired or golden haired, flashing eyed, soft of form and soft of voice, here dwells in the age of chivalry. Upon her pedestal she is enthroned, for stranger, lover, hus- band to worship. In the Blue Grass the mannish-collared college girl would be a sight so bizarre that her walk upon the streets would signal a parade of gaping ragamuffins and grinning piccaninnies. When Kentucky was still an eighteenth-century wilderness of forest, Indian, and trap- per, a dancing-master established a school for pirouettes in the blockhouse of Lexington. Nor did he starve. Ken- tucky is the land where woman must be woman; her castle her home. True, the State did at length ratify the suffrage amendment; why, is a mystery. Ata document-strewn desk a prominent Kentuckian, pounding with his fist as though each blow annihilated one of the guilty, scathingly harangued to us why the law was the most calamitous act in all the nation’s history.. How ran the old song the school boys chorused when no teacher was nearby? Something after this fashion: In Kentucky. In Kentucky. Where the horses are the fairest, Where the women are the fastest, And the politics the damndest: In Kentucky. Let the sleek horses graze quietly in their velvet pas- tures; bid farewell to the Kentucky maiden—though verily she merits far more than a glance—and muse instead upon ballots and balloteers. The writer of the song’s closing line was a man of truth. Politics are the damndest in Ken- tucky. The reason? Again it is individuality, exalted, bringing with it strange contradictions. Whether class- room novice, farmer, lawyer, clerk, or tobacco picker, every male is a politician. Asked whence came the principles he cherishes, his proud reply would be “Myself”: almost cer- tainly these principles were handed down by his father, and by his father’s father, slightly changed in the passage of time. Yet, stubborn partisan as he is, should the interpre- tations of other father’s sons, clashing with his own, be made the dominant creed of the party, instanter he bolts. A party split is as regular and expected as frogs after a Visalia rain. The schisms sometimes prove fatal. For politics in Kentucky are never impersonal. Wrote one statesman to a rival: “I will not call you liar, villain, or scoundrel; but with all the politeness imaginable, I could prove you so.” The office-seeker is delightfully ingenuous. Thus adver- tises one highland candidate: “I am out of a job for some time. My wife and six children need my support. Think it over, friend, and let me have your vote for clerk.” A poster with the honest rustic smiling out blazons these cryptic sentences: ‘All my life I lived in this county. My father and grandfather, too. Not one of us ever asked for a political office. I think it’s about time they got one, don’t you?” “A dog for every man in the mountains,” promises a son of Clay County, wistful for the legislature. While what more could be asked of man than this: “I will make the people of our county a good, sober sheriff’? Along the river valleys, where time is marked by the coming of the show-boat, or on the rolling plains where the clock is the county fair, the buying of ballots is a commerce probably far rarer than in the Northern States stretching up from the clayey Ohio, with their Cincinnatis, their Terre Hautes, their Chicagos. In the Republican mountains, however, where there are few to see and none to tell, the ballot merchant—so say the Democrats—disdains retail bar- ter, and opens his shop for the wholesale trade. The clien- tele is that benumbed caste, supposedly the progeny of criminals who fled from England; their slogan, “A vote for a dollar.” In a plateau county, so insistent became the cry for greenbacks a few days before election, the tiny bank serving the community was drained, and compelled to tele- graph the Sub-Treasury for a new supply. In the Goebel assassination mountain political fury at- tained its height; the case is a twentieth-century tragedy of two cities begun with death in a duel and ended with murder. . . . William Goebel is State Senator from Coving- ton in the lowlands. The commoner hails him as a libera- tor; corporations denounce him as a self-seeking despot. . . . The Senator writes a political article attacking Colonel John Sandford, an officer of a Covington bank. ... The two men meet at the bank’s entrance. . . . Both draw, both fire. . . . Sandford falls, mortally wounded. . . . Goebel is never indicted. ... Four years pass. ... The Senator is now Democratic candidate for governor. ... The returns show the Republicans to be elected by 2,383 votes.... The verdict is accepted, then contested on a charge of intimi- dation and fraud in the mountains. ... The legislative committee assembles at Frankfort to hear the contest. ... Feeling is intense. ... Nine hundred and sixty armed mountaineers invade the capital “to see justice done”... ; x 4 f

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July 25, 1923] ‘The Nation 85 The decision of the contest is about to be announced, in Goebel’s favor. ... When Goebel, entering the capitol grounds, is shot to death by a bullet fired from a window in the Secretary of State’s private office. . . . Republican leaders are accused, among them the governor whose office Goebel was contesting. ... It is testified that mountain feudists had agreed “to kill off enough Democrats to make a Republican majority in the legislature.” ... One con- fesses, some are convicted: to be pardoned later when a Republican chief executive comes into power. ... One is repeatedly sent as a mountain representative to Congress. ... In a single aspect the grim episode is not typical; Goebel was slain by an assassin, not by an enemy face to face—Kentuckians abhor cowards who shoot from behind. Another fatal drama, so recent that the trials may not yet be ended, is the “Bloody Election” of Clayhole. In this hamlet, where political control vacillated, gunmen entered the polls, shot promiscuously and mortally, riddled the bal- lot boxes with bullets, and dumped them into the river nearby. On the same stage as these tragedies of blood, are rightly, in comic relief, enacted high political comedy and farce. The legislature, less corrupt perhaps than in many other commonwealths, naturally could not exist without its lob- bies for drollery and divertissement. Here the jovial enter- tainers are the Three Musketeers—the coal lobby, the rail- road lobby, and the race-track lobby; appearing in their sportive interlude: All for one. One for all. Dare he strike one, three on him fall. No bribes, says Mr. Legislator. Away, Satan, with your bribe! But a drink of whiskey from a friend in a dry country—that’s different. So the soft-coal lobbyist must stock his hotel chambers with the mellowest of Scotland’s pride, and keep open house for the men who make the laws. There’s work to be done! The influence thus exerted is said to be tremendous. Out of England to the Indian-haunted forests lumbered the caravans of the Kentucky settlers. The wilderness did its work, and the traits of the newcomers identifying them as Englishmen vanished. Except one: the Englishman’s love of a horse race. From the days when “scalping” was a dread fact of the moment, not a dim tradition, the bronzed inhabitants of each little settlement gathered to watch shin- ing steed vie with shining steed. Today the sport, com- mercialized, has aggrandized until it is imperial; the daily health bulletins of its Morviches, its Silver Kings, are flashed about the world as though they told of a god upon whose well-being hung the universe; millions are won and lost when the favored Derbyite stumbles and breaks a leg. It is the race-track lobby, fighting the church lobby for its life, whose methods are unique. This is the procedure laid down by the race-track political Book of Etiquette. About the busy paddocks are a myriad hangers-on, watchmen, machine-tenders, ticket-takers, all well paid. Be you envi- ous of such an easy livelihood, or out of employment, call upon the king of horses and jockeys, and petition for a place. “Go,” commands the monarch, “and seek out the political chieftain of your province. Worthiest of all, let it be a legislator. Ask him to inscribe for you an indorse- ment. Return to me then, and the post is yours. If ye gain no such indorsement, return not, for we are busy, and life is brief.” Thus, indirectly, the politician goes deep into the race- king’s debt: and debts it is not etiquette for a politician to forget. As another effective expedient, the sovereign places the legislator upon his regal pay roll, at a stipend of fifteen dollars a day with no onerous labor demanded of him. One unsophisticated, conscientious legislator, apprised of this boon, so goes the story, besought of the king to know his duties. “You see that concrete wall over there?” growled the monarch. “Yep,” returned the anxious in- quirer. ‘Well, you’re the wall guard,” sniffed His High- ness. ‘Keep your eye wide open to see that it doesn’t walk away.” Always a paradox is the Kentuckian; an ultra-conserva- tive in making laws, he becomes a passionate radical in breaking them. The tenant tobacco farmers, “hill billies’” who were ever in debt to the grocer and at the mercy of a tobacco trust which paid as the mind of its buyer varied, decided something must be done. Failing to consult Black- stone, they banded together, agreeing to retain the crops until a life-supporting price was offered. If a neighbor more prosperous, or preferring to play his football game alone, insisted on selling at any figure tendered, he received three or four warnings. If the warnings went unheeded, upon a cloudy night a troop of cavalrymen dashed through his fields, and a few moments later tobacco barn and its black leaves were in flames. These incendiaries, haters of trusts, were, and are, the “Night Riders.” Similarly, when toll-gates along the ragged highways in Campbell County harassed the travelers, and negotiations for purchase ap- peared never to end, rustic cavaliers galloped down: when the toll-keeper appeared after dawn to collect his levy from every voyager he found the gates hacked into splinters. The sale was consummated at once. Kentucky, the Kingdom of Self. It is a land which has borne or fostered many of the famous: Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Henry Clay, Henry Watterson, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, the President of the Confederacy and the President of the Union; but always the greatness is of the individual, never of the reflected group. It is the Land Where Anything Might Happen; where judges spit tobacco with grandiloquent attorneys, and one judge opens court with hymns; where school teachers kill wild-cats by lying upon them; where schoolboys whip pedagogues because no holiday is granted to honor the visiting elephant; where a newspaper-contest promoter addressing circular letters in the conventional “My Dear Mrs. Bowsley” is invited upon the street to fight numerous irate husbands for flirting with their wives; where the casual wayfarer is introduced to the college president by the driver of the mail hack. It is a land where love of liberty compensates for grievous im- perfections; a land of the lotus which the Kentuckian may leave, but never abandons. This is the State’s sin: life is too cheap. Let the Kentuckian barter his revolver for a book, and die in bed. Lest the Blue Grass inclined vacationer be frightened from his pilgrimage, to the sorrow of commerce chambers, we hasten to add that there are policemen in Kentucky, and spots where the stranger might dwell five years without hearing the sound of a gun. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of August 8, will be North Dakota: A Twentieth-Century Valley Forge, by Robert George Paterson.

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86 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3029 Straws and Confetti (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD OME people say that ex-President Wilson is really for Al Smith of New York. They allege that they have it straight—at only two removed. They confirmingly remem- ber that Mr. Wilson unavailingly but revealingly vetoed the Volstead Act. . . . Harry Slattery, veteran conservation fan, returns from Europe and reports seeing ex-Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, veteran conservation foe, who in London thrilled the local newspapers by telling them that “President Harding likes his drink as well as I like mine.” “President and Cabinet Minister Boon Drinking Com- panions,” said some of the ensuing headlines. . . . Slattery says also that no American since Woodrow Wilson has been so welcomed in Europe as Hiram Johnson. He has been din- nered, luncheoned, breakfasted, pursued by the electorate and cornered by the elect, interrogated, besought to explain “irreconcilability,’ put on a pedestal, urged to open his marble lips, quoted whenever he was pleased to say a word to the world, and photographed and filmed all the rest of the time. . . . He also was laboriously psychoanalyzed by Euro- pean editorial writers who seemed to feel: ‘We studied the wrong America when we studied Wilson: here’s our chance to study the America that wins.” .. . Senator King of Utah, hatchet-faced and rip-saw-minded, passes through Washington on his way to Moscow and says that he helped in a high degree to expel the Russian Soviet Bureau from the United States and that now he wishes in an equally high degree to be helpful in restoring Russia to the family of nations. . . . Tarrying one night in Washing- ton, Senator King labored in his office in the Senate Office Building till one o’clock. He illustrates a true story which no reporter could ever make the public believe. Washington is full of public men who labor long after their constituents have gone to the movies.... The anthracite coal operators tell the United States Coal Commission that there is large and intense competition be- tween them. Some people here doubt it. Others say: “We fear it will be so.” ... The Interstate Commerce Commis- sion has driven the last spike home to insure the continuance of unlimited competition among bituminous operators. It has decided that every bituminous mine, in every bituminous railroad district, must always have its full pro-rated quota of all coal cars, including and counting all private coal cars of private coal consumers and including and counting all special coal cars assigned by railroads to get coal for their locomotives. . . . Bituminous mining, already very competi- tive, is going to be more competitive. Anthracite mining, very consolidated, is getting split into ultimately competi- tive units by the enforced separations of anthracite railroads from anthracite lands and of anthracite railroads from other anthracite railroads. . . . Governmental destruction of rail- road rebates and governmental destruction of other unfair practices have split the packers apart till the small packers every year are making gains on the big packers. . . . The utmost endeavor of the Department of Justice has shown. no monopoly, and not even any conspiracy, among sugar firms. Washington fears we are drifting back toward competition. . . » The horror of it is that if we cannot explain “profiteer- ing” by “monopoly” or by “conspiracy” we shall be driven * to explaining it by the simple fact that everybody under a system of production for profit is habitually engaged in tak- ing the highest price that anybody will offer him for his product. . . . We then would have to choose simply between the production-for-profit system, or individualism, and the production-for-service system, or socialism, and few people have the nerve to make that bald choice, either one way or the other, outrightly. .. . Yet that is precisely the choice toward which we are moving. The Coal Commission statis- tics show that the admitted “independents” among the an- thracite operators aré able to exceed the prices of the “trust” and do so. The Federal Trade Commission statistics show that the “independents” among the packers can—and do— exceed the “Big Five” in profits on their investments. ... Washington is perplexed. ... Everything in the national capital is criss-cross. ... The Democratic Party leaders, in the name of the down- trodden, are preparing to make a strong play in Congress next December for tariff reduction. . . . The ablest organi- zation of farmers here represented, through the ablest legis- lative agent here resident, is preparing, in the name of the down-trodden, to give the Tariff Commission endless hurdles to jump if it dares to set out toward tariff reduction on certain agricultural products. ... The Supreme Court, through Mr. Justice Butler, decides that the authorities of West Virginia did not consider the “reproduction cost” theory of value in arriving at the valu- ation of a public utility and that, therefore, they were wrong in following the lower “original cost” theory. On the same day, through Mr. Justice Brandeis, the Supreme Court de- cides that the authorities of Georgia did consider the “re- production theory” and that therefore they were quite right in following the lower “original cost” theory. . . . This dis- tinction between being wrong when you fail to consider a thing and being right when you consider it and reject it is very puzzling to Mr. Justice McKenna, who thereupon dis- sents from Mr. Justice Brandeis. . . . Mr. Justice Brandeis and Mr. Justice Holmes seem to be leading the court to- ward being more favorable to the “original cost” theory, which is the theory also of Robert Marion La Follette. When La Follette advocates it, editors say he reminds them of Trotzky. They do not say he reminds them of Holmes... . Mr. Justice McKenna and Mr. Justice Butler make it seem unlikely that Al Smith, if elected President, would neces- sarily do everything that the Roman Catholic hierarchy sug- gested. Mr. Justice McKenna and Mr. Justice Butler are Roman Catholics. The National Catholic Welfare Council, consisting of all the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States, has laid down the most progressive social economic program which any church in America has ever laid down for its followers. Mr. Justice McKenna and Mr. Justice Butler remain contumaciously among our stubbornest con- servatives. Until St. Peter has more influence with them, it seems not proved that he would necessarily carry the keys to Mr. Smith’s thoughts should he some day reach the White HOmSe. cians The Democrats are cooling toward the League of Nations very fast. Their spokesmen here talk now of positive action by America toward Europe’s reconstruction problems irre- spective of the League. Republicans will offer the country a leagueless world court. The Democrats will offer the country a leagueless international economic conference. . . . The steadiest wind in this cave of whirlwinds seems to be the one that blows against the League.

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July 25, 1923] The Nation 87 Anyhow Debs Spoke in Cincinnati By MARY D. BRITE AN Eugene V. Debs come to Cincinnati on the hottest and longest day of the year and speak to an over- flowing audience? No, said the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club, and other business men’s organizations. No, said the American Legion, the Army and Navy Club, and other patriotic societies. No, said the trustees of Music Hall who canceled their contract after the hall had been obtained and the rent paid. No, said various clergymen who took the opportunity to refer to the meeting in their sermons. Most emphatically no, said the daily papers, one of which stated that no information rela- tive to the meeting or to Mr. Debs would be published in that particular journal, at the same time giving generous space to the organizations protesting against the meeting. Even Billy Sunday sent a telegram commending the action of the trustees in canceling the contract. But the working men and women of Cincinnati said Mr. Debs was to speak—those who in spirit had been with him in his opposition to the war; who in spirit had gone to Atlanta with him and in spirit had come out of Atlanta with him. Last winter when Margaret Sanger arrived to hold a birth-control meeting Cincinnati was mightily stirred. Could people hear the pernicious doctrine of limitation of families? But adherents came to the front, pressure was exerted in the proper quarters by the proper people, and it was discovered to be vitally important that the right of free speech should be maintained. A large and interested audi- ence heard Mrs. Sanger with the full approval and sanction of the city authorities. So when there was a possibility, which developed into a probability, of having Mr. Debs for a meeting, I felt it would only be necessary to get the largest hall in town, announce the meeting, and the opposition of the American Legion would furnish the advertising. Music Hall was engaged, a contract was signed, the rent was paid. Then things began to happen. Running true to form, certain members of the American Legion took the oppor- -tunity of expressing their belief in “free speech, but—” Resolutions were passed against allowing Mr. Debs to appear in a city composed of so many 100 per cent Amer- icans who must not be disturbed in their beliefs; these resolutions were rapidly followed by similar action on the part of other patriotic and business organizations. Then the ministers got on the job, and speaking in the name of the lowly Nazarene, protested against the appear- ance in Cincinnati of a man who had declared himself against war and in pursuance of his belief had gone to jail. The protests came to the ears of the trustees of Music Hall. Now the contract for Music Hall contains a very engaging clause which reads: The lessor may terminate this lease for the violation of any of the provisions or conditions thereof; or in case the trustees of the Music Hall Association decide that the use of the prem- ises under this lease be improper or obnoxious. In case of such termination, the rent paid by the lessee shall be forfeited and the lessee shall be entitled to no refunder thereof. The Board of Trustees decided that it would be “im- proper or obnoxious” for Mr. Debs to speak in Music Hall and promptly canceled the contract. Attention was called to the fact that under the clause no refund was required, but being honorable gentlemen, the amount of the rent paid was returned. All very polite and considerate. Music Hall came to the city as a gift from Reuben Springer and was for many years called “Springer Hall’ in commemoration of him. Stock was sold in the Music Hall Association for $1 a share and many people, as a civic obligation, acquired shares. It was Mr. Springer’s idea and intention, and was so stated in the endowment, that the hall was to be used by the citizens of Cincinnati for the purpose of holding meetings, educational or otherwise, and that the business of the association was to be conducted at cost of maintenance, no profits to be derived therefrom. For this reason the property is not taxed. The committee on arrangements went steadily forward with its plans. Labor Temple was engaged and a smaller hall secured for an overflow meeting. The management of Labor Temple prevented the disgrace of having it said that labor in Cincinnati had failed to accord to Mr. Debs the recognition he merited at its hands. The question then arose as to the probable attitude to be taken by the city authorities. Would it be decided that there was too much danger to vested interests if Mr. Debs were permitted to speak? Would we have a city adminis- tration reversing a precedent laid down with much virtu- ous sounding of trumpets only a few short months ago? Fortunately, they evidently saw the point involved in such an attitude and stated that no attempt would be made to interfere with the meeting, but that a couple of policemen would be detailed to be present in order to see that noth- ing seditious or lawless should be attempted. “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.” The hotels in Cincinnati were too full (?) to accommodate Mr. Debs and his party, and it was not until the day of his arrival that rooms were engaged. When he arrived and registered the following conversation took place between the clerk and a member of the committee. Said the clerk: ‘Does Mr. Debs wish to engage the hotel auditorium for a meet- ing?” He was informed that a hall had been obtained and arrangements completed, to which the clerk replied: ‘Well, I just wanted to say that if he did he couldn’t have it.” The hall in this hotel, by the way, seats in the neighborhood of 200. But we were not to get off so easily. At the last moment we discovered that our tickets were not in accordance with the latest style, and a new supply had to be printed. Then we were advised by the Chief of Police just before the meeting was to begin that it could not be held as we had no permit. I have arranged a number of meetings in Cin- cinnati at Labor Temple and elsewhere, and no permit had ever been necessary. But this was a Debs meeting, and all rules and regulations had been changed to meet that emer- gency. A permit was required—and obtained. Five dol- lars, please. The meeting was held; many people heard Mr. Debs speak; many people were unable to get in either hall; the street was filled from curb to curb with an interested and eager throng, all anxious to see the man whom they loved and who they knew was full of love for and a desire to serve them.

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88 | The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 In the Driftway ITH pleasure the Drifter read that June 30 was a record day at the Chicago marriage license bureau, more licenses having been issued then than ever before. Was this not a delightful occasion, both for those persons who expected these hopeful couples to become disillusioned and for those confident that they would not be? Watching embarkees on this particular voyage of adventure is one of the greatest of indoor sports. Then the Drifter read fur- ther, and his smile changed to a frown—almost a tear. For this haste to wed was caused not by a joyous beckoning toward adventure but because the price of marriage licenses was to advance from one dollar and a half to three dollars on the first of July. * * * * * T would be idle to debate the question, Is a marriage license worth twice as much on July 1 as on June 30? Not only would the value of marriage have to be thoroughly reviewed, but all sorts of complications involving the fiscal year which began on July 1 would enter in. At first the Drifter was inclined simply to include the repeal of such a monstrous ordinance in the blanket repeal bill which he is preparing. Careful contemplation of the subject made him believe, however, that a more expensive marriage license was not such a bad thing after all, especially in Chicago. Only a very short stay in the Middle West was enough to give the Drifter indigestion—from too much plenty. On every side of him uncountable rows of corn marched to- ward the horizon, myriads of heads of wheat bent halfway to the earth, fat hogs roamed slowly in rich pastures, and the trees were bowed under the weight of small green fruit (no telling how many branches would break when their burden ripened). There was too much—too much of every- thing. * * * * * T may be that some statistician could prove that it was not too much; that each ear of corn would find its hog and each hog its pork-eater, or that each green apple would turn red and bring five cents in some city market. But the Drifter is not interested in statistics; he is suffering from colic brought on by a combination of the above-mentioned causes plus too much cream, eggs, butter, and black dirt. Probably only the sight of a meager New England hillside, covered with stones and sparse grass and topped by a spare, narrow, eighteenth-century farmhouse with barn and wood- shed attached, can effect a cure. * * * * * T is for this reason that he welcomes the increased diffi- culty in procuring marriage licenses. Something ought to be made difficult in the Middle West. And to any irate Middle Western farmer who sends him a letter calling him a lunatic and reminding him of the price of wheat and corn, the Drifter will reply by sending a photograph of that same New England landscape where it is frequently impossible to scratch out of the hard earth enough sustenance to keep the scratcher alive, let alone selling it in the open market. * * * * * EANWHILE he is on a strict diet of straw and corn- husks slightly dampened with water, and he is hoping to get well without the discipline of marriage at three dollars per two heads. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Was Mencken Right? To THE EpitTor oF THE NATION: Sir: The through express—New York to New Orleans—slows down and stops. ‘“Pa-aper” bawls a voice beside the track. “Here boy!” I deposit a nickel. The Charlotte Observer is be- fore me—Charlotte, North Carolina, morning edition, June 15, 1923. I read the following news stories: Convention of the Knights of Pythias—front page story. Convention of the Redmen—front page story. Flag conference of the American Legion—front page story. Ku Klux Klan parades in full regalia—page 2. Mystery man haunts American Legion—page 2. Federation of Musical Clubs pleads for Americanization of opera —English to be sung only—page 4. Epworth Leaguers hear strong spiritual talk—-page 4. Kiwanis Club holds water party—page 4. Conference of Young Folks Synod—page 5. American Legion Bazaar, full details—page 5. Rotarians plan private park—page 6. , Semi-annual meeting of Mooseheart Legion, the “purple fez wearers’”—page 6. “White Knight Whippers” beat up Frank Sanceri. Frank’s back—page 7. Convention of Baptist Seaside Assembly—page 8. Annual convention of Baraca-Philathea Union—page 8. Battle of Charlotte Chapter, D. A. R., observes Flag Day with tea and cookies—page 10. ; Chamber of Commerce arranges meeting of Boy Scouts’ Court of Honor—page 10. Meeting of the Grand Chapter of the Eastern Star—page 11. Parade—and picture—of Mystic Order of the Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, 60,000 strong—page 11. And flanking these news stories, the following advertisements, mostly illustrated: Wendell’s Pills—“banish nervousness.” Poslam—for the skin. Peterson’s Piles Ointment—“Is wonderful for piles, says Peter- son.” Freezone—for corns. California Fig Syrup—for constipation. Tanlac Vegetable Pills. Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Cuticura, Vicks Vapor Rub—for asthma. Nature’s Remedy Tablets—for constipation. Women! Peel your faces at home with Mercolized Wax. Better health for women—Lydia E. Pinkham. 666—for bilious fever. Curly hair can be yours! Queen Hair Dressing. Chamberlain’s Tablets—for constipation. Old Indian Liver and Kidney Tonic. G. F. P. restores vitality to generative organs. Foley’s Honey and Tar—for coughs. Blue-jay—for corns. B. C.—for headache. Doan’s. Kidney Pills. Catarrh woman’s worst foe. I’m afraid Mencken was right. New York, June 29 Picture of Sruart CHASE Important Russian Relief TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: In your mention, in a recent issue, of groups which are continuing relief work in Russia, you omit the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which, with the exception of the American Relief Administration, has expended more money

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July 25, 1923] The Nation 89 on relief work in Russia than any other organization operating there. The J.D.C. (as it is generally known) is a sectarian organiza- tion, the funds of which have primarily been collected by Jews, from Jews, for Jews. The greater portion of the $60,000,000 so collected has, under the leadership of Felix M. Warburg, been spent in Europe for sectarian relief, to meet the special and exigent tragedies that have befallen Jews in the war-racked territories. The Russian situation, however, was not one of specially afflicted groups, but of famine, in which the whole population in the famine areas was stricken. The J.D.C. therefore held that in this tragic crisis relief should be non-sectarian in the famine territories. From August, 1921, to January, 1923, the J.D.C. appropriated for Russian relief and reconstruction $7,159,654.62, the greater portion of which was expended wholly in such non-sectarian work. The reconstructive work was conducted under the lead of Colonel Herbert H. Lehman. Seventy-five farm tractor ma- chines have been shipped to Russia, with five tractor squads to teach the use and application of these tractors. Large contri- butions of live stock, farm implements, seeds, and various other farm supplies have been made. The formation of farm settle- ments for agricultural colonists has been furthered. Appropria- tions have also been made for the reestablishment of coopera- tive loan societies to further the economic rehabilitation of the people of Russia, and provision has been made for the estab- lishment, equipment, and maintenance of trade schools with the cooperation of local groups. Much medical work has been done in the furnishing of supplies, etc., to hospitals. Under Colonel Haskell’s supervision and with the active participation of Dr. Joseph A. Rosen (a noted grain expert), representative of the J.D.C. in Russia, a great movement was inaugurated for the planting of corn and the diversification of crops. The result of this particular activity has been that over 2,700,000 acres have, according to reliable surveys, actually been planted in corn. The Russian peasant has, in the past, planted almost exclusively small grains. If there had been diversification of crops, the famine might not actually have been averted, but it would have become a matter of secondary consequence, for corn will fructify with summer rains, while the small grains require spring rain. In a world racked by intolerance, hatred, and dissension. it is a heartening thing when men of diverse religious beliefs and background join forces, actuated only by a common im- pulse to alleviate suffering and to render truly constructive aid. New York, July 6 JAMES N. ROSENBERG, Vice-Chairman, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee The Chinese Question in a Nutshell To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The government of China is undoubtedly rotten. It is undoubtedly as rotten as the governments of the United States, England, France, Italy, Rumania, and Japan. Possibly it is even a little rottener. The government of China, or the isolated groups of militarists, officials, and professional robbers who constitute its government, succeed in despoiling the Chinese people every year of a certain large sum—say a hundred mil- lion dollars. The governments of the United States, England, France, Italy, Rumania, and Japan act as legal agents for the interlocking groups of American, British, French, Italian, Ru- manian, and Japanese financiers, industrialists, and commer- cial chieftains who succeed in despoiling the American, British, French, Italian, Rumanian, and Japanese peoples of a certain much larger sum—say a thousand million dollars. There lies the difference: in one case the government is robber direct, in the others it is the authorized legal agent for robbery. It is the only difference, but an important one in the minds of peoples who traditionally worship legality, that is, conformance to rules of the game as duly written down—written down by those who always win. And because of this difference, and in order to do away with it, there is clamor for interven- tion in China. I can understand why the governments of the United States, England, etc., should talk of intervention, for they have a con- viction of moral superiority to vindicate. I can understand why the classes for whom the governments of the United States, England, etc., act should talk of intervention, for they have a vested interest in the political and economic theory that the function of all governments is to act as their agents in robbery rather than as robbers direct. But I cannot under- stand why the people of the United States, England, etc., should talk of intervention, support it, or even be interested in it. And I know that the people of China will never give ear to it or submit to it. For at the worst they get off cheaper than the people of the United States, England, ete. Oceans of ink have been spilled and can be spilled on various phases of the problem of China, but this is the essence of the problem, at least of the problem of China’s relation to (call them) the civilized nations. Constantinople, June 18 NATHANIEL PEFFER Reading for Political Prisoners TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: May I suggest that if any Nation readers wish to fur- nish books useful to these men [political prisoners in San Quentin penitentiary], they communicate with me, and I will notify them as to what is needed. And, by the way, one of the men, P. Mellman, Box 37637, San Quentin, California, has asked to have The Nation sent him. This would mean its being passed around among many men. If some one wishes to bright- en the days of our comrades in prison in this way, and keep them thus in closest touch with the progress of the world, here is a chance. The warden does not share the mentality of the Los Angeles school board. He permits The Nation and similar magazines free access to the prisoners. Thus they have some advantage over the inmates of Los Angeles schools. San Francisco, June 29 W. T. BRowNn Imperishable Fielding To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sirk: Lovers of the English classics should be very grateful to Mr. Carl Van Doren for a recent article in your columns about Fielding. It is comforting to those who imagine fiction to be too perishable a picture of “the manners living as they rise” to behold this great writer’s novels still enthusiastically read after two hundred years. Happier still is it to recall what Gibbon said of “Tom Jones” in his “Autobiography”: “That exquisite picture of human manners will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria.” We have already lived to see one part of this prediction fulfilled. Seattle, June 20 FREDERICK BAUSMAN Arkansas’s Literary Reputation To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Fred W. Allsopp’s indignant objection to Edson’s assertion that those Arkansans who can read do not read is not well founded, judging from his own figures. Surely no one would maintain that even the most scrupulous study of the Literary Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, and the Ladies’ Home Journal constitutes reading. But I will agree with Mr. Allsopp that from the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotarian, and the Kiwanian viewpoint Arkansas is all right and going to be all righter. El Paso, Texas, June 12 EpwarpD D. TITTMANN

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90 | The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 Books A Man of Faith Men Like Gods. By H. G. Wells. The Macmillan Company. $2. fe the temperament of Mr. Wells the spirit of optimism is “ obviously even more fundamental and insistent than the spirit of inquiry, and he works because he hopes rather than hopes because he works. Busy as he is with controversy and the immediate problems of a tangled world he must refresh his spirit from time to time with a vision of existence made perfect beyond the need of controversy and, sweeping aside trouble- some questions of ways and means, remold in fancy a world nearer to the heart’s desire. Essentially he lives by faith, and, the very antithesis of a John Stuart Mill to whom a parlia- mentary report presented the flower of human ecstasy, he can never devote himself to the tangible without frequent rests for the contemplation of the impossible. Accordingly “Men Like Gods” is one of the periodical vacations which he permits him- self. In it he wears his prophetic robes, touched with motley, with his jauntiest air, and in the person of a middle-aged man weary of his job as sub-editor of a journal devoted to the more depressing aspects of modern liberalism he jokes his way into Utopia. For Wells as for his hero “hope is the essential solvent without which there is no digesting life,” and just because he takes up the story when everything in the modern world looks black and hope seems almost impossible he allows himself the tonic of hope without limit. This time the promised land lies in a universe parallel to ours in some unknown dimension. There, two supermen devoted to experimental Einstein rotate a fragment of our world into theirs, carrying with it a group of representative Earthlings. Then after one, at least, of the latter has seen and appreciated the difference between that world of knowledge, order, and intelli- gence as compared with our own world of ignorance, confusion, and prejudice the fragment is rotated back and we are bidden after this Pisgah sight to push on our way across the desert with faith in ourselves as our guide. If we have not before now come to the end of our journey, Wells implies, it is because we have never really tried. Through many weary centuries we unloaded responsibility for the direc- tion of our affairs upon God and when God had disappeared we shifted the burden to Nature. In the supposedly unreligious nineteenth century Divine Providence reappeared under the seductive guises of natural selection and economic law, encour- aging us in our unwillingness to look after our own affairs by assuring us that something—if not God then the Darwinian theory and the law of supply and demand—would surely work for the good of those willing to muddle through. But since Nature’s holy plan has left human affairs in the same unhappy confusion into which All-seeing Providence conducted them, only intelligence remains to be tried. Faith in God and faith in Nature are seductive excuses for irresponsibility, but faith in the human mind is a driving force. Mr. Wells is more interested, I think, in asserting his dogged confidence in Utopia as an attainable land and in indicating the general direction of the route than he is in describing minutely the institutions of the place. And in this, of course, he is wise, for perfection is notoriously difficult to imagine. Any street- corner fanatic can describe a hell which is at least hellish enough, but not even the imagination of a Dante can conceive a heaven in which one man out of ten would want to spend a time longer than that embraced by the usual summer vacation. Indeed, a pessimist might see in this impossiblity of imagining beatitude a sinister sign that man was made for trouble, with organs for the perception of pain but without correspondingly adequate organs for joy, and that happiness can never be ob- tained because it cannot even be conceived. But such gloomy imaginings are not for Wells. Here, he seems to say, is a world, not perfect perhaps, but at least as much freer and comelier than ours as ours is freer and comelier than that, let us say, of Car- thaginian despotism. And it is conceivable that men essentially no different from ourselves could realize it. Though the mind of the present reviewer is not of the sort naturally inclined to Utopian imaginings he is far from deny- ing either the interest or the value of Utopias, Mr. Wells him- self would never have been a sociologist if he had not been a dreamer first, and he may be justified in his assumption that only the faith and the will are lacking to transform this world into something which would seem by comparison at least a para- dise. It may be that if the general on the battlefield says ‘It’s human nature to kill and you can’t change human nature,” it is only because he does not want human nature changed; and that if the captain of industry says “You can’t have an incen- tive to accomplishment without cutthroat competition,” it is only because he does not want to stop cutting financial throats. And, finally, it may be also that by dreaming dreams enough man will at last become civilized and intelligent after he has come to realize how fair civilization and intelligence are. In all of Wells’s new book there is nothing which he himself has not said several times before, but withal there is his unquenchable enthu- siasm which keeps his work from being ever really stale. J. W. KRuTCH A Great Queen Catherine de Médicis. By Paul Van Dyke. Charles Scribner’s Sons. Two volumes. $9. T HIS is the first English biography of Catherine de Médicis based on original sources. Owing to the difficulty of docu- mentation, no doubt, historians long shunned the subject. To be sure, ten volumes of Catherine’s letters were available; and various aspects of her life had been treated. But there re- mained, imperfectly explored, the archives of England, France, Switzerland, and especially Italy. Thanks to Mr. Van Dyke’s researches in those countries, he has utilized some 3,000 new extracts from letters and documents. However, he has avoided technical details, since his book is intended for people without training in history as well as for specialists. But it would be impossible to understand the life of Catherine de Médicis without some knowledge of the national and inter- national events in which for thirty years she exerted a very potent influence. Although constantly preoccupied with do- mestic politics and the interests of her children, Catherine never lost contact with world events like the Renascence, the up- heaval in religion, and the struggle between France and the house of Austria. To such salient features of his subject Mr. Van Dyke has wisely devoted sufficient space to lend to the whole a substantial background. Descended from a family of wealthy Florentine merchants, Catherine was born to large expectations. But the wisest seer could not have foretold that she was destined to be regent of France, the mother of three kings, two queens, a duke, and a duchess. Left at birth without parents, the young heiress be- came a pawn on the political chessboard. At the age of four- teen she was married to Henry, the second son of Francis I. But the upper French nobility regarded -her with contempt. Indeed, for a decade Catherine feared repudiation for her fail- ure to bear Henry an heir. Nor did the ten children that she brought her husband in the next thirteen years suffice to win him away from his favorite mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Mr. Van Dyke has vividly depicted Catherine’s existence as a submissive wife and devoted mother during Henry’s reign: her love of display and sports, her stifled jealousy, the tact with which she discouraged licentiousness, conciliated political fac- tions, overcame the King’s dislike of Italians, and flattered both Catholics and Protestants. During Henry’s campaign on the Rhine, the Queen as regent was surprisingly successful. This first taste of authority, so stimulating to her ambition, foreshadowed her career after 1559. Yet much as Catherine

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July 25, 1923] The Nation | 91 coveted political power, she certainly did not welcome it at the cost of Henry’s life. Of all her sorrows—she lost nine of her ten children—the most grievous was the death of her husband. As the author makes clear in his illuminating account of the Renascence and the Reformation, conditions in France after 1559 would have defied the efforts of the most sagacious queen regent of history. Henry II had left the country almost bankrupt, seething with factional quarrels, and hopelessly di- vided over religion. How then could his weak, neurotic sons command obedience? The wonder is that their mother suc- ceeded as well as she did. True, she was a better matchmaker than statesman: she placed marriage of her children above the national weal. But in spite of such shortcomings, her mar- velous tenacity and power of persuasion often accomplished the seemingly impossible. Like Elizabeth of England, she was astute, resourceful, and unscrupulous. Like Elizabeth, too, she knew when to threaten and when to cajole. Some historians have sneered at what M. Mariéjol terms Catherine’s “politique de bascule, de compromis et de concessions,” with which she played one faction against another; but none of these critics has suggested a better policy. We seriously doubt whether even a Richelieu could have controlled the situation that con- fronted Henry’s widow. Thus extenuating circumstances make the St. Bartholomew massacre seem less odious. While all historians charge that appalling crime chiefly to Charles IX’s mother, they are com- ing to realize that she at first intended the assassination of only Coligny. Had this been accomplished as planned, there would probably have resulted no general slaughter. Mr. Van Dyke believes that up to 1572 Catherine had not had the re- motest connection with the death of any person. Similarly he dismisses as absurd the perversity and fantastic crimes after- wards attributed to this queen. Obviously Catherine de Médicis should be judged by the standards of her age—ethics which virtually sanctioned poli- tical murder. Says Mr. Van Dyke: “At the time of the St. Bartholomew massacre, the laws of all European countries, Protestant and Catholic alike, punished heresy with death.” Nor does he hold the French Protestants guiltless. ‘No one who knows the sixteenth century,” he affirms, “can suppose for a moment that what the Huguenot churches really wanted was simply liberty of worship. They looked forward ultimately to substituting their religion for Roman Catholicism and to a suppression of orthodoxy such as had taken place in Eng- land.” On the contrary, Catherine, very far from religious fanaticism, was anxious to have established in the church modifications that would effect a reunion of Christendom. While Mr. Van Dyke naturally produces some very damaging evidence against “the indomitable old woman,” he whole- heartedly admires her encouragement of the arts, her amazing energy and unfailing optimism. But instead of pronouncing a judgment, he has sought to draw a portrait—a purpose fully achieved. Happily, too, this masterly central portrait is enhanced by the excellence of those grouped around it: such personages as the Queen’s children, the Guises, Coligny, Henry of Navarre, L’H6pital, and the Constable. A less commendable feature of the two opulent volumes is the burdensome length of their letters and documents, parts of which should have been given largely in substance. Fur- ther, a lack of dates adds to the reader’s mental strain, fre- quently increased by an absence of punctuation. Here and there astonishingly careless English has crept in, for example: “few personages so many of whose words have survived as Catherine de Médicis” (I, V); “a letter to the Grand Master whose spelling (the spelling of which) is illiterate” (I, 31); “a sign whose meaning none but they knew” (II, 258); “tell me who I can trust?” (II, 282). Notwithstanding such minor details, Mr. Van Dyke’s “Catherine de Médicis” is a monumen- tal biography, equal in every way to M. Mariéjol’s admirable French monograph on the same subject. WILLIAM H. SCHEIFLEY Essays and Reminiscence The Nineteen Hundreds. Seltzer. $2.50. Earlham. By Percy Lubbock. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3. Books and Authors. By Robert Lynd. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2.50. 17 is not a novel experience to meet nobodies, shoals of them, in the current volumes of reminiscence. But it is distinctly exhilarating to find them sailing candidiy and ingenuously un- der their own true colors. “I prefer the nobodies,” says Mr. Wyndham. So he builds his book from a memory richly stored with anecdotes of the nonentities of London’s literary, artistic, and journalistic life, and the dimly recollected somebodies who always manage to cling to the outer fringe of the current fash- ions in thought and manners. While his major interest did lie in Grub Street and among the little clubs of London’s Bohemia, Mr. Wyndham caught a goodly number of celebrities, so that his memoirs are pleasantly studded with the names of such lions of the British fine arts as Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, Frank Harris, J. M. Barrie, W. S. Gilbert, Mrs. Langtry, and Arnold Bennett. “The Nineteen Hundreds” is an excellent book for readers who are not seeking information on literature, politics, journal- ism, art, or society. It is admirably designed for the uses of tired clubmen with some notion of the historical character of British urban life. Its place is the club lounge; its time, fifteen minutes before dinner and a half hour afterwards. Mr. Wynd- ham writes with as much vivacity and as jaunty a wit as any of the recent collectors of memorabilia, and somewhat more of discretion in reciting droll tales concerning the living and re- cently dead. Marius the Epicurean was a prig. The circumstance makes it something of a gratuitous thrust to compare Marius and Mr. Percy Lubbock. Yet “Earlham,” Mr. Lubbock’s volume of childhood reminiscences, shows him clearly to have inherited in great part the golden mood of retrospect which gave Marius to the world. Substitute the lights and shadows of Mr. Lubbock’s childhood home for White-nights, the garden at Earlham and the river Yare for the decaying landscape of the: Roman cam- pagna, omit the languorous, self-conscious imagination of Marius, add more than a touch of sly humor and healthy ob- jectivity—and you have the genealogy of “Earlham,” a volume which embodies, whether consciously or no, the more respectable line of descent from Walter Pater’s epicureanism. Robert Lynd, literary critic of the London Daily News, has assembled in “Books and Authors” some thirty-three of his flying pieces, classified as “More or Less Ancient” and “More or Less Modern.” In each little essay Mr. Lynd gives touch-and- go consideration to such literary figures of the past and present as Hugo, Herrick, Moliére, Burke, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Poe, Hawthorne, Beerbohm, Conrad, Wells, Vachel Lindsay, and T. S. Eliot. Mr. Lynd is master of the well-made sentence, of startling paradox, of neat phrases which give the picturesque fillip so much sought after in compact, familiar little journalistic essays. Mr. Lynd minds his own critical opinions, too. -He echoes with somewhat diminished effectiveness the dicta of Sainte-Beuve and Matthew Arnold that the critic “must portray in an author, not only an author, but a man.” So he develops the familiar touch. “Charles Lamb was a small, flat-footed man whose eyes were of different colours and who stammered.” “Herrick was a gross and good-natured clergyman who had a double chin.” “Byron was a guttersnipe in scarlet and ermine.” “Mr. Bennett is at once a connoisseur and a card.” Mr. Lynd’s draught as a critic of literature is not great. He trims his sails shrewdly, and lays his course in the safe channels clearly marked by well-established, enlightened contemporary taste. And he has a special merit in his faculty for concreteness and personality of style. GERALD HEWES CARSON By Horace Wyndham. Thomas

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92 | | The Nation Follies of Imperial Germany Lebenserinnerungen und Politische Denkwiirdigkeiten. Von Baron von Eckardstein. Drei Bande. Leipzig: Paul List. 1919-1921. Zur Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges. Berlin: Reimar Hobbing. 1919. Der Missverstandene Bismarck. Zwanzig Jahre Deutscher Weltpolitik. Von Otto Hammann. Berlin: Reimar Hobbing. 1921. Bilder aus der letzten Kaiserzeit. lin: Reimar Hobbing. 1922. Die Aera Biilow. Von Johannes Haller. J. G. Cotta’sche Buchh. Nachf. 1922. Hi Mes English historian G. P. Gooch wrote in the Manchester Guardian of February 27, 1922, in an article on Lord Grey’s Foreign Policy: “No one can have a lower opinion of German statesmanship since Bismarck than myself; but the dominant impression which a close study leaves on my mind is its incredible folly rather than its wickedness.” The books under review prove the correctness of this statement. Four men, the Kaiser, Prince Bilow, von Holstein, and Admiral Tirpitz, are chiefly responsible for the fateful trend of Ger- many’s policy since Bismarck was dismissed in March, 1890. The Emperor was barely conscious of the role he played; he was one of those who mean well but unwittingly do mischief. Tirpitz and Biilow had a strong hold on him; Tirpitz because of his determined personality, and Biilow because he knew how to keep the Emperor in good humor. William’s bravado, his saber-rattling, his trumpeting words were much more the ema- nation of a desire for theatrical show than of a lust for war. In the years between 1898 and 1901 the fate of Germany was decided, for during that period England made three proposals for an alliance. The details were revealed at the close of the Great War, to the utter surprise of the Germans, by Baron von Eckardstein, formerly Botschaftsrat at the German embassy in London, who personally carried on most of the negotiations, and by Otto Hammann, who was at the head of the press de- partment of the German Foreign Office from 1894 until after the outbreak of the war. These negotiations came to naught through the crankiness of Holstein, who virtually directed the foreign policy of Germany. Bismarck had already warned the Emperor that Holstein should be allowed to work only under supervision, and is said to have nicknamed him “the man with the hyena-eyes”; and Bismarck’s son Herbert advised Biilow to drag the “‘snake” into the light of day or dismiss him. Instead Holstein intrigued so cleverly that he got a strong hold on Biilow, so that Professor Haller rightly speaks of a “Holstein era’ lasting from 1897 to 1906, when Holstein was finally dismissed. The diplomatic documents published by the German Foreign Office have proved that Bismarck after 1870 did his utmost to keep the peace of Europe and fervently desired to have Eng- land join the Triple Alliance. The British statesmen looked favorably upon the Chancellor’s advances, but for parliamentary reasons were satisfied to continue in mere friendly relations. Toward the end of the century, however, they began to be uncomfortable in their “splendid isolation.” Joseph Chamber- lain was then the guiding spirit in the Salisbury Cabinet. After the Jameson Raid in 1896 came, in 1898, the violent quarrel with France about Fashoda, and this was followed in October, 1899, by the outbreak of the Boer War. At the same time Britain was on poor terms with Russia, which was threatening the trade interests of England in North China. The British Government felt the necessity of having a real ally on the Uon- tinent and turned, in the spring of 1898, to Germany. During the early stages of the Boer War, when England was suffering reverses, Russia and France cautiously approached Germany, suggesting a continental coalition against England. The Emperor declined and hastened to inform his grand- Von Otto Hammann. Von Otto Hammann. Ber- Stuttgart-Berlin: _[Vol. 117, No. 3029 * mother, Queen Victoria, and the Prince of Wales, of this pro- posal, which Russia vainly renewed in October, 1901. England twice repeated the offer to Gsrmany of a definite alliance, the last time early in 1901 after the accession of Edward VII to the throne. An alliance with England obviously meant for Germany increased tension with France (especially as England proposed to divide Morocco with Germany) and impaired rela- tions with Russia. Holstein himself desired the alliance, but he apprehended a speedy war with Russia which would be for the benefit of England, and he was not willing to pull England’s chestnuts out of the fire. Lord Salisbury finally went so far as to propose a defensive alliance which should become opera- tive only if one of the parties concerned was attacked by two Powers. But Holstein demanded that Austria-Hungary should be included in the compact; and the British ministers refused to compromise themselves in an alliance with a country which showed such signs of disintegration as the Dual Monarchy. The negotiations dragged on for more than three years. In the end the English statesmen made it clear that if they did not come to an understanding with Germany they would settle their differences with France and Russia, even at a big sacrifice in Morocco, Persia, ete., warnings which Holstein believed to be mere bluff: it was his deep-rooted conviction that England and Russia could never be friends. The consequence was the Entente Cordiale of April 8, 1904, and the entente with Russia of August 31, 1907. Holstein’s mentality and Biilow’s carelessness were respon- sible for the fatal mistake. Biilow left Holstein in power. During the first Morocco crisis in 1905-1906, Holstein secretly worked for a rupture with France. He kept the Chancellor in the dark. In France Delcassé also was working for war, and therefore was dismissed in June, 1905. When Biilow realized whither Holstein’s policy might lead, he finally took up the reins himself, and peace was insured. Holstein asked for his dismissal, an oft-repeated request, which this time was promptly accepted—to his great surprise. Meanwhile Admiral von Tirpitz, Secretary of the Navy since 1897, had come to the foreground. It was his idea to build such a fleet that England would consider it too risky to attack it. With the navy law of 1900 Germany departed from Bismarckian policy; Tirpitz’s program meant the deathly enmity of Great Britain. The Emperor was only too easily carried along. When Bethmann-Hollweg became Chancellor in 1909 he worked for a better understanding with England, and Tirpitz was his chief stumbling-block. The former British Minister of War, Lord Haldane, who knew Tirpitz fairly well, wrote in 1920: “I do not think that Admiral Tirpitz wanted actual war.” But by 1912 things had developed so far that there were other stum- bling-blocks. The Russian ambassador in Paris, Isvolski, for instance, wrote to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sazonov, that “in consequence of the celebrated visit of Lord Haldane to Berlin [in February, 1912] Germany had made an absolutely concrete proposition to England to enter into a written agree- ment according to which the British Cabinet was to preserve its neutrality in case Germany found itself involved in a war which it had not provoked itself. 'The London Cabinet in- formed M. Poincaré and hesitated apparently to accept or re- fuse this proposition. M. Poincaré pronounced himself in the most categorical way against any engagement of such a kind.” He threatened a complete rupture, and, Isvolski continued, “the objection put forth had the expected result and the London Cabinet declined the German proposition, which provoked great discontent in Berlin.” Johannes Haller, professor of history at the University of Tiibingen, writes about Germany’s lost opportunities with a bitter heart. His book is a severe and scathing indictment of the follies from the end of the nineteenth century to the year 1909. Otto Hammann takes a more detached view. He is one of the very few initiated persons who was in almost daily con- tact with the chief actors, ‘The Misunderstood Bismarck” covers the period from 1890 to the Bosnian crisis of 1908. In

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July 25, 1923] The Nation 93 his newest book, “Bilder aus der letzten Kaiserzeit,” he de- scribes the personalities and ideas of such men as Holstein, Biilow, Tirpitz, Bethmann-Hollweg, and the Emperor, reveal- ing some of their unpublished letters and documents. The reader will come to the conclusion that Holstein was one of the most sinister figures in the history of imperial Germany. One of the nicknames that most stuck to him was the “Gray Eminence.” His influence has proved to be more than gray. But as far as the war guilt is concerned the serious student will share the view expressed under the title They All Lied in The Nation of October 11, 1922: “Divided responsibility indeed, both in the years and in the days preceding the war.” HERMANN LUTZ A Textbook on Literature A History of French Literature. From the Earliest Times to the Great War. By William A. Nitze and E. Preston Dargan. Henry Holt and Company. $5. I T is probably because the critics who recognize the beauty and significance of contemporary letters are engaged in estab- lishing the value of this epoch’s creative effort that the writing of histories of literature is left to those who believe the pro- duction of worthwhile literary work ceased about thirty years ago. This unfortunate circumstance has been as characteristic of every age and tongue as it is of our own, and it is most especially true of French literature. Despite a growing revolt on the part of her liberal scholars, France teaches her youth, through textbook and general survey, all the prejudices of Brunetiére and Bourget, incorporated into their petites histoires by such petty pedagogues as Abry, Audic, and Crouzet. Hence one can appreciate the thrill of discovery that was mine when I saw in the table of contents that one-tenth of this large, solid volume was concerned with the writings of our own times. It was even more thrilling to think that American stu- dents had done for French literature what the French want and need but have not yet been able to accomplish. These sup- positions only increased the disappointment which followed further research. Valuable though their work is as a limited “Who’s Who” of modern French writers; dignified and intelligent though it is in comparison with the inanities of French pedagogues, Profes- sors Nitze and Dargan have done nothing more in the chapters dealing with the literature of the past thirty or forty years than to transcribe the antagonisms of Brunetiére toward the work of his contemporaries and to project that critic’s narrow vision upon the literary achievements of the decade between his death and the war. Lacking his passionate opinions, the authors are unconvincing in their decisions, and in view of recent developments, they appear unsound in their judgments. It is unsound, for example, to ignore the influence, the power, and the intrinsic worth of Remy de Gourmont and to dismiss him in these lines: “Gourmont is also a sort of Intuitionist with regard to aesthetic theories. Following Bergson in the ‘dissociation des idées,’ he is led by this analysis into a cor- rosive and pernicious immoralism, especially in poetry and fiction. His criticism is likewise based on a sensual principle, but shows genuine gifts of divination and taste.” In fact, the professors are particularly unfortunate in their summaries and generalizations. They revel in labels, and in their efforts at condensation make these labels meaningless or ridiculous. “Zola lived largely as a recluse, and he was not an artist; his fiction suffers from these handicaps.” This of the man who wrote “Art is life seen through a temperament”! And again: “In the meantime, the brothers had founded naturalism, of the low life kind, in ‘Germinie Lacerteux.’ . . . The Goncourt brothers were a complicated pair, and accordingly their work is composed of strangely mixed materials.” That the authors have not availed themselves of the oppor- tunity to make a vital contribution to the study of French lit- erature is obvious. Their treatment of the moderns is wholly inadequate, but the earlier periods receive more extensive and eareful consideration. Here, too, though now on familiar ground, they are interested in rating rather than in evaluating the subjects, and they are exceedingly liberal in this rating. So far as I can judge, they have borrowed the superlatives from the partisans of each writer to impress upon the student that whatever was is good. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Presbyterian Demons Demonism Verified and Analyzed. By Rev. Hugh W. White. The Presbyterian Committee of Publication. Priceless. ISGUIDED modernists struggle along under the mistaken 4 impression that demons (except for such imps as the be- loved demon rum, the comforting demon nicotine, and the flapper demon soda-pop), after flourishing from Jerusalem to Salem, Massachusetts, were formally discovered to be nothing but a mob neurosis, or an individual case of poorly digested gefiillte fisch or mince pie. Nothing is closer to the false. Demons are in again, take it, as we do, from the Presbyterian Committee of Publications. The Rev. Mr. White refers casually to well- authenticated (we have his word for it) cases of demonism today in China, New Zealand, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, India, Africa, Germany, the Moslem lands, Mexico, and even New England. We have often wondered as to the motivating agency behind the Ku Klux Klan, normalcy, the popularity of Dr. Frank Crane, and the letters of statesman Hylan to statesman Hearst. Let us look further into this matter. The Rev. Mr. White reports 368 cases of demons, of which 304 Chinese ones came under his own observation. Case No. 58, a Mrs. Ts’wei, had at first 125 demons, of which 120 had left her before he saw her. She was cured, in part, by the use of the name “Jesus,” which is apparently respected by the most hardened devil. “Superstition,” defines Mr. White, “is the erroneous attributing of phenomena in nature to direct arbi- trary volition by spirits, to the denial or exclusion of scientific principles.” In his victory over superstition, based upon scien- tific principles, he comes to the conclusion: “That there is a Satan and that Satan is responsible for demonism is put be- yond question by the fact that the lines of demarcation between the countries which have not demonism and those which have it coincide with the limits of Christian influence.” His religious geography may be excused as partly superstitious, since Ger- many, Mexico, and New England are three countries which have demons, and therefore, by his implication, are non-Chris- tian. He implies further, of course, that Satan is not in Chris- tian countries. And Satan inspires all sin and wickedness: for instance, “for the cause of lust and cruelty . . . no adequate interpretation has been found except on the hypothesis of a Satan with power to suggest.” And Satan is not in this Chris- tian land: neither in Yonkers nor Hoboken, not where Hohokus purls nor where Secaucus towers, not among the dives of Coney Island nor the vinous reaches of Milwaukee, Kokomo, and Keokuk, is there the faintest print of the cloven heel and the cloven soul, of the forked tail and the brimstone breath. There is—there can be—no crime wave. Let the burglars, lynchers, hold-up men, kidnappers, firebugs, motor murderers, bootleggers, and all the moral rest of our citizens repeat with Suey, the lead- ing Chinese psychic healer, “Day by day, in every way, we’re getting moraler and moraler.” These demons—and Healer Hickson, says the Rev. Mr. White, wrote him that he cured 200 cases at one meeting in India— are possessed chiefly by the fox and weasel spirits and speak English fluently with the tongues of illiterate Chinese who know no English. A headache, says Mr. White, may often be recognized as incipient demonism; there can be no headache in Christian countries—it is an error of mortal mind. A later work by the same author may establish the actual existence of men who are devils in their own home towns, and even of cigarette

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94 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8029 eS fiends, bridge fiends, and golf fiends. Thus modern science tramples superstition into the soil. Have you a little demon in your home? CLEMENT WoOoD The Tramping Methodist The Tramping Methodist. By Sheila Kaye-Smith. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2. VERYONE who has read “Joanna Godden” and “Green Apple Harvest” will wish to read the reprint of Miss Kaye- Smith’s first book, “The Tramping Methodist,” in eager search for personalities as intense and troublesome and appealing as either Joanna or Bob Fuller of the later novels. These two book people are so living that they penetrate one’s subconscious knowledge of men and women and are added, like real people, to one’s accumulated understanding of human _ conduct. Humphrey Lyte, the tramping methodist, is a less complicated person than the wrong-headed and magnificent Joanna or than that other wayward preacher, Bob Fuller of ‘‘Green Apple Har- vest.” His loves and his spiritual enthusiasms take him less hard, yet he is none the less real. “The Tramping Methodist” is an extraordinary book for a girl hardly out of her teens to have written. Unified and swift, and because less subtle, perhaps more of a piece than the later novels, it is preeminently “a good story,” reminiscent a trifle of “David Balfour” in the drama and romance of its narrative —a Stevensonian likeness which disappears in the later work. If one also compares Miss Kaye-Smith to Hardy in her repro- duction of the soil and contour, of the quality and essence of her Sussex, it does not mean that she is an imitative writer. Indeed, to me she is one of the two or three women now writ- ing really original fiction. For she does not merely expound an environment or a point of view—an accomplishment which we are apt to acclaim as art in America today—what she does is to get inside the souls of her characters to extract the fer- ment which is a novel. Therefore she does more than to give us a picture of nineteenth century evangelical England against the detailed background of a Sussex farming community, she shows us within the limits of environment and point of view, the working of that uncomfortable spiritual yeast which is in all men, though lacking in most of the Babbitts and moon- calves of the modern novel. KATHARINE SERGEANT ANGELL Reality and Imperfection City Block. By Waldo Frank. Published by Waldo Frank. $7. MONG recent books “City Block” stands out as unusual both in conception and execution. There is not, in the whole collection, anything that suggests the work of other con- temporary writers; unless, perhaps, the treatment of some scenes faintly recalls Evelyn Scott. Few of the stories have any plot. The theme of each is a mental or spiritual tragedy revealed by the characters’ minds, as wheels revolving in a machine exhibit its motive and purpose. When the workings of these minds are not too vaguely expressed, the author’s thorough acquaintance with the cloud of miseries that envelops the city, his insight, and his power of description make him peculiarly. successful. In Murder, Under the Dome, and The Table, the consistently de- structive power over the life of the man or woman moves sullenly to its inevitable end. Mr. Frank has taken for the keynote of his book this sentence from Spinoza: “By reality and perfection I understand the same thing.” But he seems unaware that he can weaken or destroy this impression of reality by irrelevant excursions into symbolism and sentimentality. Side by side with the burning presentation of minds like Meyer Lanich’s and Lotte Rabinowich’s, which are crucified in the intensity of their misery, is placed the wandering, second- rate sketch of John the Baptist. Side by side with the ruthless picture in Murder are the unconvincing and hysterical reactions of Clarence Lipper, Patrick Broaddus, Paula Dessyn, Luis Ajala Bennis. Genuine emotion like fire warms with its own heat; the gas log of sentimentality is a cold, blue flicker in comparison. © Six of the fourteen stories are decidedly superior. They are Murder, Under the Dome (two stories), The Table, Candles, and Charity. Their action moves slowly but they reveal in cruel light every corner of that cabinet of curiosities, the human heart. The manuscripts of Under the Dome would be a distinc- tive beginning for another collection. They are singularly rep- resentative and moving, in both subject and treatment. The Altar of the World’ is strong and interesting but there is too much of it. Throughout the book the writing is, for the most part, pow- erful and original. There are unusual figures and much vitality in the descriptions. If sympathy for your characters, suffering with them, is an important element in fiction, the author has stood the test in a notable half dozen instances. Sophie, Lanich, Lotte, Godfrey and Dora, Rudd we cannot forget. Their tragedies are before us as charred scaffoldings of houses, burned before their building was completed. The book is an achieve- ment. It is not homogeneous, it is singularly uneven. But it is the best work Mr. Frank has yet done. LAURA BENET Criminological Wisdom and Unwisdom The Psychology of the Criminal. By M. Hamblin Smith, M.A., M.D. Robert M. McBride and Company. $2. Crime. Its Cause and Treatment. By Clarence Darrow. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $2.50. In the Clutch of Circumstance. My Own Story by a Burglar. D. Appleton and Company. $2. R. M. HAMBLIN SMITH, who is medical officer of H. M. Prison at Birmingham, England, and a lecturer on crimi- nology, has as his thesis that conduct being the result of mental life, the intensive investigation of the cases of individual crimi- nals “is the road to the solution of the problems of criminality.” Maybe so. But psychoanalysis aided by some scheme of mental tests will not do the whole bag of tricks. The “problems of criminality” are not all or solely individual problems. Some are social and require for their solution fundamental social adjustments. If Dr. Smith cannot vaunt any startling contribution to the rather meager science of criminology, he has at least put be- hind him the conventional views. Those who still applaud the imprisonment of men and women for political or economic opinion will probably write him down as a dangerous radical after reading this sentence:’ “Eternal principles of right and justice may exist, but our limited intelligences are unable to discover what these principles are.” Such folk and all others whose god of salvation is brute force, indeed every one, can read his book with great profit. Mr. Darrow’s treatise is frankly popular, which serves to ex- plain why it has reached a third printing. It comes from the reflections and experiences of more than a generation spent in the courts. He writes in lawyer-like fashion, rather prolixly, but as one of refreshingly liberal views even if he does obtrude his own opinions as pretty final. To say that he has tried to present the most recent scientific thought and investigation in the domain of human conduct would be far fetched. He brushes that field very hastily and gives one the impression of making light of the only real advance made in modern criminology. Mr. Darrow probably would be the last man to contend that he has made a scientific contribution to our knowledge of the origin of crime; and in respect to its treatment he naturally has not discovered a specific. Even so he will probably be accused by the befogged multitude of a dangerously lenient attitude toward the criminal. He is intensely human and does not forget that the wrongdoer is like unto ourselves. The book is refreshing in contrast to the usual professional preach- ment.

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July 25, 1923] The Nation oi 95 Mark Twain’s burglar has written the story of his life, and it is like many of its kind in that it points the everlasting moral of the reformed criminal. Not that one should for a moment disparage his sincerity or make jest of his present- ments; but its fame will rest largely on the fact that his last burglarious exploit was an attempt to rifle the house of the great humorist. It is good reading. JOHN KOREN Books in Brief Poems from “Life.” With Introductory Words by Oliver Her- ford. The Macmillan Company. $2.50. A companion volume to Poems from “Punch” (1922), and for American purposes better. For this meridian no richer col- lection of humorous verse has appeared in years. The introduc- tion not only is funny, but deserves to be crowned for its remark that Meredith’s Essay on the Comic is “stuffed with straw.” It is. Reconstruction in France. By William MacDonald. The Mac- millan Company. $2.50. This book is an attempt at a “comprehensive survey of the unparalleled work which France has done in the restoration of its invaded departments.” The author has spared himself no pains in assembling a mass of documentary material, his- torical, statistical, legislative, administrative, and what not, the very profusion of which almost blurs the picture and benumbs by its weight. The deeper meaning of devastation by war does not seem to occupy him greatly. Modern History. By Carleton J. H. Hayes and Parker Thomas Moon. The Macmillan Company. $2.40. Unlike the history books which fell to the lot of the reviewer when a student, this book possesses a continuity which the writers’ topical (instead of chronological) treatment in no wise weakens. Messrs. Hayes and Moon courageously flout the notion that so-called epochs form arbitrary divisions to that continuous flow of human activity we know as history and give a deservedly lesser place to those heretofore overrated departments of history, royal biography, and genealogy. There is no attempt here to befuddle our memories with an accumulation of dates and names to the utter destruction of historical perspective. The authors have hewed closely to the line of the precept enunciated in their preface: “It is less important that the secondary school student should nod at a large number of persons and things than that he should know thoroughly the really significant facts and peo- ple.” This volume contains adequate illustrations, plentiful references, a chronology which takes its place as an appendix and, what will most delight the adventuresome schoolboy heart, references to historical fiction, Henty not excluded. Development of Social Theory. By James P. Lichtenberger. The Century Company. $4. This work is the result of Professor Lichtenberger’s courses in the history of social theory at the University of Pennsyl- vania. Each theory discussed is first given a background in a sketch of the social and political conditions existing during the time and at the place of its formulation; there is then presented a sketch of the personality of the man who is associated with it, and then the theory itself. Beginning with Plato, the author treats of Aristotle, the later Greeks and early Roman writers, the early Christians, Machiavelli, the writers of the Reformation and of the French Revolution, before he attempts to deal with the theories of men who are generally classed as sociologists. He discusses Comte, the evolutionary school, Spencer, Lester Ward, Tarde, Gumplowicz, and Ratzenhoffer; such men as Giddings, Cooley, and the German social philoso- phers seem neglected, although they are touched on in con- nection with the others. The work should be splendid as a textbook for such courses as Professor Lichtenberger’s. Drama Dunsany Plays of Gods and Men. By Lord Dunsany. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $1.75. Plays of Near and Far. By Lord Dunsany. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $1.75. I T was in 1915 that Stuart Walker’s Portmanteau Theater gave the first performances of plays by Lord Dunsany in New York. One remembers especially “The Gods of the Mountains” and “The Sword of King Argimenes.” One remembers, across all the intervening years and their many brilliant and interest- ing theatrical events, the sharp, massive, magical colors and architectural contours of those productions, the strange beauty of spears and helmets and thrones and pillars and breast-plates and greaves, the sensitiveness and power with which Mr. Walker grasped and embodied the imaginings of the only genuinely mythopoeic writer of this generation. That is the brief but necessary definition of Lord Dunsany’s talent. To him myth is not instrument but substance. His plays, in his own words, are not allegories... Neither are they symbols except in so far as all that is human is symbolic. His place, therefore, is apart from the practitioners of the neo- romantic drama—Yeats and Hofmannsthal and even Shaw and Hauptmann in their latest phases. He has no theories, not even favorite truths. He tells himself somber fairy tales. We over- hear them. He is not naive; he has no affiliation with his folk. His art is not an art of union; it is an art of flight. He escapes from his country, people, world as too troubling, subtle, intricate, and dreams of desert kingdoms that were old when Helen was not yet grown to womanhood. The prevailing tone of these mythopoeic dramas is dark. Men and things dash themselves against a granite fate. But this is merely a matter of tone, of mood; it is an artistic and not a philosophical method and is to be ranked and appreciated with the velvety cruelty of the dialogue, with the invention of that marvelous nomenclature which has the timbre of muffled kettle- drums heard across vast spaces. Other moods come to Dun- sany rarely and as though by chance. There is the eternal yearning for freedom in that lovely play “The Tents of the Arabs”; there is the withering estimate of cheap astuteness, of the wisdom of this world, in “A Night at an Inn.” But in “The Laughter of the Gods” and in “The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isles” he returns to that overwhelming sense of the inscrutable and relentless character of human fate which he has found so fruitful an artistic mood. It is a curious fact but none the less a fact that these plays are not felt to be monotonous despite the monotone of their domi- nant key. Dunsany is a highly concrete writer. He is a born story-teller. He is so good a story-teller that he does not need intrigue which is but the refuge of the barren. You are breath- less over his tales as mere tales. Which cup will the King of the Golden Isles drink? Consider that one of them contains a poison that “is no common poison, but a thing so strange and deadly that the serpents of Lebutharna go in fear of it.” Which? That is what I call a thrilling question—thrilling, beautiful, and remote. Remote, thank heaven! Which shows that Dunsany’s art of escape triumphs. I can see the gorges of Lebutharna; I can see its wise and wary serpents. Their fangs are as terrible as ever because they never were. To shudder at them—there is an aesthetic experience that is as purely delight- ful as the reading of childhood. The playlets of contemporary life, “Cheezo,” “If Shakespeare Lived Today,” and “Fame and the Poet,” are keenly thought out and executed with an almost Shavian pointedness and speed. But other men could have written them. There is only one guide to Barbul-el-Sharnak, only one to the city of Thalanna that is at the edge of the great desert, only one to the golden islands of King Hamaran. LUDWIG LEWISOHN

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International Relations Section Poland: A Danger Spot By ROBERT DELL Berlin, June 6 HE change of Ministry in Poland is an ominous symp- tom. The late Government was on the whole the best that Poland has yet had. I met the late Prime Minister, General Sikorski, during a recent visit to Warsaw. He struck me as being a reasonable man with some sense of realities—a quality rare in Poland—and, although a gen- eral, he is not a militarist. He showed an independence hitherto unusual in Polish politicians in his refusal to comply with the French demand that Poland should take military action against Germany in support of the inva- sion of the Ruhr. It is possible that French intrigue has contributed to his fall, but the chief cause of his defeat in the Diet by a reactionary coalition was that, nationalist as he is, his nationalism is not sufficiently fervid and intoler- ant to satisfy the anti-Semitic fanatics. General Sikorski’s successor, M. Witos, is the leader of the right wing of the Peasant Party. During his previous term of office—he was Prime Minister from July, 1920, to September, 1921—his policy in home affairs was more or less progressive and his foreign policy was moderate and prudent, but he has now become the nominal leader and actual tool of a coalition in which the extreme right pre- dominates. To get the support of the National Democrats (the party of the extreme right) M. Witos has thrown over his program of drastic agrarian reform and consented to accept as Minister of Foreign Affairs M. Seyda, whose brother held the same office a couple of years ago and who is a creature of M. Dmowski, perhaps the most dangerous reactionary in Poland. M. Dmowski, who will be the real head of the new Government although he is not a member of it, was an agent of the Czarist government in Poland before the war. He is still pro-Russian, but bitterly anti-Bolshe- vik, is in close touch with all the Russian émigrés and re- actionaries, and is a favorite of the Quai d’Orsay. It is not surprising that the practical advent of M. Dmowski to power has caused alarm in Europe. Marshal Foch’s recent tour in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia has been interpreted by many people in England as a sign that France is organizing a new war on Russia and the change of government in Poland is taken by the same people to mean that this war is imminent. I believe this to be a mistake. The French Government does not now want a war against Russia. On the contrary its policy is rather to turn the Anglo-Russian quarrel to the advantage of France and, if possible, come to terms with the Russian Government. I am convinced that Czecho-Slovakia would not join in any war against Russia. The Czechs profoundly distrust the Poles and are alarmed at the effects on Ger- many of French policy, for they know that the ruin of Ger- many would be disastrous to Czecho-Slovakia, which is-al- ready suffering severely from the loss of the German mar- ket. My impression during my recent visit to Poland was that no party even there wants war. In the present state of Poland a war, even if victorious, would probably be national suicide. The real danger, in my judgment, is not war between Poland and Russia but a Polish coup against Danzig. That would be quite easy—for the Free City of Danzig is un- armed—and it would be very popular in Poland. More- over, it is probable that France is encouraging Poland to repeat against Danzig the tactics that were so successful in the case of Vilna. An attack on Danzig would be an open defiance of the League of Nations, but the Poles suc- cessfully defied the League in the case of Vilna and re- ceived the august sanction of the Council of Ambassadors. They know that unanimity could not be obtained on the Council of the League for any action against them. The constant friction between Poland and the Free City of Danzig, which is at present more acute than usual, is the inevitable consequence of the most absurd territorial arrangement in history. I spent a few days at Danzig on my way to Poland, and came away more than ever convinced that the present system can never work. That indeed is the only point on which the Poles and the inhabitants of Danzig are agreed. For example, the harbor is under the control of a board composed of an equal number of Poles and representatives of Danzig with a Swiss chairman ap- pointed by the League of Nations. The representatives of Poland and Danzig on the board never agree on anything and the unfortunate chairman has to decide between them as best he can. His decisions are invariably disapproved by one side or the other—sometimes by both. Moreover, since the harbor belongs neither to Poland nor to Danzig, neither will find the money required for necessary improve- ments. The High Commissioner is in the same position as the chairman of the harbor board. He has to decide be- tween the Poles and the city of Danzig on every question that arises, and one side or the other invariably appeals to the League of Nations against his decision. In fact, the system has reached a deadlock and a change is urgently necessary. The Polish solution is the annexation of Dan- zig and the whole of Eastern Prussia, but that would only make matters worse. The only real solution is to restore Danzig and the Polish “corridor” to Germany, to interna- tionalize the Vistula and make it navigable for big ships, and to give Poland a port at its mouth. That was the solu- tion proposed by Germany to Poland immediately after the armistice, and Marshal Pilsudski would have accepted it had not the French Government and the Polish National Committee in Paris intervened. The Polish “corridor” cut- ting German territory in two is an intolerable grievance which, as a high official of the Polish Government admitted to me, Germany can never be expected to accept. A Polish visa is required for merely crossing the “corridor,” except in the case of one through train each way between Berlin and K6nigsberg, with the result that the inhabitants of the adjacent German territory have to get such a visa every time they go to Danzig, which is of course the center for a large district. It takes two or three days to get the visa, and the fee for it is 32 French francs—at today’s exchange 115,000 marks. As a member of the Government of Danzig said to me, “we are obliged to give the Poles free access to the sea, but they deny us free access to the land.” From the point of view of home policy the change of government is as bad as from that of foreign policy. The anti-Semites are now in power, and the Jews and other

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July 25, 1923] The Nation 97 racial minorities are likely to be treated worse than ever. The annexation of Eastern Galicia, where the Poles are in a small minority, has greatly increased the non-Polish popu- lation, which is now about 44 per cent of the whole. Two Polish provinces, Volhynia and Polesia, did not at the last general election return a single Polish deputy. The Ukrain- ians will never accept Polish domination and, if the Poles insist on holding all the territory that they have acquired, disintegration is sooner or later inevitable. Next time Poland is at war, two-fifths of its population will be on the side of the enemy. Nor is there any hope that the new Government will diminish military expenditure, which is at present about 40 per cent of the whole expenditure of the country. The army is the only flourishing institution in Poland. Every sou of the French loans to Poland has been spent on it. Those loans have taken the form of credits for the purchase of war material in France. Not one penny has the French Government ever given for the real needs of Poland. If the Polish state is bankrupt, Polish industry is so much crippled by lack of capital that manufacturers have to borrow money at usurious rates to pay their wages and current expenses. Polish industry is otherwise flourishing and has a great future if it can get the capital that it re- quires. Additional capital can be got only from abroad and foreign capitalists will not invest in Poland because they do not believe in the stability of the country. They are quite right. Poland is ethnographically and geograph- ically unsound and its present frontiers cannot be perma- nent. Unless the Poles consent to abandon the territories in which the non-Polish inhabitants are in a majority, Poland is doomed. The French capitalists have no more faith in the future of the present Poland than have any other foreign capitalists. Not one sou will the cautious French bourgeois invest in Poland. Indians Clubbed and Bayoneted ETAILS of the clubbing and bayoneting of natives by British police and soldiers at Rawalpindi are given in copies of the Nation of Lahore, India, recently received. A committee of eight natives, appointed by the Sikh public of Rawalpindi, has reported on the affair as follows: On the 29th of April the jail authorities at Campbellpore released about 460 Akali prisoners in pursuance of the Gov- ernment communiqué. Some of them took the earliest train, but the rest, a few over 400, took the 12 down train leaving Campbellpore at about 8 p.m. on 29-4-23, intending to stay at Hassan Abdal en route in order to do pilgrimage at the sacred Gurdwara of Panja Sahib. The manager of the Gurdwara had arranged to receive them at the railway station and all the Akalis alighted there at about 10 p.m. At Hassan Abdal the train stopped, it is alleged, a few bogies’ lengths behind its proper place, due to some one having pulled up the alarm chain. The Akalis as well as other pas- sengers got down and made their way to their destination with- out any attempt on the part of the railway staff to detect the culprit or to check the passengers from coming out. As a mat- ter of fact no one outside the railway circle knew that the chain had been pulled up. The train was to stop there in any case. The Akalis therefore alighted from the train and went to the Gurdwara Panja Sahib in full belief that they would resume their journey on the tickets they held. Some two hours after this a man from the railway staff in company with a sub-inspector of police went to the manager Gurdwara Panja Sahib, with a letter from the station master, saying that the Akalis had pulled up the chain and demanding that their tickets should be surrendered to him. Upon this the manager sent for the Jathedars, who denied having any knowl- edge of the pulling of the chain, but refused to surrender tickets as they had to resume their journey with them. Next afternoon they were again met by the inspector of police, who demanded their tickets again, and said that they could not travel with them; but as they still refused, he advised them to purchase fresh tickets to Rawalpindi, from beyond which sta- tion they could travel with the old ones. We have felt some difficulty in understanding why this advice was given because Rawalpindi is not over 100 miles from Campbellpore, and the railway rules which allowed haltage for every 100 miles could not have availed the Akalis at Rawalpindi. But we have good reasons to suppose that he simply wanted to get rid of the Akalis and to send them to Pindi where the authorities would be in a better position to handle them. The fact remains that the manager of the Gurdwara Panja Sahib purchased tickets for all the Akalis, and they took 18 down train which reached Rawalpindi at about 7:30 p.m. POLICE ON HAND It appears that the railway authorities at Rawalpindi had been duly informed that the Akalis were coming by that train, and the D.T.S. with some ticket-checking staff and the police was already on the platform. Immediately on the arrival of the train the checking of the tickets was commenced. Some Akalis were removed from their compartments and some were taken to the inclosure. Upon this all the remaining Akalis left the train and sat on the platform. Bhai Attar Singh, vice- president of the Local Singh Sabha, who was present on the platform, then approached the D.T.S. and requested that the Akalis be permitted to resume their journey upon the Camp- bellpore tickets. The D.T.S. said that they had broken the journey within 100 miles and their tickets had become invalid. He further said that his information was that about 55 Akalis were without tickets from Hassan Abdal, for which they should pay the fare. Bhai Attar Singh wanted some time to find out and discuss the matter with Jathedar, and he requested that in order that he might be able to do so the men confined should be released, which was accordingly done. Meanwhile food which the city people had brought for the Akalis was served out to them and they began to partake of it. Bhai Attar Singh could not again see the D.T.S., as by the time the Akalis had finished their meals the D.T.S. had already left to invoke the aid of the civil authorities. Here the Akalis remained for about an hour and a half, when at about 10 p.m. the D.T.S. appeared again with the deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police. On their arrival, demand for the fare was not repeated; on the other hand the police seemed to have taken orders to turn everybody out. First the vistors were turned out and some of them roughly handled; then the Akalis were searched one after the other, their tickets were taken, and they were pushed out. After some of them had been kicked like this the task was found tedious and hence all of the remaining Akalis were driven out in batches. The Akalis who came out of the platform first of all stopped near the motor stand to wait for their companions. The foot and the mounted police were already there. As the number of Akalis grew the police drove them further away. There is ample evidence to show that though the behavior of the Akalis while being thus driven was peaceful, force was used, and some of the Akalis were severely beaten. Upon this they thought that the authorities were determined to beat them and sat down by the roadside near the tonga stand... . ORGY OF BEATING At this stage some public-spirited gentlemen approached the S.P. and the G.C. and asked them to remove the police to some distance so that the Akalis might quietly move to the city. A gentleman went to the length of assuring the D.C. that if the police were taken some distance away and the Akalis allowed

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98 | The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3029 free passage, he would guarantee the quiet departure of the Akalis. No heed was paid to this, and shortly after indiscrimi- nate beating was resorted to. The police made a free use of their batons and lathies. When some Akalis had been thus belabored, either the police got tired of beating or the authori- ties considered their manner inadequate. The police were called back and some platoons of the Gloucester Regiment (which had in the meanwhile arrived) were ordered to fix bayonets and charge. It appeared that the bayonets were soon unfixed and the assault maintained with butt-ends. There were Akalis who escaped injury; some of them were throttled with the sashes of their kirpans and kicked on the delicate parts of their bodies, as a result of which many became senseless. A large number of them were dragged by their sacred keshas and legs. Thanks to the timely arrival of the local medical doctors the serious injuries were immediately attended to, though not with- out some risk of injury to them also, for the soldiers spared neither the Akalis nor the wounded, nor their attendants. But the sympathy of the public was wonderful, for immediately an Akali was belabored and laid flat he was carried on a chaupoy, if one was available, or on a cart (rera), if that was near at hand. Thus from amid the cruel blows of the infantry and the charge of the cavalry they were rescued and laid by the road- side near the Serai of Suratsingh or Dharamsala of B. Nathoo Mal, a ghastly sight no doubt, wounded and senseless lying in hundreds, at the dead of the night, only a short distance away from the scene of the tragedy. Here again they were not left to repose in calm, for the cavalry were soon upon them... . 428 INJURED The medical evidence shows that the total number of persons injured was 428, which presumably includes a certain number of relief workers as well. The following table will show the nature of the injuries received by them: Fracture of ribs, 60; fracture of hyoid bone, 1 case; bayo- net wounds, 13 cases; strangulation, 5 cases; pleurisy, 1 case; pulling of hair, 1 case; abrasions, 4 cases; contusions, 397 cases. Total, 428. Out of these many persons remained senseless for several hours. The condition of two was such that not a drop of water could go down without artificial means being employed. Three persons had to be administered hypodermic injections to sus- tain the activity of their hearts. It now remains to see how far the action of the Akalis on one hand and the government authorities on the other could be justified or condemned. We have made it clear that as far as the result of our inquiry goes all the Akalis who traveled from Panja Sahib to Rawalpindi were in possession of double tickets. So there was no question of their liability for having traveled without tickets or expired tickets. Whether the tickets that they held from Campbellpore to Amritsar could be availed of beyond Rawalpindi depends upon the interpretation of the railway rules. In our opinion the simple fact that the holders of these tickets broke journey at Hassan Abdal did not make their tickets invalid. Rule 48, Coach Traffic, N.W.R., says: Holders of local and through single-journey tickets for distances over 100 miles are allowed one day extra for every 100 miles or for the purpose of breaking their journey. The journey must, how- ever, be commenced on the date for which the ticket is issued, and no break of journey is allowed at a station less than 100 miles from the point where the journey was commenced. This means that the holder of a ticket for a distance of over 100 miles can break his journey after 100 miles. It does not say that if he breaks his journey within 100 miles he would not be able to use the same ticket after 100 miles. The only penalty that the rule seems to imply is that he would not be able to use that ticket for a distance up to the hundredth mile. Thus we are of opinion that if the railway authorities had insisted that the Akalis could travel up to a distance of 100 miles from Campbellpore only on purchasing fresh tickets from Rawal- pindi up to the distance, they would have been justified in doing so, but what they seem to have believed and insisted upon was that the tickets held by Akalis from Campbellpore to Amritsar had become altogether useless. In this, we venture to say, they were wrong. Moreover we find that the matter was still under considera- tion by some local gentlemen when the D.T.S. left the railway station apparently with a view to take some drastic action. Had a little patience and tact been exercised, all interpretation of railway rules apart, either the Akalis would have left the platform quietly or some one would have purchased fresh tickets for them. The behavior of the Akalis on the platform was quite peaceful. This is shown by the fact that the rail- way authorities had no difficulties in driving them out. Here also we believe that if left to themselves and not pressed over by the strong posse of mounted and foot police they would have left for the city immediately or soon after. We wish the au- thorities had exercised some discretion in handling persons who had just come out of jail and whose peaceful behavior had almost become proverbial; this they failed to do. Their pres- sure and over-anxiety had its effect. The Akalis did not move. The authorities’ sense of prestige was further offended and, though they already had with them a sufficient number of the foot and mounted police and though there was not the least justifying need, they called in a contingent of the British in- fantry and the cavalry. The importunities of a few well- disposed gentlemen were ignored and an unfortunate and hasty decision to disperse them by force was arrived at. The use of force was quite unnecessary and absolutely uncalled for, and when it was used it was excessive and indiscriminate. THE OFFICIAL EXPLANATION The official explanation of what happened at Rawalpindi is presented as follows in a Punjab government press com- muniqué, dated Lahore, May 3: Two incidents have occurred of unlawful behavior on the part of recently released Akali prisoners at Rawalpindi. About 170 prisoners were released from the Rawalpindi jail on the evening of the 28th of April. They were informed that they would not be allowed to march through cantonments to the railway station, but in spite of this warning they attempted to do so in military formation. The police accordingly had to use force to make them proceed by the road approved by the au- thorities. The police succeeded in their object without diffi- culty. A few of the Akalis were knocked down, but none were hurt. The second incident was more serious. Four hundred and sixty Akalis were released from the Campbellpore jail on the 29th of April and were given tickets to Amritsar. At Hassan Abdal they pulled the communication cord, stopped the train, and broke their journey, thus rendering their tickets invalid, under the railway regulation, for the journey to Amritsar. They subsequently proceeded by a later train to Rawalpindi and were there detrained and required to give up their tickets. They were ordered to leave the railway station, but though they cleared off the platform they refused to leave its precincts, with the result that large crowds assembled and the whole of the station premises were blocked. The police attempted to dis- perse the Akalis by force, but they still refused to leave and eventually a company of British infantry with a force of cavalry had to be employed. These forces succeeded in clearing the Akalis away to a Dharmsala some 300 yards away from the station, where they were allowed to remain. The police and the military behaved with great restraint, using no force that was not thoroughly justified. No reliable estimate has been received of the number of the Akalis injured owing to their _defiant attitude, but it is believed that very few have sustained serious injuries. Attested. JUNIOR ASSISTANT SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT PUNJAB Lahore, the 8rd of May, 1928

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS. .....cccccccsercnccccesssccencesesscscecese 99 EDITORIALS: Minnesota, the Nonpartisan League, and PEGE UUTEDC st fice verelis viet p\o)0in\b2, 6 102 eee NO Gil | VVELS este slate ieke)sisic/= lela’ «lalelefoisiel «jslole|ncevdejs!=ialnisieje.siaieisieisieia'e/s\s'e)s\e\s/« 108 Are We Americans ThievesS?........-seeeeseeeeceeeseer resets sereres 18s IMGnKEYINE . ois ee nye cece ce we tieice acess cciens = Sia genIS sv tUapmiae Laininis(cisinjeit’s +e’ oe THOSE TERRIFYING FARMERS. By William Peer deere cose = oie ol sf see aye : YOUTH AND THE AMERICAN COLLEGES. By Norman Thomas ae as 06 STRAY THOUGHTS ON A COLLEGE PILGRIMAGE. By William A. bd SOLED han erent ete ala ate wiailelo' = sic hes calermrartoeresetecyes eieie t> 0. vee BOSTON: A JOURNALISTIC POOR-FARM. By Oswald Garrison Rommel: rts nen hte eS eT cle he (ole n/e)'s mi slnieiaisye) exe elenerartapeioim aye c'ejec'e(s occ 2 2° a DEATH-WATCH. By Vincent Starrett.....--sseessseecrerersrrsccsces > A FAR CRY. By Zona Gale........++++++++ ce irisisiebetipnaery: <7inenes ss + tt “VACATION” AT SAN QUENTIN. By Miriam Allen de Ford.......--- IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter.......-.+seeseessrreeererrerreres i CORRESPONDENCE) )jasmci sce ols ois lnc = 0<01svaluisialale cniniecisciessciecsciccscss BOOKS: French Masters. By Ben Ray Redman......---sseeeeesresssssercrcecs - The Idea of Space. By George Boads.......+eeeeeseerecrsererececccs a Girls and Their Wishes. By Sarah N. Cleghorn Pe dea reine aaa or aes! sis i Suggestion and Digestion. By John E. ATR ete cit acrettelele «veyafeis ec 'b'e e\ere ee Sinbad. By Herbert J. Seligmann........-+-seeeeeeeeeeeececeeeceees 0 The Middle Ages. By Harry Elmer Barnes........-++seeeeersererees 121 Culture and Civilization. By J. J. Smertenko.......--.ssseeeeeeeeees 121 A Pleasant Essayist. By Rex Hunter.........--eeeeeeerereeerereeecs 121 Bipoled Am Bricks iss. ce cctv cde viccrccecccies ce cwssisciaes see ateecscsscces 122 MUSIC: The Elder Singers. By Pitts Samborn........sssseeeeeeceeceeeeceees 122 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION : The Trouble on the Saar........eeeee cece cee ee eee ee eee teen reerececee 124 The League’s Resolution........ceeceseceeceeeccnreserenceeceseceeeee 124 The Old Saar Decree.....sccsccccnccescccrscsssescessvasceesessceses 124 The New Saar Decree......cccccccccccsccvvecescscsssssscssesseccees 126 a OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS Nee ee eee ee eee eee SuBSCRIPTION RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 86, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England.

EONARD WOOD began his term as Governor of the Philippines by proclaiming his belief that the Filipinos had too much self-government, and he has continued by acting upon his belief. The Filipinos, naturally, resent it. General Wood vetoed the ten-year university program and more than a dozen other bills. He attempted to force the Filipinos to sell their successful government-owned and operated railroad to private New York interests, but met such opposition that he had to give up his project. He sought to close out the sugar centrals which served the small sugar growers, and is still endeavoring to force abandon- ment of the Philippine National Bank. He has consistently neglected and insulted the responsible Philippine officials. Recently he refused to permit remission of local taxes, as advised by the Filipinos, in certain regions that had been devastated by locusts and typhoons. It was a proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. General Wood reinstated and honorably discharged a Manila police official who had been suspended by Filipino officials although acquitted in court of the charge against him. The Filipino members of the Council of State, the departmental secretaries, the presi- dents of the Senate and the House, and the mayor of Manila, resigned their offices in protest against his ‘“‘desire to inter- NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1923

No. 3030

vene and to control, even to the smallest details, the affairs of our government, both insular and local, in utter disre- gard of the authority and responsibility of the department heads and other officials concerned.” When this was re- ported at Washington Secretary Weeks immediately stated that the Government stood squarely behind Wood. That was like Mr. Weeks; but we hope that Mr. Harding will not be so Junkerish. His word is pledged to the Filipinos that there will be “no backward step”; the only way to redeem it is to remove the bully, Leonard Wood. } i OLLOWING, as it does, reports of strong pressure ex- ercised by the die-hard section, the announcement that the British note on the Ruhr received, in its final form, the unanimous assent of the Cabinet tends to discourage the hopes raised earlier of vigorous intervention by the new Premier. The situation recalls too closely the story of how, at Paris, Lloyd George suffered his better judgment to be overcome by the notorious telegram from his parliamentary supporters. Is the world today incapable of producing a statesman who will take his courage in both hands and firmly pursue what he believes to be the right course, re- gardless of the effect upon the political fortunes of himself and his party? Opinion in England just now is looking more and more to the United States as the deciding factor in the crisis. A protest from Great Britain alone, it is feared, will accomplish little or nothing, even if accom- panied by definite and feasible plans, but if backed up by America as well as Italy it might detach Belgium from the side of France, and M. Poincaré would then think twice before condemning his own country to utter isolation. It is on Mr. Hughes’s New Haven speech that reliance is placed for the expectation of American support, but those who set their confidence on a pronouncement of his made as long ago as last November do not know the Secretary of State as well as his fellow-countrymen do. Here, too, the exigencies of domestic politics may induce second thoughts, and promote the discovery, in Bacon’s words, of ‘a window to fly out at or a secret door to retire by.” N Germany, meanwhile, the limits to human endurance are coming gradually but sensibly nearer. It may be that there will be no single moment at which organized so- ciety will suddenly and dramatically collapse, as by an earth- quake shock. When an individual dies of starvation, he does not drop down dead in the street, but wastes away in obscurity at home, until some day the last atom of strength quietly leaves his emaciated body. It is not in one convul- sive spasm that a nation gives up the struggle, but its fate comes upon it at the end of a process of steadily weakening resistance to the forces of disintegration. The rural dis- tricts, with their nearness to sources of food supply, may be able to hold out for a considerable time after the con- gested industrial centers have reached the end of their tether. Fatal riots in Breslau, where food stores and hotels have been raided by large crowds, are an ugly symptom, and indicate what must be expected in other great cities. The Breslau mobs are reported to have gathered under Com- BORUINGAME r # BLIO

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100 munist leadership, but, when the bare necessities of life are as hard to come by as they are in Germany today, popu- lar uprisings do not depend on political propaganda for their instigation. Law and order cannot be maintained for an indefinite period in such an ordeal as that through which the German people are now passing. Y inviting Soviet Russia to sign with them the con- vention establishing a new regime for the straits that separate Asia from Europe the Allies have taken one more step in the halting progress toward recognition which be- gan with the trade agreements and continued at Genoa and Lausanne. Virtually every European government now maintains some sort of an official commission in Moscow, and their citizens have consular protection in doing business in Russia. The question of de jure recognition has become a mere matter of diplomatic jockeying. In Asia Soviet Russia is even more firmly established. The United States lags behind, most besotted of all the great nations. Mr. Hughes has just given new expression to his muddle-headed- ness. He is not yet quite sure that the Soviet Government is well established (what of Guatemala and Egypt, Mr. Hughes?) ; the persons of our citizens are for the moment free from harm, he says, but, like a child in a dark attic, he fears the possibility of harm; property has been con- fiscated (after all, he might recall the Emancipation Proc- lamation and the Prohibition Amendment) ; and the leaders of Russia are still prophesying world revolution (some- how, it does not frighten us). Consistency, Emerson said, is a vice of little men; when a statesman is wrong and knows that he is wrong it is something more than a vice. ALIFORNIA has left nothing untried in persecuting the I.W.W. She has arrested them wholesale, sub- mitted them to almost every form of prison torture, sup- ported professional anti-I.W.W. witnesses who earn a living testifying to “I.W.W. crimes,” arrested witnesses who seemed to sympathize with them on the theory that such witnesses must be equally guilty with the defendants, and now Judge Charles O. Busick of Sacramento County has gone farther yet. He has granted a temporary injunction which makes mere membership in the hated organization contempt of court, so that I.W.W.’s may be sentenced by a judge without bothering about a jury trial. Several juries have recently acquitted I.W.W.’s despite the plain intent of the State anti-syndicalism act to outlaw them, and Judge Busick’s procedure has obvious advantages from the stand- point of men who believe perjury, torture, and even murder justifiable when used against I.W.W.’s, as many Califor- nians seem to do. This is, however, a new departure in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence; it is hard to believe that even California courts will sustain so obvious an attempt to do away with the right of trial by jury. UDGE-MADE law, however, is not waning in these United States, and there are times when we are tempted to hope that the courts will continue arrogating power to themselves until the people wake up and _-take effective action to curb so flagrant an abuse. Mr. Daugh- erty’s handy man, Judge Wilkerson of Chicago, recently made permanent the scandalous temporary injunction by which he sought to break the shopmen’s strike on the rail- roads last year. The injunction restrained railroad unions The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 from interference with the operation of the railroads; in other words, from striking. Mr. Daugherty makes its intent plain: “No extensive strike tying up inter-State commerce will ever again take place,” he says. His prophecy is, of course, nonsense; but the attempt to use the courts to break a strike is evident. Up and down the country, East and West, North and South, this abuse of the power of judges, perverting them into weapons of industrial war- fare, is a daily occurrence. It has happened in the Brock- ton, Massachusetts, shoe-workers’ strike and in the Buffalo clothing workers’ strike. In Buffalo the courts have issued a whole flock of injunctions, even restraining employees from complaining about their working conditions in any manner to anyone except their employers, on the basis of a system of “individual contracts” which the employers had forced many workers to sign in ignorance of their contents. HE English dock strike is largely a revolt of the plain man, and still more of the plain woman, against the statistician. An agreement made last August between the dockers and their employers provided for a reduction of a shilling a day in wages from the following October and of a further shilling as soon as the index figure of the cost of living fell ten points. This drop was reported in June, but the reduction of the second shilling, which then came automatically into effect, provoked an instant rebellion. There broke out at Hull a strike which spread rapidly to almost every other important port in the country, until at one time as many as 60,000 men were out. It was a clear breach of the agreement, and was started and carried on in defiance of the union leaders. The case of the malcon- tents was mainly a challenge of the statistical figures. There had been, they insisted, no such fall in the cost of iving as the curve in the official chart showed. The Labor Ministry’s calculations are honestly and carefully made by expert economists, but the docker’s wife, when she goes to market, finds that a sixpenny bit buys no more than it did a year ago. She is therefore contemptuous of, and indig- nant with, government mathematics. The discrepancy may be due to a shifting of the basis on which the estimate was originally made; certain commodities, still taken into ac- count, may have ceased to be consumed in working-class households, so that a decline in their cost does not actually relieve the working-class domestic budget. We have seen in our own country similar conflicts between the official cost of living and the cost in the kitchen. OLUMBIA, Missouri, is the seat of culture of Mis- ‘ gouri, the home of the State University. A Negro was lynched there last April. A member of the mob, George W. Barkwell, was recently tried for murder and acquitted. A university student identified him as the man who put the noose around the Negro’s neck and shoved him off the bridge. For this the student, Charles Nutter, has been ostracized by fellow-fraternity men and threatened with lynching by the townsmen. W. E. Smith, a bank cashier, testified that he and Barkwell were talking together thirty- five feet from the Negro when he was lynched, and added: “I was standing on the bridge when I heard the crowd shout, ‘There he goes.’ I wanted to get a good look at the Nigger dangling, and, believe me, I did.” The audience, according to the St. Louis Star, thereupon “howled with glee.” This same Smith said he was not in the crowd at the

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 101 jail. “Doggone it, I got there too late.” Again the crowd laughed. Another witness for the defense related how he had pushed through the crowd after the lynching “‘to take a peek at the skunk.” This, too, seemed to the citizens of Missouri’s cultural capital a cause for mirth. Just what is the influence of a university? MaJor ENTWISTLE moved the third reading of the bill. Mr. F. N. BLUNDELL (Ormskirk, Unionist) said he believed the bill to be bad and immoral. ... He was not afraid of telling the women that he did not propose to vote for measures he thought wrong simply because the women wanted them. (Hear, hear.) But overriding all other objections to the bill was the one that he believed the bill was contrary to the law of God. (Hear, hear.) Mr. DUNNICO (Consett, Labor) opposed the bill, which he said was the first step in a powerful campaign to make the dissolution of the marriage tie easier. Whatever tended to that end would be a fatal blow at the very foundations of our national greatness and the fabric of our homes. (Cheers.) NYONE might imagine, after scanning the above ex- cerpts from the debate on the third reading of the Matrimonial Causes Bill, that the British Parliament pro- posed to instal a soviet system of divorce. It is a shock, therefore, to read the bill and discover that it does no more than make it possible for a man to be divorced on the same terms as a woman. Until now a man must have been proved guilty of cruelty as well as misconduct; hereafter the latter ground, as has always been true in cases against women, is cause enough. The opponents of the bill ap- parently hold that a divorce case—against a man—is saved from immorality by the introduction of a good beating, and that the law of God is satisfied only by evidence of cruel treatment. Nevertheless we should suppose that few men would oppose a measure which makes it possible for a man to be divorced without going to the unmannerly lengths of striking a lady. In any case the bill successfully passed both Commons and Lords and hereafter no woman seeking her freedom need exhibit her bruises in court. T is characteristic of the Shipping Board, with a record of appalling losses in the past, a fleet of unprofitable vessels in the present, and lack of proof that the Leviathan will pay in the future, that it should be proposing the con- struction of two sister ships. Indeed the Leviathan is not only still an unproved liability, but it is in danger of be- coming a by-word on the high seas and a joke with the dis- criminating public through the tawdry and dishonest pub- licity ideas that the Shipping Board has doubtless inherited from its previous chairman, Mr. Lasker. After the recon- ditioning of the Leviathan, it was announced that it had become the world’s largest liner. There had been no change whatever in the hull; the gain had been obtained through added superstructure, and so much flag-waving and eagle-screaming over a steamship originally built in Ger- many seemed a bit inappropriate. Still the Shipping Board seemed to have the best of the argument. That cannot be said for its latest boast, that the Leviathan is the world’s fastest liner because on its trial trip it logged 687 knots in twenty-five hours, or about 2714 knots an hour. The period of time chosen is wholly arbitrary, and a claim to speed based upon it is as ridiculous as it would be for a sprinter to claim the world’s championship because he had run 98 yards, 7 feet, 234 inches in less time than any- body else on record. The only record that counts in the North Atlantic service is that for the entire voyage. The Leviathan’s performance for that is so far an average of about 23 knots an hour, or three knots under the record of the Mauretania. The Leviathan is a great ship in which Americans may rightly take pride. It would be a pity to make the vessel a laughing-stock through advertising methods that are better adapted to the sale of shoddy cloth- ing or a dandruff cure. BROAD-MINDED clergyman will sometimes invite representatives of other churches to give, from his pulpit, a series of addresses expounding the faith that is in them. One rarely hears, however, of an example of this type of religious hospitality continued Sunday by Sunday all the year round. The Presbyterian congregation that has listened to “Why I am a Baptist” and “Why I am a Methodist” is presently shepherded back to exhortations duly certified by its own denominational authorities. In journalism, J. St. Loe Strachey, editor of the Spectator, the leading organ of moderate Conservatism in the London weekly press, is attempting a bolder experiment. He has engaged H. W. Massingham, lately editor of the London Nation, to contribute every week a political article under the general heading of “The Other Side’—a title “which implies,” readers are told, “that we want him to feel as free as possible to express opinions which normally will be opposed to our own.” Mr. Strachey disclaims any idea that this catholicity is prompted by any special virtue on his own part. It is merely “common sense and good busi- ness,” for the readers of his paper “probably prefer to reach their conclusions on any given subject after consider- ing both sides and not only one.” There is also, of course, the chance, not mentioned by Mr. Strachey, that the enlist- ment of so brilliant a writer among the Spectator’s regular staff may attract new readers. Mr. Massingham, in his turn, by thus acquiring a pulpit in partibus infidelium, gains an exceptional opportunity of doing real missionary work for liberalism—an opportunity which, in the long run, may go far to compensate for his loss of the paper through which he rendered for so many years such valuable service to the progressive cause. HE death of Louis Calvert at the age of sixty-three means a very genuine loss to the English-speaking stage. Although Mr. Calvert’s early training was largely in Shakespearean productions and although he was brought to this country as classical producer for the New Theater in 1910, there can be no doubt that he did his best work in the plays of the moderns. He had, in playing such roles as that of Undershaft in Shaw’s “Major Barbara,” an effort- less authority, an easy and supremely natural concreteness that are among the very rarest and most precious achieve- ments of the actor’s art. Like Moskvin of Moscow he relied on no personal advantages. A plain, obese man, it was only necessary for him to be on the stage to turn that stage from a thing of artifice to one of art and the scene from play- acting into an interpretation of reality. He was, moreover, not only a gifted artist but an intelligent man. His volume “Problems of the Actor” is one of the few genuinely sane and valuable contributions to the subject with which it deals. Mr. Calvert’s loss will be felt not only by playwrights and producers but also by the pupils who, during recent years, kad the good luck to have him for a teacher.

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. j 102 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 Minnesota, the Nonpartisan League, and the Future OCK-RIBBED Republican Minnesota has twice. within / a twelvemonth voted a Farmer-Labor candidate into the United States Senate, and the politicians are filling the newspapers with explanations. One of the most curious features of their multifold explanations is that no one, not even the American Defense Society, dug out the literature of three or four years ago and blamed the farmers’ revolt upon that sinister Trotzky of the Northwest—A. C. Townley, the organizer of the Nonpartisan League, the symbol of Red Russia (in the words of the ancient literature of three years ago) in the heart of agricultural America. Mr. Townley seems to have thrown such influence as was left to him in Minnesota against Magnus Johnson, and almost the only report of the “N. P. L.” which reached New York news- papers during the campaign was the announcement of the death of the National Leader, successor to the Nonpartisan Leader and only survivor of an erstwhile host of League newspapers. Yet the spirit which gave the Nonpartisan League its temporary success is obviously the same spirit which gave La Follette his five-to-one majority in Wisconsin a year ago, which sent Frazier and Wheeler and Brookhart and Shipstead and Dill and Howell to the Senate, and which has just given Magnus Johnson his 80,000 majority over Jacob Preus in Minnesota. What happened to the League? The fact is that this farmer organization which appeared with such dramatic suddenness on the Western horizon in the years 1915-17 was the product of the driving energy of a few individuals applying to the political organization of farmers the methods of modern salesmanship. Even more than the evils which were capitalized and inveighed against (they were neither of recent origin nor as oppressive as they have since become) and more than the proposed reme- dies of State ownership and operation, which were hardly novel, the key to the sudden growth of the Nonpartisan League lay in the large-scale application of intensive book- agent or oil-stock-selling technique, supported by a not less carefully worked-out literature. The result was the unique spectacle in American national life of a political party financed, and adequately financed, from the bottom up, by the rank and file, instead of from the top down. Despite the most diligent muckraking no charges against the probity of the League’s leadership, or of A. C. Townley himself, have ever been substantiated, although a looseness of finan- cial accounting, an absence of real responsibility to the rank and file, and a readiness to embark upon new ventures with- out the necessary experience and personnel have undoubt- edly been shown. With the collapse of the American agricultural market in 1921 the Nonpartisan League suddenly found it impossible to continue organization on the commercial basis which had proved so sound in the years of farm prosperity. An income which had reached a total figure of several million dollars was suddenly cut off, and large sums in post-dated checks, a very important bit of detail worked out to facilitate the task of political salesmanship, could not be collected. As an organization the League had to cease functioning. The Minnesota headquarters were shut down and the League newspapers, one by one, were sold. But although the visible machinery largely melted away, a sentiment and a point of view had been established in the minds of hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ne- braska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Oklahoma, and in lesser degree in other Western and Northwestern States. Agricultural depression has strengthened and corroborated what the League preached; and many a well-to-do rancher who refused to be coerced, hypnotized, or persuaded into giving up $16 or $18 in 1918 or 1920 would gladly pay it if he had it in 1923. It was the League’s preparation-work which made it possible in the summer of 1922 to crystallize the sentiment for united farmer-labor action with a bare minimum of expenditure. These small funds the railway brotherhoods and miners supplied. Although hardly antici-° pating the day when organized labor would finance farmer organizations for the purpose of securing agricultural sup- port for labor’s national program, the leadership of the League had from the first stressed the identity of the inter- ests of farmers and city workers. Unity was easily achieved. As a result the League, which had originally been concerned chiefly with State issues and programs, al- though its organization methods and financial control were national, placed increasing stress on national political issues at the very time when its national organization was disap- pearing. The obvious influence of European depression upon agricultural prices also facilitated the increased emphasis upon national issues. Nonpartisan League sentiment still exists with near- religious fervor in thousands of Western communities, even though almost nothing continues in the way of a visible church, and so long as the price of wheat is low this senti- ment will be a factor of political significance. But unless the sentiment is focused in permanently functioning economic organizations the movement will fade out as com- pletely as the futile Populist movement of the nineties. Mass movements are temporary and evanescent unless grounded in economic organizations functioning three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. Strong local groups, the heart of any large organization of individuals, cannot be maintained if their only vital functions are per- formed but once in two years. The League’s best efforts at holding local groups together on the basis of political discussions and education proved futile. But a growing number of specialized commodity organizations are func- tioning continuously and deepening the farmer’s sense of producer’s class-consciousness. The fact that Minnesota farmers stand in the vanguard of the American cooperative movement may have much to do with the fact that Minnesota leads the Farmer-Labor political movement. Senator Brook- hart has returned from Europe afire with the gospel of cooperation. Here, perhaps, lies the chief hope that this new agrarian movement may plow deeper and be more last- ing than its predecessors. If it does not put too much faith in temporary legislative panaceas, if it works unceasingly to strengthen its economic roots, and maintains its fruit- ful alliance with the city workers, this movement may prove itself vastly so vital and so sanifying as to amaze the cynical wiseacres who, with considerable justification in American history, predict merely a new variation of the old-fashioned political see-saw.

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 103 Law—Not War ROM Argentina to Australia, in Germany, France, Russia, England, Italy, Japan, and the United States hundreds of thousands of men and women commemorate, on July 28 and 29, the ghastly days in 1914 when war cut Europe in two, by the solemn resolution that there shall be “No More War.” Some of the more thoughtful, in this country particularly, have made “Law—Not War” their slogan, and are directing their energy to machinery for the adjudication of international disputes. The ninth anniversary of the Great War comes at a gloomy moment. The outlook for a Europe dedicated to peace has never been more clouded. The Ruhr is today a steaming cauldron of hate; France and England are glowering at each other’s air fleets (H. N. Brailsford writes: “Our experience of naval competition with Germany has taught us whither the new competition in the air must lead”) ; the Balkans are no more peaceful than in pre-1914 days; the little nations of Central Europe maintain larger armies than did their im- perial predecessors; France announces her intention to con- script a half-million-man army among those poor black peo- ples of Africa whom “civilization” was supposed to have pacified; China is falling a prey to military bandits and the Western nations are talking of endowing her with interna- tional armies as well; Russia turns from reconstruction, almost perforce, to “air weeks,” and glorifies the Red Army. All the more need, then, for pacifists and for thundering no-more-war demonstrations. There is need for realization of what war has meant and will mean. There is need for men with the voices of prophets who will cry out, as George Lansbury wrote to the absolute pacifists of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Women’s Peace Society, and the Women’s Peace Union: “We stand against all wars. We believe that killing is a blasphemy and a crime against God and man. I hope that America will stand with us in trying to rid the world forever of warfare and its monstrous inventions which, unless destroyed, will annihilate all civilized peoples.” These people demand the immediate abolition of armies and navies, the instruments of war. They want total disarma- ment and they are not content to wait until another war has tested out the expert theory that one air battle, with modern explosives, can destroy a New York or a London. We are with them heart and soul, although we have be- come a little uncertain of the permanent effect of pacific proclamations. We have too warm a memory of the ardent pacifists of 1916 who adapted their convictions without diffi- culty to “We are for peace, but—” in 1917. It is perhaps some such doubt which has led the National Council for the Prevention of War to abandon the old international slogan “No More War” for the “more constructive” slogan “Law— Not War.” Whatever emphasizes the fundamental impor- tance of referring to judicial decision every international controversy that threatens to grow into war, whatever stresses the fact that arbitration is always more honorable than war, points in the right direction. The trouble with the new slogan is that it is not compre- hensive enough. It does not have the appeal to the heart of that bitter cry of the European masses: No More War! It even suggests, to the unwary hearer—and most hearers are unwary—some relation to the futile plans to draw up laws to regulate war. And to many it narrows the issue to the question of the World Court at The Hague. That is a pity— for it drags all the petty disagreements of national politics and with them the tragic problem of the League into a dis- cussion which requires rather clarification. For the issues about which we ought to be debating are not: Should we join this court or that? Is the World Court too closely linked with the League? It is the irony of fate that the American people, which has for decades led Europe in preaching the substitution of law for war, should today be hemming and hawing about the form of this court when it might be pushing the world forward toward greater readi- ness to use any court. Senator Borah gave us the right lead when he insisted that we must preach the gospel of com- pulsory jurisdiction, proclaim our own readiness to submit all our differences to judicial. settlement, and invite other nations to show.as much good faith. We have a great national tradition in which the names of Seward, Sumner, Root, and Bryan—yes, Bryan—bear an honorable part. If only our peace societies would all unite in proclaiming that law is always, always more honorable than war, and in urg- ing Congress and the Administration to express that assur- ance, they might avoid the danger of contending for a shadow and contribute more certainly to the slow but ineluctable task of lifting a little of the gloom which, in these aftermath and prelude-days of war, is settling upon Europe. Are We Americans Thieves? ** T was the darkest hour of the war.” Secretary Baker, just home from the front, reported to a group of twenty men in Washington that, according to general opin- ion, Paris was about to fall and the Channel ports would be taken. The news “brought gloom to every countenance and distressed every heart.” But there was one of the twenty whose indomitable spirit was thereby quickened to more intense activity. A. Mitchell Palmer, Alien Property Cus- todian, conceived a strategic scheme far beyond anything that had entered the heads of Foch or Haig. Even at this desperate moment the enemy’s victorious onset might be stayed and civilization saved—if only Germany were warned that such property as belonged to her nationals in this coun- try would be confiscated. Threatened with this appalling calamity the Kaiser, though with so great prizes almost within his grasp, would see at once the futility of any further advance, and would sue for peace. Mr. Palmer has- tened to the White House to lay this inspired project before Mr. Wilson. “I asked the President”—Mr. Palmer himself is telling the story in a United States district court—“‘to let me go down to the Congress and ask Congress to hit the Germans where it would hurt, to strike a blow from which they knew they would never recover, and let them know right now, as an act of war, that we proposed to American- ize this property.” There is reason to believe that Mr. Wilson did not imagine Germany would be so easily scared. But at any rate he was persuaded, after some natural demur, into agree- ing to the confiscation of the industrial and commercial prop- . erties of German subjects in the United States, and author- izing the submission to Congress of a proposed amendment of the Trading with the Enemy Act in this direction. Un- happily for the testing of the merits of the scheme as a mili- tary master-stroke, it was not until the war was virtually over that the Alien Property Custodian had an opportunity

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104 The Nation : [Vol. 117, No. 3030 of putting it into operation. The conversation with the President took place in March, 1918, but the amendment authorizing the seizure and sale of German patents in the United States was not approved until a week before the arm- istice. Accordingly, not a single one of the 4,800 patents “Americanized” was actually so treated because of war emergencies. They were all diverted to new owners during what was really, if not technically, a time of peace, and for the sake of enabling private American manufacturing inter- ests to meet, in time of peace, the competition of the German proprietors. The action was not a war measure but bald ~ commercial spoliation sugar-coated with patriotic phrase- ology. The case now being tried at Wilmington, Delaware, is a suit in which the present Administration seeks the setting aside of the sale of German dye patents to the Chemical Foundation and their return to the Government. The evi- dence submitted and the arguments heard have covered a wide range of topics. Whether the courts have any right to review the war-time acts of a President or his subordi- nates in administering a congressional delegation of power; how far the upbuilding of a great dye-making industry is of service to national security by establishing plants that may be utilized, if need be, for the production of munitions; whether a patent is really of much value unless you have expert knowledge to profit by it; whether American soldiers were killed by being dosed with impure salvarsan—all these are matters of interest and importance, but the essential question to which the American public should apply its mind is the legitimacy of the initial transaction. Was it right or was it theft for our Government to take possession of Ger- man property in this country, not simply as a temporary measure of detention during war, but as a permanent expro- priation? Was it to the office of Alien Property Confiscator or of Alien Property Custodian that Mr. Palmer and his successors were appointed? Before the war, at any rate, any international lawyer would have declared without hesita- tion that, according to the usage of civilized nations, private enemy property on land was of right immune from confis- cation during war. And the United States in particular was so strongly convinced of the desirability of this rule as to contend again and again for the extension of the same pro- tection to private enemy property on the high seas. Well, whatever the law of nations might say, the German dye patents in this country have been “Americanized.” (“ ‘Convey,’ the wise it call.) The process seems to have been more rapidly effective than the Americanizing of the immigrants who reach our shores. For a Tariff Commission report lately issued shows that today we have 87 firms manu- facturing annually 64,632,187 pounds of dyes, as against seven firms in 1914, manufacturing 6,619,729 pounds.. Last year American manufacturers produced 93.5 per cent of the dyes actually consumed here, and with this increased output has come some reduction in prices. But no satisfaction at the establishment of a new and flourishing industry in this country can obscure the fact that this prosperity is rooted in dishonor. The gains of producer and consumer alike are based on robbery which is none the less robbery because sanctioned by act of Congress; they are the reward of the successful exploitation of stolen property. Whatever may be the result of this particular suit, we cannot believe that the American people, when they realize all that is involved, will suffer the good name of the United States to be thus tar- nished. Monkeying O college is entirely secure against intelligence, and the University of Tennessee has had its modest share of scholars. One of these, Professor Sprowls, prescribed in a course in psychology James Harvey Robinson’s “The Mind in the Making,” and was thereupon dismissed. About the same time Mrs. Philip Hamer of the history department was reprimanded for voting in a charter referendum, and told that she would be dismissed if she went to Nashville in support of the equal-rights-for-women bill. Almost simultaneously the university’s comic weekly, Mugwump, published a poem that fell under the administrative ax. This was in the early spring. Events have followed fast. Petitions against the dismissal of Professor Sprowls were signed by students and instructors. The Association of University Professors was asked to help. Editors of the Mugwump offered to resign and were told that they would be expelled if they did so. The college paper, the Orange and White, was told that it might not comment on any of these events. A new student paper, the Truth, appeared anonymously. But support came to the authorities; several of the trustees commended President Morgan for his action in dismissing Professor Sprowls, the Knoxville merchants passed resolutions of approval, and, best of all, the Meth- odists, Baptists, Associate Reform Presbyterians, and fed- erated Presbyterian churches of Fayetteville, Tennessee, in a united meeting solemnly resolved: That we consider the great State of Tennessee fortunate in having at the head of our great university a man who has the courage to combat evil in high places; that the people of Tennessee are to be congratulated that this State institution does not follow in the footsteps of the German infidels [Darwin!] in teaching that man sprang from a lower order of beings, but that man was created in the image of God, that the Bible is the true word of God, that man was destined for a future existence. And then, with the end of the college year, reaction went on the loose. Five more professors were dismissed. One of them, Professor Radford, head of the Latin department, had refused to answer the dean’s question: ‘What mem- ber of the faculty was it that asked you to sign a petition?” When he was notified of his dismissal he asked the reason for it. The dean merely said that he had refused to answer certain questions. John R. Neal, professor of law, was dis- missed because he was suspected of sympathy with the “student movement”; Robert S. Ellis and Asa A. Schaeffer because they signed the request for an investigation by the professors’ association; Dr. Mulvania, dean of the pre- medical school, because he made a survey of the faculty to get suggestions for improving the university. Such, at any rate, are the reasons assigned by Knoxville newspapers; the university. authorities did not bother to give any. Behind these individual outrages lies a situation that is dangerous and terrifying. It is vividly described by Presi- dent Morgan himself, who is quoted by Professor Sprowls as saying that he believed in evolution “as much or more than you” but that he feared that Tennessee was going to have a “monkey legislature” such as Kentucky had had, and that therefore it was necessary to put the “soft pedal” on evolution, much as he disliked to do it. In how many States, during the next decade, will the education of our children and the freedom of our teachers be at the mercy of “monkey legislatures”?

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 105 Those Terrifying Farmers (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD AVING trembled itself pretty well out on the subject of subterranean communists in the cities, Washing- ton is now beginning once more to quake on the subject of socialistic agriculturists out of the Northwest. The com- munists were, and are, in fact a feeble folk numerically, and they have been greeted with shivers only by grotesquely misled or viciously misleading people. The case is very different with the Northwestern farm- ers. They are in the true line of American historical de- velopment. They do not scorn “the forefathers.” They think George Washington is on their side. They do not see Abraham Lincoln as the representative of Northern capital- ism and wage-slavery against Southern plantationeering and chattel slavery. They see him as the great protagonist of human freedom historically for the Negroes and propheti- cally for themselves. They add the glamor of all American political heroic mythology, if it be a mythology, to their ardent passion for a better price for wheat. That is the first consideration which in battle makes them terrible. They believe themselves to be in harmony with their country’s origin. Never, for instance, from Henrik Shipstead, the first Farmer-Labor Senator from Minnesota, have I heard a word about American history that would not in sentiment grace the periods of an oration at Bunker Hill. The second terribleness which these farmers have is equally overlooked by their opponents who quake before them but quake for the wrong reasons—reasons which lead them quite astray in their methods of resisting Mr. Ship- stead, Mr. Brookhart, Mr. Frazier, and the other recent apparitions of abiding American frontier rural radicalism. On the frontier—and elsewhere, too, but especially on the frontier—the farmer has been taught by his opponents and by his whole environment to summon the power of the state, of government, to redress almost any wrong and to cure almost any evil, great or small. Arriving in North Dakota last year to report an election, I entered a dining-room in a hotel and noticed over the door a sign which said: “Smoking in This Room Prohibited by State Law.” On inquiry I learned that the law in question —a law forbidding the use of tobacco in restaurants—had been passed by the North Dakota Legislature long before the Nonpartisan League came into power. This was a “‘con- servative” law. It used the arm of government to prohibit a practice which at its worst is the tiniest sort of personal social inconvenience. Looking at grander matters, the visitor is bound to no- tice that all these North Dakotans, all these Northwestern- ers, are living on land which but recently was governmental domain. The government is in a most immediate sense their parent. It gave them their homesteads. It endowed them with their livelihoods. Moreover, and even more impor- tantly, it took vast stretches of the lands of “the people” and gave them to railroads in order to make the railroads possible and prosperous. The silver mines of the West have for several years now been proceeding on the principle that if the price of silver is below the price of production, the difference should be contributed by the government through purchases made for the Treasury. The Pittman Law illustrated that principle; and now that the Pittman Law has expired, a steady agita- tion for further governmental “relief” is conducted daily by silver interests and by silver Senators. Our new radical Senators are for the most part mere faithful reflections of this economic philosophy, as turned from the reviving of capital in distress to the reviving of distressed farm effort. Nor is a regard for capital—for their own farm capital—at all absent from their minds. If governmental purchasing of wheat, if governmental financ- ing of marketing operations, if governmental reorganizing of grain exchanges and of stock yards should restore their lands to the altitudinous capital values which they enjoyed in 1919, and if thereby the access of the poor man to the soil should be increasingly checked, it is no part of the pres- ent national rural radical program to be alarmed by that development. The present rural radical movement wants the price of land to go up. It wants governmental action which, if suc- cessful, will inevitably cause the price of land to go up. Philosophically there is absolutely no difference in the end between this endeavor and the parallel endeavor for bring- ing governmentally created prosperity, and hence artificially enhanced capital value, to silver mines. In harmony, then, with our national worship of our na- tional history, and in harmony also with the traditional tendency of the West to strike the rock of governmental ac- tion for the outpouring of private prosperity, these radical farmers and their representatives are conscious of no de- parture from our institutions, and they advance into the approaching national legislative struggle not as soldiers of any new philosophy of society but as defenders simply and explicitly of the doctrine that what the government has done on behalf of “the interests” it shall now do on behalf of “the people.” Senator Brookhart, who goes farther than any other new rural radical representative toward preaching a splendid doctrine of self-help through cooperative buying, coopera- tive selling, and cooperative banking, is nevertheless deter- mined to use the power of government not merely to give a fair field to cooperative enterprises but to restrict the field of enterprises not cooperative. The value of Senator Brookhart and of the other new rural radicals is not that they are prescribing any new medi- cine but that they are taking the old medicine and handing it logically around in such a way as to complete the circle. They will presently compel the country to meditate as fol- lows: “Ts this remedy the right one? If it is, then the farmers are just as much entitled to use it as the privilege-seeking corporations which have gone before them. If it is not the right remedy, then we ought to move forward into a period of true and actual private self-help without public subsidy in the case of the chemical manufacturers to whom the gov- ernment has made a virtual present of its confiscated Ger- man dye patents as well as in the case of the farmers to whom it is asked to make a present of governmentally heightened wheat prices.”

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106 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8030

Youth and the American Colleges By NORMAN THOMAS N those far-off days when William Jennings Bryan was smiting the money power instead of Darwin, and the victors of Santiago and the survivors of training camps were marching home in triumph, and men were beginning the weighty discussion: Does the twentieth century be- gin January 1, 1900 or 1901?—<in short, at the close of the golden nineties—it was the custom for representatives of the colleges of the great State of Ohio to peddle their wares through the high schools. Many atime did the walls of the high school in Marion, Ohio (then not famous save on Erie Railroad folders) ring with the exhortations of these apos- tles of the higher learning: “Young men and women, statis- tics prove that if you will go to college your chance of getting your name in ‘Who’s Who,’ or a good rating in Dun’s or Bradstreet’s, will be as sixteen to one* if you don’t.” On the whole such teaching fell on stony ground—at least compared with the harvest that was to follow later sowings. There was an increase in college attendance, but it was not phenomenal. Then came the war. Its sharp harrows broke up the stony ground. Many a youth imper- vious to the cultural appeal of “‘Who’s Who” learned the great lesson: the officers of a democratic army are recruited from among college men. What the army began, the wave of enthusiasm for college athletics in general, and football in particular, completed. The sons of George F. Babbitt were won for higher education. A large and successful Y.M.C.A. advertises thus: “For Pep, Personality, Popularity, Prosperity—join our classes.” Add to these athletic prestige, and you have the appeal of the average American university. It does not depend for its success on the limited appeal of culture or pure science, but on the great trinity: “practical” courses (business ad- ministration and the like), fraternities, and organized ath- letics. And the greatest of these is athletics. One Pennsyl- vania denominational college lacking in endowment, stand- ards, and most things that a college ought to desire set out this winter to improve itself. Its first step was to organize a drive for funds sufficient to build a stadium large enough to hold five times the population of the town in which it is located. Its open defense was that, possessed of athletic equipment and fame, all other things would be added unto it. The reasoning is characteristic of American educational institutions. If athletic success is the local college deity, the supreme god over all for most of our students is Success, measured by the usual standards of the credit rating one possesses and the kind of automobile one drives or in which one is driven. Witness this naive editorial from the Yale Daily News, an editorial which the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company has widely circulated in a series of advertisements in college papers in various sections of the country: Someone, probably an insurance agent, was quoted recently as saying that from the mass of one hundred college graduates one individual only rose to the polo and butler class, perilously near ——S EEE *I do not vouch for the accuracy. of this ratio. I may have confused it in the mists of memory with another more famous ratio. the top of the financial ladder. Five others became comfortably off and found themselves after twenty years at the small-yacht and chauffeur stage. The other ninety-four presumably congre- gate in the great section of the American people who drive their own Buicks [no Yale man it would appear sinks so low as a Ford] to the golf club. In other words, dreaming about being a rich man is one thing, and making the grade is “something else again.” Yet the ninety-four presumably work just as hard as the sumptuous six. Their business is the axis on which a small and uninteresting world revolves. They have become devotees of the dollar, and when the fickle deity deserts have nowhere else to turn. Jammed in a dull, straight rut of business they can never leave the road and jump the fence into finer fields of life. This, then, is the portion of the ninety-four men out of every hundred now in the campus. The answer to the problem lies in the proper choice of a career. It would be easy to gather from this statement an im- pression of college life devoid of ideals and standards, cynically devoted to material ends. The impression would be false. Youth is an antidote to cynicism and to an utterly sordid materialism. Our colleges inculcate loyalty and good-fellowship. They call forth the devotion of thousands of young men and women who work their way through for other than purely selfish reasons. He does not understand American life, still less college life, who does not under- stand our curious capacity to join piety, friendliness, and “idealism” to the worship of Success—a capacity illus- trated by every rotary club, and even an occasional cham- ber of commerce. Of two of the most apparent faults of our colleges some- thing is to be said in extenuation. First comes their ten- dency through classrooms and fraternity houses to turn out a standardized product. There is an old story of a father who looked vainly for his son at Yale. Finally he went home in despair and telegraphed President Hadley: “Send home my son at once.” The President replied: “Which is he?” To which the answer came: ‘Any one will do. They all look alike.” That particular story, true or apocryphal, might be told of other colleges with more justice than of Yale today (adversity in football—or something else—has produced an intellectual awakening in New Haven). In so far as the story is illustrative, it may be explained in part by the effort of a new nation necessarily without common tradi- tions, made up of men of all races, to create that homo- geneity among its people which older nations more easily possess. A more serious criticism of our universities has lately been proffered in Upton Sinclair’s own inimitable manner. The colleges are drill grounds for our industrial potentates. They teach the greatness and glory of the God Mammon, and train his high priests. The charge is in the main true, sometimes grossly true; yet in supporting colleges our in- dustrial magnates are not always consciously seeking to protect their power and place. They are acting often with that real belief in “education,” not too closely defined, which has been a fine American quality. They are inspired less by personal interest than by a general belief in the excel-

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 107 lence of the present politico-economic order. They do with the approval of their contemporaries what every generation, capitalistic or socialistic, will do: seek to give the younger generation a short-cut to the philosophy of life it has acquired. The most recent backset to liberal education, the Amherst catastrophe, involved not merely the economic prejudices of trustees and alumni, but opposition to Mr. Meiklejohn’s “skepticism” in the name of religion, and to his athletic policy in the name of success and the fame that shrieks in the columns of the sporting page. Even more did it involve the susceptibilities and prejudices of a somewhat fossilized faculty not tactfully handled. The Amherst incident is an illustration of the complexity of the problem of college edu- cational standards and methods, rather than of simple and obvious financial control. A more direct and definite illustration of a sordid ma- terialism in control is to be seen in President Atwood’s administration at Clark University. It is likely that the president’s loyalty to reaction will not prove profitable even for his own purposes. The lack of morale at Clark needs to be seen to be fully appreciated, but the outside world has seen a number of striking manifestations of it within the last few months. Few colleges are locked and barred against all representa- tives of a radical organization like the League for Industrial Democracy. If the welcome sign is not hung out, at least there is a crack where one can get in. One institution— the University of Missouri—exercised great care lest its liberal club hear Kate Richards O’Hare—its president was after a $3,000,000 appropriation from the legislature; another college would have no speaker who wrote for The Nation address the students at convocation; Scott Nearing is generally on the academic black-list; various student editors have been disciplined. But despite these things many uni- versity trustees would have goose-flesh if they knew how liberal some of their professors were and how ready to let “radicals” talk. If the experience and the observation of officers of the League for Industrial Democracy is a cri- terion, a growing honor roll of genuinely liberal administra- tions could be inscribed. I shall not attempt to give a com- plete list. East of the Rockies it would certainly include Amherst (under President Meiklejohn), Dartmouth, Ober- lin, the University of Chicago, Wellesley, and Smith. The last-named college I found particularly interesting because the faculty proves to be so much more liberal than the stu- dent body. Indeed, one must protest against the common notions of eager youth repressed by dull and reactionary masters. Better education undoubtedly would waken a finer response. The success of Reed College on the Pacific coast, the fine loyalty of Amherst students to President Meiklejohn, and the equal devotion of the graduating class at Clark Univer- sity to the old traditional liberalism of that institution are proof of the readiness of many of our students to respond to other than the current educational practice. But youth is not always even moderately liberal or intellectually curi- ous. I have before me letters from professors in a Middle Western State university and an Eastern private university who lament in almost similar language the lack of intellec- fual curiosity and “ideas” in the student body. They blame the homes and the schools, and there are plenty to echo their complaints. It may appear from all this that in writing about the spirit of youth in American colleges I am writing about a non-existent or at any rate a feeble thing. Certainly there is no youth movement in the European sense, as the foreign students sent by the National Student Forum on tour of our colleges discovered. There is some liberalism, there is some revolt which goes beyond the familiar—and exaggerated— revolt of the flapper. Particularly interesting is the growth of a journalism very critical of college idols: Readers of The Nation need not be told at length the stories of the Scorpion, published by Wisconsin students, the Tempest at the University of Michigan, the Saturday Evening Pest at Yale, and others. The experiences of their editors have been very different; their point of view is not identical; but they all would to some degree indorse the Pest’s motto: “The beginning of doubt is the beginning of wisdom.” Moreover, most of these journals of protest illustrate the shrewd observation of an experienced professor. “Students today,” she told me, “know more and hope less than ten years ago.” (But not all students are weighted down with knowledge. I have found appalling ignorance of European conditions. For many stu- dents the World War was a sporting event about on a par with the Dempsey-Gibbons fight.) There are radicals in our colleges with the certainties and hopes we usually identify with young radicals. But they are few. The prophet of the minority of our youth is Mencken not Marx. Scott Nearing, whenever he is allowed to speak in a college, finds hearers and admirers, but I sus- pect that most of our liberals would rather be Scott Fitz- gerald than Scott Nearing. First confessing my admira- tion of Mr. H. L. Mencken but my fear of Menckenism as a sterile thing, I must record my regret that college liberal- ism finds it so much easier to laugh at the “booboisie” than to understand or work with the proletariat; so much more satisfactory to criticize Main Street than to make an effort to re-create it. I comfort myself by reflecting that it is good that our youth should be armored in something beside sentimental- ism. Some disillusionment is an inevitable and wholesome reaction to the orgy of the war. If disgust of accepted standards of life is a step on the road to a truer philosophy, it will be abundantly justified. There are, moreover, happenings in the college world which make one cautious about too critical generalizations on the qualities of college liberalism. Here and there youth is taking account of the processes of its own education with refreshing vigor and intelligence. The suggested cur- riculum of the Barnard students was not only a remarkable document but has aroused interest among students as far off as India. An occasional college graduate today quietly throws his lot in with labor in a practical, non-melodramatic manner that is a joy to behold. There is astir some sense of the obligation students owe to labor. The quality if not the quantity of local college meetings or more general con- ferences held under the auspices of the Fellowship of Recon- ciliation, the Student Forum, the League for Industrial Democracy, and even the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. argues a capacity for generous service of the common good from which much may be hoped. Assuredly the college situation is not hopeless for those who realize that we must look to the young, in whom habits are not strong as steel bars and thought patterns rigid as iron molds, for the intelligence and devotion which may yet reshape civilization and enrich the individual life.

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108 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 Stray Thoughts on a College Pilgrimage By WILLIAM A. ROBSON [’ was in New York. At a luncheon party—a very nice affair, too. There was I, a pilgrim from England who had been wandering about for nearly five months, seeing American university life and trying to discover what kind of a country America was. And there was the party, in luncheon assembled, brooding over the wreckage of the dead meal. I was expected to speak, and so far as I could see there was no way of getting out of it gracefully. I was caught, trapped. For five months I had been allowed to wander at large about the American continent, talking (when occa- sion arose) about anything that occurred to me, about “ships and shoes and sealing wax.” But at last my hour had struck, and I knew that America, speaking through the persons of this agreeable group of men and women, de- manded an account of my pilgrimage, demanded to know what I thought of it all. The day of reckoning had come; and I had before me the task of reducing a complex truth to a simple falsehood. The ideal thing, of course, would have been to be effi- ciently, unassailably, preposterously statistical. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I should have said, “at the moment of speaking I have been in this country five months, one week, three days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes. During that time I have traveled 8,497 miles, have visited thirty- one of your colleges and universities, have met 4,783,421 people, consumed 64,892 portions of ice cream 2 A buzzing noise interrupted my thoughts. It was the voice of a fellow-countryman from England, newly arrived in America, analyzing the situation in Great Britain. He was trying to describe what it felt like coming to America from Europe. It suddenly dawned on me that, whereas he felt that he had left Europe behind him, I felt on the con- trary that in coming back to New York I had already re- turned to Europe; that the difference between New York and London was as nothing compared with the difference between New York and the Middle West and the extreme West. But what did I think of it all? I asked myself. The dominant thought in my head was a sense of the enor- mous complexity of America and the diversity of the Ameri- can college system, and of the difficulty of making generali- zations which should be true of the whole country and not of a mere fraction. The sheer scale of the thing is so staggering to the average European, I had found, that he usually fails to grasp its significance. At that moment a vision appeared to me. The vision had nothing to do with angels, demons, fiery steeds, or my speech; it consisted merely of the translation of the United States territory into European terms. I saw (and subsequently my vision turned out to be a mere memory of some charts I had seen in a geography room) that from Oklahoma City to Boston was as far as from Paris to Petrograd; that from New York City to San Francisco was as far as from London to Bagdad; that California was larger than Italy, and the State of New York nearly as big as England. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, old Europe, I thought—unless the influence of Kansas and Utah has made you give up smoking! I glanced at the speaker. He had settled down into a comfortable jog trot, whereas my attack of mental indi- gestion was still in full swing. Suddenly I remembered an incident which had occurred during my visit to Harvard. “Suppose,” a world-famous economist had said to me there, “you were asked what were the three most remarkable things an Englishman ought to see in America, what would you choose?” In reply I had dived in recklessly—where angels might well have feared to plunge. “Of course,” I said, “he must see Niagara Falls; they are unique.” “Of course,” I continued, “he must see the Grand Canyon; it is one of the sights of the world.” And then I hesitated—for a long time. What on earth was the third most remarkable thing I had seen in America? I finally selected a policeman I had noticed in Los Angeles wearing silk socks. You could search all Europe, Africa, and Asia without finding a police- man wearing silk socks. The economic condition which enabled a policeman to buy silk socks, and the social system which permitted him to wear them, struck me as extremely significant. Suppose I tried to apply the same method to the uni- versity system. What had been the three most important features relating to college life which I had seen? Well, there was that never-to-be-forgotten sight of thousands and thousands of students streaming out of the University of California when the lunch bell chimed at one o’clock. I thought that that spectacle summed up in a flash the huge problem presented by the enormous expansion of university education in America. Then there was that wonderful cir- cumstance of college life, so widespread and commonplace in America, so unknown in Europe: myriads of impecunious boys and girls working their way through college by hand- ing round potatoes and washing dishes, or doing other trifling jobs for two or three hours a day, earning their keep thereby. How better summarize the unique oppor- tunity in higher education which America offers her younger generation; how better pay tribute to the lack of snobbish- ness which enables a student to earn his way without shame? But the ability to work your way through college has nothing to do with the excellence of the Constitution, as so many students had fondly suggested to me! For the third item again I hesitated. Then I remem- bered staying at a famous Middle West coeducational col- lege, where certain members of the faculty had received from the editor of the college paper a questionnaire asking what six books they would take to a desert island if they were to be banished there. One professor said to me: “They will expect me to put down the Bible; so I must put that down for-one.” That was a significant incident; I won- dered if my audience would see the point or whether they would think I was attacking the Bible? I looked around at them. Yes, they were certainly very intelligent. And very delightful. I felt vaguely sorry that each one of them represented only —355qn0-a00~ Part of the American nation. It seemed such a tiny little fraction. My chest swelled as I remembered that I represented no less than —g5590,009 Part of the English nation. I wondered if that fact had anything to do with the queer atmosphere in the universities. In America you felt such

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August 1, 1923] an infinitesimally small part of the whole; and that tended to do away with a sense of civic responsibility. The boys and girls in the colleges and universities were very jolly, many of them; but no one could accuse them of having a sense of responsibility. That was one of the big differences. People called them boys and girls (and in private sometimes “kids”). With us it was always men and women. Were they, I reflected pragmatically, boys and girls in fact be- cause they were called boys and girls; or were they called boys and girls because they really were boys and girls? How paternal the system was on the whole! History was something divided into periods; reading was something divided into assignments; education was something divided into A.B.’s, semesters, fraternities, hazing, athletics, and flunks. Yet how nice some of the boys and girls were, I remem- bered affectionately. And how light-hearted and carefree they seemed after poor old Europe, with her cares and her The Nation 109 trials and her miseries. But they ought to think a bit more. I remembered some of the questions they had asked me. Did most people in England wear monocles? Did we still have real live dukes and duchesses? Then there was one of my traveling companions who had come from Czecho- Slovakia. He had been introduced as a native of Graeco- Slovakia; of Poland; and finally asked if his country was a province of Russia whose capital was Vladivostok! It wasn’t always as bad as that, but still ! And then there was that beastly system of credits— everyone always being taken on credit; and compulsory lec- tures, and quizzes, and assigned reading, and incessant examinations. All very well in their way but out of place in a university. Life was too organized. The buzzing noise had subsided. I glanced at the head of the table. The chairman was calling on me to speak. I rose to my feet. ... Boston: A Journalistic Poor-F arm By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD F, as it has been so wittily said, Boston is the abandoned farm of American literature, journalistically it is the country’s poor-farm. Nothing in Boston astonishes for- eigners more than its press; nothing more clearly illus- trates the passing of what was once the Athens of America. To understand in full the degradation of its dailies one must know the extraordinary transformation which has come over the stronghold of the Puritans; one must realize that the Boston of today has comparatively little in com- mon with that of forty years ago. A thin blue line of descendants of the colonials, who learn nothing and forget nothing, is intrenched on the Back Bay and in State Street, and does its best to confront and hold back the multitudes of Irish, Jews, and Italians who today comprise the bulk of the city’s population. The Puritan is yielding to the Catho- lic; the Catholic in turn may yield to some one else. Now the decay of the press has naturally not been due merely to the city’s changed character; it has followed the press of the whole country downward. The surprising thing is that the ultra-conservatism of Boston did not retard the change, but, I am inclined to think, rather accel- erated it. Perhaps the explanation is this: one of the _ worst faults of the Boston press is its parochial character. No other large American city has such localized news- papers. That trait comes from the Back Bay itself. Even when literary Boston was in fullest flower, its attention was riveted chiefly upon itself. It knew nothing of the rest of the country and did not wish to know anything of it. Some years ago a charming young bride from Albany, descendant of the most patrician of Dutch settlers, was taken to visit on Back Bay two of her husband’s maiden aunts, then nearing their seventies. They looked upon her with mingled trepidation and wonder. “So you come from the West,” said they. “Well, from Albany,” faltered the guilty bride. “Well, we’ve never been further west than Worcester !” This parochial character is unquestionably at the bottom of the success of more than one Boston newspaper. About thirty years ago the Hub rejoiced in some excellent and most intelligent journals. There was the old Post, a fine Mugwumpian morning paper of the type of the old New York Evening Post and the Springfield Republican. Under John Holmes the Herald was independent, honest, and aboveboard. The Advertiser personified Republican dig- nity, respectability, and conservatism, with the Record not far behind. The Traveler, too, had its day. But the Post failed, was bought up, and became, under E. A. Grozier, a particularly low but successful scarlet woman of journal- ism. The Herald fell upon hard times and bartered its virtue like any drab. The Record and the Advertiser had their ups and downs; the Record is honorably dead and the Advertiser in its old age has sunk dreadfully to being a Hearst tabloid picture daily after the model of the New York Daily News. Others have faded out; the American and the Telegram have come in—to lower the general aver- age still further. Aside from the Christian Science Moni- tor, they are all fatally petit bourgeois. They are filled with small-town gossip, with the chatter of the suburbanite. It was General Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe who led the profession downward. It was also he who first understood how best to exploit the new-type residents of Boston. He printed sensational headlines and “played up” crime. He issued orders that, if possible, every reader of the Globe must find his name in the paper at least once a year. Even today it prints long lists of “among those present” and gives pages and pages to clubs, societies, and society news, to meetings of fraternal orders—anything which makes possible the printing of names, names, names. A story of General Taylor further illumines his policy. Being informed one day by an excited employee of the alarming news that the Boston Herald had engaged another London correspondent, the General exclaimed: “Then, by God, we’ll have to get another in South Boston!” To this must be added General Taylor’s second recipe for sure suc- cess: Never say anything unfavorable of anybody in your daily if it can in any way be avoided; never give offense. That rule has long governed the Globe. General Taylor adopted it not merely because it was good business, but because he was himself a simple, sweet-natured person,

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110 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 LL ————————————————— utterly undiscriminating, utterly conventional, utterly ignorant that there were such things as deep economic currents and terrible economic injustices. Possessed of a really creative mind, he should have been a man of action instead of a publisher who owned 50 per cent of his paper —Mr. Eben Jordan of the Jordan Marsh dry-goods store owned the other 50 per cent—and made money much too easily. This is the inheritance that has come to General Taylor’s sons, of whom the younger, William O. Taylor, is now the head of the paper. He inherited his father’s kindly heart as well as his limited social vision. The Globe changes amazingly little; while it still has exactly the headlines and the cheap, splashy make-up which once made it appear the yellowest of Boston dailies, it has been so outstripped in yellowness by others that it seems almost conservative. Why should it change? It still has (April, 1923) 280,000 readers on week days and over 328,000 on Sundays, and still makes considerable money. Curiously enough, it does do something worth while; it contributes the best editorials printed in any Boston news- paper. One appears daily, over the signature “Uncle Dud- ley,” which is always worth reading. Whether the Tay- lors realized at first the commercial value of editorials which give evidence of thought and brains and liberalism is questionable, but it is today true that the views of the apocryphal ‘Uncle Dudley” sell thousands upon thousands of copies to people who don’t like the rest of the paper, but seek its editorial page as an oasis in the desert. The sev- eral men whose identity has been hidden by “Uncle Dud- ley,” Lucien Price, the late Thaddeus C. Defriez, James Morgan, William S. Packer, and James H. Powers, form a roll of honor. In the war days when it was dangerous to be an American loyal to his country’s spiritual ideals “Uncle Dudley” found pleasure in dwelling upon funda- mentals; he wrote about the basic ideals of spiritual and moral liberty, dealing, it is true, largely in generalities, but often pointing the moral to adorn the tale, or leading up to an inevitable (sometimes almost treasonable) deduc- tion which one had, however, to make oneself. One often finds in the Globe the only accurate, unbiased reporting of labor troubles or of famous trials—Frank Sibley’s ac- counts of the famous Lawrence strike were the best report- ing done in New England in years and became a part of the subsequent court record. As Hearst out-trumped Pulitzer in yellowness in New York, so Mr. E. A. Grozier went General Taylor one better in Boston. The Post can be dismissed briefly: there are few newspapers of lower standards in America; this one has a circulation of 361,000 daily and of over 370,000 on Sundays, a great decrease from its high-water mark of 540,000. It still pervades all New England, degrading as it goes, destroying ideals, lowering the public taste, and familiarizing the homes of Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and parts of Maine with crimes, scandal, and the baser part of life. It is a frankly commercialized enterprise beside which the two Hearst newspapers, the American and the Advertiser, seem tame and respectable—some excellent editorials creep into the former occasionally, doubtless from the pen or through the influence of Grenville S. MacFarland, an able writer and thinker. As for the Hearst papers in Boston, they differ not a whit from the others of the group. That the once staid and sober Advertiser should now be Mr. Hearst’s first tabloid pictorial daily is truly the irony of fate, and is in many respects a measure of the low estate which the whole Boston press has reached. For some excellent policies the Hearst papers have stood in Boston, as elsewhere; notably in the matter of the street railways. Their managers be- lieve, moreover, that it is in their editorial liberalism or radicalism that their strength lies. They will demonstrate to you that the chief sensationalism of the Boston Amer- ican lies in its headlines; that if you were to eliminate those, a daily comparison would show that there is less of the bizarre, the scandalous, and the sensational than ap- pears in the Post and the new evening paper, the Tele- gram. This statement is doubtless correct; but what a light it casts upon Boston journalism that two dailies actually out-Hearst Hearst! When one turns to the Boston Herald and its editor, Robert Lincoln O’Brien, one comes upon the greatest dis- appointment in Boston journalism. Yet one must ask oneself whether, given the ownership of the Herald as it was when Mr. O’Brien took hold, any other outcome was possible. A Harvard graduate, private secretary to Presi- dent Cleveland during his second term, then for years Washington correspondent of the Transcript, and later its editor, he had a wonderful opportunity when asked to take over the direction of the Herald. True, the paper was then venal and was losing so much money that its rich owners, who have at times included Senator W. Murray Crane, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, some of the United Shoe Machinery Company group, and Morton F. Plant, were sorely tried by its plight. These big-business men and corporations were unquestionably a barrier to the making over of the Herald into a free and independent daily, but it was supposed that if Mr. O’Brien accepted the task of rehabilitation he would obtain for himself a char- ter of liberty. It speedily appeared that Mr. O’Brien, too, had sold himself to the god Success. He was determined to make the Herald rich and prosperous and his efforts have succeeded. Its joint circulation with its evening edi- tion, the Traveler, is now 258,000. It printed in 1921 more “national” advertising (that is, general announcements as opposed to advertising of local origin) than any other daily. Mr. O’Brien, who receives a percentage of the earnings, is believed to draw about $100,000 a year for his services and he is also a stockholder. But the Herald, for all that it bears a fair face and is typographically the best of the Boston papers, after the Transcript, is false behind its pleasing aspect. It is still a creature of the big corporations; it is subservient to the big advertisers. Nor is it always quite square in its adver- tising. A couple of years ago it joined in the general abuse of Joseph Pelletier, the former District Attorney of Boston, for not punishing or interfering with the perpe- trators of the Emerson Motors swindle. But while prop- erly berating Pelletier, it failed to state how many thou- sands of dollars had gone into its treasury for the exten- sive Emerson Motors advertising in its columns through which many dupes lost their savings. During the war the Herald refused to carry out a contract for publishing a perfectly proper advertisement urging the public to pur- chase only necessaries—evidently the dry-goods stores forbade it—for which breach of contract the Herald paid five hundred dollars. At one time it even ruled automo- bile accidents off the front page on Mondays to oblige the

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 111 motor-car advertisers. Once it went so far as to print the headline “‘(Governor) McCall and Moxie at Barnstable Fair.” So the Herald is without a soul, and is ruled by fear. Whereas General Taylor’s policy of offending no- body was in part due to his own kindly philosophy, with the Herald it is business, pure and simple. Then Mr. O’Brien has the good sense to stick by his friends. Sometimes this leads to amusing complications. There was Mr. X, for instance. Coming to Mr. O’Brien’s sanctum one day he explained, with some embarrassment, that a publication would be made about him in the next few days and he did so hope that the Herald would deal kindly and gently with him. Mr. O’Brien assured him that it would. Mr. O’Brien, about to go off for a few days of vacation, left orders that not one singlé word should appear in the Herald in his absence about his friend, Mr. X. Three days later, the news of Mr. X’s honorable appointment to a high Federal office in Boston duly ap- peared in all the Boston newspapers except the Herald! Not until Mr. O’Brien returned could the lips of the loyal staff of the Herald be unpadlocked. If loyalties, as Mr. Galsworthy as well as Mr. O’Brien shows, can lead us astray, I think the Herald typifies only a bit more strongly than the other Boston papers the slav- ish adherence to convention and sham which distinguishes the whole of that parochial press. Take that midget statesman, Calvin Coolidge, Vice-President of the United States, for instance. Every honest Boston journalist knows the inwardness of the police strike and how little, if any, credit Mr. Coolidge deserves for his part in it. I happened to be sitting among the Massachusetts journal- ists at the Chicago convention when Mr. Coolidge was nominated as Vice-President. Their astonishment and their disgust were amusing to witness. Returning later to the Congress Hotel I found two of the most influential editors in New England in excited conversation about Mr. Coolidge’s nomination. Never have I heard more vigor- ous profanity; each sought to outdo the other in his epi- thets. “Never,” said the elder, “in years of political ex- perience have I met a man in public life so despicable, so Picayune, so false to his friends as Cal!” I marveled still more when I read the dispatches those two gentlemen. sent to their respective dailies, for they were full of congratu- lations to Massachusetts upon the honor done to her and to Mr. Coolidge for this magnificent national recognition of his splendid services to his State, his admirable per- sonal qualities, his statesmanlike vision, etc., etc. Finally, there is the Transcript, staid, dignified, the per- sonification of reaction and conservatism, catering to the business men whose minds are closed and to the Back Bay conservatives, male and female, whose horizons are as limited as their prejudices are unnumbered. Where the Globe’s readers are hungry for new ideas and open- minded, the Transcript’s are of the Brahmin caste whose broadcloth ancestors mobbed Abolitionists and resented any interference with the slave trade or slavery because it might affect their dividends. For such as these the Tran- script is beyond praise and it must, in all justice, be set forth that the Transcript is in many respects an excellent news-purveyor. Its criticisms of books, plays, art, and music are excellent; they are free, honest, often very able; some people rate them higher than those of any other American daily. Certainly the Transcript gives a more comprehensive view of musical news and progress the world over than any other American newspaper. It does endeavor to keep up Boston’s interest in things intellec- tual, and it has been rewarded by a slow but sure circula- tion growth; it sells 34,000 daily except when it jumps on Saturdays to 55,000. Had the Transcript the right kind of spiritual, intellec- tual, and political leadership it would have to be ranked very high in American journalism. But it, too, is in its viewpoint parochial, narrow, nationalistic, extremely preju- diced, and filled with the spirit of caste. It is a violent partisan; its editorial page, and often its news columns, are poisoned by bitterness and hate. All the British and French propaganda during the war found its way into the Transcript; no lie about Russia is too stale for its retailing. Fortunately for its readers, its news headlines are no longer quite so colored as during the war, when it was one of the worst adulterators of news that we had. Not content with partisan writing of headlines it began its stories with a “news-lead” badly colored, so that when you got to your news you were likely to read it wrong. It deliberately distorted President Harding’s stinging rebuke to the railroad presidents who refused to make peace with their striking shopmen by putting these entirely false headlines over the President’s statement: “Should End Shop Strike, President Harding Tells the Union Officials; Blames Strike for Prevailing Coal Short- age; Also for Unsatisfactory Railroad Conditions; Con- tinuance on Some Roads Without Reason.” Of George S. Mandell, who has been for many years the moving spirit of the Transcript, it has been said that “his personal ideals are bounded by the heavens and his social sympathies by his elbows.” He has the highest personal standards and is so truthful and honorable that it makes the Transcript’s lapses all the more curious and censurable. But his standards are all conventional; one thinks of him instinctively as a Tory squire. This, then, is the daily newspaper menu of Boston, chief city of New England, foremost inheritor of the Puritan tradition, and, in the eyes of many, predestined conserva- tor of the ideals of the Revolutionary Fathers. Worshipers. of the Revolution of 148 years ago, the foremost concern of the Boston editors of today is the prevention of any future progress. Death-Watch By VINCENT STARRETT The great man lingers in the arms of pain, Serene before the creeping shade of doom... He comforts those about him in the room, Whose tears fall silently. . . . Out in the rain A youth in oilskins, vividly profane, Trudges beside the splendid house of gloom And waits the moment it becomes a tomb, Thinking the world waits with him in the lane. Not his the sorrow, and not his the smart, Though vaguely pity may oppose his ire; His but to wait a signal; nothing more. It comes! ... And with a fiercely beating heart He shrieks his message o’er a humming wire: “Dead!” . . . And afar the hungry presses roar.

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 A Famiry By ZONA GALE MONG the red porch chairs Elmer Dasher sat in a denim swing which leniently dissented. He did not seem like a man who would sit and swing; such a molested- looking man. Hands parted the curtains of a window behind him and hung there a pink card on which was printed “Ice.” It was evening, but tomorrow morning’s slumber must not be flawed by this task. Immediately the hands appeared upon the porch. Mrs. Dasher’s hands wore all the expression that she had. They seemed to have done so much. Her face had experienced so little. “Hot,” said she. “Why shouldn’t it be? Dasher. He tilted the swing, and the spirited disclaimer of the frame did not annoy them. She rocked and they did not hear the creaking board. Near the cement pavement the sprinkler fizzed and squirted; they did not observe that in order to avoid it passers were obliged to make a detour under the maples. Elmer Dasher took his watch and held it. The last bright cloud hung on Patch Hill and stained the air. Shadow floated and fell. For five minutes while airy dissolution ran upon the light, Mr. Dasher eyed the dial. Then he de- scended the steps and turned off the city water. Uncon- scious that it is a triumph of social evolution for a com- munity to be organized like that, and without a casual glance at the elemental glory of the sunset, he returned to his swing. Ludlow, his neighbor, crossed the connecting lawns and desired to know how everything was. Ludlow had a woman’s eyes. Elmer Dasher held him in subconscious contempt, for he made disconcerting observations, such as he made now to Dasher’s inevitable reply that everything was complete, com- plete: “Sometimes I wonder why Patch Grove doesn’t collapse and slide down Patch Hill and pile up in the valley.” Dasher inquired why on earth it should do that. He knew his town; “hard-boiled business, hard-boiled recreation, hard-boiled family life,” he had once summed it up; but he could not imagine why business blocks, houses, garages, and folk should ever give way, of their own futility, and slide down to the valley of the Patch, the brown river. Ludlow’s long harangue only confused him. “You won’t find any better place to live,” he indignantly defended. “I’m afraid not,” said Ludlow, sighed, mentioned the thun- der heads in the west, and went home. “Queer duck,” Elmer Dasher thought. Abruptly, distinctly, he heard a cry. He could not divine its direction nor tell whether it was the voice of man or woman. It might have been a signal, very clear, though from a distance. He looked at his wife but she, with mov- ing lips, was counting something and had heard nothing. He thought that the boys must be playing ball on the school grounds, and he tilted the swing again. The hall gas flared up. Over her who had lighted it the warm tide surged, showed her pointed face, her thin arms— Geraldine Dasher, a name to which her faint self of forty It’s summer time,” said Elmer bore no relation. She emerged, announced a destination, was met by “Why not ever sit down here at home with us?” and pregnable, without resentment, sank to the top step. Within the houses, behind the dying brilliance of the brick walls, girls were dressing. In Patch Grove no one dresses before dinner. The virginity of the toilette is preserved for its main purpose. On the porches sat those who did not dress for the evening any more. In many of these the desire to give life had changed to a dynamic hostility to those al- ready alive. As with the Dashers: “Hot.” “Why shouldn’t it be? It’s summer time.” “That isn’t funny.” “My dear, nothing is funny to you.” “My clothes are—they’re so funny I don’t like to go to church.” “The churches have gone to the dogs. Best keep out of them.” “You would insult my religion!” And so on to: “T’m rather sick of this whole thing.” Whereon Geraldine cried abruptly: ‘How do you think J feel about that?” and laughed, harshly, so that a silence fell. In their silence a telegram was given over the telephone in the hall. Dasher took the message, came back, his face sagging with concern, and said: “Mama, Katy’s sick. She wants us to go to the city and bring the boy home with us.” Mrs. Dasher asked for details which had not been given, made and rejected fractions of plans, objected. Dasher said: “Nonsense. Katy’s the only niece I’ve got in the world. Going, too, Jerry? Don’t keep us waiting.” The enormous night received the little car. Ten miles of dusky cornland, warm with the breath of the day; eight miles of city streets, sleepy with heat, nervous with light, washed by a thin black stream of beings. Pearl City traffic formed the veins of some vast undivined body. That body seemed to have a voice, raucous, unresting. The powers of that body were evident—to give death, to give life, to sin, to rejoice, to agonize. Was there no more to that unknown being? Could it only bellow with its body while its veins flowed with the traffic? Katy was at a hospital and with her the little boy, wonder- ing, frail. The ward was shared with a woman, a Bohemian, red and black. Katy was a yellow shadow on a pillow. Old in cell and in spirit she said: “Don’t bother to stay. He'll be here. But he can’t work and see to the boy, too. Me? I don’t know and I don’t care.” She lay like a little animal left too long in a trap to be watching any more. Elmer Dasher was shaken, said “But my God, Katy”; and Katy, turning her head fretfully from him, was caught by the aspect of the Bohemian woman, and cried out. The Bohemian woman was sitting erect and trying terribly for breath. No nurse was there, the passages were quiet. The Dashers, always lax, uncentered, were thrown into distrac- tion. Elmer ran and rang and called. It was Mrs. Dasher who reached the woman and, in some deep impulse to phys- ical contact, held her as she died. Mrs. Dasher kept say- ing: “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this.” Jerry caught up the terrified little boy, ran by the nurse who was moving upon the room, crouched in the tonneau, and hugged the child. He wept, was stilled, and later roused to faint interests. She was stirred by his quiet, then by his motion. While they waited, she sought for ways to give him

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 113 protection. Passers glanced at them and it flashed to her: They think he’s mine. She adjusted his collar and said in an admirably imitated abstraction: ‘Yes, darling.” At last her father and mother came crossing the street. To Jerry they seemed detached and of a familiarity strange and passionate, such as she felt in saying over her own name. “T don’t understand that,” Mrs. Dasher was still saying weakly. In the seat beside her husband she wept and seemed rapt, unaware of anything save that which had just happened. Elmer Dasher was silent, but wholly in the body, as was clear when he cursed in a traffic crisis. This crisis he assumed to have been imagined: He heard a car, with a strange siren, a faint melodious siren; a car seeking, he thought, to pass him, and nearly succeeding. Dasher could hear the silver alternation, a cadence such as three pipes might give, softly blown. When had a man ever devised a siren like that? “Some music hound,” thought Dasher. And when a tight place narrowed in before him and the light cry of insistence followed close, he drew far to the right to let the fellow pass. The fellow did not pass. Amazed, as he looked back, Dasher saw the street mo- mentarily empty. ‘Must have been a fire whistle,” Dasher thought, and slid back into the channel. They drew into the country, into the tender vacant air of fields. Now emerged the sky, which in town they had for- gotten. The sky was void of stars. To the southwest were thrusts of lightning, incessant, at innocent play, uncon- cerned with any fruit of death. A faint huskiness came deepening of thunder. “What’s that?” the child asked and, grown shyly accus- tomed, questioned of fireflies, of miasma, of the smell of honey and hay. These questions gave Jerry rapture. His breath and his brushing eyelash gave her rapture. The child fell asleep, and in dear discomfort Jerry held him; for mile upon mile she held him and dreaded the ride’s end. She felt a lift of pleasure when the car was stalled. At the foot of a sharp slope up to a road-bed the car stopped. Elmer Dasher, who could not so much as set a hinge on a door, was helpless. He lifted the hood, produced tools, said names of parts; but it was plain that he was helpless. No farmstead light was near and they set themselves to wait for passers. It was a road little frequented. And now the high black clouds were shot with flame. They faced a meadow made limitless by night. The life of the dark was there, the dark peopled by rustle, breath, odor. In the stillness these influences came confidently to the car. The night breathed, and along its vast invisible veins coursed some faint fluid, tincturing the darkness, flow- ing through the little bodies of men. Suddenly Elmer Dasher felt a frightful nostalgia. Home, home! He wanted to be at home. But when he thought of his house, his porch with red chairs, it was not these that he wanted. Home. Some core of the word seemed to emerge and demand him. Where did he want to go? Far away, as if from another meadow under another night, there came a call, of no remembered bird. A bird call which fused with the rising wind, threaded the thunder, haunted the ear, and died. It voiced his nostalgia, it was pure and pleading. It bore an echo of unbearable sweet- ness. Or was it a bird call? He thought now that it might have been a wavering engine whistle. ... Far down the curve of the railroad across the distant swamp, a yellow eye outrayed in the first rain. “The ’way freight,” said Elmer Dasher. “It’s none too good for us. We’ll signal them, and if they row we'll report them to the directors!” The highway was level with the fields. To the fields’ edge they rolled their car, an ancient servant, and left it locked in darkness; with its lamps lighted their way and flagged the freight train. In magnificent languor, like a train of the Orient, the thundering thing rolled indolently down and stopped. A blown torch brushed out a little pool of light. A Patch Grove voice hailed them, exclaimed, bade them climb aboard. Received into the warm cave of the cab, these four blinked at the red throat of the fire-box and felt the rich reprieve of some convalescence. The enormous night held the little train. The enormous sky held the little storm. Standing in the gangway Elmer Dasher threw back his head and took the hour. Motion, roar, electricity blue on the metal, thunder of wheel and of cloud, and he in their midst. He felt in flight over farther spaces. They swept by a steel plant, saw the belch and glare, made out men and mounds of slag. One of the sheds stood drenched in the red beauty of the pouring, and naked figures flowered from wild color. In that flash were the tumult of farther industry, roar of innumerable trains, glitter of all the cities, their veins flowing with men and women in sin, joy, anguish. He was feeling all that there was to feel! He could have cried a challenge as the engine went challenging the lit blackness. But why did the engineer blow the whistle, running through open country? Or did he blow the whistle? He was sitting quietly on the seat, his attention on the track. One hand lay on his knee and one on the window-sill. The engine whistle was not blown! That insistent and sovereign call which had seemed like the voice of their flight, it came toward them from some horizon. What horizon? Who was calling? Calling whom? Beauty and anguish flowed to- gether in Elmer Dasher. He felt drunkenness, incredibly enhanced. “The glory of the Lord—eh, old girl?” he shouted. No one heard him. On the fireman’s seat Mrs. Dasher, cowering with covered eyes, looked round at him. She had not heard what he said, had not seen what he saw, had felt nothing that he felt, had been puzzled by no cry; but her face held its own emotion, wore now as much experience as her hands. “Elmer,” she cried, “I don’t understand what happened to her and I don’t believe I ever shall.” But this he did not hear. “The glory of the Lord, by the great horn spoon!” he bellowed, and looked about. Neither death nor the fury of the hour occupied Jerry. In the thunder of the engine and of the storm, she had found that the child clutched at her. Before midnight they were dry in their rooms and the little boy was sleeping. Elmer Dasher’s exaltation, his wife’s pity and terror, Jerry’s brief motherhood, all boxed dry in their rooms. The storm cleared and left the air sultry, intolerable. Dasher could not sleep. He went downstairs and sat in the swing. Ludlow was moving about the lawn, barefooted in the drenched grass. He came to the Dashers’ veranda rail. “Been up in town, have you?” he said. “I tell you, if there’s reason why Patch Grove should collapse and slide into the valley, Pearl City ought to drop into the ground with no warning. Ought to disappear from the human eye.” Something shook Elmer Dasher. He seemed to remember that this destiny of man he had recently been stirred to resist. But automatically he replied:

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“You won’t find a better city anywhere than Pearl.” “T’m afraid not,” said Ludlow, and went home. Faintly, a far horn which would wake few, Elmer Dasher heard the cry again. In it was the nostalgia of the night, of the world, of some hidden being striving to be heard. But of this cry he could not divine direction nor meaning. It might have been a signal or a challenge. To whom? And from where? Boys could not be playing ball on the school grounds now.... He moved nervously in his swing and the frame dissented leniently. He felt an instant and acute relief and comfortably concluded that this faint squeak was all that he had noted. Hearing this squeak, his wife descended, quavered. “That you, Elmer?” and came to her rocking chair on its creaking board. The moon in its third quarter, a trinket of silver gilt, was tilted above the elms, but the Dashers did not ob- serve. Nor did they note the clean new anger of the second storm cutting its low way along the west. Beneath the hall burner Jerry passed, came to the thresh- old, and when her mother said “Better sit down” emerged and obeyed. “T don’t understand it and I never shall,” said Mrs. Dasher heavily. “Don’t say that again!” Elmer Dasher cried. “There isn’t a woman in the world that’ll keep on saying the same thing over and over the way you will.” “I won’t be here long to say anything. whole thing.” Jerry interposed: “It’s hot again, isn’t it?” She heard: “Why shouldn’t it be It’s summer time.” And: “Can anybody see whether I hung up the ice card?” I’m sick of the ‘‘Vacation’’ at San Quentin By MIRIAM ALLEN DE FORD ee being the season when all well-conducted respec- tables lay aside the cares of office and take to the woods for a long rest, Californians paid little attention to the tiny paragraphs which recently appeared in a few San Francisco newspapers to announce another strike among the criminal-syndicalism prisoners at San Quentin. Isn’t I.W.W. synonymous with “I Won’t Work’? What more natural, then, than that these faithless fellows should pre- fer solitary confinement to the torments of labor? Among a group of criminal-syndicalism victims sent up from Sacramento last May was one William Flanagen, aged twenty-one. Like all the other prisoners of the same kind, he was charged with no overt act, his only crime being membership in the Industrial Workers of the World. In his case the ‘‘offense” was a very recent one; his red card was only a few days old when he was arrested and charged with violating the laws of a State in which he had not resided long enough even to obtain a job. Flanagen is a member of a “‘good” Massachusetts family, which made frantic efforts to save him from the fate due his inconvenient opinions. It was finally intimated to him that if he would come home while he was out on bail no-one would complain of the cost of the skipped bond. But the young man’s education in solidarity had been in a very good school—the Sacramento County Jail. Flanagen did not see why chance should release him from the same misfortune that beset his fellow-workers, and he refused The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 to accept the offer, taking his sentence of from one to four- teen years with the rest of the defendants. All new prisoners at San Quentin are set to work in the jute-mill. Ordinary convicts serve from three to six months there; politicals are lucky if they get out in a year. One of the previous protest strikes at the prison had its origin in the three-year service of one of the “Wobbly” prisoners in this breeding-place of consumption. The machines are worked at top speed and are forced to compete against each other in production. To Flanagen, who never before had seen the inside of any kind of factory, the regular daily task in the jute-mill was the limit of attainment. Then when a “rush order” for extra work came on, and the jute- mill superintendent as usual picked a political to handle it, and placed it on this new and inexperienced worker, with the best will in the world the amount of labor commanded was beyond his powers. Flanagen tried hard but fell be- hind in his task. He was ordered to the dungeons. These dark and filthy holes, the cells of which are scarcely large enough for a man to lie down in comfortably (if one can find comfort where the only bed is a stone floor), drip- ping with moisture, alive with vermin, with open buckets for toilet purposes and an outrageous insufficiency of food and water, have at one time or another harbored most of the criminal-syndicalism prisoners at San Quentin. Word filtered through the prison that Flanagen had been con- demned to this place “until he was willing to work’—i. e., until, weakened by the conditions of the dungeon, he was stronger and more skilful than when he went in! Imme- diately another protest strike was on. Most of the other I.W.W. prisoners, by reason of their longer service, were in far more comfortable working posi- tions than the jute-mill. But there was no hesitancy; out of the forty-five ‘“Wobblies” in San Quentin, thirty-six left their tasks and refused to work again until Flanagen was out of the dungeons. Warden James A. Johnston, no friend of industrial rebels, ordered the entire thirty-six to solitary. There they are fed on nothing but bread and water, and pre- cious little of that. Except that there is a little light dur- ing the daytime, and that at night a lousy mattress and blanket are thrown in, to be taken away next morning, the men in solitary are almost as badly off as the men in the dungeons. And there the strikers are to stay, by the warden’s orders, until they are willing to go back to work with their demands ungranted. One of the thirty-six, George Ryan, was the only San Quentin inmate on the Workers’ Prison Comfort Club’s June list for birthday cards and letters. Only a prisoner can know what this proof that the world outside has not forgotten means to the man inside. Of course all privi- leges of correspondence, coming or going, are taken away from the men in solitary. George Ryan celebrated his birthday by joining in the strike. Of the criminal syndicalism prisoners not on strike, four are out in the road-camp and do not yet know of the pro- test. Old Jim Roe, over seventy and crippled with rheuma- tism, spends his time in the “old men’s ward” and has no job to leave. (Jim Roe has a heart fifty years younger and stauncher than his worn-out body. He used to peddle shoe-strings and collar-buttons around San Francisco. Among his stock were copies of Solidarity and the Indus- trial Worker, which he sold to the boys on the “skid road.” It was for this heinous crime that he was sent to San

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August 1, 1923] Quentin. The Defense Committee wanted to appeal his case. “Don’t waste that money on lawyers for me, boys,” said old Jim Roe. “I’m too old to be of much use if I were out. Keep the money for defense for the young fel- lows.” So Roe will perhaps die in prison—and maybe his appeal-money freed another man to organize the workers.) John Hannon is another who is not on strike. Hannon was in every other protest strike before this, and because of his experiences in the dungeons and in solitary, he is nearly blind and probably soon will be entirely sightless. He had one weak eye when he went to prison; now one is altogether blind, and the disease spread to the other and has nearly destroyed its sight. At the last strike he had to give up and be carried out to the hospital. Jack Gaveel is out because the very day of the strike was the date of his deportation hearing, and he was off the job. Gaveel is a Canadian, whose term has one more year te run; but the authorities are trying to shunt him back to Canada immediately. He is fighting deportation pro- ceedings, which if successful will establish a precedent for several other criminal-syndicalism cases. At least one veteran of the war to make democracy safe for the world—W. I. Fruit—is down with the rest in soli- tary. Another striker is John Golden, who spent over a year in the dungeons, till his physical strength gave out, because as a political prisoner who had committed no crime he re- fused to accept the status and tasks of a convict. Then there is Ramon Sanchez, a Mexican who is suffering from “San Quentin tuberculosis.” He too had to be removed to the hospital when Hannon was taken out, during the last strike; but as long as he can keep up he will stick it out with the others. Thirty-six forgotten men (the District Defense Commit- tee’s telegram of protest to Governor Richardson went un- heeded)—90 per cent of them bearing familiar Anglo- Saxon or Celtic names, a Jew, a Mexican, a Finn or two, one or two Italians—men from every sort of social background, with every kind of history, united on just one issue; all undergoing the horrors of solitary for the sake of a young man most of them never saw till last May, and because of the principle that his “punishment” violates. And not one of the thirty-six on strike, or Flanagan in the dungeon, or the eight looking on in sympathy, has ever committed any crime except that of belonging to a militant labor union in Sunny California! In the Driftway ECENTLY the Drifter stopped at a hotel in which a bankers’ convention was housed, and he found him- self completely surrounded with bankers. Young bankers, hardly more than bank clerks, perhaps, skipped around in spotless white trousers and blue coats; middle-aged bank- ers, much more serious but equally prosperous, smoked very long cigars in the lobby; and large, aged, impressive bankers, certainly bank presidents, accompanied by corre- spondingly large wives gowned in white lace and jet, occu- pied the largest chairs in the lounging room. * * * * * VERY inch of the hotel seemed to ooze prosperity. It was easily possible to distinguish a banker from one of the few remaining guests, not only by the little white err emmemermrnmaearaaa The Nation neh a ea 115 card pinned to his lapel but by his confidence, his calm, his air of knowing that all was well with the world and not caring who else knew it, too. The Drifter, seated in an obscure corner, watched the wave of well-being and good- feeding advance and recede. * * * * * OWEVER, it was a banker who saved the Drifter’s peace of mind and at the same time demonstrated the incredible good-fellowship which is at once America’s blessing and curse. On the Sabbath the Drifter was com- pelled to do an inconsequential, except for him, errand. He found every necessary shop closed tight; but the banker, indigenous to the city, drove five miles, climbed stairs, per- formed feats of physical labor, and at almost unheard-of trouble succeeded in doing the little errand for one whom he had never laid eyes on before and doubtless never would again. The Drifter strongly doubts whether he himself would have worked so hard for his blood brother; he is quite sure he would never have done it for a stranger. Yet it was done unsolicited, cheerfully, and evidently without hope of reward. The Drifter has often puzzled about the matter, for such things have happened to him before. Possibly it is a desire for companionship on an off day, or a feeling of superiority engendered by helping some poor unfortunate, or perhaps simply the milk of human kind- ness. This friendly good-fellowship is at its best when it is relieving the desperate, and at its worst when it calls conventions and attends them. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Joy Unconfined TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Somebody is always taking the joy out of life. Presi- dent Harding has just heard some very unpleasant news, arous- ing enough anger to melt the Murier glacier in Alaska, viz.: The people of Minnesota have acted like a pack of red bolshevik wolves, overrunning the stronghold of the G.O.P., attacking the high-tariff walls, and in a manner a la Firpo destroying all traces of normalcy. The State that hitherto has had the proud distinction of being the proud mother of a pair of twin cities, which within its bosom harbored the source of the Mississippi, has decided to take both the Republican and Democratic parties, put them together in a canoe at the source of the Father of Waters, and send them down the river into the Gulf of Oblivion. When the news of this dastardly deed spreads through the land of the Minnesotas the banker will drop his banking, the farmer will drop his hoe, the bricklayer will drop his bricks; and a new anthem will be heard: “Yes, we have no normalcy! Yes, we have no G.O.P.! Yes, we have no Democratic Party!” Everywhere you go the name of Magnus Johnson resounds. Magnus! What a name for a hero of the people! The Indian medicine men of Alaska predict a stormy session in Congress for the Heap Big Chief, Harding. They have advised him to take along several totem poles to give him protection against the two mighty warriors, Shipstead and Magnus. Hail to Minnesota the victorious! Hail to the sons of the soil! Kenmore, Ohio, July 18 LouIs GROTSTEIN P.S.—An annual subscription to the world’s greatest periodi- cal will follow in a few days. [After reading the postscript we disobeyed our original im- pulse not to print this letter——EpIToR THE NATION.] a

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116 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 Mr. Stuart Chase’s Junk To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of June 27 Mr. Chase says: “All the philosophies . . . and all the religions . . . and all the moral doctrines—junk Useless to me, useless to you, and... useless to our children. Hardly a word of sound advice have we to give our children as to how to know, or enjoy, or live.” Is this true? May I suggest a few substantial facts which I for one always find most wholesome to correct my pessimistic moods even in view of the late horrid war and the pestilential peace which has grown out of it? Thus, more than two thousand years ago gifted men desiring precisely what Mr. Chase wants were experimenting with what they called “Wisdom”—that is, a guide of life, of which one of them in the enthusiasm of his discovery writes: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.” Another seeker for the same kind of truth says in his quaint fashion: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Observe he says “do justly,” not make others do it; and then note that he has laid down the three foundation principles of all human conduct and intercourse that we men invariably admire and love to see in one another—namely, integrity, friendliness, and modesty. These things constitute the happy life. Take one more pure nugget of wisdom; no one knows who first discovered it. “Blessed, that is, happy, are the meek, or better, the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” In other words, they are the coming people. The violent have no living chance by the side of the men of good-will! Was there ever a war that did not really go to demonstrate this? Hear what Benjamin Franklin writes to an Englishman at the close of our Revolutionary War, proposing a “compact between England, France, and America,” and saying: “What repeated follies are those repeated wars! How many excellent things .. . tending to the common felicity might have been made... with the money and men foolishly spent during the last seven years by our mad wars in doing one another mischief.” I am only one man and others have had far wider experience, but I think that I have known hundreds of people who have made constant use of this way of life in varied circumstances, and often against painful odds, and have won success and hap- piness. I have never known anyone to make a failure of it. Moreover, there is already a large biographical literature, the reading of which would be an education in the humanities. Finally, why cannot we have a big Union of Humanity above every divisive boundary of nation or race or sect, with its legends, “Humanity Over All; Good-Will Not Violence,’ com- mitting ourselves to treat men always as we like to be treated? There is a wealth of truth and goodness in the world waiting to be seen, as soon as we look for it. Southwest Harbor, Maine, July 2 CHARLES F. DOLE To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Srir: In his excellent article, Junk, in The Nation for June 27, Mr. Stuart Chase entirely overlooks the science of language and greatly underestimates the vigor and extent of behavioristic psychology. These exceptions do not invalidate his thesis, but rather strengthen it by contrast; in fact his failure to appre- ciate them goes to show how science is hidden by the litter of junk, even from a willing observer. The science of language has been on a scientific footing for a century—a generation less than chemistry. In the last fifty years its method has been comparable, and favorably compara- ble, to that of the biologic sciences. It escapes the notice-even of students like Mr. Chase because it is unpopular, and it is unpopular because the amassers of junk are repelled by its humble attention to detail and by the accuracy of its method. Behaviorism is not, as Mr. Chase implies, the message of a lone “man named Watson”’—a role which Dr. Watson would probably decline—but is firmly rooted in the scientific past and flourishes in the present. It really dates back to the movement in science which first brought into question the fact of special creation. In biology this doubt began with Darwin and his contemporaries and gave birth to the conception of organic evolution, which in science is regarded as firmly established but which still furnishes much material for the perpetuators of junk. After organic evolution the next step is social evolution, and this in turn demands an evolutionary explanation of human conduct. From this demand our modern behavioristic psy- chology, which is much more widespread among scientists than Mr. Chase suspects, has developed. But again, it is unpopular because it takes from psychology the cheap thrill of mystery and substitutes for it the less spectacular scientific analysis indi- cated in the writings of Dr. Watson and in greater detail by such books as “The Fundamental Laws of Human Behavior,” by Max Meyer. LEONARD BLOOMFIELD Columbus, Ohio, July 2 ALBERT P. WEISS To THE EpITor oF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Stuart Chase, in his recent article, seems to think that unless a principle is universally accepted it cannot be soundly established; and he draws the inference that all ethics, philosophy, etc., must be classed as “junk.” This is to confound knowledge by intelligent experts with universal acceptance. He says almost everybody is agreed as to the best way to build a cantilever bridge, but people differ illimitably as to the best way for human beings to live and behave. All facts in physics, however, are not so universally accepted as the right way to build a cantilever bridge. The experts now know that the best way to run a railroad is by electricity, not by steam, yet our railroads are not electrified and are not likely to be for a good while. This is a case where human wishes and business profits prevent the acceptance of a demonstrated truth. So with ethics. All intelligent experts, and millions who are not experts, know that justice and kindness are better than injustice and cruelty; that when the Golden Rule is practiced it solves most difficulties, and when it is defied all sorts of troubles arise. Yet people go on defying it, because their wishes and their business profits draw them another way. The great underlying principles of ethics are as well estab- _ lished as the main laws of physics, although their detailed appli- cation in many particulars has still to be worked out, and we are still making discoveries in both fields. If Mr. Chase is in doubt what to teach his children he might begin with the Golden Rule, and point to what is going on in the world today as a striking proof of the bad results that come from disregarding it. ALICE STONE BLACKWELL Chilmark, Massachusetts, July 4 A German Dreyfus To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your readers will recall that Kurt Hisner’s secretary, Fechenbach, was condemned last year to ten years in prison because he had in 1919 given a copy of an official telegram to a foreign journalist. The Munich professor of law, Dr. Kit- zinger, after studying the evidence in the case, has concluded that there is no basis for the charge of treason preferred against Fechenbach. The Reichstag did, indeed, finally appoint a committee to investigate the case, but after a few hearings it has adjourned without action. The event has a double significance. In the first place, the text of the telegram sent by the Bavarian Minister to the Vatican on July 26, 1914, has been published. This casts a curious light on the attitude of the Catholic church at the opening of the war. The minister reported after a conference with the Papal Secretary of State: “The Pope approves sharp action by Austria against Serbia. The Papal Secretary hopes that this time Austria will stand firm. He asks if Austria could ever make war if she were not determined to oppose by arms a violent foreign movement which had brought about the mur-

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 11% der of the Archduke and threatened Austria’s continued exist- ence. His remarks revealed the fear of the Roman Curia, a fear of Pan-Slavism.” A semi-official paper has explained that this telegram was based upon a misunderstanding by the Ba- varian minister—which is difficult to accept. More important is the question of Fechenbach himself. France reestablished her moral position in the world when she rehabilitated the innocent Dreyfus; Harding honored himself when he finally freed Debs; Germany would improve her moral position if she undid the wrong done to this German Dreyfus. ALEXANDER HOHENLOHE Badenweiler, Germany, June 1 The Price of Gasoline TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: As an experienced operator in the California oil fields for many years I must take issue with E. C. S. on Why Gaso- line Is High. Gasoline is high because the Standard Oil Com- pany fixes the price of crude and refined oils, and for no other reason. This corporation absolutely controls the oil industry from every point of the compass and there are no “if’s” or “and’s” about it. The Standard has a monopoly of from 65 per cent to 70 per cent of the refined oil business of the coun- try—it never allows this monopoly to drop below 65 per cent or to go over 70 per cent. It never cuts prices on the refined product except in cases where some independent is brash enough to cut prices to get one of its customers—then look out. In price-fixing of the crude product it enjoys an absolute monopoly. When the Standard cuts the price of crude no consumer would be foolish enough to pay a higher price to one of its competi- tors; therefore the price goes up or down all along the line simultaneously. Furthermore, the price of crude has little to do with regulating the price of the refined product. That is done with a “lead pencil,” as the late P. D. Armour once said pork-packing was done. Has our friend E. C. S. any recollec- tion that a cut in the price of crude was followed by a propor- tionate cut in the price of gasoline? We think not. Nor has anyone else. “Our land system,” “royalties,” “superfluous drilling of oil wells,” and the like have nothing whatever to do with the high price of gasoline. Gasoline is high because the Standard Oil Company enjoys a price-fixing monopoly, and for no other rea- son. If it were not so, it could not pass out annually 200 per cent stock dividends to the holders of its common stock. E. C. S. doubtless knows this. New York, July 7 F. H. ALLEN Christ and the Church Today TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: When the fatal morning in August, 1914, dawned, the entire world found itself spiritually bankrupt. The power of the institutional church in the crisis was almost a negative quantity, because religious interests and values had not been developed correspondingly with material and economic ones. Notwithstanding this fact, never in the history of the world was there so gigantic an exhibition of individual spiritual power seen, and it was this individual power aggregated that won the war. But it would not be just to separate this power from the institutional church. We hear many say that the church has no place in modern civilization, but the great moral value of that civilization is the true child of the church’s production. A man finds himself free, independent, and self-reliant, but for all that, does he discount the fact that he is what he is by right of the nurture and care of his mother? A man does not minimize the influence of his mother, simply because he has reached a point where her protection of his earlier days is no longer necessary. Every spiritual effort that was made by the individual in the Great War, every noble motive, every high ideal, every act of heroism and self-sacrifice, owed its effective- ness to the moral fertility of the teachings of Christ. t There never was a time when men should be more loyal to the church than now. The contemporary opinion that the church can suddenly adapt herself to the present crisis is irrational. No institution, short of a great period of time, could accommodate itself to a situation so colossal as the present one. Hateful as the term compromise is to some people, it seems to me that the path of constructive action takes a middle course: First, the church ought to be willing to sur- render the rigidity of her position. She ought seriously to meditate upon the sacrifices she has to make to meet the modern demands of a modern civilization whose spiritual teacher she ought to be. To teach means to awake an interest in knowledge by stimulating a desire for it in somebody else; but the pre- requisite of stimulating anybody is sympathetically to under- stand the needs and conditions of that person. Secondly, the laity ought to put aside all bitterness and petty animosities toward the church, and cooperate in arousing an appeal which would invite the preservation of a forceful and dynamic ideal- ism. In the twentieth century I fail to see how the spirit of Christ can be kept alive in the church in any other way. Jersey City, May 19 WORCESTER PERKINS Why Ford? Well, Why Not? TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I have read with interest why Mr. Villard thinks Mr. Ford poor presidential timber and also the opposing contentions of certain readers published in The Nation. But the point ignored is, What essential difference does it make who is presi- dent anyway? We have had with equal success, or lack thereof, both dolts and messiahs in the office. These governments, organized for the dual purpose of transferring the wealth of certain of the governed to certain others of the governed, and of restricting the liberties of the governed, become in time wealthy and powerful self-perpetuating machines, and the personality, character, and equipment of the man who nominally rules mat- ter not at all. The machine continues to function in its relent- less way from pure momentum. Until some sincere effort is made either to view government economically instead of politically, or to make government serve rather than rule and restrict the governed, I cannot for the life of me see that it makes an iota of difference what figurehead we adopt or how impotent mentally said figurehead be, or why you bandy so many words over a matter so patently inconse- quential. Beltsville, Maryland, June 27 T. SWANN HARDING Contributors to This Issue NorMAN THOMAS spent a large part of the past scholastic year in organizing and speaking among American col- leges and universities in behalf of the League for In- dustrial Democracy. WILLIAM A. RoBSON was the English representative in the European student mission that recently made a tour of American universities at the invitation of the Na- tional Student Forum. ZONA GALE achieved her first marked success with “Friend- ship Village.” For “Miss Lulu Bett,” produced in 1920, she was awarded the Pulitzer prize for the best play of that season. Her latest volume is “Faint Perfume.” MIRIAM ALLEN DE Forp is a correspondent of the Feder- ated Press.

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118 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 Books French Masters The Collected Novels and Stories of Guy de Maupassant. Trans- lated and edited by Ernest Boyd. Alfred A. Knopf. $2 a volume. Volume I. Boule de Suif and Other Stories.—Vol- ume II. Mademoiselle Fifi and Other Stories.—Volume III. That Pig Morin and Other Stories —Volume IV. A Woman’s Life. Nana. By Emile Zola. Alfred A. Knopf. $4. iia new edition in English of the works of Guy de Mau- passant is distinguished by sound editorial judgment, ex- cellent translation, and good book-making. Four volumes have appeared: if the twelve that are to follow measure up to the high standard fixed by their predecessors, the whole set will be a model of what a definitive translation of an author’s work should be. Few French writers have suffered in English the mutilation that Maupassant has suffered. Ernest Boyd’s edi- tion should make full atonement. Reviewing these volumes is somewhat different from review- ing merely four books of fiction: when one approaches them one approaches a reputation and an influence. And reputations are rather hard, solid objects that are slippery in the critical grasp; one seeks to remodel them a little, and they roll from one’s hands much as one picked them up. It requires a Sainte- Beuve to deal with reputations. And influences are equally difficult to deal with, because they are vague, dispersed affairs, elusive of seizure. But Maupassant, today, must be consid- ered as a reputation and as an influence. As to the reputation, it is an impressive one: the greatest short-story writer who ever lived, according to the author’s most unrestrained admirers. The precise meaning of such a claim is difficult to formulate. Does it mean that Maupassant wrote more excellent short stories than any other man has produced? That he wrote a few that are superior to any that can be set beside them? That he cast the finest short-story form that has yet been discovered? Or does it, perhaps, imply all of these? Whatever the critics who make this claim may mean by it, I think that the claim itself means that Maupassant has been accorded the ill-regulated adulation that has been the reward of a number of literary pioneers. Like Cervantes, and Boccac- cio, and others, he has been lifted out of his time and place and praised with no regard to time and place, instead of being evaluated in close relation to them. Literary landmarks are important, and convenient for literary historians; but litera- ture is a living, growing thing, and we should be careful not to mistake landmarks for unsurpassable monuments. They should be seen in perspective. One has no desire to rob Maupassant of the great credit that is due him: he cleared a good deal of ground, and he built well in his clearings. But where he cleared others have built ‘better since. Some of Katherine Mansfield’s stories are com- parable to some of his in kind, and better than his. In James Joyce’s “Dubliners” we can find the sort of story that Mau- passant sometimes attempted, more successfully handled by the Irishman than by the Frenchman. And we come upon many magazine tales that recall Maupassant and do not shame their master by any lack of competence. But the question of reputation seems to merge immediately with that of influence, and the amazing fact to be recorded about this influence is its effectiveness along divergent lines. Maupassant’s plots stare at us from our most widely circulated magazines; we find his method persisting in the work of our most modern and most intellectual short-story writers. He has helped to teach mechanics to the authors of reading matter, and he has been a model of auctorial impersonality to the au- thors of literature. With Flaubert, Maupassant may be con- sidered a father of the impersonal school of fiction; in his stories the author never intrudes either for the purposes of sentiment or of irony: he is out of the picture; the irony in such stories as “That Pig Morin” is of plot, not comment. Another lesson that Maupassant has taught to many is that of thrift. Narrative flowed from him as water from a foun- tain, but he did not waste a drop. The slightest incident, the least idea furnished him with material for a story. Anatole France said of him that he wrote like “wn bon propriétaire nor- mand, avec économie et joie.” In consequence much of his work is very slight, reminding us of sketches for a large paint- ing; but almost every sketch has an organic life of its own. Maupassant in his choice of material, for his earlier tales at least, was as much of a realist as Chekhov; but his simple ideas and trivial incidents were almost always plotted in the han- dling. He was a realist, but he was selective. A serving wench, or a train ride furnished him with a whole story, but he was interested in the wench or the journey only if it sug- gested to him something approaching a plot, however slight a one. He insisted on shaping his commonplace material, not content merely to convey it from life into print. But perhaps Maupassant’s greatest achievement is his direct- ness. He marched past a given point at a pace unequaled by writers who preceded him, and scarcely exceeded by those who have come after him. Many of his opening paragraphs are masterpieces: read the first paragraph of “Madame Tellier’s Establishment,” and then marvel at the amount of information essential to an understanding of the story that is packed therein. Almost instinctively, it seems, Maupassant seized upon the essentials of a narrative; both he and Katherine Mansfield knew how to make the most of a few words, but there is an interesting difference in the methods by which these two writers accomplished equally effective results: the man expressed all at a single stroke, while the woman suggested all. It was a happy idea to make the translation of Guy de Mau- passant’s stories in chronological order, for according to this sequence the earliest volumes give us the best of the author. His was a talent that was full blown when it first sought expression: toward the last it withered. Story-telling was as natural to him as breathing; he did not pant until he began to study respiration as an art of pleasing others. In his later stories artifice triumphs over art: he did not see so clearly in the atmosphere of Parisian bedrooms as he did in provincial air. The time has passed when we can say with Remy de Gourmont, “On peut encore lire tout Maupassant”; but we can still read, with pleasure, almost everything in these first four volumes of translation. In Zola we encounter another reputation, and one that has suffered strange vicissitudes; but I shall confine myself to the single volume under review. “Nana” is, I firmly believe, a very bad novel. The real tragedy of the book, though not the one the author intended, is the transformation of a woman into a symbol. At the outset Nana is a perfectly credible trull, unscrupulous, voluptuous, shameless, and vigorous; but her life, for the reader, has scarcely commenced before she starts to change slowly from a full-blooded animal into a symbol of evil. She becomes the scarlet woman, riding Paris on the whirlwind; the personification of fleshly lust, the eternal object — of masculine desire; an incinerator in which man after man is consumed, so that the ashes may be dramatically displayed by Nana’s creator. None can resist her, none can survive her. And while the author is achieving this magnificent result, he incidentally provides the model for modern French and, deriva- tively, Broadway farce. Nana’s house resembles the stage of the Bordel Theater: there are men in every room of it, each supposedly unaware of the others’ existence until unfortunate meetings occur; they tumble out of closets, they collide on the stairs, they hide under Nana’s bed, behind the curtains, and the invaluable maid, Zoé, runs the show like a ringmaster with fraying nerves. “Nana” could never have been written by a man who possessed a shred of humor: it is grotesque. BEN RAy REDMAN

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 119 ——————C_____CCCCCCCCCflfméH8HBMBggggeeeeeeeee The Idea of Space La Notion d’Espace. By D. Nys. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $6. HIS study is an expansion of some of the chapters which M. Nys wrote for Cardinal Mercier’s “Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy.” It is divided into two parts, one on the nature of space, one on its properties. The first attempts to refute what the author calls ultra-realistic and ultra-sub- jectivistic theories, and ends by suggesting a moderately real- istic theory, “the theory of Aristotle rejuvenated.” ’ The sec- ond part is occupied with developing the characteristics of this moderately realistic space. M. Nys founds his doctrine on what he says is the one fact given in experience which makes our concept of space concrete, namely, distance. Distance is always a relation between two physical objects, which may in certain cases be the walls of a single solid. In fact, this philosopher like Aristotle thinks of solids as swimming in a medium more or less dense. The rela- tions between the medium and the solid constitute the external space of the object. Thus the place of any object is the ma- terial substance which immediately surrounds it, even though that substance be in movement, like a flowing river. Here M. Nys departs from Aristotle to follow St. Thomas, for Aristotle held that the place of an object was determined by the nearest stationary medium. This was to prevent the implication that a ship at anchor in a river changes its place as the stream flows by. -M. Nys can follow St. Thomas here because of an entity which he assumes as a supplement to external space. This entity is internal space, which he defines as “the portion of space which each body fills and which corresponds exactly to its real volume.” Internal space is not, like its supplement, determined by relations. It is a kind of attribute, like color or shape. It is assumed to explain how a body in movement may change its position without changing anything else. What does it change when this happens? Simply the attribute of internal space. The source of this concept, which is fairly bewildering, seems to be Aristotle’s use of the word “motion,” to indicate one of the four kinds of change which appear in his writings. One of the interesting consequences of this theory is the possibility of absolute motion. So long as motion is relative, a single object existing in a universe by itself could never move. For there would be no other object by which to deter- mine its motion. M. Nys admits that the determination of motion is a relative matter, but insists that motion may be studied apart from the methods of determining it. If motion consists in the successive acquisition of new internal places, as an object might acquire successive shades of a color when a window curtain is lowered, then of course a single body may undergo this change as well in isolation as in company. The rest of M. Nys’s rich and important theory belongs to discussions of a more purely technical nature than can be given here. We shall state simply his conclusions that readers may feel themselves more or less oriented in reflecting upon them. In the first place, space is not unified, in the sense that there is a large system called “space” in which all physical objects have positions. Such unity seems reasonable only because of the appearance of the domed heavens, which look as if they were a container of all things. It is incorrect then to speak of “space”; one should speak rather of “spaces.” In the second place, space is not relative, for each object has its own space irrespective of other objects. In relativistic theories, each ob- ject is located by reference to another. This has led to the dramatic conclusions of the followers of Einstein and similar thinkers. Third, space is never absolutely at rest; spaces upon earth are at rest with relation to one another for all practical purposes, which allows a man to go on a journey and come back to find his home where he left it. But M. Nys empha- sizes the fact that this immobility of certain terrestrial spaces is purely apparent and not real. Fourth, there is no meta- physical reason why God should not have created a world in- finitely extended; scientifically the infinity of space can never be proved, since—it is M. Nys speaking—it can never be ob- served. Here M. Nys, though leaning away from Aristotle and St. Thomas, does not lean far enough away to fall over. As for whether space is full or has gaps, he believes that the probabilities are with Aristotle, that space is full. The sixth conclusion is that material objects alone can be located in space; the seventh that space is homogeneous, because, eighth, it is three dimensional. This meager, rough, and possibly misleading synopsis of a long and exquisitely detailed exposition must suffice for a gen- eral idea of M. Nys’s aim. It indicates how far he clings to the traditional philosophy of the Thomists and how far he departs from it. The impression must not be allowed to survive that he is dogmatic in his exposition and argument; on the contrary it is needless to say how cautious and deliberate he is in pro- pounding his evidence. The book would be of remarkable value merely as a compendium of theories of space. Happily it has other merits, those of a clear and definite expression of the neo-scholastic point of view. GEORGE BOoASs Girls and Their Wishes The Unadjusted Girl. By W. I. Thomas. Little, Brown and Company. $83. - IVILIZED societies,” says Mr. Thomas, “have endowed the young girl with a character of social sacredness. She has been the subject of a far-going idealization. . . . The atti- tude has its useful side, though it has been overdone.” This is a sample of the subdued sort of opinion which Mr. Thomas has sparingly permitted himself to express. His volume is principally made up of uninterpreted sketches of young girls’ revolts against, or submergings under, their surroundings. The reader, after being provided with some clues to conduct, has to do his own generalizing; a job, on the whole, not too difficult. The book begins with an account of the four sorts of wishes that govern the human heart: the wish for change and adven- ture, the wish for security, the wish to be favorably thought of, and the hunger to spend and receive affection. To this the author has added an appreciation of community control, includ- ing gossip as a constructive element, and a chapter on individ- ual rebellion against such control, with an account of how (and partly why) it is increasing. He thinks this must be an era of individualization, set in between two eras of socialization—an era in which “the modern world presents itself as a spectacle in which the observer is never sufficiently participating.” This last phrase seems to me the fragment of closest thinking in the book. After these generalizing chapters the girls themselves enter, delegates, as it were, from the insurgent and the drifting armies beyond. No two are the least alike. No collection of human documents ever showed more richly and sadly the wealth of uniqueness in human nature. Not one of these histories takes the center of the stage in the reader’s recollection. They just come and go on the pages, each absorbing the interest until another blots her out: Esther, who stole stockings and a hat, whose lawyer and doctor preyed on her fears of prison and syphilis, who made fun of the social workers in her letters to her fellow-culprit and beloved friend Lilian, and tried to cheat and conspire her troubled way to freedom; Margaret, who fre- quented Hell Hole because she found the drunkards and prosti- tutes there so human and lovable; Helen, who looked so childish with her bobbed hair, whom any casual man at any moment could so easily possess, who ran away from so many Official rescuers, in whom Dr. Brown managed somehow to release the power and will to do rarely beautiful embroidery; Geraldine,

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120 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 a eee zzz seduced by the under-director of a moving picture company, “handed from man to man,” yet whose “health, self-confidence, and charm” (and charm!) were restored at El Retiro, that wonderful school outside of Los Angeles, president of whose alumnae she became, with a cohesive influence over the others which no social worker had ever approached. But what sore and inflamed young spirit would not have revived in a school where the persons in charge looked upon it as part of their job to restore her charm? Bolder in his ignorance than Mr. Thomas in his studious wisdom, the reader soon singles out one preeminent fact about these girls. They were practically all poor. They practically all felt poor, inferior, and left out. Their lungs were full of the stale air of poverty, and their ears were deafened with the weltering noises of poverty, and their eyes were tired of the dismal uncomeliness of poverty, and their self-esteem was dressed in the contemned clothes of poverty, and their ambi- tions were taunted by the narrowness of the yards upon which the doors of poverty open. Mr. Thomas seems to bestow upon poverty only a brief, mysterious stare. He mentions often the sense of inferiority, without seeming to feel that it is usually in these cases an aspect of poverty. Prostitution appears here, however, quite frankly as the off- spring of poverty. Girls go into it apparently in a matter-of- fact, almost listless mood, as into something “embarrassing and unpleasant,” but better paid than other work; and like other work, it is often abandoned. It must be far more intermittent than the uninformed reader has supposed. Mr. Thomas quotes from a “profound work” on French prostitution by M. Parent- Duchatelet, “Prostitution is for the majority only a transitory stage; it is abandoned usually during the first year.” A few girls, very few, it seems, are moved by sexual impulse; and some unmarried mothers are discouraged into prostitution by the contempt of society. But most wild girls, Mr. Thomas points out, become wild long before the sense of sex awakens. Many young girls brought up in extreme poverty seem to take no interest of any sort in their bodies, except as commercial as- sets, and as vehicles for clothes. “Life,” said a young foreign girl, “is mostly what you wear.” Here we seem to reach the antithesis of such an exaggerated idealization of girlhood as I began by mentioning; an antithesis inevitable, I suppose, in a society of economic extremes. SARAH N. CLEGHORN Suggestion and Digestion The Hope of the Variant. Scribner’s Sons. $2. CERTAIN old lady in our neighborhood was wont to sniff disrespectfully when the matter of doctors was broached. “Humph,” she would say, “they look at your tongue and say ‘How’s your insides? Two dollars, please!’” And, indeed, this is all the therapy needed in some cases. We have seen com- fortable, jovial, Cheeryblian family doctors whose very laugh was a tonic and whose approaching footfall tended to moderate a tachycardia and reduce a pyrexia. Little as is yet known of psychotherapy, we do know that the sort of personality that inspires confidence and radiates optimism has a favorable effect on the morbid processes of the patient, irrespective of any drugs. This is the sort of thing that the Freudians mean when they speak of the transfer. Such a physician, we fancy, is Dr. Gehring. The history of medicine is replete with instances of individual healers whose personality is such that their success with the neurotic and suggestible patient gradually gains for them a widening circle of disciples and admirers so that their fame becomes national and sometimes, as in the case of Coué, international. It is a becoming modesty which leads them to believe that there is doubtless something magical in their methods, which they then By John George Gehring. Charles proceed to publish for the benefit of others. But, alas! trans- planted from its native soil, the method is as many others; and we find that it was the man that cured. So the physician who reads Gehring’s book, believing that he will learn the secret of healing, will be disappointed. It is evident that Gehring himself does not know how he attains his results. Overlooking the fact that psychic disturbances, even the most ephemeral, invariably produce gastro-intestinal symp- toms, he believes that the soul is in the solar plexus. Thus he says: “The patient should be taught to keep in mind that the focal point of his psychic and emotional distress is invariably in his abdomen since it is there that the storm center resides, owing to the liability of disturbance to numerous ganglia.” Aside from this he uses a sort of superficial suggestion. His psychology is the old faculty psychology. To psycho- analysis he bows respectfully—and passes by on the other side. Sexuality is to him a somewhat distressing by-product of de- fective digestion. On page 124 he says: “The entire field of psychic research appears infinitely too vast to permit of con- clusive deductions of a single factor type.” Then he proceeds calmly to refer all of his patients’ troubles to the digestive factor. . His book is, in short, the unsuccessful effort of a medical artist to explain his effects. He is much better than his book. All one can gather is, aside from the personal influence of be- nign personalities such as Dr. Gehring’s, the hope of the variant is digestion plus suggestion. JOHN E. LIND Sinbad Sinbad. By C. Kay Scott. Thomas Seltzer. $2. ONFESSION is human. Fiction writing is a craft. In face of this fusion of them by Mr. Scott one is forced into the Hedda Gabler role of wishing he had done it beautifully. The man who “possesses a psychic harem” and the people who “flippantly discuss art” make one’s hair curl, especially those who toss off the names of Matisse, Cézanne, Greco & Co., Inc., as if the names belonged to the Republican Party or the Anti- Saloon League. Do people really talk this way, or is it only in American novels, when they fly the banners of modernism a la Craven, or lucubrate a la Scott? I suspect Mr. Scott of having wanted to throw the originals of some of his people out of the window. Instead, he tried to write them down for all time. Only, he has not made their sterility sufficiently convincing, as Knut Hamsun did with a similar group in “Shallow Soil” and as Artzibasheff did with bored provincials of Russia. Mr. Scott’s resentment interferes with both his autobiography and his fiction. He has fixed his attention upon his stuffy little Greenwich Village clique, has suffered in it, but failed to relate it to the relentless machine New York of which these unhappy people are a human phase. Mr. Scott seems desper- ately, even finely and sensitively trying to explain to himself the frustrations of unhappy man-and-woman imbroglios, but despite quotations at chapter heads from Spinoza, Dickens, Nietzsche, Hofmannsthal, Blake, Shelley, Borrow, Aristotle, Swift, Mother Goose, Sudermann, and others he does not con- vince that much is being added to interpretation of life in New York through the endless introversions and tortures of his pro- tagonists. They do not transcend their pains. Neither, it seems, does Mr. Scott. That is not to deprive him of credit for an interesting venture. He has attempted Greenwich Village as he saw it, and has loosened the manner of writing he em- ployed in “Blind Mice” to suit his new subject. “Sinbad” gives evidence that its author allowed himself to be persuaded by the resources of such prose as is derived from Gertrude Stein and other contemporaries. His insight into moments of struggling souls has loveliness. It is for such qualities rather than for complete realization of his intention that I am moved to look with interest for his new work. HERBERT J. SELIGMANN

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August 1, 1923] The Nation 121 The Middle Ages The Middle Ages. By Frantz Funck-Brentano. nam’s Sons. $3.50. Apel: is the volume on medieval France in the notable series known as The National History of France. The author, M. Funck-Brentano, who is also the editor of the series, is one of the most distinguished of living French critics and historians. From him we may expect an authoritative treatment of that picturesque and romance-laden age in which the culture of France was much the most attractive and significant. As one might expect from the characteristic traits of French historians in general, and from the interests and earlier achievements of M. Funck-Brentano in particular, a large portion of the book, nearly one-half in total aggregate, is de- voted to cultural, social, and economic history. The early epics, the culture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the univer- sities, the cathedrals, the minstrels, the work of architects, copyists, and painters, the manors, towns, and guilds are treated with remarkable charm, insight, and discrimination, and on the basis of the most evident acquaintance with the sources and mastery of the latest researches. Of these chapters, that on the medieval ecclesiastical architecture is, perhaps, the most adequate and illuminating. The political history begins with the story of the evolution of the feudal monarchy out of the anarchy which followed the disintegration of the Roman power in Gaul. Unfortunately the author does not exploit the works of Fustel, Jullian, and Flach to indicate the continuity of Gallo-Romanic institutions in medieval France. The chapter on the evolution of feudal institutions and the feudal monarchy is notable for the empha- sis placed on the family background of feudalism. In no other place has the reviewer noted so clear an exposition of this important point of view. In treating the details of political history, M. Funck-Brentano wisely organizes the majority of his material around the reigns and work of the great monarchs —the consolidation under Louis the Fat; Philip Augustus, Saint Louis, and the perfection of the feudal monarchy; Philip the Fair and the struggle against the Papacy; and the adminis- trative reforms of Charles VII and Louis XI. In dealing with the Hundred Years’ War the author has once more to consider the case of Jeanne d’Arc. She is justly portrayed as a patri- otically inclined paranoiac who, after having rendered the indispensable service of uniting French sentiment behind Charles VII, became a nuisance by refusing to cease her mili- tary exploits, and who paid with her life for her irresponsibility and lack of self-control. While there are many entertaining anecdotes introduced in the narrative, the main purpose and net result of these chapters is to make clear the genesis and mutations of French political institutions during the medieval period. The book is clearly and vividly written. It does not possess the severe analytical tone of some of the German and English works, nor is it distinguished for a continuous and smoothly flowing narrative. Rather it is written in the characteristic and delightful style of the French historians, well planned and organized chapters, profusely illuminated with countless illus- trative episodes and anecdotes, usually drawn from contem- porary chroniclers. What is lost in continuity of thought and logical marshaling of facts is gained in pictorial intensity and compelling interest. While the author is appreciative of the beauty and romance of medieval French culture and portrays most effectively its major outlines, he does not hesitate to reveal beneath its chival- ric, mystic, and romantic externals a basic sub-structure of shocking brutality, revolting cruelty, and repelling coarseness. While he is justly proud of la Belle France of the Middle Ages, there is in his narrative little of the nationalistic obsession of Raynouard. A national history of France from the pen of contemporary scholars like Funck-Brentano and Louis Madelin G. P. Put- means something quite different from what it did a generation or two ago when produced by Jules Michelet and Henri Martin. For the first time we have available in English an up-to-date, reliable, and readable history of medieval France. Those who have been compelled hitherto to rely upon such books as Kitch- in’s History of France will best appreciate what this means. Harry ELMER BARNES Culture and Civilization Kultur uv’ Civilizacia. By William Nathanson. Chicago: New Society. T= book is more significant for its implications than for its achievements. One of the earliest original works in Yid- dish in the realm of aesthetics and metaphysics, it is to be wel- comed as an expansion of the literature beyond belles lettres: “Culture and Civilization” is the first of a proposed “‘neo-social- ism” series. It is, in the main, a revised version of a number of articles which the author published in the Yiddish press, unified by a definite thesis and supplemented by popularizations of Spinoza, Kant, and of contemporary philosophers. Mr. Nathanson’s title might well have been “Culture versus Civiliza- tion,” for he bases his critique of society and present-day insti- tutions on the distinction between culture, the spiritual expres- sion of mankind, and civilization, its physical and intellectual development. On this ground he points out the inadequacy of Marxian socialism as well as of the capitalistic organism. To those who are aware of the principles of the Russian Social- Revolutionary party the author’s position will be familiar. Mr. Nathanson was a colleague of Dr. Jitlowsky, the intellectual leader of that party, and carries on his theories, tempered, to be sure, by the philosophy of Bergson, whose influence is evi- dent throughout the volume. J. J. SMERTENKO A Pleasant Essayist Occasions. By Holbrook Jackson. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $2. i OLBROOK JACKSON set himself a harder task in the pro- duction of a collection of miscellaneous essays than in the writing of his well-known book on “The Eighteen Nineties.” In the latter case he was dealing with a singularly colorful period in English literature and art and with names that blazed like oriflammes—Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson, Symons, Crackanthorpe. The subject matter in itself was almost sufficient to insure the success of the book. But to produce a distinctive book of essays on stock subjects —that is another matter. Most essays suggest antimacassars and polite conversation by ultra-respectable people sitting stiffly erect on horse-hair sofas and munching muffins. Or they throw up a picture of an old gentleman with his feet in carpet slippers, and a glass of hot toddy at his elbow, thinking aloud. A rich and virile talent is hardly likely to turn to essays on such stan- dard topics as reading, gardens, fishing, or the town versus the country. Mr. Jackson has divided his essays into four groups headed Landmarks, Prejudices, Adventures, and Books. In the first group we find our old friend Town; in the third such good old standbys as Woodfires and Talking About the Weather; the third division consists of the stock subjects Bookmen, The Uses of Books, Of Cheerful Books, and On Reading Aloud. It is diffi- cult to say anything new on such matters. However, Mr. Jack- son writes gracefully and lightly, shows a nice feeling for words, and frequently, as in his sketch of Marseilles, evokes atmosphere with considerable subtlety. The publishers carefully printed the book on beautiful paper, chose the clearest of types, used a binding in excellent taste— and then clapped on a jacket containing a blurb which refers to the author’s previous success, “The Eighteen Hundreds”! REX HUNTER

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122 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3030 Dee... Books in Brief By Edmund Blunden. G. P. Putnam’s The Bonadventure. Sons. $2. Edmund Blunden went down to the sea in a coal tramp. He details the phenomena of a strange milieu with a gusto that is partly childlike joy and partly conscious quaintness. Through- out, the effect produced upon honest sailors by the young liter- ary person in their midst bulks larger than his own reactions to them, to the ship, and to the ocean. They discuss art, literature, religion, the universe with him. They bring him poems of their own. He is asked to pass judgment upon drawings. Thus we are not allowed to forget that this journey from Cardiff to South America and return was undertaken by the poet and reviewer to recover his health which had been lost in the trenches. It is herein that the charm of the book lies, and it would be churlish not to yield to it. The reward is ample: a full share of Mr. Blunden’s boyish delight in his adventure and a glimpse into the minds and the habits and the haunts of sailors on sea and ashore. Free Thought and Official Propaganda. By Bertrand Russell. B. W. Huebsch, Inc. 175 cents. This is a brilliant lecture by one of the few outstanding men in the world who have something of the mental outlook of the inhabitants of H. G. Wells’s latest Utopia. With rapid vigor Mr. Russell traces, from his own life, the practical penalties England inflicts upon the religious freethinker. He suggests a “wish to find out” instead of William James’s harmful “will to believe.” He pays his respects to the late New York statute which would have debarred Washington or Christ from teaching in this advanced commonwealth. Education is briefly exposed as one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and the freedom of thought; propaganda—statements designed to make people be- lieve such absurd propositions “as that Blank’s Pills cure all ills, that Spitzbergen is warm, and that Germans eat corpses”—earns a merited castigation; and economic pressure is isolated as the chief preventive of freethought. It is the scientific temper that the author desires. From its use he foresees a serene skepticism which will render humanity immune from those “appeals to idealism by which decent people are induced to further the schemes of scoundrels.” The study is brilliant, temperate, and sound. Mystics and Heretics in Italy. By Emile Gebhart. Translated by Edward Maslin Hulme. Alfred A. Knopf. $4. The author of ‘Mystic Italy,” a title twisted into “Mystics and Heretics in Italy,” looks like a president of a Rotary Club, and writes like an inspired bookworm. He pictures Italy thrilled by the false dawns of that harsh day that came in with the Refor- mation. The quiet saint, Joachim of Flora, with his devastating “Third Testament,” revealed after his death; the gentle son of Assisi, who preached to the grasshopper and the little birds; Gerard de Borgo-San-Donnino, whose “Eternal Gospel,” blent of Joachim’s words, was an earthquake throughout Christendom; Pietro the peasant, who hung up his cloak on a sunbeam in the presence of Gregory X; the rhapsodic poet Fra Jacopone of Todi; who walked, half naked, on all fours, saddled and bridled like an ass, and flung all his venom against the established church; Dante, shrewd dispraiser of institutionalized religion—these are the chief figures that wind through his thronged pages. There were as many wild voices then as today; but there was a silence beside them, where we have voices not so wild. The book is an authoritative and valuable summary of an hysteric age. Behaviorism and Psychology. By A. A. Roback. University Bookstore, Harvard. . This is an impetuous scattering assault upon all forms of behaviorism—that modern interpretation of psychology which, in its purest form, holds that science is concerned not at all with mind, but that things called mental are properly reducible to a study of movements of limb and muscle and gland. It lacks clearness, taken alone; its points are only understood by the person familiar with the divergent nomenclatures and attitudes of the motley crew of behaviorists. Point after point is touched upon and dismissed in brief unpersuasiveness. The book lacks interest, except to those already upon the wordy battlefield to which it belongs. The chart at the end of the volume is more illuminating than many pages of text. Galimathias. By Matthew Josephson. Broom. These weird verses will be hailed as one of the masterpieces of today, as were “The Waste Land” and “Ulysses”; they are as grotesquely scrambled as either of them. There is a fascina- tion about a poem concerning “The Goatherd with the Goiter”; and who can remain unmoved by lines as stimulating as: You are a sweet girl And I shall throw you into the river. my mother said to me my what flat feet you have Alfred my brother said to me my what flat feet you have Alfred o the sad bad glad mad never seven 0 o the ever why when where whither bother o O wheels that do not turn. O wheels in the brain cease to turn. This gesture of my hands was to crush yesterday the bald head of the man which is the prow of a ship with warts upon it. It is original, ultra modern, and full of a cerise Weltgeist. It is magnificent—from the standpoint of the new non-intelligence; to sane people it is unimpressive raving. Our American Humorists. By Thomas L. Masson. Moffat, Yard and Company. $2.50. Commercialized American humor is as deadening a thing as Billy Sunday or appeals to the flag. One of its gentle ringmas- ters crudely pastes together his minor recollections of our well- paid funny men in this unimportant study. Music The Elder Singers pee four most stunning song recitals (I use that tarnished term of musical commerce in its wide, inclusive sense, and I put aside those specimens offered by Feodor Chaliapin as sui generis and hors concours) that I heard amongst the in- numerable entertainments so styled in the course of the music season of 1921-22 (for the four-part illustration circumstances compel me to hark back a year) were given, in the order of the giving, by Emma Calvé, Edmond Clément, Emilio de Gogorza, and Ernestine Schumann-Heink. Now, none of these singers was a recent “discovery” of manager or public. Mme Calvé had begun her career as a professional singer (accord- ing to the book) in 1882; the year of Mr. Clément’s debut was 1889(?), of Mr. de Gogorza’s 1897; Mme Schumann-Heink’s emergence (as the contralto member of the solo quartet in the Ninth Symphony) dates back to 1876! I will not go into the delicate subject of the veritable ages in years, months, and days of these four singers, though the books give them specific birth- days and gossip gives them others. The truth may rest un- troubled between them and their maker. But the length of a singer’s career, like the reign of king or pope, is common prop- erty. Suffice it that at the time I am speaking of, Mme Calvé had thirty-nine years of public singing behind her, Mr. Clément thirty-two, Mr. de Gogorza twenty-five, and Mme Schumann- Heink forty-six! These four veteran singers (for even Mr. de Gogorza, though a mere babe in comparison with the others, may be permitted on the strength of five and twenty years of service to qualify -

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i ee August 1, 1923] The Nation 123 as a veteran) belong to the little group of accomplished vocal- ists that exemplify the high-water mark of vocal art in my years of observing the musical tides. But even the oldest of them is of a later period than the age of the great bel canto, those “palmy days” of Italian opera and Italian singing (the practitioners of which were not, of course, limited to Italians), from whose golden plenty there survived here and there a Patti or a Battistini to prove to the duubting ears of a younger day that the storied feats of that pre-innocent age were not wholly of the consule Planco order. And those elder singers have names and dates (even though the latter, where they concern births, are not altogether to be trusted) ; you have only to turn to the dictionaries of biography to find them in abundance. Now, it is pertinent and enlightening to compare in length the careers of the great ones of that older epoch with the careers of such singers as the four of my original thesis. Certainly no singing woman is more securely a “name for- ever” than Maria Malibran, whose untimely death Musset laments in verse that it is absolutely safe and sane to call immortal. Malibran had won her abiding fame and was dead at twenty-eight. Cornélie Falcon, after whom every singer possessing a “dramatic soprano” voice has been known in France generically as a “falcon,” had a stage career of just five years, losing her voice at the age of twenty-five, a loss she was destined to survive, however, for sixty years. Jenny Lind, of whose London debut the incomparable Chorley wrote, “the town, sacred and profane, went mad about the Swedish night- ingale,” actually sang in opera for only eleven years in all, retiring from the opera stage exactly two years and fourteen days after her sensational triumph in London, though she con- tinued to sing on in concerts. Giuditta Pasta, most famous of all Italian dramatic so- pranos, the great lyric tragedian for whom Bellini wrote his “Norma,” and also, curiously, his “Sonnambula,” and Doni- zetti his “Anna Bolena,” had an effective career in opera of only seven years. Her successor in the role of Norma and in general public esteem, Giulia Grisi, was regarded as a phe- nomenon because for twenty consecutive seasons she could return to Covent Garden, London, as a reigning prima donna. Pauline Viardot, the younger sister of Maria Malibran, and perhaps the most cultivated and “intellectual” woman who has ever sung in opera, was thought to have strained at the limits of decency itself in achieving an opera career of a quarter of a century, though when she retired to private life no one main- tained that she was in less than full command of her extraordi- nary abilities as a lyric artist. What would her critics have said of Lilli Lehmann, who in the seventh decade of her age was still acclaimed as an unsurpassable Briinnhilde, Isolde, Norma, Donna Anna, and even Violetta in “La Traviata,” and may, for all I know, be contemplating more singing in the Salzburg concerts of this very summer, though the official year of her birth was 1848; or of Adelina Patti of the countless and everlasting “farewells”? It is true that some of the men of the “golden age”—Rubini, Mario, Tamburini, and Lablache among them—lasted longer in opera than the women, but those careers began when the singers were very young, and invariably ended before they had entered the seventh decade. One looks in vain for a Bat- tistini still in full career at threescore years and ten, even as the women in no case compete in length of service with Leh- mann and Patti, or even with Schumann-Heink, Sembrich, Nordica, Melba, and Calvé. To return to my big four of the four “stunning” song re- citals. It is undeniable that the years had made some differ- ence. In the case of the women the vocal scale had lost two or three notes from the top. But lower down in the gamut it seemed to me there was compensation. The Calvé soprano had taken on a big, luscious richness rarely heard save in a contralto voice, and the Schumann-Heink contralto was posi- tively heroic in the massive grandeur of its depth and strength. Wisely, neither woman attempted to sing music that ran above her safe and easy range. Mr. de Gogorza, being but a youngster in that company, bore unflinchingly his lighter burden of years. By the count he should still be in his vocal prime, as well as in the ripe flowering of his excellent art. Mr. Clément, on the other hand, showed a perceptible damage. The last previous occasion on which I had heard him sing was a little over six years earlier at the Paris Opéra Comique in a performance of “The Barber of Seville” which was memorable for the vocal atrocities of the prima donna and the baritone and for the easy, graceful, pol- ished delivery by Mr. Clément of Almaviva’s florid measures. Now, of all voices the tenor is the most susceptible to the in- roads of time. In the six years’ interval Mr. Clément’s voice had lost something of its former fluidity. At moments he had to summon all his extraordinary resources of technic and style to do things which a few years earlier had gone, seemingly, of themselves. But the very fact that his singing had become something of a tour de force made the study of its working more engrossing than ever. The mechanics of an art that had formerly concealed itself could now be glimpsed, and at times, even, clearly made out, and to the many in the audience with whom singing was more or less of a hobby the occasion as- sumed on that very account an importance quite special. At the same time the charm, the distinction, and the obviously superb accomplishment of the tenor were altogether sufficient to entrance the portion of the audience that went to hear him without any object more special than pleasure, even as those qualities had in the younger years when the voice itself was as liquid as the lark’s. The deduction is obvious from even such figures as I have given here that the veteran singer who is also a master-vocalist has a vogue in our day which he certainly had not in the “golden age” of Italian singing. In explanation of the current careers that last so late in the allotted span of man’s existence, and even beyond it, I have heard the theory advanced that the life of a skilfully used voice, regarded as apart from the life of its possessor, has a pretty well-fixed norm; that, singing “correctly,” one may reasonably expect to sing from fifteen to fifty, from twenty to fifty-five, from twenty-five to sixty, and so on through another decade. Alas for this attractive theory, the careers of too many singers flatly contradict it. Adelina Patti, still singing when she was upwards of seventy, made her professional debut at the age of sixteen, and in a role no less exacting than Lucia di Lammermoor, under the engaging nom de guerre, by the way, of “the little Florinda.” Lilli Lehmann was a month short of seventeen when she made her professional debut. Mme Schumann-Heink, if the date given officially for her birth is to be believed, was not more than fifteen. But there is an explanation which seems to me self- evident, and also entirely adequate to all the circumstances. In the “golden age” of bel canto the master-vocalist was so numerous a species that a poorly trained singer seems to have been the rare exception, for the good and simple reason, if for no other, that he was an unmarketable product. A technical equipment and a mastery of style that are seldom met with today. were in those other days accepted as a matter of course; anything else was in flagrant violation of the rules of the game. Accordingly, when the mere voice of a singer began to lose its high notes, or otherwise to deteriorate in quality or power, his market value fell. Singers equally accomplished and pos- sessed of undamaged voices were on hand in sufficient num- bers waiting for the chance to step into his place. Such is far from being the state of affairs in this time of an indisputable decline in anything like a wide currency of bel canto. We cling greedily to the veteran singers simply because their art has become so rare as to be trebly precious, and the few of us who care genuinely for singing are haunted by the fear that once they are silent the bel canto we crave may have vanished forever from the ears of men. Pitts SANBORN

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International Relations Section

The Trouble on the Saar ISSATISFACTION with the somewhat anomalous re- gime established by the Treaty of Versailles in the Saar Valley has repeatedly been expressed by the German Government and the German inhabitants of that region. (See the Nation for March 14, 1923.) Friction came to a head last spring, and turned international attention to the Saar. <A strike broke out in the coal mines. French troops, responsible not to the Governing Commission of the Saar but to the French Government, were used to maintain order. On March 7 the Governing Commission promulgated the stringent decree printed below, which later aroused world-wide protest. Mr. Branting of Sweden pro- tested this decree before the Council of the League of Na- tions—to which the Governing Commission is responsible— at its session on April 23, but the League took no action. On May 10 the British House of Commons had a stormy session in which Mr. Asquith denounced the decree as a “monstrous specimen of despotic legislation” and “the great- est blow that has been struck at the moral authority of the League of Nations.” The British Government thereupon announced its intention to suggest that the Council of the League appoint a committee to investigate the administra- tion of the Saar. To this France objected. Meanwhile the Governing Commission, announcing that the strike emergency was past, rescinded the objectionable decree, the text of which, received from the League of Nations, is given below (The Old Saar Decree) for the first time in the United States, and substituted a new decree (also given below) which, however, is now declared by Germans and Sarrois to be almost as objectionable as the first. The question came before the Council of the League on July 2. Lord Robert Cecil demanded a public inquiry, but finally agreed to a secret interrogation of members of the Governing Commission, which occurred on July 6. A com- mittee representing the local bodies of the Saar was re- fused a hearing. On July 7 the Council adopted a resolution couched, as the Manchester Guardian put it, in “the milk- and-water terms of Interallied diplomacy.” The resolution, the text of which follows, did not discuss the famous decree, which had been withdrawn. Lord Robert Cecil and M. Hanotaux made speeches of felicitation. THE LEAGUE’S RESOLUTION The Council of the League of Nations has been informed by the British Government of the proposal regarding the examina- tion of the situation in the Saar district, and particularly the recent events which have given rise to the taking of extraordi- nary measures by the Governing Commission. The Council desired, by means of personal contact with all the members of the commission, to restrengthen the firm ties which ought to exist between the League of Nations and its representatives in the Saar. The Council examined, in conjunction with the members of the commission, the principles of government in the Saar Basin established by the Treaty of Versailles. According to the treaty the Saar regime was set up in order to assure the rights and well-being of the population, and to guarantee France full liberty to work the French state mines, on which the prosperity of the country depends. In virtue of the instructions given to the Governing Commission when it was constituted on February 13, 1920, the commission is responsible to the League of Nations for the fulfilment of its functions in accordance with the stipu- lations of the Treaty of Versailles. The commission, of which the president is the executive officer, is always collectively re- sponsible for the performance of duties which it may assign to any of its members with a view to facilitating the rapid solu- tion of the problems of the government. The Council considered it useless to discuss the provisional ordinance of March 7, this having already been withdrawn. As for the other extraordinary measures which the commission judged it necessary to take subsequently, the Council leaves it to the wisdom of the commission to decide when it will be con- venient to revert to common law. The Council has learned with satisfaction of the amnesties recently granted by the Govern- ing Commission. The Council appreciates the economic con- siderations which led the commission to introduce the franc as the only legal currency in the Saar. With regard to the question of the maintenance of order, the Council has on several occasions declared its desire to dispense with the support of foreign garrisons as soon as the develop- ment of the local gendarmerie permits it. By its resolution of April 23, 1923, the Council took note of the measures already taken by the commission in this connection, and invited the commission to submit to it before the adoption of the budget for 1924-25 its program for the formation of the local gen- darmerie. The Council expresses once more to the Governing Commis- sion its great appreciation of the administrative work accom- . plished during three and a half years in particularly difficult circumstances, and assures the commission of its full support in the accomplishment of the mission intrusted to it. The Manchester Guardian commented upon this League resolution on July 9 as follows: One may feel some disappointment that the principal scandal of the Saar administration, upon which total silence has been observed by the French press—namely, the actual constitution of the Governing Commission—has not been touched on. Pos- sibly that will be remedied at the next meeting, in February, when the mandates of the commissioners will lapse unless re- newed. Pending that date the Saarlanders will be well advised to-submit themselves loyally to the rulings of the present “inter- national” body, the composition of which may be once more recalled—a Frenchman, a Belgian, a “Dane” who lives in Paris and is for all practical purposes a Frenchman, a “Saarlander” who is a French nominee, and a Canadian who by a miracle is not a French Canadian... . THE OLD SAAR DECREE In pursuance of paragraphs 19 and 30 of Chapter II of the Saar Basin Annex to the Treaty of Peace of Versailles, and in pursuance of its decision dated March 7, 1923, the Governing Commission of the Saar territory hereby decrees as follows: 1. PENAL PROVISIONS ARTICLE 1. Persons guilty of any of the following offenses, that is to say: 1. Committing or conspiring with others to commit acts of violence directed against members of the Governing Commission of the territory of the Saar Basin, or inciting to such acts of violence; 2. Approving or defending in public or at a meeting acts of violence committed against members of the Governing Commis- sion of the territory of the Saar Basin and also rewarding per- sons guilty of such crimes, or aiding and abetting offenders or their accomplices (Penal Code, paragraph 257) ; 3. Taking part in secret meetings or meetings directed against the government of the territory (Penal Code, paragraphs 128 and 129) with intent to prejudice the regime set up in the Saar

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August 1, 1923] The Nation. 125 territory by the Treaty of Peace of Versailles, or aiding and abetting any member for the furtherance of that object by word or deed, and especially by financial assistance; 4, Becoming a member of a secret association or an associa- tion directed against the government of the territory (Penal Code, paragraphs 128 and 129), which is, or the members of which are, in illegal possession of arms; 5. Possessing or having the custody of a secret store of weapons and omitting to report to the authorities the place where such store is situated—for the purposes of this decree, rifles, mine-throwers, machine guns and automatic pistols shall be regarded as stores of munitions— Shall, unless more severe penalties are elsewhere provided for, be liable to imprisonment for not less than three months and not more than five years. In specially serious cases the offender shall be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor. In addition to imprisonment the offender may be liable to a fine not exceeding 50,000 francs. ArT. 2. Persons committing any of the following offenses shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years and, should the court so decide, to a fine not exceeding 10,000 francs: 1. In public or at a meeting (a) Casting discredit on the Treaty of Peace of Versailles; (b) insulting or traducing (1) the League of Nations, its members, or the states signatories of the Treaty of Peace of Versailles; (2) the Governing Com- mission, its members, organizations, or the officials responsible for the conduct of its administration; 2. Uttering threats or using insulting or defamatory language in public or at a meeting, calculated to prejudice the free and independent exercise of the rights conferred by paragraph 34 of Annex IV, Part III of the Treaty of Peace of Versailles. 3. Inciting or attempting to incite against each other—by threats, insults, slanders, or language calculated to bring the persons or institutions referred to into disrepute and under conditions capable of leading to a breach of the public peace— the various elements forming the population of the territory of the Saar, irrespective of their original nationality. 4. Insulting the colors of the Governing Commission in public or at a meeting. 5. Omitting to report immediately to the authorities the exist- ence of any secret store of munitions of which a person may be aware, except in cases where the giving of such information would render the ascendants or descendants, brothers and sisters or husband or wife of that person themselves liable to punish- ment. The benefit of this proviso shall be granted to priests and ministers of religion, lawyers or physicians who have been intrusted with such information in the exercise of their profes- sion or vocation. Under such circumstances paragrah 2, No. 5 of Article 1 shall apply. ArT. 3. In addition to the penalty inflicted for an offense against Article 1 a fine, the maximum of which is not estab- lished, shall be imposed. Moreover, the accused may, by order of the court, be for- bidden to reside in certain parts of the Saar territory or in certain places therein for a period not exceeding one year. Per- sons who have been convicted and who do not possess the status of a Saar inhabitant shall be expelled. Offenses against paragraph 2 of this article shall be punish- able by imprisonment. ArT. 4. A sentence of imprisonment with hard labor passed in respect of any one of the punishable offenses specified in Article 1 shall, in addition to the subsidiary penalties pro- vided for in Article 31 of the Penal Code, entail ipso jure the loss of rights acquired through public elections, and in the case of officials the loss of their salary, or if they have retired from service the forfeiture of their pensions. In the case of offenses specified in Article 1 or of any con- travention of the provision of Article 2, in respect of which im- prisonment is inflicted as penalty, the court may decree the loss of public appointments, the permanent or temporary suspension of the right to discharge the duties connected with such appoint- ments, and the partial or total forfeiture either temporarily or permanently of any salary or pension derived therefrom. Noth- ing in this paragraph shall prejudice the provisions applicable to the loss of the rights conferred by public elections. ArT. 5. Legal proceedings may be brought against any person for offenses under Articles 1 and 2, even if such offenses have been committed outside the Saar territory. II. JURISDICTION ArT. 6. A special chamber of the Saarlouis Supreme Court shall be instituted, which shall have power to hear and determine finally prosecutions for the offenses referred to in Articles 1 and 2. This court shall consist of five members, including the presi- dent. They shall be appointed annually by the president of the Governing Commission, on the advice of the member of the Governing Commission responsible for the Department of Jus- tice. An equal number of deputies shall be appointed under the same conditions from among the members of the Supreme Court or the courts of first instance (magistrats d’instance). The procurator general officiating in the Saarlouis Supreme Court shall act as representative of the public prosecutor’s de- partment. The procedure before the Supreme Court shall be the same as that applicable in the police court of the district tribunal. The procurator general may instruct the principal public prosecutor at Saarbriick to institute proceedings. III. PROHIBITED MEETINGS ArT. 7. Meetings, processions, and demonstrations may be prohibited when public feeling is so excited that there may be reasonable grounds for apprehending that language of a nature to constitute an offense under Articles 1 and 2 will be used at such demonstrations. Societies and meetings at which language of this nature is used and societies and meetings the object of which would render them liable to punishment under Articles 1 and 2 may be prohibited and dissolved. A copy of the decision authorizing such prohibition or sus- pension with a statement of the reasons therefor must be issued free of charge and without delay to any party concerned who may apply for it. ArT. 8. The provisions of Article 7, paragraph 1, shall not apply to meetings held previous to the elections to the advisory council, to circuit councils, and communal councils, or to any other elected council which is intended to represent an organization recognized by law during the electoral period. ArT. 9. Meetings, even under the conditions laid down in Article 8, may be prohibited when offenses against Articles 1 and 2 are committed and permitted at these meetings. ArT. 10. The member of the Governing Commission re- sponsible for the Department of the Interior will appoint the appropriate authority to take the measures provided for in Articles 7 to 9. ArT. 11. In the event of the dissolution of an association or society the property of such association or society may be seized and confiscated. ArT. 12. Persons committing any of the following offenses shall be liable to imprisonment and, if the court so decide, to a fine not exceeding 10,000 francs: 1. Organizing meetings, assemblies, and processions forbidden under Article 7 and subsequent articles, or speaking at such meetings, assemblies, and processions; 2. Retaining membership of societies dissolved under Article 7, paragraph 2, or furthering or assisting them in any other manner. For the purposes of this article, any ostensibly new society which in point of fact has only been founded to replace a former society shall be regarded as a dissolved society.

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126 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3030 Pe... TV. SEIZURE AND PROHIBITION OF PRINTED MATTER Art. 18. The stipulation of Articles 23 to 25 of the im- perial press law of May 7, 1874, regarding the provisional seizure of printed matter, shall apply to the offenses specified in Articles 1 and 2, subject to the following provisions: 1. In Article 24, paragraph 1 of the press law of May 7, 1874, the words “District Court (Tribunal Régional) shall be substi- tuted for the words “Competent Court” (Tribunal Compétent) ; 2. Article 25 of this law shall be amended to read as follows: “The public prosecutor’s office may appeal against the decision of the District Court on the question of the validity of the tem- porary seizure. This appeal shall have the effect of suspending all proceedings.” The special chamber of the Saarlouis Supreme Court referred to in Article 6 shall be authorized to hear these appeals. Art. 14. Any periodical publication containing matter which constitutes an offense under Articles 1 and 2 may be sup- pressed for a period not exceeding four weeks in the case of daily newspapers and not exceeding six months in other cases. Any ostensibly new periodical which in point of fact is issued merely for ‘the purpose of insuring the publication of a sus- pended periodical in a new form shall also be suppressed. The suppression shall be published in the form of an order by the member of the Governing Commission responsible for the Department of the Interior. ArT. 15. Any person printing, issuing, publishing, or cir- culating a printed periodical which has been prohibited under Article 14 shall be liable to imprisonment. He may also be sen- tenced to pay a fine not exceeding 10,000 francs. V. APPEAL PROCEDURE ArT. 16. An appeal may be made against the orders issued by the member of the Governing Commission responsible for the Department of the Interior, or the decisions taken by him or his representative, under Article 7 et seqg., and Article 14 of this decree within a period of fifteen days from the date on which the order has been notified, or on which a copy of the decision has been submitted to the High Administrative Court of the Saar territory, which will then proceed to hear the appeal in the customary manner. VI. FINAL PROVISIONS ArT. 17. All provisions contrary to this decree are hereby canceled. ART. 18. This decree shall come into force on March 12, 1923. Art. 19. This decree shall be submitted for the consideration of the elected representatives of the people at their first session following its publication. For the Governing Commission, (Signed) V. RAULT, Chairman, Councilor of State Saarbriick, March 7, 19238 THE NEW SAAR DECREE The Governing Commission in pursuance of paragraphs 19, 23, and 30 of Chapter II of the Saar Basin Annex to the Treaty of Peace of Versailles, and in pursuance of its decision dated June 18, 1923, hereby decrees as follows: Section 1. After consultation with the elected representatives of the population regarding the provisional decree dated March 7, 1923, that provisional decree is annulled and the following provisions are substituted. Sect. 2. Except as hereinafter provided no restriction is im- posed on the freedom of the press and of speech, or on the right of holding meetings and forming associations, in the form in which those rights are established by the laws and regulations in force in the Saar territory. Sect. 3. Any person who, by means of printed matter or at a public meeting, shall attack in a manner calculated to lead to a breach of the public peace the regime set up in the Saar terri- tory by the Treaty of Peace of Versailles shall be liable to the penalties in paragraph 18 of the press law of May 7, 1874. The foregoing provisions shall apply in particular to any person (1) insulting or traducing the Governing Commission, any of its members, organizations, or the officials responsible for the conduct of its administration in the discharge of their duties; (2) inciting or attempting to incite against each other the various elements forming the population of the territory of the Saar, irrespective of their original nationality. SecT. 4. Any printed matter, the contents of which consti- tute the offense defined in section 3, may be seized in accordance with Article 23 of the press law of May 7, 1874. Sect. 5. Paragraph 1 of Article 24 of the press law of May 7, 1874, shall be ‘amended as follows: The words “District Court” (Tribunal Régional) shall be substituted for the words “Competent Court” (Tribunal Compétent). Article 25 of this law shall be amended to read as follows: “The public prosecutor’s office may appeal against the decision of the District Court on the question of the validity of the tem- porary seizure. This appeal shall have the effect of suspending all proceedings.” Sect. 6. The circulation within the Saar territory of any printed matter published outside the territory may be prohibited. The publication, exposure for sale, and circulation of any printed matter appearing in the Saar territory may be sus- pended for a period not exceeding one month, if such printed matter contains articles which constitute the offense defined in section 3. Any ostensibly new printed matter which in point of fact is issued merely for the purpose of insuring the publication of suspended printed matter in a new form may also be suppressed. _ The suppression shall be published in the form of an order by the commissioner responsible for the Interior. SecT. 7. Any person printing, issuing, publishing, or circu- lating printed matter which has been prohibited under the pre- ceding section shall be liable to the penalties prescribed in para- graph 18 of the press law of May 7, 1874. Sect. 8. An appeal against any order issued by the member of the Governing Commission responsible for the Interior under section 6, sub-paragraph 2, may be made within a period of one week from the date on which the order has been notified to the High Administrative Court, which will then proceed to hear the appeal in the customary manner. Such appeal shall not have the effect of suspending proceedings. Sect. 9. Any public meeting which is manifestly intended to prejudice the regime set up in the Saar territory by the Treaty of Peace of Versailles, or any association with the same object may be prohibited or dissolved by a decision of the director of public safety. A copy of the decision authorizing such prohibition or disso- lution, with a statement of the reasons therefor, must be issued free of charge and without delay to any party concerned who may apply for it. The decision of the director of public safety must be confirmed within twenty-four hours by an order by the member of the Governing Commission responsible for the interior. Any party concerned may appeal to the High Administrative Court against the confirmatory order in the form and within the period prescribed in section 8. Such appeal shall not have the effect of suspending proceedings. Sect. 10. Any infringement of the provisions of sub-para- graph of the preceding paragraph shall be punishable by the penalties laid down in paragraph 18 of the press law of May 7, 1874, without prejudice to any proceedings against the members of the prohibited or dissolved associations under sections 128 and 129 of the Penal Code. Sect. 11. Any sentence passed in virtue of Sections 3 and 10 shall, at the request of the public prosecutor’s office, be published at the expense of the convicted party, in the form and within the period fixed by the court which pronounces the sentence. Sect. 12. This decree shall come into force on the date of its publication in the Official Journal. (Signed) V. RAULT, President of the Governing Commission Saarbriick, June 18, 1923

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—— _The Nation FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1923 No. 3081 Contents largest trade union, the Metal Workers’ Union. Mecklen- burg-Strelitz is the most rural state in Germany; its largest EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS ............cceeeeeepeceeeeneeeeeeeeeeees 127 town has less than 13,000 inhabitants. Yet the small peas- ON a sp Bins 0, HARRIMAN! atcrpnein vbw «<x 130 ants there turned out and voted as the city-dwellers have National Honor: Hughes Peeeeiton Pe ceca ce s+ % 131 been doing—they cast their ballots for extreme Right and ee ta ee Sv ete ees 2) eeeiie tert. Phd “Coriminists, who hid Hever betofe DISASTER IMPENDS IN GERMANY. By Robert Dell................ 133 THESE UNITED STATES—XXXV. NORTH DAKOTA: A Twentieth- Century Valley Forge. By Robert George (PAtersOnin << occs cic cena YIDDISH LITERATURE: A PRODUCT OF REVOLT. By L. Talmy 137 BN tes, DRIFT WANs. By. the. Drifter, . 4s. dhe tien. Onis 2% siwvdsioes cciewese 139 EECA CIN EMIN Glee) tele Sisletsteitiricia's's)s\s «co slo's bnimieinisisia ec elise ceeds recsescece 140 BOOKS: Defidnee, | By Thudwie Auewisohni.) cpa ba). oe 66 ci bo ce wire Cerwin eccces 141 Luminous Psychology. By Irwin Edman............-essesseesereees 141 DELO SeCREtSs gy Ee Viilindoe Grcls sf. < kids abies melbyeloveiEiees Sieh oo bie eecedes 142 EU SLOL GR EV CIT el ep YOLEN «a )c:scicic o aheleiletel clalayelere seers e's eysueca ae a 0-0 0.6 142 Leopardi Translated. By C. H. Grandgent............ceceeveeeeeees 143 A Many-Sided Man. By Henry G. Pearson..........e0e es eeeeeeeeneee 143 Une Grande Dame. By Herbert W. Horwill................0eeeceeee 144 GAs TRS E ICL ois ora. s Se mba: » dius ra, Haare Get ake 0 HRs ro TU WE Vac en does 144 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: KaZbas Wels titer Ota (Story... (sis «clei -Blalteta mt inlc obbic cs oe bbs aeheee 145 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Epitror ASSOCIATE EpIToRS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApverTIsSING MANAGER CoNnTRIBUTING EpIrors JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS ee SUBSCRIPTION Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. nea i a a THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England.

Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be re- deemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit—Woodrow Wilson in the Atlantic Monthly. I tell you, my countrymen, the world needs more of the Christ; the world needs the spirit of the Man of Nazareth. If we could bring into the relationship of humanity, among ourselves and among the nations of the earth, the brotherhood that was taught by the Christ, we would have a restored world.—Presi- _ dent Harding in one of his Alaska speeches. E do, indeed, need the spirit of Christ—but we irrev- erently read into that spirit our own individual poli- tics and prejudices. To Mr. Wilson it means the League of Nations and included our intervention in the European war; to Mr. Harding it means the World Court (with reser- vations) and includes General Wood in the Philippines. We need the lesson of Christian brotherhood, but we do not know what it means. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Harding use almost identical terms, but they would probably disagree upon the application of them to almost any practical prob- lem. If they psychoanalyzed themselves they might come to admit that the use of such lofty terms is, whether con- sciously or unconsciously, a political artifice for uniting Men’s minds in clouds of discourse while evading the hard task of seeking practical solutions of the problems of life. HAT the misery of the Ruhr is doing to Germany is shown in two recent elections—one the legislative election in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the other in Germany’s presented a ticket, won 10,633 votes, while the Socialists polled less than 12,000 where they had won 25,000 in 1920. The monarchist Nationalists, who in 1920 were so weak that they fused with other parties, took, with 12,600 votes, first place among the parties. The Metal Workers’ Union was the vanguard-union of the 1918 revolution. Its leaders, Richard Miiller, Urich, Robert Dissmann, have been regarded as radicals in the German labor movement. But they are Socialists, and while their party supports the Cuno Govern- ment they too seem entangled with it. In the recent Ber- lin metal strike they accepted a compromise settlement dis- tasteful to the majority of their followers. And the result is that the union members have just voted Communist leaders into office, by nearly two to one. Only the parties of despair profit by the chaos in Germany today. HE World Court has refused to give an advisory opin- ion, as requested by the Council of the League of Nations, on the Finnish-Russian dispute regarding the autonomy of Eastern Karelia, the semi-Finnish province of Russia which lies adjacent to Finland. Soviet Russia refused to recognize the court’s jurisdiction or to present a case before it. By a vote of seven to four the court de- clared itself incompetent to pronounce an opinion in a dis- pute between a member of the League and a non-member without the latter’s consent. Ordinarily such a decision would have seemed a matter of course in any court, but the recent attempts of the Great Powers to settle Germany’s and Russia’s affairs without consulting Germany or Russia, and their use of the League as a tool for imperial policy have raised natural suspicions of the independence of any organization sponsored by the League. If the court con- tinues to show such independence it will win friends out- side the circle of advocates of the League. OT Vae victis but Vae victoribus is the appropriate motto for the Treaty of Lausanne. If anything seemed absolutely certain at the close of the Great War, it was that the power of Turkey had been forever broken, and that Gladstone’s policy of driving her “bag and baggage” out of Europe had at last reached fulfilment. When Turkey joined the belligerents on the side of the Central Powers the opinion was general that she was thereby virtually com- mitting suicide. One remembers, for instance, a typical cartoon of the time in which a fez-crowned gobbler was pic- tured as swinging an ax for its own decapitation. This verdict seemed to be confirmed by the position in which Turkey found herself at the end of the conflict and by the terms of the Treaty of Sévres. But the rivalries of the vic- torious Powers have given the proverbial sick man of Europe an opportunity not only to escape the undertaker but to regain health and vigor. Turkey emerges now not

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128 The Nation only retaining its ancient capital but reinstated in posses- sion of Eastern Thrace and relieved of the humiliating concession to foreign residents involved in the judicial capitulations, the European Powers merely being permitted to have legal advisers to receive complaints. Naturally Constantinople celebrated the new treaty. MPERIALISM is very much the same the world around. We have our Leonard Wood in the Philippines. Every Filipino party united in the unanimous demand that Wood be recalled—how our newspapers would have foamed with rage had that happened in Ireland or in a French or German colony! The British, about to relax their martial law in “independent” Egypt, as a farewell reminder sen- tenced five Egyptians to death for alleged conspiracies to kill British officials. France reports that in the campaign for the “pacification” of Morocco which was inaugurated last March she had lost 253 men and officers killed and 587 wounded, and that friendly tribes had lost 100 killed and an unknown number wounded. How many of the “pacified” natives were killed the official report does not say; if the French pacify as efficiently in Morocco as the Americans did in Haiti, it would be something like 50,000. CONOMIC problems, as the present state of Europe attests, have no mercy on the whims of mere politics, and sooner or later demand solutions in which the most inveterate political prejudices have to go by the board. This truism has just been illustrated on a smaller scale in Ireland. Premier Craig, of Ulster, and President Cos- grave, of the Free State, have met for the first time as the heads of their respective governments. Appropriately enough, it is the question of communications that has brought them together. Politically Ireland may be split up into as many factions as the demon of discord pleases, but she must be a United Ireland in the matter of rail- roads or the social and industrial life of the whole country will be dislocated. In the face of the necessity of certain adjustments of the railroad situation, the old attitude of mutual aloofness has had to be abandoned, and Ephraim and Judah have accordingly sat down at the same table to talk things over. Such rapprochements are always gradual, and one is not surprised to learn that this first meeting was held on neutral ground—namely, in London— but it is officially reported that Mr. Cosgrave will shortly be visiting the North of Ireland and may then see Mr. Craig again. Other interesting announcements are that President Cosgrave, with a strong delegation, will attend the September meeting of the League Assembly in Geneva, and that the appointment of a minister to Washington is a prominent item on the agenda of the Free State Govern- ment. O South America, too, is to join in laying the way for the “next war.” An Associated Press dispatch from Buenos Aires quotes La Razon as saying that the Presi- dent of Argentina has sent to the Senate for “secret con- sideration” (note well that phrase!) a request for authority to spend some $150,000,000 to “modernize” the army.” The “negative results” of the recent Pan-American Conference at Santiago, Chile (which has been described as a great success by our delegates), are put forward as the reason for increasing the military strength of Argentina, and “a [Vol. 117, No. 3031 - high army chief” reveals that the plans call for a strong air force, an extensive acquisition of modern machine-guns, and machinery for the manufacture of projectiles. Natu- rally Argentina looks toward France, leader in modern militarism, for her equipment. HEN the labor struggle invades the labor movement itself, capitalists and their newspapers sit up and take notice. It gives them a chance to wag their heads sagely and arrive at wide conclusions about the ultimate chances of industrial democracy. They had such an oppor- tunity lately in the strike of the workers in the establish- ments of the Cooperative Wholesale Society in England which tied up for some weeks the manufacturing and dis- tributing activities of that great organization. The fight was as bitter as any ordinary strike could be. The em- ployees, organized in the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, charged the Cooperative Wholesale Society with breaking its agreement and refusing arbitra- tion; the society maintained that it had acted in accordance with its agreement and therefore had no use for arbitra- tion. Charges of ill-faith hustled through the air, and the columns of the Daily Herald were filled with a barrage of statements and interviews and advertisements from both sides. The dispute finally ended in a practical victory for the strikers on terms drawn up by a joint committee of trade unionists and cooperators. It is fortunate at any rate that labor was able to find means to settle its quarrels inside its own ranks; but the more labor goes into business, whether it be manufacturing or banking or mining or dis- tributing, the more necessary it will be for it to face and solve the knotty problems of democratic control. It can- not afford to have the capitalists wagging their heads. F the Ku Klux Klan succeeds in buying Valparaiso Uni- versity, it will apparently take over only the shell of what was formerly a remarkable educational undertaking. In an age and country when most institutions of higher learning are finding it hard to make both ends meet, even when largely endowed, Valparaiso University, conducted on the “pay-as-you-go” plan, prospered until recently through selling education on a strictly commercial basis. Until the outbreak of the World War, it offered a higher education to the ambitious boy or girl for $120 a year, all expenses in- cluded, less, as the New York Herald observes, than the tuition alone at many colleges. If the student lacked the $120, there were means of self-help on the university’s truck farm and otherwise. There was only one disadvan- tage from the youthful standpoint—one was expected to study! Work began at 6.30 am. There were no intercol- legiate athletics, no Greek-letter fraternities, no “student activities.” So it went until recently, when there was a change of management. A football team was sent east to play Harvard; fraternities were established. Result: the attendance, which in 1920 was 4,000, dropped last year to 1,500, and financial difficulties arose. Since the principles upon which Valparaiso University was established seem to have disappeared, the rest may perhaps fittingly pass to the Invisible Empire. HE National Woman’s Party achieved a successful coup d’etat in staging its demand for equal rights for men and women on the historic ground of the first equality con- vention held at Seneca Falls in 1848. Whatever may be its

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 129 historic right to preempt that battlefield and to wage its own campaign on that ground, the Woman’s Party has at least the right of conquest and of imagination. Its boldness and sense of dramatic values never fails it, and it is proba- ble that henceforth the beginning of the woman’s rights movement and the modern Woman’s Party will be linked together in people’s minds. The party convention has adopted as its program the pushing of an amendment to the Federal Constitution. In its new and simplified form this amendment reads: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place sub- ject to its jurisdiction.” HIS sounds fair and reasonable enough but in effect it would undoubtedly nullify all laws, State or National, for the special protection of women, and would work especial havoe with labor legislation. The Woman’s Party recog- nizes this, but insists that the democratic way toward pro- tective labor legislation is by combining the interests of men and women. In countries other than the United States this may be good tactics, but it happens that the provisions of our Constitution in regard to freedom of contract have been interpreted by the Supreme Court so as virtually to make it impossible to regulate the working hours of men or to fix other conditions of their employment. On the other hand, working hours and other conditions of employment for women have been largely and beneficially regulated through laws which the courts have sustained on the ground of their vital relation to health and the public welfare. If the Woman’s Party will link with its suggested amendment another to restrict the provisions of the Constitution in regard to freedom of contract, then it will have a proposi- tion worthy of consideration. Without that, the proposal will doubtless commend itself to reactionary employers, but will be viewed by the country’s workers as certain to do incalculable harm. T is too bad that Federal divorce legislation has come to be synonymous in the United States with reactionary divorce legislation. If the light of Scandinavia shone over this country it is likely that most of us would support a movement for unifying and simplifying our legal methods in this field; for they are undoubtedly wildly disorganized and absurd. But when the fact is that darkness and ob- scurantism dominate the making of our laws, especially in the field of morals, the result of Federal action would be to fasten a medieval system of divorce on every State and every individual. “As bad as the worst’? seems to be the motto of the Federal divorce-law advocate. The movement for Federal legislation is growing, however, and Senator Capper’s uniform marriage-and-divorce law is receiving much support, especially from women. At least one woman’s magazine of fabulous circulation has thrown itself into the fight, and the recent national convention of busi- ness and professional women’s clubs held at Portland, Ore- gon, indorsed the measure. It is all too easy for those of us who are ourselves unconcerned lightly to recommend measures that will fetter and ruin the happiness of a help- less minority and at the same time bind the country to dead and decaying social traditions. - OST of them use it for pin-money anyway.” This has been the historic excuse of department-store owners, sweat-shop operators, and other employers of girls for the low wages paid to women workers. And as long as nobody knew anything about it the statement carried conviction. “They live at home, so they don’t need more.” Unfortunately for these theorist-employers the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor has re- cently published a pamphlet entitled ‘“‘The Share of Wage- Earning Women in Family Support,” and the pin-money theory has been completely devastated. As the result of several careful investigations of industrial communities con- taining fair proportions of native and foreign-born workers it appears that (1) practically every married woman wage- earner contributes every cent she earns to the support of the home; (2) of unmarried women workers living at home, as most of them do, from 59.9 to 90.5 per cent contribute their entire wages to the home; (3) among the unmarried children a greater proportion of daughters than of sons contribute their total earnings and have done so during the entire time they have been at work; (4) no appreciable number of women workers keep their wages for their own use. In one typical industrial community figures were se- cured from several thousand men and women in the textile, clothing, glass, and silk industries. Taken all together the women contributed from 86.4 to 96 per cent of their earn- ings to their families; the men from 78.2 to 84.6 per cent. That the actual money contribution of the men was higher reflects only on the indecently small wage paid to the women. IDDEN among the New York theater advertisements we find this choice bit of publicity for the steel trust: JUDGE ELBERT GARY says: TAYLOR HOLMES in “NOT SO FAST” is a clean, wholesome, and entertaining play. It deserves a long run at the MOROSCO Theatre. I hope to see it again. Eves. 8:15. Mats. Wed. & Sat. In return for Judge Gary’s courteous indorsement of the not-so-fast principle we shall expect to find on the financial pages some such statement as this: MARION MEARS, ingenue in “NOT SO FAST,” says: “The UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION, in a clean, wholesome, and philanthropic way, is dis- tributing forty million dollars as a quar- terly dividend. Its directors and the mill workers (to whom the abolition of the twelve-hour day has’ generously been promised for the twenty-third time in as many months) deserve long life and pros- perity.”” Shares on sale by all stockholders. HE Crystal Palace, London’s famous amusement resort, is ten inches longer in summer than in winter, accord- ing to Sir Martin Conway, who explains this as due to the expansion of the metal framework in warm weather. The Hiffel Tower and like structures are subject to similar variations with the temperature; doubtless also steel or iron steamships. The idea suggests itself that, relying upon this law of nature, the United States Shipping Board succeeded in making the Leviathan the world’s largest steamship by taking her latest measurements in summer, whereas those of her nearest rival, the Majestic, were perhaps made in winter. The enterprise of the Shipping Board is com- mendable, but what is it going to do next January when snow envelopes the North Atlantic route and the Hudson River docks are jammed with broken ice? Possibly the cost of passage will be reduced on the ground that the cabins, so luxurious in summer, are less spacious in winter. Or the ship may be withdrawn entirely from the North Atlantic service and sent into southern waters. It would doubtless be welcomed by thirsty Americans as a ferry between Key West and Havana.

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ee — a el ce es ee ee se ee SL ee < an” VG ———— ——- = a SSS —— —— Se eee * 130 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8031

- Uncle Sam, Hermit? ‘“¥ GNORE Europe,” Hiram Johnson exhorts us, and straightway sets the example by discoursing of her in a speech that fills nearly a page of the daily paper. Even across “the God-given vantage of 3,000 miles of protecting waters” he cannot resist the pull of the European magnet, struggle against it as he may. Nor can anyone else who is ambitious of influencing American opinion. It is easy to poke fun at the flight of so many Senatorial swallows over the ocean this summer, but their instinctive resort to Europe to see conditions there at first hand is full of significance. Consciously or subconsciously, they realize that our relation to the Old World is an outstanding problem in American politics. And, however they may differ in the details of their reports or in the conclusions about American policy to which their inquiries have led them, they are virtually unanimous in the account they bring back of the general situation abroad. Senator Hiram Johnson’s picture of present-day Europe is no blacker than Senator Underwood’s. Moreover, the same story is told by observers who approach the subject from a very different angle from that of the Washington politician. Soldiers like General Allen, religious leaders like John R. Mott, and journalists like Mark Sulli- van are equally despondent. The most startling confirmation comes from a source where the personal equation counts for nothing. The finan- cial exchanges are ruled not by opinion or theory but by actualities. Their day-by-day quotations are not inspired by the impressions of tourists, but are decided by the known conditions in the various countries represented in the money market. You may think what you please about French or German policies, but there is no evading the bare fact that, whereas a dollar would formerly buy only about four and a half German marks, it will now buy a million. Money, _ measured by purchasing power, is getting to be about as valuable in Berlin as on Robinson Crusoe’s island. The German mark today is worth less than the Polish mark or the Austrian krone, less even than the soviet ruble was worth two years ago. The outlook was grave enough at the beginning of the year, but the French occupation of the Ruhr has gratuitously added a new and disastrous element to the forces making for the disintegration of the life of Europe. The effect of that occupation on international trade, said Premier Bald- win a few days ago, is exactly the same as if you inserted the blade of your penknife into the works of your watch. The peace of his own country, with all her traditional stability, is seriously threatened. A collapse of foreign trade, with its consequent unemployment, means far more to England than to France. To the Englishman, unlike the ancient Roman or the modern American politician, the sea is a symbol not of separation but of intercourse, and unless he can send out his products over the waterways of the world he must suffer a privation so acute that it may lead to a revolutionary discontent. Such is the prospect, and the crisis in the Entente may further exasperate the situa- tion by transforming the relations between England and France into those of open hostility. Meanwhile, what of America? She appears from time to time upon the scene, to use Sir Edward Grigg’s striking figure, like a comet which for a moment illuminates the hori- zon and then disappears. No wonder the foreigner is puzzled by our attitude. He finds us rigidly determined to abate not a cent of what is due to us by other nations, yet utterly indifferent as to whether or not our debtors go bankrupt. He sees Mr. Fall, lately our Secretary of the In- terior, chaffering for trade concessions with that Soviet Government which only yesterday, as a member of the Cabinet, he spurned as no government at all. Our people have spent generously of money and personal service for the relief of distress in Europe, yet the contribution of official America during 1923 to the resettlement of the world has so far consisted of (1) a refusal to have anything to do with Russia, (2) a refusal to consider any solution of the repara- tions problem that involves the canceling or scaling down of foreign debts, (3) the closing of the door of hope in the face of thousands of Europeans who, like our own fore- fathers, seek a career in the New World, and, as a worthy climax, (4) the seizure of liquor brought under seal to our ports in foreign ships, not for the purpose of violating our domestic law but for the use of ocean passengers. The choice that lies before us is not really between association with Europe and abstention from her affairs. Unless we are prepared to accept frankly the status of a hermit nation, closing our embassies and consulates and placing an embargo upon imports and exports alike, we cannot avoid the responsibilities of a twentieth-century Great Power. Nothing is more absurd than the idea, im- plicit in so many discussions of the subject, that we can con- tinue to trade with foreign countries while holding politi- cally aloof from them. There can be no keeping interna- tional commerce and international politics in water-tight compartments. Every business man who goes abroad is a potential cause of international complications. There is a further consideration that should be prominent in the mind of the American trader—the fact, namely, that every busi- ness transaction between individuals in different countries depends fundamentally on the stability of their govern- ments. Without stable government, you cannot have the assurance which is the basis of all trade. And today the equilibrium of the government of the greater part of Eur- ope is rapidly approaching the equilibrium of an earthquake. What we have to decide is whether we will be content to be dragged into European affairs at intervals by re- current crises that are none of our creation or, by intelli- gent cooperation, will help to make things go somewhat more smoothly and sanely. Of course, if our American statesmen are afflicted with an inferiority complex and shrink from venturing beyond the three-mile limit lest they be outwitted by the shrewder and more practical European, it would be unkind and futile to thrust upon them tasks for which they feel themselves so unfitted. The implied confes- sion, however, is somewhat humiliating to national self- respect, and one would be better pleased to hear that America, strong in her very freedom from entangling alliances, open or secret, was willing to help in the task of restoring peace to a distracted world. Hiram Johnson was quite right when he pointed out that it would mean nothing to the peace of Europe for us to join the League or the World Court. But we have in our hands, if we are willing to use it, a powerful lever—the debts Europe owes us—which might be used to promote disarma- ment, reconciliation, and peaceful commerce in Europe.

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National Honor: Hughes vs. Hamilton HEN President Harding dedicated a monument in Washington to Alexander Hamilton he called attention to various advice on the subject of economic and financial integrity which that statesman had enjoined on the nation, and he took pride in the fact that the following of that advice had made us great. He failed to call atten- tion, however, to one great utterance of Hamilton, which has a very concrete application to a policy now before the country and which some Americans, including Secretary Hughes, seem willing to forget, thereby dismaying those who believe that disregarding Hamilton’s advice in this respect subverts our traditions and our reputation for finan- cial integrity. Speaking of the policy of regarding as inviolable the pri- vate property of foreigners in the United States, even of the citizens of enemy nations (Great Britain was then our enemy), Hamilton said, in his nineteenth Camillus letter: The right of holding or having property in a country always implies a duty on the part of its government to protect that property, and to secure to the owner the full enjoyment of it. Whenever, therefore, a government grants permission to for- eigners to acquire property within its territories, or to bring and deposit it there, it tacitly promises protection and security. There is no parity between the case of the persons and goods of enemies found in our own country and that of the persons and goods of enemies found elsewhere. In the former there is a reliance upon our hospitality and justice; there is an express or implied safe-conduct; the individuals and their property are in the custody of our faith; they have no power to resist our will; they can lawfully make no defense against our violence; they are deemed to owe a temporary allegiance; and for en- deavoring resistance would be punished as criminals, a char- acter inconsistent with that of an enemy. To make them a prey, is therefore to infringe every-rule of generosity and equity; it is to add cowardice to treachery. In the latter case there is no confidence whatever reposed in us; no claim upon our hospitality, justice, or good faith; there is the simple char- acter of an enemy, with entire liberty to oppose force with BOECe. v5 is The property of a foreigner placed in another country, by permission of its laws, may justly be regarded as a deposit, of which the society is the trustee. How can it be reconciled with the idea of a trust to. take the property from its owner when he has personally given no cause for its deprivation? In disregard and defiance of these profound words of wisdom, which had become an American tradition and a fundamental principle of international law, the present Secretary of State recently urged Congress not to return the private property of German, Austrian, and Hungarian citizens which we had sequestrated during the war on the theory that it was to be held only during hostilities in order to prevent its belligerent use against the United States. But when the war closed, other uses for the property seem to have been found and the Secretary of State, promoter of world courts, has taken a leading part in subverting the law and traditions of the United States. It is hardly possible that Mr. Hughes can fail to appre- ciate the revolutionary effect of the precedent he is helping to create. Oblivious of his own disregard of the principles of international law and American tradition, he boldly preaches to Russia and Mexico the illegality of confiscating the private property of foreigners, and his emissary in Mexico, Mr. Charles B. Warren, unctuously says to that Government: “There can be no compromise with the fun- damental principles essential to international business.” Is it just stupidity or perverseness that keeps the Secretary from realizing that he is not practicing what he preaches? So long as we retain the private property of foreigners who invested their funds in the United States in reliance upon our good faith we have no standing to protest against the confiscatory acts of foreign governments. It becomes then not a question of “fundamental principle,” but a ques- tion of whose ox is gored. Until the Allies and the United States retrace the revolutionary step they have taken with respect to German, Austrian, and Hungarian private prop- erty, they are estopped from making accusations against Russia on this score; they are rendering the whole institu- tion of foreign investment unsafe and unsound. We ask the Secretary of State to reflect upon the anomalous posi- tion he is assuming at home and abroad and, notwithstand- ing the pressure of the British and French governments, to save his reputation and that of his country by returning to the paths of legality which Alexander Hamilton so ably and forcefully pointed out. The Shoving of the South W. W. Alexander, in the Christian Index, ascribes the exodus of Negroes from the South not to the “pulling of the North” but to the “shoving of the South.” HEN Celia Shevick, a sixteen-year-old white school- girl, was murdered in Richmond, Virginia, on April 28, the energetic police immediately arrested twelve Negroes who happened to be in the vicinity and held them without bail. Two days later Richmond papers stated that “Joseph Enoch .. . last night was lodged in the city jail, charged with two capital crimes, [having] made and signed a com- plete confession [of the murder of Celia Shevick].” The papers omitted to say that Enoch was white. A white woman writing to the editor of the Jacksonville (Florida) Journal (in the State where seven Negroes were lynched in the first six months of 1923) reported that she was riding on a city street car, several seats of which were unoccupied, when an old colored woman boarded the car and remained standing. “She looked very tired and carried a heavy handbag. I asked the poor old woman to sit beside me. She thanked me but said she did not like to raise a fuss. She admitted she had a very bad knee, too, but only said, ‘I must not sit down. . . . There is no help.’ ” After being sentenced to death in 1919, after having had five dates set for their execution, and after passing through four State and Federal courts and awaiting retrial two years, six Negro farmers were finally released on June 30 by order of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. The men had attempted to organize to obtain legal redress against peon- age under the share-cropping system, and had been accused of a “plot to massacre whites.” Indiscriminate hunting, shooting, and killing of Negroes had followed. H. F. Smiddy and F. K. Jones, white members of the sheriff’s posse, swore that the white man for whose murder the Negroes were convicted by a white jury was killed by mem- bers of the posse. They further swore that they personally whipped the prisoners with straps studded with metal, put strangling drugs in their nostrils, and compelled the Ne- re |

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EL SS See 132 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3031 eee ee nnn ee groes to sit in an electric chair to force testimony in the manner desired by the mob. Six other Negro defendants remain in the penitentiary at Little Rock awaiting action by the Federal judge. The freedom of the six innocent men just released was won after four years’ fighting by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo- ple, at a cost of $14,000. Within three weeks in July, these three items: Two hundred of the “best people’ of Schulenberg, Texas, re- moved Jesse Bullock, Negro, accused of attacking a white girl, from a city jail and hanged him until dead; Willie Minnifield, accused of attacking and wounding a white woman with an ax, was taken by a mob from a posse near Yazoo City, Mississippi, tied to a stake, and burned to death, the mob then continuing its pursuit of another Negro said to have been standing outside the house during the attack; Regina Almstedt went to Mexico, Missouri, to look at Ollie Watson, now suspected of being the man who really attempted to attack her, a deed for which James T. Scott was lynched on April 20. Florida, with one colored resident for every two white residents, has invested thirteen times as much money in schools for white children as in schools for colored children. Florida spends only $1.18 on each colored pupil and $10.47 on each white pupil, spends more than five times as much for white teachers’ salaries as for colored teachers’ salaries, and has an average school term of 111 days for the colored children as against 142 days for the white children. Louisi- ana, with 212 high schools for white children, has none for the colored. While her Negro population is more than a third of the total the school property for the use of white children is ten times as valuable as that for Negro children. The State spends, on an attendance basis, only $11.28 per colored child and $46.15 per white child, pays its colored teachers only $360 per year as compared with $1,198.98 paid white teachers, and offers 114 days of education per year to the colored child and 165 to the white child. It is estimated that more than 250,000 Negroes have mi- grated North in the last six months. No wonder! Austria Saved USTRIA was dying. Austria had to be saved. The makers of the crazy quilt of Versailles had created a land without bread or coal or outlet; they had left a city of two millions without a hinterland. The cities were de- caying; the children were starving to death. Austria had to be saved. It was clearly seen from the start. No French armies occupied Vienna or Gratz; no one attempted to col- lect indemnities. Then Seipel went a-begging and the loan was arranged. The world drew breath more freely. One good deed had been done. There is no question of the necessity or the goodness of the deed. It is a fact, however, that the Austrians for whose sake one cares for Austria look upon the loan and its results with bitter misgiving. The scholars, artists, men of letters, liberals, educators who have sustained the ancient glory of Vienna—these have been but little heartened by the bread which the loan has brought. Man does not live by bread alone. What are their thoughts? What do they lack? What do they want? After the crash in 1918 the Socialists seized the govern- ment in German Austria and instructed their Secretary of State, Dr. Otto Bauer, to negotiate at once for the union of the country with the German Republic. Even Versailles insisted on solidly nationalistic states except in such cases— as Czecho-Slovakia—where not to insist would make for a dismemberment of the German folk, Every Pole had to be gathered under the Polish flag. The Austrians did not underestimate their difficulties from without. They did not anticipate opposition from within. But the opposition came. It came from the clericals who feared the predominance of Protestantism and liberalism in the Reich; it came from the bankers and industrialists whose interests were still scattered in all the lands of the Hapsburg crown, who had no care for the fate of this frag- mentary Austria that was left, and who feared the competi- tion of the bankers and industrialists of Prussia and the Rhine. Thus the anti-annexationists were the reactionaries, both clerical and capitalist. Hence all socialists, liberals, idealists, the representatives of Austrian civilization, be- came annexationists. They knew that Austria could not remain a “Kultur-Staat” if left to her own resources. They saw clearly that the alternative to union with the German Republic was international charity. Charity means spiritual pauperization. He who receives gifts is supposed to strip himself of all wants except the humblest. So at this moment Austria is entering upon in- ternal economies. The functions of the state are being re- duced to the keeping of order and the administration of justice. Policemen and judges are to be the only officers of the pauper state. One hundred and twenty-five thousand government officials, for whom there is no place in the eco- nomic order of the country, have been thrown into the streets of Vienna. But that is not the worst. It is not the suffering of bodies that is the worst. This state which, despite all its political follies and iniquities, was among the leaders of mankind in education, in its fostering of art, science, public welfare, is to be reduced to spiritual poverty and obedience. With a vengeance, too. For the same re- form that throws out the upholders of the intellectual cul- ture of Vienna makes the priests of the Catholic church officials of the state. The country is back where it was in 1855. “Prdlat’’ Seipel is content. The crown has been stabilized. Imports have been re- duced toa minimum. Hence industry is paralyzed but agri- culture is untouched. Again Seipel is satisfied. He is con- tent to let Austria sink to the status of a peasant state. The agrarians of Styria and the Tyrol look upon the social- ists and artists and liberals and scientists and Jews of Vienna with no kindly eyes anyhow. The capitalists are satisfied. They don’t need the schools and universities and laboratories. They need order and good hotels. So everybody is satisfied with the loan and its internal consequences except the people that count, the people who have added so largely to the beauty and wisdom and spirit- ual wealth of the world, the people for whose sake the loan was made. It was these people in Vienna who drew the sympathies of the world to the fate of their country. Now there will be security in Austria and less starvation and, by and by, a prosperous ultramontane peasantry. There will be nothing for the traditions and the work and the in- fluence of Vienna. The civilization of Gluck and Mozart and Beethoven and Grillparzer and Anzengruber and Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal and the great scholars and physicians and psychiatrists seems doomed. The body of Austria is saved. What of her soul? a i,

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 133 Disaster Impends in Germany By ROBERT DELL Berlin, July 9 T is a painful experience to live in Germany just now. One is oppressed by the sense of impending disaster and by the misery that one sees on every side. The streets of Berlin are full of starving people many of whom have not the courage to ask for money but make only a mute appeal. A present of 5,000 marks—less than three cents— overwhelms them and brings tears to their eyes. They are grateful for even 100 marks, although controlled black bread now costs 4,500 marks a quarter loaf, of course a very low price for people with the money to buy it. Behind the closed doors of flats even in fashionable quarters many middle-class people are slowly dying of starvation, too proud to tell even their friends of their need. Some of them prefer a more rapid end—suicides are becoming more and more common. Profound pessimism prevails. People seem to have lost almost all hope. There is only too much reason for pessimism about the internal situation in Germany. A strike has just begun in the metal industries and when, as is the case in this country, no workmen are earning even a bare subsistence wage, one strike may easily lead to others. One of the demands of the metal workers is that their wages should be fixed according to a gold standard, so that they would be adjusted automatically to changes in value instead of being periodically revised as paper prices rise. The work- men have refused to accept a sliding scale based on the index numbers of the cost of living. They want a fixed wage in gold value which would of course be paid in paper marks at the current rate of exchange. In a country with a depreciated and constantly varying currency, this is the only just and rational way of fixing wages and salaries and it is surprising that German workmen have waited so long to make this demand. It is likely that other workmen will follow the example of the metal workers and demand wages fixed in gold value and, if the employers refuse to agree, as they have in the metal industries, a general strike may be the result. How low wages are in Germany is shown by the fact that the workmen in the metal industries are at present asking for 12,000 marks an hour, whereas the employers have offered them 9,000 marks. At today’s rate of ex- change 12,000 marks are about six cents and the weekly wage (forty-eight hours) works out at about $2.90. Since the general cost of living in Germany (in gold prices) is on an average about 56 per cent of the pre-war cost, this wage is equivalent in purchasing power to about twenty- six marks before the war. Dr. Kuczynski’s estimate of the minimum weekly wage required for the bare subsistence of a married couple with two children under ten in Berlin before the war was 28.80 marks. As I have said, no Ber- lin workmen are now earning the equivalent purchasing power of 28.80 marks a week before the war, although of course the pre-war wages of all skilled workmen were above it. For example the skilled workmen in the Berlin printing trade earned on an average before the war 34.38 marks a week—19 per cent more than the subsistence minimum. In 1920 their wages were 30 per cent below the subsistence minimum, in 1921 8 per cent below, in the first half of 1922 9 per cent below, in the third quarter of that year 40 per cent below, in the fourth quarter 50 per cent below, in January of this year 44 per cent below, in February 47 per cent below, in March 7 per cent below, and in April 5 per cent below. The pre-war weekly wages of Berlin brick- layers and carpenters were Mk. 41.82—45 per cent above the subsistence minimum. In 1920 their wages were 13 per cent below the subsistence minimum, in 1921 4 per cent above it, in the first half of 1922 10 per cent above it, in the third quarter of 1922 23 per cent below it, in the fourth quarter 43 per cent below it, in January of this year 39 per cent below it, in February 40 per cent below it, in March 8 per cent below it, and in April 5 per cent above it.1 They are now certainly much below the subsistence mini- mum, having not yet risen in proportion to the enormous rise in paper prices, caused by the slump in the mark. On no previous occasion have prices been raised so quickly and so much. In many cases the increase in prices exceeds that in the value of the dollar, with the result that even gold prices are higher than they were two or three weeks ago and the general cost of living is now probably more than 56 per cent of the pre-war cost. I happen to have bought this week at two different shops exactly the same article that I bought at each of them on June 16. In one case the gold price is now 30 per cent, in the other 70 per cent, higher than on the date mentioned. The increase in prices has been particularly excessive in the restaurants, many of which are now twice as expensive in gold value as they were a month ago. Two friends of mine paid 450,- 000 marks (nearly $3) a week ago for a dinner which, to my knowledge, would not have cost more than $1 or $1.25 in the same restaurant a month ago. What is more serious is that food prices in general are higher in gold value, as I know by my housekeeping expenses. In April food prices (in gold) were 65 per cent of the pre-war prices, but I should say that they are now about 80 per cent. This in- crease in gold prices is arbitrary and quite without justi- fication. The tradesmen are able to make it because people are so confused by the constant changes in the value of the mark that they do not know where they are. A very serious factor in the situation is the growing scarcity of provisions. The cold wet weather that we have had for three months—it changed a week ago—has ruined the fruit and vegetables, the prices of which are as high as, sometimes even higher than, before the war, in conse- quence of the shortage of the supply. Fruit and vegetables are imported from Holland, but they are necessarily expen- sive. Those with money to buy do not yet perceive the shortage in the supply of many foodstuffs. One can get as much butter as one wants but only because most Ger- mans cannot afford to buy it. The best fresh butter now costs about twenty-five cents a pound, which is about 15 per cent less than it cost before the war at this time of year, but then the gold value of the average German income is less than one-fifth of the pre-war income. It may already be too late to avert a catastrophe. In any case, there is not a moment to be lost, if we do not wish Germany to be plunged into anarchy and the payment of reparations to become forever impossible. 1I take these statistics from Dr. Kuczynski’s Finanzpolitische Korrespondenz, May 15, 1923.

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134 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3031 These United States—X X X V* NORTH DAKOTA: A Twentieth-Century Valley Forge By ROBERT GEORGE PATERSON HE drama of North Dakota has been one of the great American epics. Scene of a gigantic struggle for in- dependence, fought almost as fiercely and tenaciously as the Colonists’ revolt in 1776, its far-stretching prairies have been a continuous battlefield since the bloody days of Cus- ter. There is a sparkle in the piercing northern air “out in those vast spaces where men are men” that prompts the clash of dominating spirits. Regarded by the sedate East as America’s enfant terrible, its numerous reforms have made its name a synonym for radicalism, for amazing govern- mental ventures that have startled the conservative world, shivering its spine with the latest spectacle of the Non- partisan League, whose daring shadow has broadened across the whole Western horizon. There has been real romance in the story of its forceful dramatis personae, stalwart builders who visualized empires, political chieftains who slapped each other’s faces, earnest home-makers converting the great plains into a chrome-yellow sea of ripening grain, strong men bold enough to strike out for ideals and break the invisible chains of unseen rulers exacting tribute from afar. Aside from the war, North Dakota’s revolt has been one of the century’s outstanding political events in America. It has had as many interpretations as it has had observers. Many passively noted it as one of those freakish experi- ments in which in the name of progress certain Western States occasionally have indulged themselves, a temporary obsession to be viewed with no more concern than a city changing to the commission form of government. To some it has seemed the heroic effort of the second generation of a pioneer people to conquer political chiefs, economic over- lordship, and the forces industrial civilization has erected, as their fathers subdued Indian chiefs and the forces of nature. Others saw it as a conflagration fired by the in- cendiary bombs of demagogues whose personal destruction offered the only hope for its extinction. Still others have fancied it everything from the first American foothold of the foreboding International to a revolt of the tenantry. Ample evidence may exist for these contentions. It cer- tainly was not a revolution without its Jacobins, its carpet- bagging exploiters suddenly swooping down upon it to direct its generals from behind the scenes, its feverish mob howling for the political decapitation of all survivors of the old regime. Nor was it without its Dantons sincerely seeking the economic deliverance of the State’s agricul- tural classes from a system that ground them into vassalage while they produced the world’s daily bread. Yet none of these estimates is wholly correct. North Dakota has been greatly misunderstood, for it is not a State of Marxian idealists. Prior to the Nonpartisan League’s appearance it had but a straggling Socialist element scarcely able to muster two thousand votes on elec- * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1928, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. tion day. Unlike its neighbors of South Dakota and lowa to the south, it never had any land tenantry worth men- tioning. It has not been bothered by labor disturbances, as it has no laboring class except its floating farm helpers who come and go with the spring and autumn. While in 1913 there was a brief I.W.W. flurry at Minot the rioters were not North Dakotans but the typical Western rovers who frequent the trans-Mississippi region during the harvest season together with a boisterous handful of Butte’s min- ing element who had strayed eastward out of Montana. Of all the States North Dakota is one of the freest from poverty. Nearly all of its half million people are land- owners. A country of magnificent distances, its mighty expanse adapted itself to the acquisition of enormous tracts. The “bonanza farm,” covering thousands of acres, sprang into vogue. Inconsequential indeed was the farmer possess- ing less than a section—640 acres—of land. The forty- or eighty-acre farm of the Eastern or Middle States is incon- ceivable to the average North Dakotan. The majority of the 30 per cent of its people that are not Scandinavian are keen-faced Yankees who migrated from Iowa, Lllinois, and western New York to get rich quick in the early land boom, but on seeing the country’s possibilities decided to stay. The years have dealt generously with them, and though North Dakota boasts only a few millionaires nearly every one is well to do. Virtually every farmer has his car, some three and four. A few years ago the tremendous business of the Ford plant at Fargo ranked it near the top of that company’s branches throughout the country. North Dakota’s revolt came as the direct result of its complete subjection to outside domination. Hunger, pov- erty, class distinctions, religious oppression, political graft and chicanery all prompt rebellion. But nothing is more certain to provoke it than the attempt of one people to govern another. Nominally a sovereign State, in reality North Dakota has experienced few of the thrills of sovereignty. From the hour of statehood it has been merely the “‘flickertail’ of the Minnesota gopher. Albeit Bismarck is the capital where the Governor resides and the legislature convenes, the actual seat of the State government always has been in St. Paul and Minneapolis, homes of the overlords who played with its destinies. At the outset James J. Hill became its acknowledged patron saint and colonized it with Nor- wegians as Minnesota already had been settled by their Swedish cousins. Throughout his years his excellent paternal care well entitled him to the fond sobriquet of “Father of North Dakota.” From St. Paul he watched over its interests—so closely interwoven with his own— with the same anxious eye a keen guardian displays for a wealthy ward. From a carefully guarded chamber in the West Hotel in Minneapolis its political wires were manipu- lated with rare dexterity by that most astute of all the Northwest’s political chiefs, the frequently mentioned but

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August 8, 1923] infrequently seen “Alec”? McKenzie of Klondike fame—fame suggested, if not exactly extolled, by Rex Beach in “The Spoilers.” Perchance because of the proprietary concern exhibited in the State by these two gentlemen, the finan- ciers, merchants, and millers of Minnesota’s chief centers assumed that North Dakota was their private preserve. And few moves in North Dakota became possible without their sanction, as its legislators, bankers, and grain growers soon came to understand. Whenever a North Dakota politician aspired to public office in North Dakota it first was necessary to run down to Minneapolis and see McKenzie. Whenever a new general business policy was promulgated for the State its an- nouncement usually followed the return of some prominent North Dakotan from the Twin Cities. When Fargo wanted a new chief of police it sent to Duluth, and as a new Com- mercial Club secretary it selected one discarded by St. Paul. When Fargo was chosen as the site for the French Government’s gift to the Norwegians of the United States of a statue of Rollo—the Norseman who invaded France ten centuries ago—the Hill interests managed, despite Fargo’s spacious parks, to have it placed on the tiny green- sward of their Great Northern railroad station where it has an uninspiring background in a yellow brick wall. When Minnesota’s big-business interests learned that the North Dakota farmer no longer was producing enough to meet the advancing cost of their operations they launched a “Better Farming Association” in North Dakota to scruti- nize his efforts and to make him produce more, sending up an energetic young man from Minnesota to run it. And upon discovery that, instead of ever becoming self-support- ing, the “association” always would be a drain on their purses, they calmly tried to unload it on North Dakota’s State Agricultural College and replace the college president with the energetic young man. Never has North Dakota been free from the supervision of its eastern neighbor. Its first submitted constitution, indignantly rejected as “a piece of unwarranted outside intermeddling,” was drafted by James Bradley Thayer of the Harvard law faculty on request of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s president, Henry Villard. There is no doubt that Mr. Villard was actuated by the best of motives in his desire to assist the new State’s admission into the Union. But that he was not a North Dakotan militated against the acceptance of his good offices. Even the turbulent upheaval which finally overthrew the yoke of alien domination failed to restore to North Dakota’s soil the seat of its government. The shrewd Loftus, the Robespierre of its revolution, and the autocratic Townley, grabbing the tempest with Napoleonic opportunism, both directed their annihilating campaigns from St. Paul. Sporadic outbursts from the beginning revealed North Dakota’s unconscious groping for self-determination. Queer things, impulsive and incoherent, were done in this battle for independence, but all revealed the underlying aim. At its second election it chose a Populist governor. The experiment did not last. The next uprising in 1906 had more enduring effect and made North Dakota a vital contributor to the subsequent Republican schism. For six years a Democratic governor and an “Insurgent” Re- publican legislature fought the McKenzie “Stalwarts” for control. In that time they enacted into law nearly every suggestion that promised hope of deliverance from outside political and financial influence. The statutes bristled in their defiance of the railroads and all outside business oper- The Nation 185 ating within the State. They affected nearly every com- modity used, inasmuch as North Dakota is wholly agricul- tural and manufactures practically nothing for its own consumption. The rigidity of the State’s pure-food laws for a number of years barred entrance to the products of sev- eral concerns of national prominence. These caprices disturbed distant campaign managers, not because of North Dakota’s power in national conventions, but on account of the misleading impression its unexpected treatment of their chosen candidates might give the elec- torate at large. It inaugurated several disquieting political novelties. It was the first State to hold a Presidential primary, and in it forsook the magnetic leadership of its once widely boasted foster son, Roosevelt, for the progres- sivism of La Follette. Later, in the effort to rid itself of Nonpartisan rule, it established another disconcerting prece- dent as the first State to recall its governor—the inoffensive Nonpartisan figurehead, Frazier—whom it subsequently elected to the Senate in place of the veteran conservative, McCumber. Its great organized protest followed in natural sequence to this list of reforms. It was but another, more emphatic, more defiant step toward independence. The pro- test subsided gradually, partially due to the overwhelming outside financial pressure marshaled to kill it; but chiefly because the Nonpartisan League as conducted proved it was not wholly an agrarian nor a cooperative movement. As distasteful in its dictatorial methods as any previous ex- periment, it failed in its five years of virtual State power to fulfil its chief promises to the North Dakota farmers for whose express benefit it was supposed to exist. Farming on a huge scale, the ills of the North Dakotan lie in marketing. His crop is wheat and small grains. He is dependent on the railroads to move it and on the grain commission men of the Minneapolis Chamber of Com- merce to sell it. Between the two he early found himself a helpless victim of strange price fluctuations and freight tariffs that more frequently favored the big elevator, mill- ing, and railroad interests than himself. The chief Twin City millers and elevator magnates controlled the Chamber of Commerce, and the trading privileges of its floor were largely restricted to their representatives. As they were in position to buy grain virtually at their own grading, the North Dakota farmer felt himself at their mercy. Amelioration of this condition was sought through a rail- road commission empowered to adjust shipping disputes, through elevator commissions created to sit in Duluth and Minneapolis and seek fairer grading. Finally came a pro- posal for the construction of North Dakota State-owned and State-managed terminal elevators at Duluth and the Twin Cities. This caught the popular fancy and gradually edged its way into the political platforms. But owing to that happy lapse of memory with which politicians seem blessed after election the cherished projects always found a waiting grave in legislative committees. Meanwhile a Farmers’ Equity Society sprang into being to market the crop independently, and opened a Coopera- tive Selling Exchange in St. Paul. Immediately it became the target of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. Both were located in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, but as North Dakota furnished the crop it became the battleground of the conflict. The North Dakotans welcomed it, for they always relish a fight and are ever ready to take sides. Loftus, president of the Equity Exchange, a spectacular figure with a keen knowledge of crowd psychology, staged

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ae. PESTS SSS i 136 The Nation his skirmishes in Fargo every January when it was filled with farmers attending its annual grain growers’ conven- tion. His bizarre appeals and escapades stirred the State. He rented auditoriums, threw men out bodily, and applied for the removal of that police chief who dared refuse him protection. Townley sat in his audiences, an obscure but studious observer. When Loftus had keyed the farmers to open revolt and marched them on to Bismarck, while the legislature sat, to demand the long-promised State-owned elevator, Townley cleverly stepped in and wrested away the leadership for himself. He steered the Equity’s mem- bership into an organization of his own. Until that mo- ment this new king, suddenly rising over this Egypt which knew not Joseph, had never been heard of even throughout his own county, the “slope country,’ on the western edge of the State. Dynamic, resorting to all the bombastic tricks of Loftus, he swept North Dakota like a Billy Sun- day whirlwind. Staking his fortunes on this spirit of re- volt at its height he toured the State in an automobile and secured the signed pledges of the farmers to support the child of his brain—the Nonpartisan League—which was to make him North Dakota’s dictator for the next half decade. Ostensibly the Nonpartisan League began as an associa- tion of North Dakota farmers formed to run their own State. But it gathered its leaders from the earth’s four corners. While Townley was its czar he was not so unwise as to conduct it without advisers. One came from far- away Australia and New Zealand, another from Colorado and Washington, some from New York, several from Min- nesota, but few from North Dakota. Some of these spe- cial importations had been prominent I.W.W. attorneys, and nearly every one of them had a record in several States as a candidate for some exalted office on the Socialist ticket. Under League rule North Dakota launched energetically into numerous enterprises and sought to become its own financier. It opened a State bank. It started a home-build- ing scheme. It attempted coal-mine seizures. It enacted legis- lation to seize necessary industries either in peace or war. It created an appointed State sheriff to whom all elected county sheriffs were made answerable. It subverted its pub- lic educational system to propagandize the League in all the public educational institutions. It attempted its own immi- gration commission to determine who should enter the State from Canada. That one tribunal expected to be the exem- plar of law and order, its Supreme Court, indulged itself in a travesty of all order which might have gone well in opera-bouffe but was hardly expected in a serious gov- ernment. Three newly elected League justices appeared at the capital and demanded their seats a month before their predecessors’ terms expired. One of the court’s League justices, evidently of journalistic bent, found a unique pas- time in penning for the press a weekly letter which com- mented freely on his associates and discussed important cases up on appeal before they were decided. The League taught North Dakota some new tricks about how to perpetu- ate a State administration’s power. It legally supplied the voter with advisers to help him prepare his ballot correctly. It then granted him the ingenious supplemental privilege of re-marking it at the polls upon discovery that he might have checked the wrong candidates. It would be difficult to imagine a tranquil hour in North Dakota. Born in strife, it has been seething ever since. Long before the battle of the bottle made the American flag its champion and attacked the freedom of the seas, North [ Vol. 117, No. 3031 - Dakota wrestled single-handed with the demon rum. With its twin to the south it was the first State to write prohibi- tion into its constitution when framed. North Dakotans love their State with an admirable devo- tion. Their language describing it is rich with superlatives. They call Fargo the “biggest little city in the world” and don’t relish having it belittled. They like to think of the Red River valley as the “world’s bread basket” and to com- pare it to the Nile. Fargo assumes importance because it is the State’s cultural, financial, and political clearing-house, but in more densely settled sections it wouldn’t pass for a town of secondary consequence. Quite usual, Eastern in tone, similar to towns of 30,000 in Ohio or any Middle At- lantic State, it has a couple of bishops, plenty of churches, good public schools, an enterprising daily press, some hand- some homes and streets, and an “exclusive set.” There is considerable civic spirit in the State and nearly every ham- let has its “white way.” Yet with all its boasted State pride, notwithstanding its readiness to spend money on futile impeachment trials, on all sorts of elections and primaries, on new governmental experiments, North Dakota never has found the energy or wherewithal to build a decent State capitol. The nondescript hulk it calls a capitol unblushingly is shown to Bismarck visitors as one of the sights. And it is one. Although its location is superb on an ideal spot overlooking the town and the bald hills beyond the Missouri, it is a ramshackle, pieced-together arrangement, constructed in three sections, each of a different kind and color of brick—the front dark red, the middle wing vivid yellow, and the rear white. On all sides handsome new State capitols have been erected but North Dakota makes no effort to replace this architectural monstrosity. On its sloping grounds are the log cabin Roosevelt occupied during his three years at Medora, and a bronze statue the North Dakota women have reared to the Indian “bird woman” who guided Lewis and Clark across the Rockies. Educationally North Dakota is quite abreast of other States. Its percentage of illiteracy is surprisingly small. Except for a meritorious but unknown epic drama of its famous Indian massacre by Aaron McGuffy Beede, an old Episcopal missionary among the Sioux, so far it hasn’t figured much in literature and produced no distinctive literary geniuses of national renown—unless the monthly preambles of Sam Clark in his Jim Jam Jems could possibly rank him as a littérateur. To live North Dakota’s life is thrilling. It has a bleak, white winter when the mercury occasionally plays around forty degrees below and the railroad rails snap in the crispness. But there is a mighty call in its summer with its nine o’clock sunset and lingering twilight. And it has an irresistible autumn when the prairie chicken and wild-duck hunting is unequaled. From the picturesque undulations that pocket Minnesota’s myriad sparkling lakes the country flattens out into the broad surface of North Dakota’s smooth, fertile prairie which stretches away in a vast sweep to where the Bad Lands’ jagged cliffs trace their lonely outline against the leafless Western sky. North Dakota possesses some strange germ that enters the blood and makes whoever leaves it always want to go back. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of August 22, will be Illinois: First Province of the Middle Kingdom, by Howard Vincent O’Brien. a

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 137 Yiddish Literature: A Product of Revolt By L. TALMY N Berlin in the summer of 1921 I chanced to come across a placard announcing something to the effect that the Society for Disclosing Unknown Art was presenting some Jewish performers who would act and recite in Yiddish. I felt deeply stung with the insult of it. I knew the aim of the particular society: to introduce to an oversatiated European public the “unknown art” of semi-civilized tribes. But I could not make out what this noble aim had to do with Yiddish, the language spoken by my friends and myself, besides twelve million more people living in the very midst of modern civilization. A language the sound of which may be discerned amid the din and clatter on the streets and boulevards of the great capitals of the civilized world; a literature thriving in a dozen countries of Europe and America, and yet—‘‘unknown art,” to be introduced to super-aesthetic European audiences as something exotic alongside the strange and “unknown art” of semi-savage tribes living on the fringe of civilization. This was sad enough. But sadder still was the further reflection that there really are millions of cultured people for whom it would be nothing less than a revelation to dis- cover that there exists in this world anything that goes by the name of Yiddish literature, and those who have a faint idea of its existence would hardly be able to name a single Yiddish author. The number of Yiddish books translated into other languages is ridiculously small, and even these have gone practically unnoticed. Yiddish literature has re- mained quite provincial. Its influence has not gone beyond the limited circles of Yiddish readers. Its paths have not crossed the highways of world literature. Although living and thriving in the midst of modern civilization it is, in- deed, still something to be discovered. It is an anomaly. Probably Yiddish literature remains in the shadow because there are so many Jewish writers in the “accessible” literatures, just as the assimilated or assimilationist Jews are too frequently mistaken for the bulk of the Jewish people. The few feeble attempts which have been made by Jewish lovers of Yiddish literature to introduce it to the world by translating individual works have failed because these well-wishers could not approach their task with the necessary perspective. It still remains for the outsiders to dive into the depths of the Yiddish language in order to discover Yiddish literature in its native soil and then interpret it to the world and, in a way, to itself. There is no doubt that such daring explorers will find their expedition an interesting adventure, even if they find little wealth of purely aesthetic values. They may be disappointed if they look for perfection of form, play of color, richness of music, or flights of exotic fancy. But in reward for their pains they will find a literature which is different, a literature the very shortcomings of which, from an aesthetic point of view, are perhaps most worth con- sidering. Yiddish literature bears little resemblance to the litera- ture created by Jews in other languages, in that it is an outgrowth of and deeply rooted in Jewish life. Its charac- teristics are those of a life which, in form and substance, may be traced back to the Judean days of early Christianity. Although Yiddish literature is a product of modern times, it should be projected against a background stretching almost uninterruptedly over a waste of 1900 years. For, if “Christianity’—not in the glory of legend and fable, not as a religion but as a mode of life—has lived through all these centuries, it has done so under the name of Jewish life. This vestige of an early Christianity unfavorable to the flourishing of aesthetic values has determined the na- ture, in a general way, of Yiddish literature and its history, which is the history of the struggle for expression of a sensuality becoming articulate after it had been repressed through long generations. That the Christian nations have made great achievements in the fine arts is but added proof that these nations have never really been converted to Christianity but have re- mained essentially heathen. It might seem that at a turn- ing-point in history the rulers of the Roman world saw fit to stage the comedy of proclaiming Jesus a God and thus to concede enough to the poor and the slaves to appease their unrest and subdue the latent rebellious spirit. Not that it necessarily was a cleverly designed scheme to fetter the dissatisfaction of the masses—but ultimately it amounted to that. Christianity degenerated into a powerful weapon in the hands of the masters to command obedience. It was reduced to dead, meaningless formulas which were drowned in the splendor and display of heathen ritual. Communi- cation between man and God became an extremely compli- cated affair. There was between them the hierarchy of heaven’s representative on earth. Man was more than ever removed from God, and paganism ran riot as of yore. And this fact has proved rather a blessing to the growth of art. Man could give greater vent to his senses. Personality had more freedom to assert itself. And it is in the assertion of personality that the fine arts thrive. It was quite different with the Jews. For them what is called Christian life crystallized into a mode of life indeed. It was in its origin the expression of the state of mind of a weak people in the dusk of its national independence— the instinct of a people which had plainly seen the hope- lessness of the fight and groped for some mode of existence that would insure its self-preservation. It was after the irreconcilable zealots had laid down their heads on the walls of Jerusalem in a final desperate struggle against the legions of Vespasian and Titus that the people, in danger of utter extinction, turned instinctively to the path of physical non- resistance counterbalanced by the sense of spiritual superi- ority furnished by the old religion, and thus succeeded in steering with some measure of safety through the dark and cruel ages that followed. The people were panting for breath in the heavy grip of the Roman mailed fist. They saw the hopelessness of the struggle, and hopelessness breeds meekness, resignation. “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” For consola- tion they looked to the life in the beyond. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” The peo- ple’s sense of justice could not admit the possibility that God would allow evil to rule the world. God was theirs. He was the “father in heaven.” And ultimately justice 7

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138 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3031 would be done on earth. Then, with the coming of the Mes- siah, the Jews, the most oppressed, would come to their own again. This life was only a passageway. Real life began in the hereafter; meanwhile struggle was hopeless. If the Jews suffered and were persecuted such was the will of the father, and it was for the best. The more suffering, the greater the reward. This essentially Christian acceptance of fate defined the life of the Jews and guided them—passive onlookers and sufferers in a world of brute force and pagan riotousness —through the darkest centuries up to the present time when even this last stronghold of original “Christianity” is tottering. This is an age of revolution, of social upheaval forming new social strata, new classes, sharpening distinc- tions, edging differences. But this revolution which swept over Europe in the nineteenth century was very late reach- ing into the Ghettoes of Eastern Europe. Within the walls was a different life, an established order of things which remained almost untouched by time and its changes, the life of a purely religious community. One had to make a living, too. The Jews traded, or toiled. But that was secondary. The big thing was religion, and every spare moment had to be devoted to it. Life centered in the syna- gogue, which for the Jew was not only his place of wor- ship, but also his place of study and his club, his pride and consolation. The rabbi was the spiritual leader, counselor and judge, teacher and interpreter of the commandments of God and the great savants of old. There were no marked class distinctions, no caste differences. The aristocracy was one that had scholarly distinctions. To be a scholar meant to be versed in the Talmud and the writings of the later great rabbis. It meant to be nearer to the source of knowledge which is God’s. Things worldly were shunned. In so far as they were necessities, they were fitted into the religious system. Everything was foreseen and foreordained. Love affairs were unknown. Sexual relations were regulated by re- ligion. Matches and marriages were arranged according to ancient patriarchal customs. One even had to wash his hands as a matter of religious duty. Nature was foreign, no Jew who was true to the commands of the ancestors would stop to meditate on nature. Every leisure hour had to be devoted to religious study and prayer. The heroes of the Ghetto were not those who distinguished themselves by physical strength or by deeds of valor. Valor was only in the spiritual field—the valor of asceticism, achievement in the field of learning and in union with God, martyrdom, to die in torture with the name of God on the lips. The members of these religious communities—they were even called “holy communities’”—were united by strong bonds. There was the one religion penetrating every phase of life, shared by no other race or nationality. There were the mutual sufferings and persecutions. All Jews are breth- ren and children of one father in heaven. “All children of Israel are responsible for each other.” They learned this from bitter experience. Contact with the outside world was feared, because this outside world was always hostile and menacing. They gave Caesar what was Caesar’s.- But in their inner life these communities might as well have been behind impenetrable walls. It was a gray and color- less life, turned inward and heavenward, never outward and earthward—the life which might have been that of an ideal Christian community. Needless to say there hardly was any place for a secular literature and the arts in this life. Religion was a purely spiritual affair. God was one—and he was without an image. To make images was sin. If there were artists in the Ghetto, little remains except a few ornaments and wood- carvings in synagogues or on gravestones. If there were poets or fiction-writers they had to become maggidim, say- ers, wandering preachers popularizing God’s laws and the teachings of the great rabbis or badhons, public buffoons hired to sing, recite, and make merry at weddings or at religious festivals. Out of this life a secular literature began to develop as late as the sixties or seventies of the past century. (It is true there are Yiddish books and manuscripts dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But Yiddish lit- erature, as a literature in the modern sense of the word, has developed only in the last half century.) It was then that the great revolution touched upon the Ghetto, and un- rest began stirring amid the stiffness of ancient forms. Breezes from the outside world penetrated the Jewish com- munities, bringing messages from a beyond which was not of heaven but of the earth. The social upheaval in Europe could not leave Jewish life wholly untouched. There began a process of the disintegration of the Jewish community. The advent of industry in Eastern Europe brought economic changes into the Jewish town. With these the social dis- tinctions became more marked. The youth was lured by the cities. Yiddish literature was born. It sought to revolutionize Jewish life from the bottom up by battering away at the Jewish community with satire and ridicule. Its influence was no doubt revolutionary, at least among the poorer classes and the working people. But withal it had to adopt, in its first period, the characteristics of the life it was striv- ing to uproot. Whether satirical or apologetic, Yiddish literature still plainly bore the marks of the traditional “holy community”; the spirit of Christianity was heavy upon it. Yiddish literature had to fall back upon an un- material spirituality wherein everything tangible and sen- sual had long been deadened by centuries of suppression. Religion had been a Procrustean bed which had effaced every trait of individuality within the life of the “holy community.” It had deprived Yiddish literature of that moving force of artistic expression—the outstanding, domi- nating personality. It had robbed it of active heroes. For in the “holy community” a hero is he who conquers temp- tations, who subdues the emotions. The flesh was clay, form of the earth. Heaven, spirituality, needs no form. Yiddish literature was groping for artistic expression. But where the senses had been subdued through many gen- erations there was no outlet. It was turned inward, to- ward spirituality, schematization. Words were in the nature of flesh which only tended to imprison the spirit. The soul can be purified when the flesh is neglected, and for the sake of the purity of the spirit it would be well if it were pos- sible to get along without words altogether. The ideal of the Cabbala student in Peretz’s story is to attain a degree where he would sing not only without words but even without sounds—a literature of naked ideas, seldom clothed in the thin flesh of symbols, and more often in transparent allegories. Naked ideas on a background of gray. However, the life of the traditional Jewish community with all its characteristics is swiftly passing away, and with it goes a period of Yiddish literature which is itself a ey ae a

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 139 monument to the spiritual and material rigidity of that life. The revolution came late to the Jewish community, but the revolutionary process moved rapidly—as though Jewish life all at once made a tremendous and painful exertion to straighten its lines along the front of the surrounding world. This process was accelerated by the emigration which began in the eighties. The old community was broken up. The city, and especially America, uprooted and shat- tered the old unity of customs and traditions. New classes were formed. There appeared a Jewish laboring class which cast its lot with the workers of the respective coun- tries. A Jewish bourgeoisie clamored for its place at the banquet table. The walls of the Ghetto fell, and the earthly beyond flooded in in heavy streams. The immediate effect upon Yiddish literature of these swift changes was a wave of romantic reaction and a revival of hassidical mysticism which achieved their height in the years just preceding the World War. But this was also the swan song of those who remained spiritually bound to the old community, a parting mournful accord with a linger- ing echo. For already a new generation was springing up —a generation of those who have not known the life of old, or who were transplanted from its soil before they were too deeply submerged in its holiness. They brought into Yiddish literature what it lacked in its first period: per- sonality, form, artistic expression. It is probably not by chance that this new generation arose first in America. Here for the first time the old pressure of national persecution has been lifted from the shoulders of the Jewish immigrants. The Jewish masses from the secluded communities of Eastern Europe have shaken off the dust of centuries, straightened their backs, looked around them without apprehension, and seen life on earth. While in the Old World the Jewish community asserted itself by the passive means of “‘Christian patience,” here the Jewish personality asserted itself by active strug- gle. The new Jewish writers and poets of America have frankly adopted this country as their own. They have conspicuously avoided reference to the “Jewish town” of Eastern Europe. That became something to be vanquished within oneself. Personality was the one precious treasure to be guarded zealously against the inroads of the col- lectivity. Away from the paths which might be paved with bricks labeled “problems”! Yiddish literature in America has thus reached the other extreme. It has become the apotheosis of personality. This same struggle for the assertion of the Jewish per- sonality has marked the development of modern Yiddish literature in Eastern Europe. There, however, it has as- serted itself in the death-grip of armies and in the great social strife of the classes. The Jewish masses were shot out of their inertia and forced as active participants into the very midst of world history. The new Jewish person- ality which was hammered out in these struggles merged itself with the group—not of the passive herd, but a group determined to fight for the mastery of life, for the pos- session of the world, determined to conquer and build life anew. The young Yiddish writers and poets of Eastern Europe are not as jealous as their American colleagues of the integrity of their personality. They are children of the revolution, imbued with the powerful emotions of a self-conscious fighting group. They have learned to hate with passionate hatred and to show defiance with the abandon of outcasts. In the convulsions which the Jewish masses have lived through in Europe they have shaken off the last vestiges of their Christianity. If some of the younger Yiddish poets indulge in blas- phemy against Christianity and religion, it is from an awakened consciousness of what these things have been to the Jewish personality. It is as though Yiddish literature were aiming a final shot at the ghost of its former self, while it is establishing itself as the vigorous artistic ex- pression of the new life begotten by the revolution. In the Driftway HE Drifter went to see Hiram and Hylan. He had T never seen either of those great tribunes of the people, and it occurred to him that it was a little curious that New York City’s defender of the people’s right to be jostled a dollar’s worth for a nickel should greet the California apostle of plain Americanism in evening clothes amid the gilt and crimson of the Waldorf-Astoria. Still, he reflected, the Waldorf has a political past, and the Mayor of New York certainly looked quite democratically uncomfortable in his dress suit. * * * x * OTH the Senator from California and the Mayor of New York City read their speeches, but the Senator read better. The Mayor worked hard; the Senator was at ease on his feet. While his left hand held the manuscript his right hand was as busy as his voice, pointing heaven- ward, thumping thunderingly, stretched out flat in warning, refusing, questioning, insisting, with gestures as expressive as a Frenchman’s. The Mayor, however, listened eagerly, intently, and appreciatively. His features beamed when the editor of the Boston Transcript quoted Emerson, Isaiah, and George Santayana in paying tribute to Hiram Johnson. But for his warmest approval Mayor Hylan had a method all his own. As the Drifter gazed about upon the faces of Tammany politicians and others gathered to do honor to Mr. Hearst’s favorite candidate on that warm July night he gradually realized that while some clapped their ap- plause and others expressed it in vigorous and rapid puffs from their cigars, Mayor Hylan chewed approval. His mouth, usually open, came to with a snap, and hands and jaws began working in perfect unison. It was a masterpiece of magisterial enthusiasm. * * * * * HE Drifter, being a cynic in politics, is not required to have political opinions of his own, but as a sporting proposition he would be willing to place a bet on the gospel according to Hiram Johnson as against the gospel according to Oscar Underwood. He has wandered, very pleasantly and peacefully, in Europe, but he shuddered with Hiram’s audience when the Senator painted the blood-stained carpet of Europe and hinted at the hereditary feuds into which wicked propagandists were seeking to drag the innocent American people. The greatest applause of the evening came when Senator Johnson declared, with a mild reserva- tion of course, that he “would not send a single American soldier again across the seas.” * * * * * URTHERMORE, the Drifter discovered in Hiram an orator with a real prose style. He “iterated and re- iterated,” he “solved and settled” as eloquently and repeti-

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a a SS 140 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3031 tively as the hero of Bayard Hale’s study of presidential style. There is one practice, however, against which the Drifter would warn the Senator. Senator Johnson dedi- cated himself “in my humble fashion,” spoke ‘in my poor way,” “paused a moment to sound my feeble warning.” This business of self-depreciation is dangerous; it some- times leads to strange mistakes. There is the case of Josiah Royce who, in the preface of his ‘Philosophy of Loyalty,” sought to pay his tribute to William James. What he actually wrote was: “William James, but for whom no poor book of mine would ever have been written.” THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. The ‘‘Quite Unintelligible’’ Emerson To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: A reading of Professor Sherman’s latest book and of Mr. Boyd’s review in your columns suggests the following ques- tion: Why is it that so many ardent defenders of tradition are ignorant of the very tradition which they champion? It so happens that in several of my essays I have quoted the phrase, “Beauty is its own excuse for being.” This seems to have earned the special wrath of Professor Sherman, who in “The Genius of America” (page 241) calls it “oracular and quite un- intelligible” and states that it was “invented” by the anti-Puri- tan theorists of the school of art for art’s sake. It seems diffi- cult to believe that any American should need to be told that the phrase was “invented” by Emerson and occurs in his poem Rhodora. The idea that “beauty, like truth, is an ultimate end” (the phrase is also Emerson’s) is not the creation of “more or less alien-spirited guides,” but appears in the essays of Poe, Emerson, and their contemporaries, and runs like a golden thread throughout the nineteenth century down to the very matter-of-fact John Burroughs. It is, in fact, a vital part of the American tradition of culture, which is not so rich that it can afford to ignore this golden thread. Poor as that tradition may be, it is infinitely richer than Professor Sherman’s knowl- edge of it may lead him to suspect. Amenia, N. Y., July 18 J. E. SPINGARN More About Tax-Exempt Securities To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The language of the Sixteenth Amendment discussed by Mr. Furth in your issue of the 18th instant, “from whatever source derived,” is so clear that no less an authority than Mr. Hughes, when governor, in his message to the New York Legis- lature advanced as an argument against the ratification of the amendment that its adoption would make it possible for the Federal government to tax income derived from State and municipal bonds. The same position was taken by Governor Wilson of Kentucky. Professor Minor of the law school of the University of Virginia was of the same opinion. Elihu Root took the opposite view. What strikes one as peculiar is that with all the hue and cry against this form of tax-exempt income, the opposition to which is both public and private—public because of the whole- sale opportunities to escape taxation as well as the encourage- ment given to reckless local undertakings and the spending of State and municipal funds, and private because of the competi- tion of local government in the field “preempted” by private bankers and houses of issue—no effort is made to amend the income-tax law by placing such income on the same footing as other income which is taxable. Why is the long, roundabout way pursued of trying to get a two-thirds vote of the Congress and a three-fourths vote of the States for a further constitu- tional amendment when legislation requiring only a majority vote could be put through in less than half the time? The effort at constitutional amendment by way of insurance against an adverse decision of the United States Supreme Court should not be abandoned, but what is lost by legislation? Merely the chance that that court might say when the precise case comes before it that the words “from whatever source derived” do not include sources which may by implication from other provi- sions of the Constitution be beyond the power of the Congress to “destroy.” On the other hand, owing to the delay incident to the ratification of a constitutional amendment, the constant drain of sources of revenue continues, indeed accelerates, through increasing efforts on the part of localities to put out issues that are hoped to be tax proof. The whole maladroit procedure gives rise to the suspicion that the method that has been pursued to reach that class of income has not been selected in good faith but rather to but- tress and safeguard the huge investment in tax-exempts already made by a constitutional declaration to the effect that income derived from future issues of State and municipal bonds may be taxed, and therefore, though not stated but coming within the well-known doctrine of “practical construction,” that in- come from issues prior to the adoption of the proposed amend- ment is forever exempt. New York, July 18 BT: Turkey and Armenia To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: We beg leave to reply to Miss Papazian’s letter of June 12, wherein she objected to certain statements made in our article The Turkish Myth. The venerable Arslanian, present Patriarch of Christian Armenia and certainly more qualified to speak for his people than are absentee patriots, stated to the Chicago Tribune representative in Constantinople on April 30: There is no truth in the story that my people have appealed to Sir Horace Rumbold to raise any Armenian question at Lausanne. We formally disapprove of propaganda conducted by Armenians abroad. This only arouses animosity and accomplishes nothing. It makes the Armenian people a mere cloak for the selfish policies of the Great Powers. We Armenians are participating whole- heartedly in the elections as our duty. We are resolved to work hand in hand with Turkey in the interests of the nation. The Patriarch was not under Turk coercion or influence, be- ing at the time under the protection of Allied guns. Miss Papazian says that the recent independence of Armenia was achieved by the Armenians. True, but by Armenians at home, working hand in hand with members of the new government of Turkey. We did not, as Miss Papazian suggests, ignore testi- mony of eye-witnesses as to alleged massacres. One of the writers, Mr. Moss, has spent considerable time in the Near East and has first-hand knowledge of atrocities perpetrated by Kurd- ish bands (as was admitted in our article), and also knows of many atrocities committed by Armenian, Greek, Bulgar, and Serb comitadje. ARTHUR Moss Paris, July 2 FLORENCE GILLIAM Contributors to This Issue Rospert DELL, formerly Paris correspondent of the Man- chester Guardian, now lives in Berlin. ROBERT GEORGE PATERSON, formerly the Legislative Cor- respondent and later the City Editor of the Fargo Forum, is now with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate. L. TAaLMy is the editor of Reconstruction, organ of the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee in America. aie Fm.

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 141 Books Defiance Escapade. By Evelyn Scott. Thomas Seltzer. $3. eeey book tells the story of a high and heroic adventure, an adventure entered upon with complete intellectual lucidity and lived through with astonishing fortitude. Uncharted seas and poisoned trenches are not more deadly than that extra-social limbo into which the two people spoken of were plunged. For they evidently permitted themselves none of the easements, the subterfuges, and precautions which can mitigate even such a situation as theirs. Armed only with justice and love, stripped of money, friends, their own civilization, their very names, these two adventured forth. They found themselves in a purgatory all the more intolerable as there was nothing in them to be purged. All moral, as opposed to legal, values were on their side. To that consideration the world turned a front of granite. The martyrdom, while it lasted, was complete. The scene of that martyrdom happened to be Brazil, not the Brazil of planters’ or consuls’ verandas overlooking the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, but the Brazil of the common people—a place of poisonous beasts, poisonous diseases, heat, stench, ordure. A place, too, of unbearably sharp colors. And since Evelyn Scott is acutely sensitive to color and the mood of color, the picture she gives us of the places in which her high adventure was lived has an iridescence like that of fiery death and glit- tering decay. She lives largely through the eye. Clear as her mind was in regard to the quality of her adventure, great as were her suf- ferings and her fortitude, she never ceases for a moment to be an impressionistic painter in words to whom, quite ultimately, the “values” of the visible scene appear to be of more importance than the magnificent defiance she flung at the world. Thus her narrative consists of a string of tiny episodes, pictures, fierce, strange, garish little idyls, and is never permitted to gather sweep, passion, or the spiritual impact to which its sub- stance and its story could so easily have aspired. A story of heroic adventure thus becomes singularly unheroic. It is clear visioned, skilful, even brilliant; it is unheroic. Its impressive- ness must be inferred. The words never strike upon the heart. They are not meant to do so. The book is written within an ultra-modern convention. It is not a convention of the impas- sive, nor of the stoic; the convention does not actually imply a fear of emotion and eloquence. It is a convention of mor- bidezza, of the trivializing, through a literary method, of things of large import, a convention that reduces imagination to fancy, figures to conceits, that is ashamed or afraid ever to speak largely, simply, passionately. It has not passed beyond sophisti- cation. It is still fettered, unconsciously perhaps, by the opin- ions of peoples who sit in cafes and declare Swift and Milton and even Rousseau vieux jeu and insist on chattering about T. S. Eliot and Gauguin. I make this point precisely because Evelyn Scott’s talent seems to me so strong and rare and because to that talent is now added a confession which raises her human dignity, cour- age, strength at least to the level of that talent. Her gift, her experience, her moral power should have combined to produce a work that touched greatness through passion, conviction, through “exaltations, agonies and love and man’s unconquerable mind.” The touch of greatness is quite missing. There are morbid acuteness of vision, moments of intense literary skill, phrases of sudden, striking felicity. The reader is pleased, astonished, fascinated. He is never enlarged, never carried beyond himself, never lifted into a region where skill and acute- ness are forgotten and merged into larger and nobler qualities and considerations. And the book ends with an episode of com- plete obscurity. What leaves a trained, attentive, and sym- pathetic reader puzzled is not literature. Yet it is clear from these very considerations that “Escapade” is indeed literature, that the major portion of it belongs to what we have in America of quite serious art. Nor is it the critic’s function to wish that an author should write otherwise than that author has, in fact, chosen to write. The critic may, however, assert that here is art which seems to him cramped, fettered, enfeebled by causes not rooted in the author’s creative vision or faculty, but arising from a passing mood and fashion. The poets of England did not remain “metaphysical.” Our period, too, needs plainer, manlier, more passionate expression. Evelyn Scott is young enough to become a sharer and a fashioner of that needed change of speech and form. LuDWIG LEWISOHN Luminous Psychology Psychology and Politics. By W. H. R. Rivers. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $3.75. Conflict and Dream. By W. H.R. Rivers. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $3.75. eee age has its pet credulities, and if our favored miracles have passed off as psychological science it is not the first time that a changeling has found its way into the history of thought. There has been in the last decade an un- precedented flood of books that have pretentiously anatomized human nature, and offered social psychology as social salva- tion. The war did something to cure us of our naive belief that new terms could cure old evils; we are ceasing to be gul- lible idolators of hasty science. But there have grown up, along with the more orthodox psychology of the crowd, the spectacular hypotheses of the Freudians. The subject matter of the latter, consisting chiefly of sex and dreams, has in itself been sufficiently glamorous to win widespread popular atten- tion. Lurid generalizations about life, conduct, and the cosmos, based largely on material drawn from the pathological clinics, has penetrated even as far as the hack short story and the vaudeville stage. The reaction has just about set in. In the words of the author of these two modest and luminous books: “There is now a serious danger that psychology will fall into discredit partly owing to the zeal of its votaries for the unconscious and infan- tile aspects of the mind, but still more owing to premature attempts to utilize its supposed discoveries practically while the basis upon which they rest is uncertain and insecure. It seems to me almost certain that there will be a reaction against the almost universal interest which the study of psychology excites today, and that we are approaching a period when it may even become a matter of ridicule to make those references to psycho- logical explanation and interpretation which now arouse such hopes and interest.” But the excesses of its votaries and the overreaching ambi- tions of this embryo science need not blind us to its incal- culably promising future. It needs only to be recognized that a science of human nature remains a desideratum rather than an accomplishment, a hope rather than a history. And it is from such sensible and unpretentious books as these two by the late Dr. Rivers that that hope will chiefly come. “Psychology and Politics” is the title given to a book of lec- tures and essays prepared by Dr. Rivers at various times and for various occasions, and edited by his friend G. Eliot Smith after the former’s untimely death. The essays are in varying measure suggestive; and that is all that they are intended to be. They have that frequent felicity of English scholarship, the distillation of much thought into a clear bright essence. From the point of view of insight and method the first essay is per- haps chiefly important. A psychiatrist by profession, called upon suddenly to stand for parliamentary election from the University of London, Dr. Rivers proceeds in his title essay to consider anew the relation between psychology and politics. He points out by means of several pointed illustrations that it is too early for the psychologist to teach the statesman or the political scientist anything. Rather the reverse is the case. ; ' i I {

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peter SS Swe - Se Sa ee a> Seana 2a 142 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3031 Knowledge of the facts of social and political behavior can make a far greater contribution to our psychology than any psychological knowledge we at present possess can make to our understanding and treatment of current social and politi- cal problems. It is from the data of social and political be- havior that the psychologist must derive his hypotheses, and in the facts of social and political behavior that he must test them. Social psychology to be relevant to the collective action it tries to explain must be a formulation of the observed con- nections between the facts of collective action; otherwise it is doctrinaire metaphysics masquerading as empirical science. In the chief of the remaining essays in this volume Dr. Rivers attempts to turn to account recent findings in his own field of psychiatry, in so far as these findings have clear social inci- dence. Thus he points out that there is, in a genuine sense, an analogy between the morbid in the psychology of the individual and the morbid in sociology. In both cases fundamental inco- herences and maladjustments must be faced and cured; it is not sufficient that their symptoms be treated and palliated, and their causes left operative and obscure. In his essay on “In- stinect in Society’ Dr. Rivers seems to have been rather un- necessarily hypnotized by the “herd instinct” under which rubric so much explanation was a few years ago being per- formed. But even in this essay Dr. Rivers has wise and humane things to say. “Psychology and Politics” might be described as a book of wisdom, the work of an expert technician and an intimate ob- server of life. “Conflict and Dream” shows Dr. Rivers per- haps in his more familiar professional surroundings. A stu- dent and practitioner of psychiatry, he tries in this volume, in a journalistic phrase, to edit Freudianism, to point its essential truths, and prune away its excrescences. The volume consists largely of a singularly clear and candid and documented analy- sis of dreams of the author and his patients. These analyses give the impression of directness, simplicity, and common sense. They are interpretations of what is there. Dr. Rivers’s con- clusions—and he is suggestive rather than dogmatic—differ in several important respects from those of Freud. Dreams are for him, in the first place, not characteristically wish fulfil- ments—nightmares are in essence the reverse; they are rather attempted solutions in sleep of waking conflicts in the life of the dreamer. Secondly, where Freud and his followers refer the origin, content, and structure of the dream back to infantile conflicts and repressions, Dr. Rivers insists that all dreams are traceable to some recent conflict in the waking experience. The apparent infantile character of the dream is explicable from the fact that the infantile mode of mental functioning alone is available when the higher or more recently acquired modes of mental functioning have been put out of activity in sleep. The adult personality is not completely dormant, how- ever, and dreams are in consequence curious hodge-podges of recent adult contents confused with early infantile symbols. The cause and content of the dream are largely recent and adult in character; the symbols and modes of it are alone infantile. Thirdly, Dr. Rivers differs from Freud in insisting that, how- ever transformed and disguised the essential meaning of a dream becomes, there is never a really radical displacement; that is, the chief element of the apparent dream is never a minor element of the actual conflict of which it is an expression. It is difficult to pass judgment on the validity of these spe- cific contentions; they are modestly and consistently developed and are supported by clear and impeccable evidence. But both these books are important for their suggestions rather than their conclusiveness. They are welcome additions even to the unending literature of the now no longer “new psychology.” Both of them are examples of specific suggestiveness, of the opening of new avenues and new vistas to the understanding of human nature. That, for the present, is all that an honest psychology can set out to be. One regrets that Dr. Rivers’s contributions to so important a human inquiry are at an end. IRWIN EDMAN Serbian Secrets Die Ermordung des Erzherzogs Franz Ferdinand von Stanoje Stanojevic. Aus dem serbischen Manuskript iibertragen von Hermann Wendel. Frankfurt a. M.: Frankfurter Societats- Druckerei. 1923. OW comes a Serbian professor of history with a new ex- planation of the murder of Serajevo and the origin of the Great War. What he says of Serajevo is most important, for he was a member of and a lecturer for the Narodna Odbrana, which Austria accused of inciting the murder. Not this society, whose actions were public, but a secret organization, the Uju- dinjenje ili Sinrt, “Union or Death,” he says, was responsible. And not this organization but its chief, Colonel Dimitrijevic. Of Dimitrijevic he paints an entrancing picture. Proud, gifted, aristocratic, a convincing speaker and a skilful organ- izer, he played a leading part in the palace murders of the revolution of 1903; sent a man named Jovanic, alias Lala, to murder the Austrian Crown Prince in 1911 (Lala mysteriously disappeared in Vienna); attempted an officers’ revolution in Macedonia early in 1914, and tried to organize a Bulgarian revolution in February; obtained arms for the young Bosnians who did the deed at Serajevo in July, 1914, without informing his own committee (which disavowed him, too late to stop the murder); in 1916 sent a Greek from Corfu to kill Constantine, and was shot on the Salonica front in 1917 for an attempted assassination of Crown Prince Alexander. Dimitrijevic was chief of the information service of the Ser- bian General Staff in 1914. After Kaiser Wilhelm and the Austrian heir met at Konopischt in the spring of 1914, he received secret information from the Russian General Staff that Germany and Austria had agreed upon a plan to destroy Serbia. This he believed, and he concluded that assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Serbia’s arch-enemy in Austria, was the surest way to prevent war. Two young Bosnians came to Bel- grade about that time, and the arrangements were made. Thus Professor Stanojevic, who knew Dimitrijevic and played a part in earlier secret committees. The story has the value of Professor Stanojevic’s memory; it sounds plausible; but one man’s memory does not get us very far. L, 8. Gs History The Trend of History. By William Kay Wallace. The Mac- millan Company. $3. “WE are standing on the threshold of an unpolitical age. Politics has fallen from its high estate. ... The pre- eminence of the state politically conceived has been called into question. . . . Other forms of corporate organization are press- ing for recognition. We may in turn see arising before our eyes a new, great social organization ... in its essence un- political . . . ‘Industrialism,’ which may serve to denominate this new institution, is a social and economic system, only in- directly political. Such would appear to be the trend of his- tory.” This quotation characterizes the standpoint of this entire vol- ume, which, barring a few minor flaws in emphasis and fact, is one of the best summaries of the historical “origins of twen- tieth-century problems” at hand. History to Wallace is not a dead-level cataloguing of dry events, but a socio-psychological reconstruction of past trends for present prediction. Starting with an analysis of the shift from the theocratic-legalistie idea of the state at the breakdown of Medievalism to the politico- juridic conception, the author reviews in bold, telling strokes the rise and meaning of the middle-class control of our Western world. Consequent to the Enlightenment and the Revolution in France, and the Industrial Revolution in England, the bourgeoisie, bringing the expansion of industrialism and the rise of nationalism with them, came rapidly into power.

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 143 The marriage of capitalism and the nationalistic state marks the significant epoch from 1750 to the twentieth century. All historical movements overlap and at the moment when this alliance of bourgeois economics and nationalism seemed supreme, even final, the new movement of proletarian class-consciousness was arising. The very forces of the industrial age—the inter- nationalizing of markets and sources of raw materials—tended to divorce the nexus of narrow nationalism and laissez-faire eco- nomics upon which rests middle-class security. Wallace believes that the super-state imperialism, the Real- politik, of Disraeli and Bismarck is nearer the internationalism which the modern industrial world has created and hence, in that manner, nearer the proletarian movement than the timid, temporizing, bourgeois civilization could ever be. The notion of the state as power, so exaggerated by Bismarck, bears cer- tain resemblances to the Hegelian notions poured forth by Marx. Therefore the grafting of an industrial state, rather than a middle-class democratic one, on an aristocratic regime in Rus- sia is easier than a like movement would be in powerful but decaying capitalistic Western Europe or America. The very forces brought to life by nationalism and middle- class industrialism have burst the frames originally laid down for them. “Economics henceforth was to dictate to politics the aims of policy.” Exploitation, the forceful bearing of European industrial culture to backward countries, the struggle for mar- kets, the militarization of Europe, even the pacific interdepen- dence of art and science, all augured for a new era of which the recent war in Europe seems to have been definitely part and parcel. While the present book stops with the Bismarckian period, it is hoped that the writer will add another volume which will bring the trend of history to date and show the subsequent steps, if possible, in the reorientation in the present world to this newer basis which he has here so well outlined. KIMBALL YOUNG Leopardi Translated The Poems of Leopardi. By Geoffrey L. Bickersteth. Cam- bridge University Press. 30s. ie a large, handsome volume the Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the University of Glasgow gives us a speci- men of that complete mastery of subject, that fulness and clear- ness of presentation, which we oftenest associate with British scholarship in the ancient classics. The nucleus of the work is an edition of Leopardi’s Canti based on Mestica’s text, face to face with an English poetic version in the meters of the original. Some fifty pages of notes afford not only the ex- planations called for by difficulties of expression or allusion, but also everything in the way of biographical and literary connection that can enhance the reader’s understanding. Bib- liography and index bring up the rear. At the front is an introduction, divided into three parts which of necessity more or less overlap: The Poet’s Life, The Poet’s Art, The Poet’s Thought. Here one gets the impression of a critic thoroughly in sympathy with his author—a sympathy due, one surmises, rather to profound comprehension than to affinity of temperament. The first part is the most pleasing. Why is it that Leopardi’s strange, pathetic career is generally so uninteresting in the narration? At last we have the story told with all its poignancy, with sufficient but not excessive abundance, with wise proportion, and with constant regard to its outcome in immortal song. The Poet’s Art is attractive especially to thg versifier, although, with its insistence on Leopardi’s doctrine of clearness, simplicity, and adaptation of form to matter, it must in any thoughtful reader stimulate appreciation of that which makes verse poetry. The third part, The Poet’s Thought, is perhaps the least satisfactory, not from any inadequacy of treatment, but rather because the theme itself seems to grow thinner the more one expounds it. Per- haps it is true of poet-philosophers in general—of Shelley, of Alfred de Vigny, of Leopardi, even of Goethe—that their phi- losophy is best apprehended in their own words, and seldom lends itself to restatement in prose. As to the translations, which, one may conjecture, were the occasion of the rest of this truly monumental work, they show,. in addition to the fine understanding which one naturally takes for granted in the case of such a student, a delicate sense of movement and euphony and a resourceful intelligence in coping with a tremendously hard task. For Leopardi’s poetry, despite its suggestion of spontaneous flow from the author’s pen, was really produced with immense toil, and offers the translator a problem of corresponding magnitude. One cannot have every- thing. The concise yet easy elegance, the simple grace which. Leopardi derived in great measure from his study of Petrarch and the Greek poets, defy continuous reproduction in an alien language. To say that the version approximates the charm of the original is high praise. Mr. Bickersteth’s greatest suc- cess lies perhaps in his copy of Leopardi’s melody and rhythm. In the poet’s canzone libera, rhythm is of the acoustic elements by far the most important; and this rhythm, so fitful yet so regular, so exactly harmonized with syntax and with sense, the translator has with surprising dexterity transferred to our hyperborean tongue. C. H. GRANDGENT A Many-Sided Man A Life of Francis Amasa Walker. Henry Holt and Company. $4. oo biography cf Francis A. Walker is the record of an American who, in the space of fifty-seven years, won dis- tinction in four careers: as a soldier, in the civil service of the government, as an educator, and as an economist. Inheritance and opportunity combined to give Walker an un- usual start in life. His father, Amasa Walker, was a man of high standing as a writer on economic topics, as a teacher, and as a public-spirited citizen; when Francis was twenty-one the outbreak of the Civil War summoned him, and he enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment. His rise was rapid, and as assistant adjutant general of the famous Second Army Corps (Hancock’s) he won recognition for his ability and his bravery. His work as a military historian in later years was by no means an incon- spicuous service to his comrades in arms and to his country. In the years following the war up to 1881 he made a notable record as Superintendent of the Ninth and the Tenth Census, as Com- missioner of Indian Affairs, as Chief of the Bureau of Awards of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and as professor of history and political economy in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. From 1881 till his death in 1897 he was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to this period also belong his major writings in the field of political economy. To the economic thought of his time Walker made a contribu- tion of sound common sense and independent judgment. Doing pioneer work in this field, he incurred at first the contempt of the old practitioners; but the ancient abstractions yielded before his searching analysis, his grip on reality, and his humanizing sense that he was dealing with questions affecting the welfare of living men. In England, as in the United States, “he woke men up and made them think again.” His championship of international bimetallism before and during the campaign of 1896 is an illustration of independence of surrounding influences not often seen in a college president. At the same time he was the stimulating comrade of fellow-workers in the field of eco- nomics. Few things reveal so vividly his genius in leadership as the encouragement he gave to the younger men in the American Economic Association, of which he was the first president. Courage and independence were again the watchwords of Gen- eral Walker’s career as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1881 all that the institution had to its credit was one building, a handful of students, and the great name and By James Phinney Munroe. Whe vy :

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= Sa eee Seg ee naa ae reas ie, ee a en a eee ee ————E= ae 144 | The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3031 inspired vision of its founder, William Barton Rogers. It was almost a discredited pioneer, and had barely escaped absorption into the Scientific School of Harvard University. With all his powers of mind and soul, Walker made himself the champion of the Institute. He insisted on the validity of the new type of education based on science and scientific method; he reiterated the importance of autonomy. The response to his call in money, students, and teachers was little short of marvelous, and in an incredibly brief time the prestige of the school was high. Of the author of the biography just issued it may be said that a considerable portion of his life has served as preparation for this labor of love. He was intimately associated with Walker in the administrative work of the Institute, he has been for many years secretary of the corporation, and he is known among Tech alumni and in the world of education for his furtherance of the ideals for which Technology stands. The volume which he has written is distinguished by its fine balance in the presentation of the character and achievements of a many-sided being. To him Walker has never ceased to be a living influence, and it is Walker the man who stands forth in these pages. HENRY G. PEARSON Une Grande Dame Lady Palmerston and Her Times. By Mabell, Countess of Airlie. 2 vols. George H. Doran and Company. $7.50. N “The Education of Henry Adams” a high tribute is paid to Lady Palmerston, attendance at whose “at homes” the young American, in his lonely days in London, found to be “a lesson in social education.” This book consists mainly of a collection, accompanied by necessary interpretation, of letters exchanged between her and her brother, Lord Beauvale, to- gether with correspondence that passed between her and Lord Palmerston. The period covered ranges from the death of Princess Charlotte in 1817 to that of Lord Palmerston himself in 1865. Lady Palmerston was almost the last of the powerful grandes dames of the old Whig party, and it was well worth while to preserve her sprightly chronicle of those events of British politics and London society which she had such excep- tional opportunities of observing at close quarters. The Dowager Countess of Airlie has performed her editorial task with sympathy and understanding, and has added to the value of the book by introductory chapters in which she skilfully summarizes the characteristics of the circle in which Lady Palmerston moved and the most noteworthy social conditions of the time. HERBERT W. HORWILL Books in Brief Old English Grammar. By Joseph Wright and Elizabeth Mary Wright. Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. $2.70. This grammar, like the others in the series in which it ap- pears, is historical and comparative in plan. But the treatment is not unified. The volume falls into two distinct treatises. The first, Phonology, is an exceedingly able introduction to the whole range of Indo-Germanic philology; the second, Accidence, which deals with Old English Grammar proper, will not serve the student as well as several existing manuals nor the scholar as well as Sievers’s monumental work. Times Have Changed. By Elmer Davis. Robert M. McBride and Company. $2. The rather hesitant opening pages of this book lead the reader to expect an easygoing tale of the trials of suburban married life, and he is surprised to find himself suddenly in- volved in a whirl of haphazard adventures that turn the mild solace of the hero’s “evening off” into a feverishly active week- end. The complications are designed solely for the reader’s entertainment; character development is an extraneous con- sideration. But as the performance of willy-nilly antics is on the whole ingeniously planned and swiftly carried out, the reader ought to ask for nothing more. Psychoanalysis and Suggestion Therapy. By Dr. Wilhelm Stekel. Moffat, Yard and Company. $2. Stekel is candid, sensible, and moderate. Working with the really profound truth that “every neurosis is the result of a mental conflict” which the patient doesn’t have to solve so long as he can hug his neurosis, the. author illustrates the patient’s general reluctance to be cured at all and thence shows the true nature of the many apparently queer results of psychoanalytic treatment. Especially refreshing is Dr. Stekel’s warning against our American tendency to make of the new therapy a game, a fad, and a mystery. Farewell to America. By Henry W. Nevinson. B. W. Huebsch, Inc. 50 cents. This tiny essay of Mr. Nevinson was thoroughly worthy of book form by virtue of the wit, wisdom, good humor, and imaginative insight with which it records, in symbolical fashion, some of the salient differences between American and English civilization. The New Education in Europe An account of recent fundamental changes in the educational philosophy of Great Britain, France and Germany which record distinct progress. By Dr. FREDERICK W. ROMAN Price, $5.00 E. P. Dutton & Co RAILROAD MELONS 24758 AND WAGES, Handbook of Railroad In- formation, by Charles Edward Russell, gives in 332 pages the relevant facts about the railroads with the clearest possible argument for buying them on the basis of what the capitalists really put into them, instead of buying back what was stolen from the public in the past. Cloth, $2.00 postpaid. Charles H. Kerr & Company, 347 East Ohio Street, Chicago | The a ee Book MJ PARTIES AND PARTY LEADERS: By ANSON D. MORSE Introduction by DWIGHT W. MORROW The origin and development of the Ameri- can party system from the close of the Revo- lutionary period down to 1914 is here given by a clear-minded analyst of American insti- tutions. The subject is intensively treated, from the place of “party” in a political system to the significance of the Republican and Democratic parties of the present day. Price $2.50 MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 212 Summer Street, Boston | ML J MJ

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International Relations Section Kuzbas Tells Its Own Story TIRRED by the charges aired in American newspapers by disgruntled ex-members of their colony, a group of American workers in the pioneer industrial colony ‘Kuz- bas” at Kemerovo in the Kuznets basin, Siberia, sends the following statement to the American public through The Nation: To THE AMERICAN PUBLIC: From time to time during the past few months word has come to us, in clippings and in letters, that many false state- ments have been published in the American press about Kuzbas Colony in Kemerovo. We feel impelled, therefore, to write the following report of actual conditions here in order to correct any false impressions. The American colony is only a small percentage of the work- ing force of the industry, Kuzbas. There are 2,100 workers and employees in the Kemerovo mines and chemical plant, and a census of the American colony taken in April showed the to- tal number of colonists to be 333. Of these, 183 men and 48 women work in the enterprise, 32 women do housework, and 70 are children. These 231 American workers represent the various trades and professions as follows: 60 qualified miners, 50 mechanics, 25 carpenters and construction workers, 10 electricians, 15 lumber workers, 15 farmers, 25 technicians and office workers. The bal- ance include miscellaneous trades—cooks, bakers, shoemakers, tailors, nurses, etc. The general manager of the Soviet State Enterprise Kuzbas is S. J. Rutgers, a well-known Dutch engineer, a graduate of Delft University. Rutgers has had many years’ experience in engineering work in Holland (where he built the port of Rotter- dam), and in the East Indies, China, Japan, and America. Al- fred Pearson, Jr., technical director of the enterprise, is a min- ing engineer of long experience in America, and is thoroughly American in his ideas and training. During the World War he was captain of engineers in the United States army. There are several other members of the colony who are ex-service men. W. H. Kingery, the present farm manager, came with a special recommendation from the speaker of the legislature of his State, as an expert agriculturist. Dr. William H. Mahler, chief engi- neer of the chemical plant, is a graduate of the University of Vienna and holds a degree from the Zurich Polytechnic School. He has had thirty years’ experience in coke by-products and dyes, fifteen of which were spent in the United States. There are representatives here of the best-known educational institu- tions, including graduates of Cornell University, Columbia, the universities of California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and In- diana, Lehigh University, Barnard and Williams colleges. Colonists becoming members of Kuzbas bound themselves to work at their highest capacity for a period of two years in the enterprises of Kuzbas. During this time they were to provide themselves with clothes from America, and were to pay $100 to cover part of the food to be consumed by them, and $200 to cover transportation and tools. At the end of the period they were to receive a bonus of an amount not fixed, but to be deter- mined by the success of the enterprise during that time. They were at all times to be subject to the decisions of the Soviet authorities and signed a pledge accepting this condition. In case the management and the Soviet authorities came into such con- flicts that they could not agree, all of the colonists were to be given free transportation for themselves and their belongings to the Russian border. All moneys paid to the organization Kuzbas were accepted as loans, payable without interest, at such time (not sooner than two years) as the production of the industry should warrant it. No promises were held out which would lead any person to invest money for the financial re- wards to be obtained. The basis for loans and contributions was that Kuzbas is an industrial experiment to aid in the re- habilitation of the disrupted Russian industries. As such it is functioning today. Since the colony, far from being in disagreement with the Soviet authorities and breaking up, has actually received a subsidy, for the development of the enterprise, of one million dollars gold credit, and since the colonists are actually paid wages in money above the satisfactory standard of living prom- ised them, it would seem that those colonists who have left are failing in the fulfilment of their contract, whereas, in all major particulars, the Soviet Government has made more liberal terms than promised. It would seem, therefore, that those colonists were not entitled to anything beyond their releases under a strict reading of the contract. However, the following terms are accorded to all leaving prior to the expiration of the two years’ contract: Third-class fare to the border, including sleep- ing accommodations; cash allowance of one-half milliard per person (averaging, according to the rate of exchange, $10 American money) ; food allowance for one month, equivalent to ration allowed in Kemerovo; in cases where people were in bad health, all expenses to the United States for themselves and their families; and the management adopted the policy of pur- chasing tools from departing colonists to increase their traveling funds. The industrial basis for Kemerovo lies in its mines and its chemical plant. Eight large brick and concrete and numerous small buildings constitute the chemical plant, which is the only one in Siberia. It is designed to produce from the one battery which is completed 200 tons of coke per day. While this plant is 85 per cent complete, and the one battery of fifty ovens en- tirely finished, it does not pay to operate until the by-products can be utilized. A special mission has just returned from Ger- many, where those materials were purchased which are neces- sary for the completion of the plant. On the opposite side of the river are three working mines. According to the report of Professor Usoff of the University of Tomsk, one-fourth of the entire known coal deposits of the world are in Kuznets Basin. An aerial bucketway transports the coal across the river Tom to the railroad and chemical plant. All the auxiliary equipment for a plant far from its source of supplies is here in a degree that is not usual in Amer- ica. We operate two saw-mills, a lime kiln, two brick kilns, three power stations, two machine shops, a foundry of 30-ton capacity, a boiler-making plant, a small coke plant, and other separate small industries. This is a government enterprise, and as such we find the same rigid adherence to maximum labor conditions as obtains in gov- ernment enterprises in the United States. The eight-hour day is universal, except that underground workers, office employees, and those under eighteen work only six hours. It is carefully prescribed, and even more carefully enforced, that youths and women shall not work at night, or in heavy or dangerous occu- pations, or overtime. It is required that the enterprise carry a given percentage of apprentices who now number over 100 out of the 2,100 employees. It is also required that all workers be given two weeks’ vacation with pay annually, the enforcement of which increases the working force 10 per cent. Those en- gaged in dangerous or unhealthful occupations get one month. In cases of childbirth, women are given vacations of eight weeks before and eight weeks after confinement, with full pay and hospital treatment. According to the collective agreement between the enterprise Kuzbas and the Miners’ Union, the

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146 The Nation

management pays an amount equal to 17 per cent of the pay roll to the workers’ insurance fund, so that all workers are taken care of in sickness and accidents. Medical services—major and minor—together with medicines are furnished free, being in- cluded in the insurance costs of the industry, covering also treatment in sanitariums free of charge. . . . All of the Ameri- can colonists and over 80 per cent of the employees belong to the union. The American colonists are industrially on a footing equal to the Russians, but when their ability enables them through the use of better methods to increase their production, they benefit to the full extent of that increase. This enables the Americans to average considerably higher earnings than the Russians, though the work is based on the same norms of production. As more and more machinery is introduced this is becoming in- creasingly apparent. Prior to February 1, 1923, the American colony was not in control of the industry and was attempting to function under an impossible condition of dual management. But since the Ameri- cans took over the management of the Kemerovo Mines there has been a steady progress in organization and production. The plants and equipment were in a run-down condition; there was an enormous overhead due to inefficient management and an inordinate number of employees. A complete reorganization is being effected; the American management is steadily reduc- ing forces, and at the same time increasing production. The accompanying statistics show this. UNDER RUSSIAN MANAGEMENT Article Unit Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Average Metric DOA ihe, (Revels eases Tons 5,688 6,408 8,630 17,096 6,950 Per cent of Govern- ment Program... AQ:56 2bsi, ) D9.8. 50.41 49.9 WOK Carers scarce s Tons 203 172 216 48 160 Per cent of Govern- ment Program... HOSssa0 solo, OOM. | 24:4") 817 Sawmills....... 100 cu. ft. 237 162 179 95 168 UNDER AMERICAN MANAGEMENT Article Unit Feb. March April May Average Metric Comite. REG 80% Tons 9,214 12,783 10,190 10,441 10,657 Per cent of Govern- ment Program... 70.22 77.94 87.61 79.6 78.82 WOKOT is. Se een Tons 177 222 255 257 228 Per cent of Govern- ment Program... 89.8 112.6 199.2 1380.7 133.1 Sawmills. ....6.. 100 cu. ft. 62 305 522 ies 296 Note: This has been accomplished with a reduction of over 20 per cent in the number of employees. In reporting on the living conditions in Kemerovo it must be stated at the outset that housing has been bad during the past winter, but is rapidly improving. In general it was not pos- sible to assign more than one room to a family, and in cases where there were children this worked a hardship. The single men were assigned to log barracks and found conditions very similar to an army camp. As one ton of coal per month is allotted to each stove, everyone kept warm during the WINLEE. <2 A sufficient percentage of the wages of the American workers (at present amounting to 60 per cent) is deducted for food and laundry service. In other words, each worker, regardless of his category, turns over 60 per cent of his wages to the common food fund, and thus all have an equal standard of living. It must be pointed out that this common fund also supports, be- sides the 231 workers whose wages are contributed to it, 102 dependents, including thirty-two women who, having young children, cannot work in the industry, and seventy children. Thus the essentials of the original conception of the colony have been preserved while at the same time it has been brought into harmony with the changed economic policy of the state. [Vol. 117, No. 3081 Around World

Jan. /26th—June 3rd Sailing Eastward in the Path of Spring O TRAVEL around thé globe, into the heart of strange continents, where the call -of the muezzin, the tinkle of temple bells, the songs of Geishas weave the spell of enchantment complete! A dream which you too, perhaps, have wished to see come true. Within the compass of 130 days, you will come to know old civilizations, dif- ferent people, odd customs; will visit Madeira, Gibraltar, historic and pictur- esque Mediterranean borderlands, in- cluding Egypt and the Nile, India, Burma, Ceylon, Java, China, Philippines, Japan —at the height of Cherry Blossom time —Hawaiian Islands, San Francisco, Panama, etc. Cook’s Travel Service—with its unique chain of permanent offices all along the route — is conducting the cruise; the ship chartered is the now famous SAMARIA, which proved herself so em- inently suitable during our 1923 Golden Jubilee Cruise. Leisure, Comfort and Luxury the Keynote Cruise Limited to 400 Guests Illustrated Literature on Request THOS. COOK @ SON NEW YORK 245 Broadway 561 Fifth Ave. Boston Philadelphia Chicago San Francisco Los Angeles Montreal Toronto Vancouver

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August 8, 1923] The Nation 147 The carrying out of the farm program will automatically im- prove food conditions. The enterprise has taken over 25,000 acres of land. Two expert agriculturists have recently arrived from America. The tractors are preparing vast tracts of land which the Siberian peasants could never hope to cultivate with their crude tools. Ultimately we hope to produce grain, vege- tables, fruit, and dairy products not only for the American colony, but also for the whole population of this district, num- bering 10,000. It will be seen by the above simple statement of conditions in Kemerovo that life for the American colony in “Kuzbas,” while not as comfortable as in America, is still quite tolerable and even happy. The call was sent out for pioneers and yet we have had to do little pioneering ‘tn the American sense of the word. Most of our difficulties have come, not through physical hardships, but through conflicts among ourselves and antagon- ism on the part of officials of the old Russian management, com- bined with a prolonged uncertainty as to the future status of the colony. Certain bad elements in the colony caused friction but these have gradually eliminated themselves, along with many good members, who left for a variety of reasons: some did not like the climate or were suffering from chronic dis- eases; others became discouraged because the American colony was so long in getting control of the enterprise; others, despite published facts to the contrary, came expecting to improve their material conditions; some did not like the introduction of the wage system, and still others did not find a need for their spe- cial qualifications. The most trying stage of our history is past. Profiting by its experiences, the Kuzbas organization is admitting to member- ship in the colony only workers of industrial qualifications to fill specific needs who have a thorough understanding of the project. IRWIN E. AUERBACH, 315 W. 79th St., New York City; WALTER T, Conrow, Moorstown, N. J.; FRANK R. KENNELL, Methodist Book Concern, San Francisco; RUTH KENNELL, San Fran- cisco; J. E. MCDONALD, Wolf Point, Montana; ALFRED PEAR- SON, JR., Newburyport, Mass.; JOHN C. TUCHELSKI, 5645 Celeron St., Detroit; SAMUEL S. SHIPMAN, Brooklyn, N. Y.; W. A. WarREN, Seattle, Washington. Indorsed by American Section, Miners’ Union: Leo J. Wypra, secretary; WILLIAM LUGGE, delegate; FRANK GRUND, delegate. Kemerovo, Siberia, June 10, 1923 Is Germany Acquitted? From the secret archives of the German Foreign Office comes this remarkable refutation of pre-meditated guilt. In August CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE Read this astonishing article: ‘Germany Acquitted of Pre-War Intrigues,” by A. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, in which official records reveal Germany absolved of damning accusations. Foreign Policy of Great Britain Criticized. By E. D. Morel, of the House of Commons, Editor of Foreign Affairs and a leader of the Labor Party. Decadent Fiction. Edwin Markham, Dean of American Poetry, has a brilliant article on the Decadent Fiction of Today, which will create a profound impression upon readers of new books. What of Our Women? Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the famous author, has a striking article on the New Generation of Women. She deals boldly with the woman question from the standpoint of motherhood, birth control, physical development, economic freedom, retaining maiden name, etc. Civilization Detericrating. William Dudley Foulke, President of the National Civic Service Reform League, writes on the decay of public spirit, the disregard of law, the loosening of family ties, the decline of religious faith, as combining to prove that Modern Civilization is on the decline. August CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE On news stands 25 cents, 196 Pages, Profusely IIlustrated « N. Y. Times Co., Publisher OMMISSIONS” executed and _ representation given in London by journalistic executive tak- ing up residence there after September 15th. Will French, or German. Address communications to Box No. 181, The Nation. “BELL SYSTEM” AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES ) One Policy, One System, Universal Service, 4} and all directed toward Better Service also A la Carte. ARTIES DESIRING TO BUY HOUSE on Roch- dale cooperative plan, want one or two more families to complete visit continent and transact business in English, | group. Investment several hundred dollars. State number rooms and conveniences required. Reply immediately. C. C. H. A., Room 411, 70 Fifth Ave. THE RUSSIAN 33 West 37th St., nr. 5th Ave., New York Table d’Hote Luncheon and Dinner Music by the Russian Inn Trio One of 20 Big Feature Articles Wets Destroying Nation. Wayne B. Wheeler, General Counsel of the Anti-Saloon League, attacks the wet hostility to the prohibition amendment as an assault on our fundamental law. E Scrambled Households. Dr. Howard C. Robbins, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, has a noteworthy article on divorce. World-Wide Range. There are numerous other articles of equal value by authorities in every instance, covering such subects as: Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell on Labrador; Africa’s Rebirth; How Britain Won Her Sea Em- pire; the Language Crisis in Belgium; How the United States Is Investing in Canada; Details of the Tax Burden of Great Britain; Poland’s Threat to Peace; the Playrounds Movement in the United States and Europe; the Confederate Army 1,000,000 Larger Than Usually Believed; America’s Scandalous Treatment of Her In- dians; a Comprehensive Survey of the History of Forty Nations During the Preceding Month. Send this COUPON to Current History Magazine and receive August issue free and 12 additional months for $3. postpaid. downtown New York, FOR a WEEK-END or an EXTENDED VISIT Among our guests such persons as Mr. Louis Untermeyer, E. E. Robinson, F. Luis Mora, Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn, Mme. Helen Teschner Tas, Sara Teasdale, B. W. Huebsch, Jessie B. Rittenhouse, C. Bertram Hartman, Suzanne La Follette, William and Marguerite Zorach and Mary Ellis have found this mountain farm an ideal spot for a week-end or an extended visit. Rates $7 a day and $35 a week. Ad- dress E. G. Ohmer, Western View Farm, New Milford, Conn. INN Open till 1 A. M. A BEAUTIFUL PLAGE +: BERKSHIRE HILLS

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iv The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3031 } Hi Let’s Beat the Babbitts! One of the best business magazines in the country boasts that the enthusiastic help of its readers has brought it to its goal of 100,000 readers “two months earlier than sched- ule.” Factory superintendents order extra copies for distribution among their branch managers “to introduce them to the merits of the publication.” The Babbitts of the country do not fail to support their own. Their support hap- pens to mean added dividends for the stockholders of a commercial publishing company. Similarly the thinking men and women who read The Nation are trying to extend the influence of liberal journalism. Their efforts bring profits to nobody’s pocket, but gradu- ally widen the circle of people who share their interests. We believe that the ideas The Nation stands for are more vital, more far-reaching, } and of greater human importance than the propaganda of profit put forward by an organ |; of business boosters. We also believe that the readers of The Nation, because of their faith in a juster order of society, will do more for a paper that expresses their point of view than business men, no matter how enthusiastic, will do to make dollars and cents for somebody else. The new readers whom some of our subscribers have already brought us prove that this confidence is well-founded. They also prove that a magazine like The Nation, un- like profit-making business publications, must look to its own subscribers as the principal source of new circulation. What will you do to help us find as wide an audience for The i: Nation’s ideas as the devotees of big business have secured for their magazine? Will you order extra copies to distribute among persons who would appreciate The Nation? Will you use these book offers to get us a new subscriber today? Note that the two-book offer is still open. A book for the new subscriber and a book free for yourself, both titles selected from the Modern Library. Some Modern Library Numbers: 105 Ancient Man, by Hendrik Van Loon 89 Green Mansions, by W. H. Hudson 110 The France 94 Madame Chrysantheme, by Pierre Loti Sons and Lovers, by D. H. Lawrence rota eee See ee THE NATION 20 Vesey Street, New York City For the enclosed $ » Please send The Nation regularly for the next twelve months, with the book checked as a premium. $5.00 Annual Subscription Queen Pedauque, by Anatole $5.00 The Goose-Step, by Upton Sinclair The Economic Basis of Politics, by Charles A. Beard Triumphant Plutocracy, by Ex-Senator R. F. Pettigrew $5.25 The Decay of Capitalist Civilization, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb The Boy Grew Older, by . Heywood Broun Homely Lilla, by Robert Herrick $5.50 Henry Ford, by Samuel S. Marquis The Bloom of Life, by Anatole France The Roving Critic, by Carl Van Doren Three Centuries of American Democ- racy, by William MacDonald i . WITH THE NATION FOR A YEAR: Faint Perfume, By Zona Gale The Captain’s Doll, by D. H. Lawrence $5.75 The Goose Man, by Jacob Wasserman The Critical Game, by John Macy Eminent Europeans, by Eugene S. Bag- ger Reminiscences of Anatole France, by Paul Gsell Shall It Be Again? hy John Kenneth Turner Poems of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt $6.00 ie Decadence of Europe, by Francesco itti Up Stream, by Ludwig Lewisohn Against the Grain, by J. K. Huysmans These United States, reprinted from The Nation $8.00 The American Language, by H. L. Mencken Single Copy, 15 Cents

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The Nation

FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1923

Contents STIS OR ED) Fad SPARE Cr UPON ERAN CrP ANE Educ) bs eas ied asave, abl evaiins ofa ei Siaialial wis sielalin:a'pa\c. pera) o\(0\@! anny as'e..6 149 EDITORIALS: PRB OMY Grr LarO Ui ye arciefavalsiaratelarel o¥ei ie lela a ahalc lt mimiiets’ oe) ale sv eisialoteve weve eiaie 152 avin Coohdees) Wade: DY) a EVEN 6, <jels cists eaters clevere pela. cs sie wiele Gules 153 PECL Gs eG OTLSTONIE | alah icyatele isiateteiel clic! cies oie ake ole svelati'c alelolodaiayetiele elie.s isle lejelee,s 154 VCO IN TRA S. By OWalliam, (Pickers). < c:ciais is cislels o:ci0(00 ofecisin a ces 155 “IT RETURNS HIM TO YOU A BETTER MAN.” By Alan Ralph.... 156 PROGRESS (AND POVERTY) IN PORTO RICO. By Arthur Warner 158 HOW “NEWS” IS MADE. By a Newspaper Man..............eeeeeee, 160 THIS IS LIFE. By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding.................02ecee00. 161 THE FBOWER-VENDOR. By Ann Hamiltoms is... ce. cee cece ce eee 162 MINE: DERIVA Yin Eyre TILter nics ceiaisies.« cnlalejs ols aisiasis)e oe esse sere 162 PNA UE ANT s/o EOD PAS IVER FU UAS HAGE 41ic/c) ol eieher ein ate) catia) state G eleislalare/a-ciele’slelsle-a s cie/e/sje 163 GOS O NIDERIN Gy aietot trate cre lehar svace «)stelint oveteroialinleval aussie evyalals) =pet=V<!4 cunjalleleleiejevs 165 BOOKS: The Federation of Labor and the State. By Henry Raymond Mussey 167 War on Civilization. By Herbert W. Horwill...................... 167 Cocky Cocteau! (Bysdoseph ih. (Shipley/qeretsie tic s\<.c/s\le ele cles elelelcle s ciemiee 168 PR CHOO-IHSSIC i ES Velen Nish ESE IRCCIN felteleratayeieyatevel elataiel sls /eieleisls| cieve a. 01 \ eis sie 169 Nature and Human Nature. By Eva Goldbeck................000- 169 The Evolution of Jahweh. By Clement Wood...............eeeeeee 169 Hungary Misinterpreted. By Emil Lengyel........................ 170 A Courteous and Conciliatory Diplomat. By William MacDonald.... 170 Mheteroplem: of Style! (By Edwin Seaverse.c ccc ccuesecsccsetseeee. 171 An Argentinian Knight-Errant. By Roy Temple House............ allrgal PIOOMMEPITIM ESIC Tiger taeltietete\al<\'s ic sisaeistelaeio sie aieieleneratataiate vielsiaieie cle sre slave setae 172 ART: ree ea LS Va COT CRE SCO GLa! a cisiele c/s)ecicitelsivte sdtelsislclacires)e sisiels ajieia cess 172 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: UTS T AIS YE NG Wat OC UIS ENT LION sale cle cis ia cse ctelpie obeferrran atalefe eve\Slehs ceveieies ccs ee 173 Mexico Pensions a Political Prisoner OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprtor ASSOCIATE EpitTors LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR Literary Epitor IRITA VAN DOREN, ApverTIsSING MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EDITORS ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SupscrIPTION RAtTES—F ive dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurile, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. N accordance with custom the new President has asked the present Cabinet to remain at its tasks. Also in ac- cordance with custom the Cabinet will probably stay to- gether until the new Administration is firmly established. Then, as in the past, some resignations will be in order. We sincerely hope that they will include those of Messrs. Daugherty, Hughes, and Hoover. Mr. Daugherty’s going is desirable from every point of view. For the other two the opportunity to resign ought to be looked upon as a chance to free themselves from an utterly impossible situ- ation. We refer, of course, to the advice they gave to their fellow-citizens who favor the League of Nations to vote for Mr. Harding as the surest way to get the country into the League. Were these gentlemen thin-skinned or sensitive they must have resigned long ago—especially when Mr. Harding declared that the United States should never, never enter the League, and when the late President took three separate positions as to the World Court. As long as they remain in the Cabinet they are unmistakably in the posi- tion of men who gave false advice and profited by it. More than that, both of these gentlemen are still candidates for the Presidency. They will both be free to nurse their little booms if they now retire from official life. Certainly no one could accuse them of disloyalty to President Coolidge if they should leave and openly announce their ambitions; No. 3032

he has no claim upon the party or upon them. And the Cabinet would be the better off for the change—even if mentally inferior men should succeed them. OR wire tapping, that is “listening in” on a military telephone wire, three men were sentenced to death, two to hard labor for life, one to prison for five years with an impossible fine, and one to prison for three years with a similar fine. No, interested reader, this incredible severity was not an act of the Germans in the heat and pas- sion of war during their occupation of Belgian territory. No, indeed. It was the act of a French court-martial at Werden, Germany, on July 31, 1923, in a territory occupied by the French by violence in time of peace. If we could imagine the situation reversed, every American newspaper would be raving about German barbarity and brutality. The welkin would be ringing with protests; we doubt not that there would be mass-meetings of execration. Instead, the American press pays almost no attention to this amaz- ing incident, which is but one of many such. One New York paper headed the item, which it cut in half, “Stiff Sentences in the Ruhr.” The New York Herald and the New York World omitted it altogether. Is it any wonder that the American public is failing to understand what is happening in the Ruhr? INCE Premier Baldwin’s brave utterance on Anglo- French relations in the Commons, approved by Ramsay MacDonald on behalf of the Opposition as heralding a for- ward policy, nothing has happened. The promised publica- tion of the documents in the recent exchange of opinions has at this writing not taken place. France is thus suc- cessful in her deliberate program of delaying the game in the hope that a German collapse—so confidently predicted by Poincaré to take place on May 1 or May 31 at the latest —will end the whole matter. From London come only rumors of a coming conversation between Curzon and Poin- caré; otherwise the British lion appears as helpless as the netted king of beasts who was freed by the mouse. Mean- while the German collapse is approaching with the mark at a million for fifty cents or less, and General Degoutte is playing his last card—he has threatened to take over and operate every mine, furnace, and factory in the Ruhr. That is a foolish proposal certain to fail of its purpose, but bar- barously certain to plunge the Ruhr into final misery. ‘Al- ready a spokesman of the German industrialists declares they will ruin the Ruhr rather than submit to this. So France steadily pulls down the pillars of civilization, glory- ing in her shame, reveling in her position of military dic- tator of Europe, and too infatuated with her theory of force to understand that it leads but to the grave. E have signed a treaty of amity and commerce with Turkey; it is called a triumph for the diplomatic genius of the American people. Every commercial conces- sion seems to be safeguarded by flawless phraseology. Not that the treaty mentions concessions; but a labyrinth of most-favored-nation clauses covers the case. The opium-

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150 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3032 ee A restriction convention is, however, omitted; the guaranties for the protection of minorities, such as the precious Ar- menians, are virtually nil; the troublesome question of war claims is “reserved” for further consideration. In other words, the shibboleths of sentiment, of so-called “honor” and “idealism” are forgotten, but we are to be permitted to do business as usual with Turkey and to treat the Turks as human beings. Mr. Hughes did not insist that Turkey modify its laws or change its form of government. Like a practical man he took what he could get. It is to be hoped that his representatives in Mexico City will be as gentle- manly and matter-of-fact as Mr. Grew at Lausanne. Rus- sian-American relations would gain by similar treatment. I think I may flatter myself, gentlemen, that I have always been a faithful partisan of the Franco-British alliance. Be- fore the war, at a time when there were in France some who more or less openly aimed at a policy of rapprochement with Germany, which would have meant officially consecrating the Treaty of Frankfurt and definitely abandoning Alsace-Lor- raine, I was always of those who urged, on the contrary, a close union between the two great free nations of western Europe.—M. Poincaré at Senlis, July 15. POINCARE has indeed the right to flatter himself, e if flattery it be, that he always opposed a policy of friendship with Germany and hoped, expected, and pre- pared for war. But is he not giving aid and comfort to the nationalist Germans when he thus praises a defeated nation for seeking alliances in the hope of breaking the treaties which consecrate its defeat? After all, he only shows that his fine words about the sanctity of treaties are but the usual politician’s hypocrisy. Treaties which he happens to like are sacred to him; treaties which he does. not like are mere scraps of paper. N the House of Commons’ debate on Singapore the Ad- miralty spokesmen made out, technically, a fair case. To the charge that at the Washington Conference Great Britain “kept the ace of Singapore up her sleeve,’’ Colonel Amery replied that the very choice of the meridian of 110° as the limit of the neutral zone made it clear that it was not proposed to exclude Singapore from the possibility of being made a naval base. Again, he dealt with the suggestion that this new scheme was aimed at Japan by advising his critics to consult a large-scale map, from which they would see that Singapore was as far from Yokohama as Gibraltar from Boston. Moreover, if England had had any aggressive de- signs against Japan, she would never have agreed to an arrangement that deprived her of the effective use of Hong Kong, which was much nearer. All the same, a naval base is not constructed merely as an ornament to the landscape. If the Singapore base is not aimed at Japan, who is the prospective foe? Can it be Holland? The Dutch are now discussing a navy bill for which the necessity of countering the British plans is put forward as one of the main argu- ments. The Dutch East Indies are not so very distant from the Straits Settlements. The moral advantage in the debate was surely with George Lambert, late Civil Lord of the Ad- miralty, who pleaded: “Let us give the Washington Treaty a chance and afford a breathing-space to the Angel of Peace.” ENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING and Admiral William L. Rogers seem to be doing their best to convince the country that the only way out of militarism is to abolish the army and the navy and put the fighting men to work at other jobs. General Pershing told an audience at Del Monte, California, the other day that not only the men but the women of the country should be trained in military tac- tics. They would be needed, he felt, to suppress “Red” activities. This may seem like the ne plus ultra of non- sense, but that grizzled sea-dog, Admiral Rogers, succeeded in surpassing it at Williamstown. Admiral Rogers objected to the slogan “Law—Not War.” He could see no difference between law and war. “War,” he said, “is the agency whereby law is made to prevail.” We find this a little dif- ficult to understand. Law implies an accepted code; war is the effort of one government to force its own will on an- other. Would Admiral Rogers hold the invasion of Belgium an act of law? The fact is that as long as we have an army and a navy its chiefs will invent nonsense to justify their jobs, and otherwise sane people will listen patiently, some- how believing that because a man wears a bit of tinsel on his shoulder he must know what he is talking about. KLAHOMA is having another one of its periodic political fits. The Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League, supported by the railroad brotherhoods and the farmer organizations, last year won for “Jack” Walton the Democratic nomination for governor. After the primaries, their funds were exhausted. Walton accepted help from oil men who could hardly be expected to be sympathetic with a Farmer-Labor program. After the victory came the great inaugural barbecue when Governor Walton, obviously sub- sidized by someone, provided 289 whole beeves, and hogs, sheep, bears, turkey, opossum, chickens in proportion, to help his constituents celebrate. Labor and the farmers seemed to like it. They still liked it when he had George Wilson, late organizer of the Farmer-Labor League, named president of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College. Wilson, it seems, was a real dirt farmer, but the Legion and the Klan denied his loyal patriotism, and a few highbrow Oklahomans took exception because he had no college degree. Then Walton’s ambition grew and he began cultivating the friendship of those who might finance a Senatorial cam- paign. He removed Wilson after swearing that he would stand by him; worst of all, in Oklahoma eyes, he let him- self be photographed in knickers on a golf links; he de- nounced the League, and the League denounced him. The Oklahoma Leader, his past supporter, drew this lesson: What happened to J. C. Walton is happening to politicians all over the world. No man can serve two masters. No man can serve God and mammon. No man can take money from the rich and votes from the poor without becoming a traitor to one or the other. UBA’S legislature has, by an almost unanimous vote, adopted a resolution condemning the American Gov- ernment for interference in Cuban internal affairs and has passed a lottery bill of which General Crowder, the Ameri- can Ambassador to Cuba, disapproves. The result is an- other crisis; General Crowder has been summoned to Wash- ington for a conference, and a new intervention is threatened. There was one crisis last summer, when Cuba showed a certain reluctance to pass the set of financial re- form bills which had been prepared for her in Washington. But at that time Cuba was in dire financial need, and the bills were forced through. A second crisis occurred last April, when President Zayas permitted four able ministers

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August 15, 1923] who were virtually appointees of General Crowder to re- sign. Meanwhile, however, a syndicate of New York banks had floated a $50,000,000 loan to Cuba, the price of sugar had risen, and Cuba was no longer an impotent mendicant. Today Cuba has a surplus of $12,000,000 in her treasury, and is seeking to repay part of the New York loan in ad- vance. The financial reform bills are largely responsible for the improvement in Cuba’s position, but she has little gratitude. Quite naturally; for no people likes to have reform bills poured down its throat like a dose of castor oil. Today Cuba wants to return to her traditional lottery, and there is no good reason apart from our Anglo-Saxon missionary zeal to make everybody else like ourselves, why she should not do so if she wants to. But there are effec- tive if not good reasons why Cuba obeys General Crowder’s whims: 75 per cent of Cuba’s foreign trade is with the United States, more than a billion dollars of American money is invested in Cuba, and Uncle Sam’s navy is accus- tomed to practising on Latin American peoples. Foreign tourists, forgetting they are our guests and there- fore bound to respect our customs and our laws, recently on several occasions have forcibly manifested their aversion to seeing colored men born in the French colonies sit by their side in public places. They even have gone to the length of demanding their expulsion in insulting terms. If such inci- dents are repeated, punishment will be exacted.—Note issued by the French Foreign Office, July 31, 1923. OT often in recent months have we been tempted to throw up our hats and cheer because of a statement of French policy. But this reply to the boorish conduct of some white Americans in Paris is a worthy statement of a noble French tradition. The French habit is to judge a man by his worth, not by the color of his skin. We abhor the French policy of spreading militarism into black Africa —not because we fear Africa, however, but because we hate militarism. Black men sit in the French Chamber of Depu- ties and black men hold high positions in the French civil service—and hold their positions by virtue of their honest achievements. For prejudiced Americans to attempt to eject black citizens of France from French cafes, to refuse to ride on French buses which carry colored soldiers of France, and even to throw such men off the buses, is a flagrant form of provincialism which merits punishment. We should like to have our own Government, which con- scripts, taxes, and punishes its Negro citizens, show as decent a respect for human beings regardless of skin color —hby disciplining, for instance, the upstart young second lieutenant who recently informed Negro applicants that they could not be received into the summer military camps. AWNBROKERS and dealers in precious stones need to give careful study not only to the laws and police regu- lations affecting their trades, but to the provisions of the peace treaties. Otherwise they may, all unawares, get into trouble as receivers of stolen goods. The widowed ex- Empress Zita, of Austria, purposes selling the Florentine diamond to an American, in order to provide a livelihood for herself and her children. It ought to bring in a decent sum, as it is one of the clearest and most brilliant large gems known, and weighs 13914 carats. But the Italian Government has issued a warning that any such sale will be null and void. This valuable gaud was originally one of the crown jewels of Tuscany, and it went to the Haps- The Nation 151 burgs in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the husband of Maria Theresa acquired it with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which he obtained in exchange for Lor- raine shortly after his marriage. The Treaty of St. Ger- main specifically requires these jewels to be restored to Italy, so the ex-Empress no longer has a lawful title to any of them. Singularly enough, the Italian Government does not seem to be anxious to make her return the diamond; the sole object of concern is that it shall not get into any one else’s hands. This incident sets one speculating on the fu- ture of the Kohinoor, the brightest jewel in the British crown. It came to Queen Victoria in 1849 through the con- quest of the Punjab. In the event of India’s separation from the British Empire, will the terms of settlement send it traveling back to the East again? COMMITTEE called by the Newark Museum Associa- tion is sending out an appeal to all interested in the application of artistic designing to articles of common use. The decay of the handicrafts, according to this organization, is due to the low esteem in which the designer and fashioner of beautiful homely things are held among us. Thirty and even twenty-five years ago immigrant craftsmen supplied our wants. The younger generation, mostly American-born, refuse to apply their talents since there is no reward in either money or appreciation. An American maker of excel- lent pottery, for instance, feels compelled to put a French label on his product, which obviously is not encouraging to the craftsmen who made the designs. Those who are almost daily offended by what seems the deliberate hideousness of articles of common use will give their cordial support to Mr. John Cotton Dana, the director of the Newark Museum, and his associates in their inquiry and their effort. It is as cheap to produce a well-shaped jug or pot or electric fixture as an ill-shaped one, and these things influence and educate the eyes more than is commonly realized. E note with regret many indications lately of the decay of banditry. The death of Pancho Villa removed the foremost practitioner of the profession in North America and now Bandit Raisuli, whose name for twenty years has been printed in red ink in ‘‘Who’s Who in Morocco,” has gone and got married. Mr. Raisuli laid the basis of his fame and fortune by capturing. and holding for ransom an American, Ion Perdicaris, later taking into camp a British subject, Kaid McLean. For many years after he did a thriving business playing Spanish against French and the Moors against both. His capture and his reform have been reported as many times as the collapse of Soviet Russia. We have never believed that either catas- trophe had overtaken him, but now he is married and, sadly, we accept the incontestability of both. Not that we had conceived of Mr. Raisuli as a woman-hater. But when banditry was in flower the method of a man who craved the society of a woman was to carry her away by the hair. To have a ceremony, to have it reported in the newspapers, and to have it told by cable that “many wedding presents were sent by the tribesmen” means the end of Mr. Raisuli’s old ways. Perhaps bobbed hair is to blame, making diffi- cult the old way of carrying away a woman. Or perhaps it is just that industrialism is taking the joy out of ban- ditry as out of other things. Unless Bandit Raisuli wishes to give up entirely and lead an honest life, we see no future for him except to come to America and go into business.

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152 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8032 ited G. Harding GENIAL, kindly, well-meaning, lovable man, typical of a large group of Americans—this was President Harding. Every one who met him was attracted to his personality. To this favorable impression his fine appear- ance contributed not a little. Nobody could have been seen to better physical advantage than Mr. Harding on such state occasions as the burial of the unknown soldier and the opening of the Conference for the Limitation of Arma- ments. He was then both dignified and impressive. More- over, after the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, it was a pro- found relief to have in the highest public office a man to whom one could make an appeal to the heart. The very fact that he had risen from humble origins, that most of his life had been spent in a small town characteristic of the Middle West, gave him a fellow-feeling for the plain American of which no rise in situation could deprive him. That kindliness and understanding made him release Eugene Debs, made him feel sympathy for many victims of the passions of the war, and disposed him generally to a kindly view of the world and its people. It is this quality of generous good-will for which Mr. Harding will, we be- lieve, be chiefly remembered; it is with this that the saga we build up about our Presidents will largely concern itself when time deals with Warren Harding—precisely as Wil- liam McKinley is remembered for his amiable personal qualities. If one could stop here it would be a pleasure. But he who would record contemporary truths cannot afford either to paint but one side of the picture or to color the whole with that feeling of compassion for Mrs. Harding and the poignant regret and sorrow which every American must have felt when he read that not wholly unexpected news from San Francisco. The fact is that as President Mr. Harding was much to be pitied. He was pitchforked into the position not by the pre-nomination votes of large groups of his fellow-countrymen, but as a result of the final secret confab of a few machine leaders in a private parlor in the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Not by training nor by ante- cedents nor by knowledge was he equal to his position, in which he could hardly keep abreast of the current work. To map out any really constructive policies was beyond him. The defects of his amiability made themselves felt hourly, for he found it harder and harder to take a position and stick to it—witness his three several positions upon the question of American participation in the new World Court. In domestic problems he was as helpless as every similar Republican President is certain to be, being bound and pinioned by the historic party policies and that invisible big-business control which constitutes the real government of the country. He was aware that the times were out of joint; yet he had no remedies to suggest save the old salves and cures that were supposed to work wonders thirty-five years ago. So far as the situation of the world is concerned, Mr. Harding’s incumbency of the presidential office, together with the dominant influence exerted by Messrs. Hughes and Hoover in foreign affairs, has been a dreadful misfortune. Never has there been such an urgent, world-wide eal] for American leadership, never such a wonderful opportunity for the American President to lead the world to paths of peace and of sanity. With Europe sinking rapidly into ruin, as the British Prime Minister has just again declared, it is hard for us to understand how Mr. Harding could have held back from insisting upon exerting our enormous influence for a solution of the deadlock because of which civilization itself totters. One word from President Hard- ing, and the French would never have entered the Ruhr to stain their good name with crimes against humanity which will never be effaced. One word from President Harding would have brought about a conference which un- der American leadership would have begun with possibili- ties of success which the European conferences have totally lacked. A proposal for the solution of the reparations problems, not put forth haphazardly by a cabinet officer in a speech to a group of learned men, but carefully worked out by economists with the aid of French and German experts, would not only not have been resented, but must have been widely welcomed by our British allies and by all the neutrals who are now suffering grievously because of the French madness. But the Harding Administration could only mark time. Perhaps it is possible to deduce from Mr. Harding’s final state paper, his speech published but not delivered, that after all he was beginning to realize his duty. It is an extraordinary coincidence at least that in this address he declared for closer international rela- tions precisely as William McKinley’s last utterance simi- larly appealed for wider and better trade relations with the rest of the world. For the rest, President Harding’s family and friends may find some consolation in the hour of his going as well as in the absence of all suffering. The remainder of his term could have added nothing to the public’s kindly feeling for him personally. Had a successful attempt been made to renominate him he must have experienced the bitterness of repudiation and defeat. That especial tenderness with which Americans think of Presidents who have died in office will always inure to him. And now the Presidency sinks low, indeed. We doubt if ever before it has fallen into the hands of a man so cold, so narrow, so reactionary, so uninspiring, and so unen- lightened, or one who has done less to earn it, than Calvin Coolidge. A child of marvelous fortune, he becomes the thirtieth President of the United States because of a news- paper fiction which falsely presented him to the country as a great and vigorous personality who in a dark and troubled hour had saved Boston from a strike misrepresented as a wanton blow at law and order by some of its duly consti- tuted authorities. In an hour when America aches for con- structive leadership of a broad and liberal kind its official destinies are to rest for a year and a half in the hands of one whose writings and public utterances reveal no spark of originality, no vision, no tolerance, no sympathy with progress and advance. Every reactionary may today re- joice; in Calvin Coolidge he realizes his ideal, and every liberal must be correspondingly downcast. Fortunately, there are checks and balances in Washington; the Congress still lives. Fortunately, in this case, the President is not today a free agent. Fortunately, not even the prestige of the office will conceal the intellectual nakedness of a man whom a Minnesota audience refused last year to listen to after a brief taste of his discourse.

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August 15, 1923] The Nation Calvin Coolidge: Made by a Myth ALVIN COOLIDGE is President of the United States because of a fiction. A fiction lifted him over- night from the comparative obscurity of State politics into national view and gave him the reputation which led to his nomination for the Vice-Presidency in 1920. In 1919 the public was given to understand that Mr. Coolidge, then Governor of Massachusetts, had broken the Boston police strike and restored order to a helpless and crime-menaced city by his courage, firmness, and patriotism in calling out the State militia. Calvin Coolidge was hailed as a savior of the nation from the forces of disintegration and disorder. Since Mr. Coolidge has succeeded to the Presi- dency the story has been retold by nearly every newspaper in the country; it is the cornerstone of his career. The only flaw is that it rests on about the same foundation of his- torical truth as the legend of George Washington and the cherry tree. The police strike was broken by public opinion, led by a business-controlled press, while order was restored by militia in Boston called out by Andrew J. Peters, the mayor. Governor Coolidge sat discreetly on the fence until he saw on which side public sentiment was gathering. When this had manifested itself distinctly against the police, and after Boston’s danger had been averted, Governor Coolidge climbed down from the fence on the side with the crowd and issued a bombastic proclamation needlessly mobilizing the entire State Guard. In recounting this today we are not actuated by hostility toward Mr. Coolidge personally. Amid the flood of senti- mentality and banality that is filling our daily press it is right that some people should know that the reputation by virtue of which he has risen to our highest public office rests upon a fiction. Nor is what we have to say an expression of editorial opinion. It is drawn from Document 108, 1919, of the city of Boston, in which in 5,000 words a citizens’ committee tells without comment the story of the police strike. This committee was not a body of radicals or of partisans. It was appointed, it is true, by a Democratic Mayor, and its chairman, James J. Storrow, of Lee, Higgin- son, and Company, was of like political faith, but its other members were of various parties, including leading lawyers, bankers, and merchants. The president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce was on its executive committee, and its report was indorsed by a special resolution of that body. Its findings have never been disputed by Mr. Coolidge; but (oh, irony of history!) they were withheld from the public until a month after the police strike was over; until acci- dental and purposeful misrepresentation in the press had established the Coolidge myth throughout the country. This citizens’ committee was appointed in August, 1919, when a police strike had become imminent. It worked out a plan that was apparently acceptable to all parties and sought the assistance of the Governor. The Police Depart- ment of Boston is part not of the city but of the State gov- ernment, and the Commissioner is appointed and removable by the Governor. It would seem, therefore, that a states- manlike Governor would have been trying to prevent a strike, but when his cooperation was sought Mr. Coolidge replied, “that he felt it was not his duty to communicate with the commissioner on the subject.” On Sunday, Sep- tember 7, with the police trouble at a crisis, the committee sought another meeting with Mr. Coolidge, but the “law and order’ Governor was not in Boston, and the committee was not able even to ascertain his whereabouts. The next day, in the words of the committee: The Mayor, in cooperation with the members of your com- mittee, again endeavored to obtain a conference with the Gov- ernor, and such a conference was arranged to take place early in the evening of that day. At that time the commissioner had taken final action in regard to the police officials.... Your Honor and the members of your committee emphasized the prospective seriousness of the situation which would result from the absence of the great majority of patrolmen, and ex- pressed their strong conviction as to the necessity of troops to the number of not less than three to four thousand to be pres- ent in Boston on the following day at 5:45 p. m., either upon the streets or ready in the armories. To this plea the Governor sent a formal answer the next day. It is sufficient to reproduce merely the final sentence: “I am unable to discover any action that I can take.” To quote again from the report of the citizens’ committee: The volunteer police were not called to duty until Wednesday morning. On Tuesday evening, September 9, riots, disorders, and robbery occurred, and on Wednesday morning, September 10, Your Honor assumed temporary control of the Police De- partment, acting under the statute of 1885, section 6, chapter 323, which gives Your Honor the power to do so, tumult having then occurred. Your Honor also immediately called out that part of the State Guard located in Boston, which you then had authority to do, and requested the Governor to order out three additional regiments of infantry. Then follow these brief, illuminating, and, for Mr. Cool- idge, anrihilating sentences: “By Thursday morning order had been generally restored in the city. On Thursday after- noon, September 11, the Governor assumed control of the situation, as indicated by his proclamation of that day.” By way of explanation it is necessary to add only that, up to the actual moment of the policemen’s walk-out and the disorder and danger in which Boston found itself in conse- quence, public sentiment seemed to be pretty evenly divided on the merits of the issue. Then it swung sharply and unmistakably against the policemen. The Governor, who up to that moment had been unwilling to assist in preventing the s‘rike, who had not had troops in the streets to prevent lawlessness after the police walked out, who had left it to the Mayor to call out the National Guard in Boston to pro- tect the city, now took his first public action. On the after- noon of September 11, after the trend of public sentiment was unmistakable, and after “order had been generally restored in the city,” the following proclamation appeared: The entire State Guard of Massachusetts has been called out. Under the constitution the Governor is the commander-in-chief thereof by an authority of which he could not, if he chose, divest himself. That command I must and will exercise. Un- der the law I hereby call upon all the police of Boston who have loyally and in a never-to-be-forgotten way remained on duty to aid me in the performance of my duty in the restoration of order in the City of Boston, and each of such officers is re- quired to act in obedience to such orders as I may hereafter issue or cause to be issued. I call on every citizen to aid me in the maintenance of law and order. CALVIN COOLIDGE, Governor Such are the facts upon which rests one of the most remarkable political myths of our time, a legend by the grace of which Calvin Coolidge has become President of the United States. a

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154 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 Political Confusion ¥>) RESIDENT HARDING'S death creates no new political P confusion; it merely reveals the appalling lack of issues in American politics. When it was understood that Mr. Harding would run again for office the politicians felt familiar ground under their feet; they did not have to argue issues but could talk personalities. Was one for or against Mr. Harding? It did not much matter who or what manner of man the Democratic candidate might be—he would be ag’in’ the government, and the Republicans would have to defend the government’s every act. To such a campaign the Democrats looked forward with unadventurous satisfac- tion; they anticipated another election by disgust, like that of 1920, and the fact that they would find themselves after victory as faltering and uncertain what victory meant did not disturb them. Nor did the old-guard Republicans much fear such a defeat. The Democrats would have no policy, and the country would soon weary of them and send the Republicans back to office again, after the time-honored tradition of alternating Tweedledum and Tweedledee. A President has died, and the politicians are scuttling about as madly as a host of ants when their protecting stone has been overturned. Trusted political charts have overnight become worthless. The politicians do not know where to turn. Their intellectual nakedness is distressingly ap- parent. The fact is revealed in all its tragic simplicity that national politics in these United States have become a mean- ingless treadmill, that there is no essential difference, apart from personalities, between the two great national parties, and that neither is making any serious attempt to under- stand the groundswell of the age, to seek out the economic causes of the farmers’ distress, to discover the sources of labor’s unrest, to look ahead, or lead the way. Republicans and Democrats alike seek only political tranquillity, some empty issue—like the tariff (in which one party defends a protective policy to equalize costs of production, and the other says the same thing in different words and more frankly) or the world court (which cannot possibly affect the present distress of this continent or Europe). It is a healthy thing that we should have this spectacle revealed to us. A President who confessedly had as little personal policy as possible, who asked not to lead but pre- ferred to be led, has died—and there is nothing left. The grand old Republican Party stands before us, as significant as a telephone directory, a meaningless hodge-podge of men whose minds run in contrary directions, including Judge Gary and Senator La Follette, Leonard Wood and the North Dakota Nonpartisan Leaguers, Hiram Johnson and Elihu Root, Secretary Hughes and Smith W. Brookhart. There is not an issue worthy of the name upon which these men agree. Nor is the Democratic Party of more meaning as an organization. It cannot decide whether it will nominate a “wet” Catholic governor or the “dry” Senator from one of the Ku-Kluxedest of southern States, the son-in-law of an ex-president or a manufacturer guiltless of a political past. “Anyone to win” is the motto of both big parties, They mean nothing, they stand for nothing, they have no platform. So far as the real life of the country goes they are corpses blocking the road to progress. There are forces astir that would remove these corpses from the road. The progressive movement of the Middle West, solidly footed in an economic alliance of farmers and city workingmen, has shown its power in Minnesota. The powers of reaction are attempting to break that alliance, and the death of Mr. Harding gives them new hope and a new opportunity. There can be little doubt that the Old Guard in the Repub- lican Party is already casting about for a candidate who can wear the label “progressive” and wean away the liberal voters while yet remaining “safe.” Neither La Follette nor Borah will be nominated—they are too independent; they are not “safe.” Let us not be deceived by any Medill Mc- Cormick or Hiram Johnson wearing about his brow the halo of the Progressive Armageddon of 1912. 1912 lies eleven years behind us, and most of the warriors of that day have crept back to safer camps, while some, like Senator Borah, who played safe in 1912, have shown a new readiness for political adventure. Hiram Johnson encourages the tra- dition that he is the St. George who downed the Southern Pacific dragon in California. But some Californians insist that the dragon is still alive and active, and that it seems dead only because the senior Senator has ceased shouting about it. Senator Johnson showed his old courage when he took up the fight against the Treaty of Versailles at a time when that fight seemed hopeless, but his struggle against an iniquitous treaty is today little more than a doctrine of national isolation, and the European issue seems dangerously like a red herring obscuring his party loyalty on the tariff and other acts of devotion to the Old Guard. Perhaps more likely and more dangerous is the nomina- tion of some good man without too definite a political record like Senator Pepper or Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania. These are good men, but the time has passed when good in- dividuals suffice. Good men are the stock in trade of old-line politicians. It is an ancient trick to nominate a good man, an “independent’ ’in politics, when the party hacks become discredited and the meaninglessness of party shibboleths becomes too evident. Let us not be deceived by this stale trick. Personalities have too often blurred issues in Amer- ican politics. The Republican Party is just what it was be- fore President Harding died, and the Democratic Party has not changed since the people turned it out in 1920. There are real issues at stake; there are things worth voting for. Perhaps our method of political government is incapable of realizing them. Perhaps political government has so encumbered itself with meaningless mechanisms that the machinery of government will—such is the trend in both Europe and America—pass to the economic organizations which already hold the real power behind the political facade. If so, we shall have to confess a defeat for democ- racy and begin again. Political democracy without the democratization of industry, it has long been plain, is a rather empty achievement. But there has seemed to be a chance worth fighting for that economic lines might make themselves felt in politics and give to the political struggle a reality which it has increasingly lacked. The farmer-labor alliance in the Middle West has been significant precisely because it seemed to foreshadow such an intrusion of eco- nomics into politics. If it yields again to mere personalities and fictitious party slogans we shall have to look elsewhere for permanent hope.

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August 15, 1923] The Nation | 155 Jim Crow in Texas By WILLIAM PICKENS HE classics tell about the tortures invented by the Sicilian tyrants, but the Sicilian genius for cruelty was far inferior to that of the fellow who contrived the Jim Crow car system to harass the colored population of the South. There are tens of thousands of white people in this country who would be uncompromisingly opposed to this exquisite torture if they only understood it. But they are not “jim crowed,” they have not the experience, and they do not and almost cannot understand what the colored brother finds to complain of. Have you noticed how dif- ficult it is to explain a sensation or a pain to some one who never experienced it? Fourteen States have Jim Crow car laws. Not one of them maintains “equal accommodations” for colored peo- ple, although the law generally calls for accommodations “equal in all points of service and convenience,” so as to square with the Fifteenth Amendment. Nobody expects the railroads to go to the expense of duplicating their accom- modations for the colored, non-voting, minority population. The result is that the colored traffic is usually attached to the general service with the least possible expense: a small waiting-room in one corner of the station, generally unswept and otherwise uncared-for; a compartment in one end of the white men’s smoker for all the colored people—men, women, and children—to ride in; generally no wash basin and only one toilet for both sexes; with no privilege of taking meals in the diner or buying a berth in a sleeper. Colored passengers taking a journey of several days must either carry cold food enough to last or else buy the high- priced trash of the newsboy. A colored woman traveling three nights from El Paso, Texas, to Charleston, S. C., with a baby and small children, is compelled to carry cold food and to sit up on straight-backed seats for the whole trip. A colored woman of Portland, Oregon, editor of a paper there, bright, intelligent, and attractive, respected by the best-known white and colored people of the State, was visit- ing her parents in Texas, carrying her infant and a small child of three years. On their third night’s ride, in Texas, she was compelled to get up, dress herself and babies, and vacate her berth because some short-distance white pas- sengers objected to her presence in the car. A colored pérson who was hurrying from Florida to undergo an operation by an expert in Chicago had to risk death by a twenty-four-hour ride in a Jim Crow day coach. Sick col- ored people sometimes have to be carried on stretchers in the baggage car. Let us look at an actual case of Jim Crow, which is typical of practically the whole South. This system is not designed to rid white people of the mere physical presence of the Negro, for a white man who objects to a colored per- son who rides in the other end of the car may have a colored servant with his family in his end of the car, and this colored servant may sleep in his house and be a wet-nurse for his baby. I shall use the first person singular and attempt to tell of Jim Crow experiences, without exaggera- tion and without abatement. I sit in a Jim Crow as I write, between El Paso and San Antonio, Texas. The Jim Crow car is not an institution merely to “separate the races” ; it is a contrivance to humiliate and harass the colored peo- ple and to torture them with a finesse unequaled by the cruelest genius of the heathen world. The cruder genius broke the bodies of individuals occasionally, but Jim Crow tortures the bodies and souls of tens of thousands hourly. In the last two months I have ridden many thousands of miles in comfortable Pullman reservations out from New York to the great Northwest, with many stops and side trips; then down from Tacoma and past the Golden Gate to the City of the Angels, from the red apples of Spokane to the golden apples of the southwestern Hesperides; and then on by the petrified forest, the great canyon, and through the ancient cliff-dwellings of man to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In Albuquerque I had bought my reservation to El Paso, Texas. El Paso is where the train would enter Texas, and both my tickets terminated there. But so thor- oughly is it understood that Jim Crowism is not designed merely to “separate,” but also to humiliate, colored pas- sengers that the thing is always in the consciousness of the railway employees, even those who operate in and out of Jim Crow territory, and they begin to “work on you” as soon as you buy a ticket that leads even to the limbo of this hell. “Well, you can’t ride in this car after you get into Texas. You’ll have to get out of this car in Texas, and I suppose you know that?” This from the Pullman conductor, in a very gruff and loud voice, so that the whole car might hear him, while he and others stare and glare upon me. His speech is absolutely unnecessary since my tickets call only for El Paso, but the object is to “rub it in.” I answered with not a word nor a look, save such mild and indifferent observation as I might bestow upon idiots who should spit at me or lick out their tongues as I passed by their cells of confinement. In El Paso, because of the miscarriage of a telegram, my friends did not meet the train and I had to call them up and wait till they came down. I was meanwhile shown to the “Negro” waiting-room, a space of about twenty by twenty, away off in one corner of the station structure like a place of quarantine or a veritable hole in the wall. I had to traverse the entire length of the great main waiting- room in order to reach this hole. This main waiting-room has all the conveniences, ’phone booths, ticket offices, and what not. And whom do you suppose I saw in this main waiting-room as I passed through? Not only the “white people,” but all the non-American “colored peoples,” yellow Chinese, brown Japanese, and the many-colored Mexicans, some dirty with red handkerchiefs around their necks and carrying baskets and bundles with fruits, vegetables, and live chickens. These Mexicans are the people whom the colored soldiers of the Twenty-fourth Infantry held off those white people some years ago. And if we should go to war with Japan the colored American will again be expected to rush forth from that hole in the wall to the defense of his white compatriot. I say all this without the slightest feeling of animosity toward any race, and abso- lutely without scorn of any human misfortune. I am only stating the case plainly. And when I reached the little humiliating hole assigned to “Negroes,” I found there only four or five colored people, all intelligent, not one of them conspicuously unkempt like some of the Mexicans in the main waiting-room. Those Mexicans were being treated —

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156 | The Nation as human beings, as they should be treated. These colored people knew that this arrangement was not so much for their separation as for their humiliation and attempted degradation, and it formed the burden of their conversation. I stayed in El Paso two nights and three days. Its colored people are alert to the situation. By means of their automobiles they protected me against the “rear-seat”’ treatment of the electric street cars. They took me across the shallow Rio Grande into Mexico, just a few hundred yards from Jim Crowism. And over there, bless you, white and black people come out of Texas and gamble at the same table, drink at the same bar, and eat in the same restaurant, while the dark and almost black Mexican stands around as the policeman and the law. Then I went to buy a ticket for San Antonio. I did not expect to buy a Pullman ticket, but I did expect to buy a day coach ticket on any train. But I found that colored passengers are allowed to go to San Antonio on but one train a day, the one that leaves at night. The morning train carried only Pullmans, and colored folk are made to wait twelve hours longer for the train that carries a Jim Crow compartment. A colored man’s mother may be dying in San Antonio, but he must wait. Any Mexican, however, whom the colored infantry fought on the border and did not happen to kill, can ride on any train. Any foreigner, or any foreign spy who happens to be loose in the land, can travel freely, but not the mothers or wives or sisters of the black Americans who fought, bled, and died in France. All the rest of the world, be he an unlettered Mexican peon, an untrammeled Indian, or a representative of the un- civilized “white trash” of the South, can get either train; put the Negro, be he graduate of Harvard or bishop of the church, can go only once daily. Now if the Negro can be limited to once a day while others ride on any train, the Negro can be limited to one day a week while others ride seven, or even to one day a month while others ride thirty. I took the train that leaves at night. It is a ride of about twenty-four hours. Through friends it had been ar- ranged that I be given a berth, late at night, after all the white people had gone to sleep and could not see me, and perhaps be called early before any of the whites were up. The money was accepted from my friends, even tips, but only the porter was sent to bring me a pillow into the Jim Crow car, and they still have the money. In the morning I went back to see if I could get some breakfast in the dining car, before 7 o’clock, before the whites got hungry. And what did I find as I passed through the whole string of Pullman cars in the rear? All the races of the world, as usual, save only the most loyal of all Americans. In the Jim Crow car there was but one toilet and wash- room, for use of colored women and men. And the Jim Crow car is not a car, mind you, but only the end of a car, part of the white men’s smoker, separated from the white smokers only by a partition that rises part of the way from the floor toward the ceiling, so that all the sickening smoke can drift over all night and all day. And yet what do you suppose the colored porter said as he swept out the Jim Crow end this morning? Nobody asked him, he volunteered as he swept: “Well, this is the cleanest floor I have to sweep every morning. Them white folks and Mexicans and things back yonder sho’ do mess up the floors!” When I reached the dining-car there was not another person there. I was asked did I “want anything.” I re- [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 plied briefly, breakfast. Then there was confusion and much conferring between the steward and several colored waiters at the other end of the car. The steward kept glancing at me meanwhile, as if endeavoring to “size me.” Finally I was given a seat at the end of the car where the porters eat. Oatmeal, eggs, and postum were brought, and then a green curtain was drawn between me and the rest of the vacant dining-car! Remember, this did not all happen in some insane asylum, but in Texas. The check on which I was to order my food was a green check, a “porter’s check,” so that I should not need to be treated to such little formalities as an extra plate or a finger bowl. I deliberately wrote my name down in the blank for “porter,” but I was charged a passenger’s fare. It all meant that I would not eat any more that day, although I was not to reach San Antonio till eight or nine at night. One must be an idiot not to comprehend the meaning and the aim of these arrangements. There is no such thing as a fair and just Jim Crow system with “equal accommo- dations,” and in very human nature there will never be. The inspiration of Jim Crow is a feeling of caste and a desire to “keep in its place,” that is, to degrade, the weaker group. For there is no more reason for a Jim Crow car in public travel than there would be for a Jim Crow path in the public streets. Those honest-souled, innocent- minded people who do not know, but who think that the Jim Crow system of the South is a bona-fide effort to pre- serve mere racial integrity on a plane of justice are grievously misled. Any man should be permitted to shut out whom he desires from his private preserves, but justice and Jim Crowism in public places and institutions are as far apart and as impossible of union as God and Mammon. ‘It Returns Him to You a Better Man”’ By ALAN RALPH NUCKED away among a lot of army odds and ends gath- ered together directly after receiving my discharge I recently ran across a typewritten letter on “flimsy” from the headquarters of the fort where I had been on duty. During the first hurried reading I smiled, then carefully rereading it laid it aside and thought—and thought. Legions of per- sonal incidents, facts, bits of information, sights came crowding into my mind. Here’s the letter in full: My dear—(next of kin): In a few days your soldier will receive his honorable dis- charge and return home. He is bringing back many fine qualities of body and mind that he has acquired or developed in the military service. The Army has done everything it could to make him fine, strong, self reliant, yet self controlled. It returns him to you a better man. You have been an important member of that Great Army of Encouragement and Enthusiasm which has helped him and us all to be better soldiers. You can now be a great help in keep- ing alive those good qualities he is bringing back, in making him as good a citizen as he has been a good soldier. His fare and necessary expenses to his home will be paid by the Government. He will receive all pay due him. He may, if he wishes, wear his uniform for four months from the date of his discharge. The Government will allow him, for the benefit of his family, to keep up his insurance at the very low rate he is now paying.

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August 15, 1923] The Nation 157 His return to civil life will bring new problems for us both to solve. The qualities he is bringing back will help you, as your encouragement helped him while he was away. In your hands and his rests the future of our country. As his commanding officer I am proud of him. He has done his duty well. I and his comrades will bid him goodby with deep regret and wish him every success after he returns home, that spot in every man’s heart which no other can fill. Sincerely yours— Very charming sentiment, very lovely, very fatherly, and all that. But How much truth in it? What, if any, “fine qualities of body and mind” did you acquire? Are you a better man? Since the letter mentions qualities of the body first, we’ll briefly deal with that question. Immediately I’m willing, yes anxious, to grant that, excluding those chaps who were injured in action, 90 per cent of us gained physical rugged- ness and weight; in a number of ways were greatly bene- fited physically. Beyond a doubt we must have been in splen- did condition to have consumed all those vineyards of wine and cellars of cognac. Be that as it may, the regularity and plain substantiality of the food alone soon put and kept in fighting trim many thousands of jaded appetites and wobbly stomachs. True, a gourmand sometimes had reason to com- plain of the quantity as did the epicure of quality and artistry. However, the American army was mighty well fed. Speaking of the many fine qualities of mind we are said to have acquired while in the service, I read that sentence to a former major of the Second Division who before the war was a successful banker and yet is. Here’s what he had to say: “War of a necessity must be brutal, ruthless, destructive, and demoralizing. How can it be possible for it to develop ‘fine qualities’ or return a participant a ‘better man’? Let’s see, that letter doesn’t mention the possibility of a man bringing into the service excellent qualities that surely must have ‘developed’ it. I seem to recall some such men.” This banker, a fine, scldierly appearing man, seemed to invite questions, so I asked him if he would mind telling me in what manner the World War had permanently affected him. “You ask a thoughtful question,” he replied, seeming to weigh each word, “and I grant you a thoughtful answer. Before the war I was moderately successful and I may say that I yet am. But, for one thing, never again can I have that faith and confidence and good fellowship for men—any manner of men—that I had when I entered the service, for during the war I saw many things happen that made me close my eyes and brought a lump to my throat. I don’t mean horrible sights of wounded and torn men; I mean something far worse—the sight of cowardice, of degraded humans, of lustful, ravaging men, of cupidity, of terrified, trembling officers upon whose next command depended the lives of hundreds of splendid, brave fellows. Those are the sights I mean. In Fismes, 1918, I saw an American boy, slightly behind his advancing comrades, in a hand-to-hand struggle with a German who had played possum. The boy finally tripped the German and managed to get a bayonet into him before he could get up. And then I saw what I wish I could forget but have many times seen in my dreams. The expression on that youngster’s face—well, I just stood there, fascinated. No, in an instant a man may change into a beast. And women into worse.” We were trained to be ruthless. Do you remember when you were a recruit how your French or British sergeant- instructor used to conduct bayonet drill? He used to insis rightfully, that when thrusting, your expression be one of hate, fierce determination, brutality—anything to strike terror into the sawdust heart of the swinging dummy. I could have granted my instructor half the expressions he demanded of me I should have immediately deserted and signed up with David W. Griffith. No, like all the others in line I tried to satisfy that sergeant and miserably failed. But the point is—we tricd. That sergeant had seen the ex- pression he wanted us to imitate; we hadn’t, and to my present way of thinking for that very reason at that time we were better men than our instructor. But, oh, how we envied him! During the war life was held cheap, very, very cheap indeed; immorality was flagrant; time-honored moral bar- riers, traditions, instincts, and safeguards being swept away, acis and actions in civilian life that before the war would have raised a storm of indignation were not bothered with; drinking to excess, especially among the young and those unaccustomed to drink, became a passion. All this is true of civilians at home in their own country, those who merely read of war or were touched by those returning from war. Can it be that those who were very much in the the war gained “fine qualities” and returned “‘better men” and women? Opinions are so various that I shall pick a few at random. For instance, the wife of my favorite bootblack was vehe- ment in her praise of the army and the virtues it had in- vested in her Tony. She said: “It’sa make heem fina hoos- band, my Tony. Evera day Tony heesa wash heem teeth, maka scrub hees neck like hell, and washa back hees ears! Yes, the army heesa fina ting.” A former doughboy, one of those still watchfully waiting in the parks, was asked if any of his former comrades had returned to comfort or affluence. “Sure thing,’ he an- swered, “the Old Man’s big auto near run me down in Wai! Street the other day. I could see his nose sticking over his fur collar. And I seen Major Blank blowin’ out of the Commodore yesterday.” Iie was reminded that those were not his “comrades,” so to speak. “I get you,” he chirped. “Sure, I seen tw: "em all dolled up neat and pretty—in uniform. They had re-upped.” Naturally a bartender would have an opinion. One did. “Sure, they’re all nervous and drink,” he replied. Dozens of returned soldiers have been asked truthfully to tell of any way whatsoever in which they had benefited by service during the war, and the very best have answered somewhat like this: ‘Oh, well, I learned discipline and re- spect of authority,” or “I learned to do what I was ordered without kicking,” or “I learned to stand up straight and learn my right from my left hand,” or “I learned that the people were kiddin’ us when they waved all them flags as we climbed aboard transports.” Not one man has given any interesting answer to support the contention of Paragraph 2 of that letter. What did I learn? Well, let’s see. I learned to be a good mixer, not to be surprised at anything, to spot a mean offi- cer at a glance, to quit kicking the iron bound shins of Old Man Fate, to stand like a wooden Indian while the parade ground looked like a merry-go-round, and—oh, lots and lots of other things. But I have not yet been able to learn where the author of that letter got his information for Para- graph 2.

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ee en ee eo a 158 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 Progress (and Poverty) in Porto Rico By ARTHUR WARNER I. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN RETROSPECT Oe ae aes poverty. One finds much of both in Porto Rico in its twenty-fifth year under American sovereignty. In previous articles I have outlined the politi- cal situation and sketched the labor movement.* I shall tell here of public instruction and national health; of agri- cultural and industrial conditions and their bearing on the vital issue of increasing the means of subsistence and thus the standard of living of the poverty-stricken masses. There have been two conflicting currents in our adminis- tration. One, flowing strongly in the early days, assumes that Porto Rico should as soon as possible be made like the United States; that the Spanish language should give way to English, and native customs and ideas be replaced with those of Indianapolis and Galveston. The other current, growing first out of doubt and finally out of resentment on the part of the Porto Ricans, regards the island’s individu- ality as its greatest heritage and proposes to continue its Latin-American culture, modified by that of the United States only through natural evolutionary processes. The two theories follow closely those held in the United States in regard to the foreign population within its borders. Happily, the second theory now seems more likely to prevail. A recrudescence of the first under the influence of Governor Reily roused an antagonism that led to his resignation, and the recently appointed governor, Horace M. Towner, may confidently be expected to pursue another course. His long experience as chairman of the Committee on Insular Affairs of the House of Representatives gives him an advance knowledge of Porto Rico that no other gov- ernor has taken with him, while his known sympathy toward the people should be a great help in obtaining their coopera- tion. Unfortunately the Republican Party has recently given signs of adopting a policy of opposition to him similar to that taken by the Unionists toward Governor Reily. Whatever the blunders of American administration in the past, they have been those of ineptitude and tactless- ness more often than of autocracy and violence. Porto Rico, under civilian government, has not suffered from an autocratic naval regime such as that in the Virgin Islands and Samoa, not to speak of the worse indignities heaped upon Haiti and Santo Domingo. In retrospect some of the blunders of the early days seem amusing, but unfortunately they all went into pro- ducing what finally became a definite (if not an extensive) anti-American sentiment, to remove which a good many years of tact and sanity will be required. For instance, there was the Porto Rican seal, given to the island by Fer- dinand and Isabella. Some of the early administrators decided that the seal was an old-fashioned religious device that ought to be replaced with something modern and snappy, not to say nifty and nobby. So a new seal was devised and officially adopted which horrified both re- specters of tradition and students of heraldry. Fortunately, Mrs. Regis H. Post, whose husband was then governor, realized that a seal without history is like soup without SC * The Pot and the Kettle in Porto Rico, January 31; Porto Rico’s Workers Awake, April 11. salt, and through her intervention the old device was re- stored. Then again some of the early comers from the United States were appalled to find that no Santa Claus, shaking snow out of his beard, came with prancing reindeer and well-filled sleigh to help the children of a tropical island enjoy Christmas. They regarded as little short of impious the slighting of Christmas and the celebration instead of Three Kings’ Day, on the eve of which thoughtful Porto Rican children do not go to sleep until they have first put under their bed a box of grass for the camels bearing the Three Wise Men on their long journey toward the Star of Bethlehem. But Santa Claus has not yet become acclimated to Porto Rico, and it is a sign of progress that at this time nobody seems to be much disturbed over the greater popu- larity of the Three Kings. “We have no race question and no religious issue,” a Porto Rican said to me in commenting on the favorable aspects of the island. The absence of a religious issue is probably due largely to the weakness of all organized religion. The hold of the Roman Catholic church on the people of Porto Rico is markedly less than in Latin-America generally, while Protestantism has made little headway. Although it cannot be said that there is no “color line,” it is so inconspicuous as to cause no friction between the races and apparently no resentment on the part of the Negro. Negroes work side by side with whites in fields, factories, and offices. They patronize the same restaurants and occupy adjoining houses or apartments. A white man can do busi- ness with a Negro and take him to lunch at the leading hotel without exciting remark. Negroes attend official or other public social affairs, and are elected or appointed to all kinds of government positions. The only restriction - seems to be that they are not usually admitted to the white man’s clubs nor invited to his house in a social way. Na- tives of the United States, resident in Porto Rico, have for the most part adapted themselves to this attitude hand- ed down from Spanish days, with its roots in the origin of the people. Three races have gone into the making of the modern Porto Rican: Indians, Spaniards, Negroes. The Carib In- dians were exterminated, or absorbed by marriage with the Spanish conquistadores many years ago. They no longer exist in a pure-blooded state, but the strain is still visible in the features of many Porto Ricans, especially in the mountain districts of the interior. The Negroes were in- troduced by the Spaniards in slave days. There has been a great deal of mixing, in consequence of which complex- ions in Porto Rico vary from charcoal to café au lait. The census returns indicate a gradual absorption of the Negro. The 1910 enumeration showed the inhabitants as 65.5 per cent white, 30 per cent mulatto, and 4.5 per cent black; the 1920 figures were 73 per cent, 23.2 per cent, and 3.8 per cent. But color is largely a matter of self-determination. For census or other purposes one is virtually allowed to choose his own. If anybody not too unmistakably Negro in features and hue wants to set himself up as white, nobody will rake up his ancestry to disprove it.

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August 15, 1923] The Nation 159 II. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLING When the United States took hold of the government of Porto Rico a quarter of a century ago there were 25,000 children in school; this year there were 230,000. The de- velopment in education that this indicates is on the whole the most satisfactory result of American administration in the island. With the extension of the public school has come a reduction of illiteracy. The 1920 census, it is true, classi- fies 55 per cent of the population as illiterate, but bad as this is, it shines by comparison with conditions twenty-five years ago when 85 per cent of the population could neither read nor write. In spite of the remarkable increase in school attendance, education still fails to reach a large proportion of Porto Rico’s young. According to the 1920 census, four out of ten of the children from seven to thirteen years of age are not in school, and in the rural districts the pupils get instruction only through the first four grades. To obtain schooling above that point it is necessary to go into one of the towns, something virtually impossible for most children to do. There is no free transportation such as exists in so many of our rural communities. Not only is money lacking to organize this, but the absence of roads makes it out of the question in most cases anyhow. Many persons jump to the conclusion that after twenty- five years of American schools English must have become the prevailing language of Porto Rico. It has not, and is not likely to do so within the discernible future. Only one in ten persons pretends to speak it at all. Spanish is the historic language of the Porto Rican; he wishes—and should be encouraged—to retain it. To be sure, he should be encouraged to acquire English also. For the most part he apparently wishes to do so, but a certain prejudice has been created against English through attempts to force it unduly in the public schools—attempts that produced an impression, rightly or wrongly, of a desire to subordinate and eventually to eliminate the Spanish language. Originally an effort was made to conduct all classes in the public schools in English. It did not work; whereupon it was arranged to conduct the lower four grades in Span- ish, with English taught as a subject, and the upper grades in English, with Spanish taught as a subject. This would seem to be sensible and has apparently worked fairly well. Under the Reily regime, however, it was proposed to return to the method of conducting the classes in English from the first grade up, a suggestion that produced a great deal of hostility. Under the present governor I believe and hope that the plan will be dropped. The scheme is probably unworkable anyhow at the present time, in view of the fact that a large number of teachers do not know enough English to carry it out. Of 4,000 teachers all but about 150 are natives of Porto Rico and have learned their English in its schools. Their pronuncia- tion is naturally defective and in many instances their powers of expression are most circumscribed. A young man from the United States told me that when he went out to a rural town to take up school work he found that the other teachers could hardly understand a word he said. Possibly it was his fault, but the story gives an idea of the difficulties in the way of all-English instruction. The hope that some day Porto Rico may become virtually a bilingual country is a fine one. Situated midway between North and South America, it might thus become a link between the two continents. But Spanish is as essential to this eventuality as English, and must not be subordinated by any over-eager effort toward Americanization. III. HEALTH oR HOOKWORM It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the Porto Ricans are a sick people. Smallpox and yellow fever were virtually wiped out a few months after American occupa- tion in 1898, but the hookworm, with its enervating and disastrous consequences, lives on. What is thought to be the first discovery of the hookworm in the Western Hemis- phere was made in Porto Rico shortly after the American forces entered. Dr. Bailey K. Ashford, who identified the parasite, also gave many years—under government support —to fighting it. Uncinariasis, or the hookworm disease, is easily and simply cured, but without a change in living habits reinfection occurs speedily. The hookworm para- site, breeding in human filth, enters the body through the bare feet of the natives. It is easy to answer that they should wear shoes; practically they cannot afford to, and in any event it is much more desirable that they should be led to adopt more sanitary habits of living. A vast amount of effort was spent in the early days of American occupation in curing the natives of uncinariasis. In consequence, Dr. Ashford thinks that the intensity of the disease—it was formerly exceedingly virulent—has been much reduced and that the natives as a whole are 50 per cent stronger and more able as workers than they used to be. However this may be, the extent of the disease, due to constant reinfection, seems hardly to have been dimin- ished at all. At least the Department of Health estimates that 90 per cent of the rural population is still infected. A new method has recently been begun which promises more permanent cures. Limited areas are picked out and made the object of a campaign. The Rockefeller Foundation sup- plies physicians to treat the people while the Department of Health undertakes to obtain the general construction of latrines. This effort seems to be on the right lines, but is proceeding pathetically slowly. It is impossible to determine how much the hookworm has had to do with making Porto Ricans undersized and underweight, and how much this may be due to other causes, but it seems fair to attribute most of the blame to the scourge. Certainly until it is eliminated the native cannot be expected to become a first-rate and enduring worker. At the same time, poor food, bad housing, and inadequate medical care make survival difficult in Porto Rico for any but the hardiest individuals, and many of them go through life with diseases and defects which greatly reduce their capacity either for usefulness or enjoyment. The director of school hygiene in San Juan told me that of 3,000 children examined last year 66 per cent were undernourished and 64 per cent had defective teeth; only 15 per cent were normal. The municipalities of Porto Rico generally employ a physi- cian on salary to care for their sick poor, but the demands far exceed the powers of one man even when he devotes him- self sincerely to the work, which is not always the case. Dr. W. F. Lippitt, Commissioner of Health, estimates that half of the population is born and dies without medical attention at any time. Hospital facilities are improving, but are pathetically deficient in funds, in equipment, and in trained personnel. In one hospital of which I heard the nurse in charge gets a salary of only $15 a month. In another the appropriation for feeding a staff of thirteen persons is $2 a day! (To Be Concluded Next Week.) Se

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aS SS Sa —— ———— P| A Hy : } SSS 160 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 ss How ‘‘News’’ Is Made By A NEWSPAPER MAN F you ever passed through the coke country of Pennsyl- | vania, you probably retain an unpleasant impression of what you saw. You remember the rows of ovens stretched along the railroad spurs, the red flames reaching out from the opening in the top of each, the thick, oily smoke curling black off the flames and growing gray as it dissipated itself in the wind. And you remember where the wind carried the smoke— The rows of bleak houses, painted gray or a dull red to show the least effect of contact with the smoke-laden atmos- phere. Square, two-family houses, unadorned, without porches, without shade of any kind, The poisonous air from the close-by ovens the only relief from the sun’s rays in summer. Utterly barren yards. No trees. No grass. No flowers. Outdoor toilets built together in rows of four, to serve the four families of each pair of houses. That much of how coke workers live in the vicinity of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, you may have glimpsed from your train or your automobile in passing through. So you doubt- less were surprised when you read the following first-page article in the New York Times of July 14: COKE WORKER GOING TO DAILY TOIL IN AIRPLANE; SEDAN CARS TAKE COAL MINERS TO THEIR WORK Special to The New York Times UnIonTOWN, Pa., July 14.—That the luxuries of peace in the Fayette Company coke region far outshadow war prosperity was indicated today when Edmund Henriques, a coke worker, returned to his home in Gates from New York with a Sopwith airplane which he will use to carry him “to and from his daily toil.” For several years the flivver, which: had been domesticated among the mining towns of the Connellsville region, has been passé, and high powered sedan cars have traveled the high- ways bearing the miners from their homes to the coal pits and back again when the day’s toil was ended. Henriques startled the “aristocrats of the coke region” when he returned from New York with his Sopwith “camel,” a Brit- ish built airplane with which he is familiar through five years’ service in the Royal Air Forces. He made the flight from New York in his new machine in four and a half hours, and will use it during the summer to attend Sunday baseball games in Chicago and Cleveland. His home is several miles from the coke ovens at Gates, where he is employed, and he has found it annoying to be forced to arise so early in the morning to go to work. Being a high class employee with a good job, and not wishing to lose his place from lateness, he concluded that the safest and fastest method of transportation, the airplane, would just about make his lot a happy one. Acting on this conclusion, he “got himself one,” according to his way of putting it. Henriques has been the owner for some time of a high powered motor car, but tire troubles and other mechanical accidents exhausted his patience. His Sopwith will take him anywhere he wants to go in a few hours and he has no fear of being late at the coke plant in the future. In 1920 Henriques piloted an airplane from New York to Nome, Alaska. Other newspapers carried similar stories. Well, the average reader read and smiled. “The yarn ap- pealed to him as being amusing and without importance. He had taken a certain amount of poison into his mind, and this poison would reveal its effect when next he came to judge of any labor dispute, but at the moment he took no thought of that. The average, hardened newspaperman likewise read the dispatch and smiled. He recognized it as a fake and let it go at that. In just one newspaper Office, apparently, did the signifi- cance of this kind of misinformation register. That was the Washington office of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. From this office a reporter was sent to Uniontown to in- vestigate. Here is his story in the Washington News: FLYING MINER’S STORY NOT TRUE UNIONTOWN WORKERS AMUSED AT FANCIFUL YARN UNIONTOWN, Pa.—That story of the “Coke Worker Going to Daily Task in Airplane; Sedan Cars Take Miners to Their Work,” to quote a headline from the New York Times, and to check up on a dispatch carried on some press wires Saturday, may be a good story; but it is not news. It is not true. The coke oven workers of this town where the coke worker was reported to have been gliding to work in his airplane had a good laugh when told that the rest of the country believed they were taking up aviation as a means of getting to and from their work. Miners and cokers spent a part of yesterday watching Ed- mund Bran Quixano Henriques doing stunts with his new Sopwith plane, it is true. But Henriques is not a “coke worker.” He is an assistant superintendent over a score or so of Frick mines in this neighborhood. Henriques told me in his polished Oxford University English how he learned to fly with the British Royal air forces, how after the war he attracted attention in this country by flying from New York to Alaska, and how he bought his present plane to use it as an advertising medium for a new fire extinguisher which a Masontown concern is putting on the market. i Henriques is a modest, business-like chap, and was highly amused by the weird effort to use his activities to spread the idea that the miners were scattering their excessive wages in the air. On the contrary, miners in this region working in the United States Steel Corporation mines are not very flush now, they having been defeated not long ago in a strike which was broken by the importation of Negroes from the South. This Uniontown incident is a typical example of the levity of the newspaper profession. The Uniontown news- paper has been sympathetic to the employers in a nine- months’ labor fight. The reporters, largely unconsciously no doubt, pick up the publisher’s attitude. An undertaker, the news source in a little town out in the country, tells a reporter on the telephone that Henriques has bought him an airplane. Who’s Henriques; what’s he do? Oh, he works for the coke company. What’s he want with an air- plane? Gonna ride back and forth to his work, I guess. Mutual enjoyment of the jest, and the reporter sits down to write an amusing yarn. Realizes when he has it finished that it would probably sound even better in Pittsburgh. Sends it to the Pittsburgh paper for which he is corre- spondent. The Pittsburgh correspondent probably sends it to the New York Times, and there you are. Contributors to This Issue WILLIAM PICKENS, field secretary of the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Colored People, and the author of several books, is a Negro who won the honor of Phi Beta Kappa at Yale University, from which he was graduated. ALAN RALPH is a journalist of New York City. ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING is making a reputation as a writer of short stories.

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August 15, 1923] The Nation 161 This Is Life A Story in the New Manner By ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING I I E was unawakened. He knew nothing. He was happy. He walked home from the high school along the tranquil suburban streets; no one walked with him, or wished to do so, but he was not yet aware of the pain of this. He was a slight, dark boy with black hair that needed cutting and a suit badly in want of pressing; he had an ordinary, pleasant face and incurious, grave eyes. He was really happy just then; he was going home to study, and he liked to study; he had a sober and practical ambi- tion. He even liked his home and his mother, without marked or vivid complexes. He pushed open the gate and walked up the path; so sunk in his joyous ignorance was he that the small brown house, the dreadful lace curtains, the rocking chairs on the veranda with red tidies on them had for him no significance. He would have called the brown house brown, not knowing it to be liver colored; he did not know that those curtains and red tidies really ex- pressed his mother’s soul, and her revolt, anguish, and suffocation. She did not know this either. A big fly was buzzing about in the darkened parlor; he did not know it as a symbol of decay and corruption; in fact, he killed it without thinking at all. He then ate sordid bread, butter, and jam from a plate which was cracked; it was a thick, white china plate with cracks like hairs from some disgusting animal, and a design of flowers of a nause- ating pink. He didn’t know. ... He didn’t know. ... He saw only a plate. . . . His soul slept... . His mother came in from some club meeting of thwarted, soul-suffocated women; she was a neat, cheerful little body; he imagined her to be benevolent and immeasurably con- soling; he did not yet know how revolting were the signs of approaching age, the flabbiness of her throat, a false toot..." He spread out his books and began to work; he had not the faintest idea of the complete futility of everything; he saw his examinations as rungs of a ladder which would lead him to a certain definite height. _He wanted to be a lawyer. ... “Well, Marcus!” said his mother. those books from the library.” He muttered “Thanks, mother!” and pushed them to one side. It had seemed to him necessary that he should do a little modern fiction. ... Later in the afternoon he began. The scales fell from his eyes. Little by little he saw. ... In six days he had read six books; his soul was awakened and writhed like a worm.... First he saw his environment. He saw now the cracked plate with the revolting pink flowers, the obscenity of the darned tablecloth, the vileness of the vinegar cruet; he saw a cockroach in the kitchen, and he moaned, “O God!” Then he saw his mother. It was too awful to put into words. In fact, he knew he could never again see anything but her flabby throat and her false tooth. He was sick with the pain of the world... . Then he realized the horrible mysteries of adolescence. “T’ve brought you He had never realized that he was adolescent; he had thought he was a boy. The cosmos was poisoned. The last revelation was the worst. He saw that he was poor and unpopular, that he was, indeed, a pariah, outcast, sufferer from every injustice. He smiled bitterly; he hugged this anguish; he went about among his fellow adolescents cold, cynical, always smiling. ... ’ He passed every examination with ferocious brilliancy. Each good mark was a fresh hot iron pressed against his soul. He smiled. . . . He received his diploma; he took it home to the house, which he now knew to be liver colored; another fly was there, but this he did not crush; he watched it; it settled upon the diploma, left there a mark. .. . This symbolized everything in the world....He laughed harshly, violently. . . . There was stewed rhubarb for sup- per, and the gas globe was cracked. . . . His mother ate, with her false tooth, her flabby throat worked. . . . Outside there was the sound of a speeding motor—where was it going ... ? There was a scream of someone probably be- ing murdered in the nearby woods. ... O, God! This was Bren ot He went to bed; a loathsome moon came oozing through the dirty clouds; he lay watching it. ... The stars were like brass pins sticking into the seat of a black horsehair sofa. ... The wind came over the woodland bringing a nauseous scent from all that teeming and savage life out there. . . . Downstairs the diploma lay neglected on the table; a mouse gnawed it... . Adolescence... ! II He loved. He knew this because for a year he had stopped every morning before the window of the barber- shop where she worked as a manicure, and looked at the back of her neck as she bent over the fat hand of a cus- tomer. He had never seen anything but the back of her neck, white, strong, round, with reddish hair growing down her spine in a fiercely vital way. He had dreamed every night of her vital neck. He was now a young man, studying at law school. His mother was older, with two false teeth, and his former home was now the color of diseased liver. He never went there; in his dreams he heard the garden gate swinging in the night wind. It symbolized life. ... There were worms in the garden, rats in the cellar. . . . His mother sat there alone. .. . He wondered what she thought of.... Perhaps it was better not to know... . Age anddecay..... One afternoon at dusk when he was coming home, lost in the thoughts of young manhood, which were less vague but still more hideous than those of adolescence, the door of the barber-shop opened and the manicure girl rushed out. . . - He followed her; she ran into the woods and flung herself down upon the pine needles... . “O God!” she shrieked. “Men. ... The brutes! The brutes! O God!” His love vanished, left a frightful void in his heart. He laughed harshly in the dusk. ... Love... ! He laid a gold coin on the back of her neck as she lay there, and. went away. He heard her shriek again:

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162 The Nation F “OQ God! Men! The brutes. The brutes!” He knew that he could never love again. His last illusion : had perished. He walked henceforth in a world poisoned with the indiscretions of birds, the amours of flamboyant flowers, the erotic mysteries of the stark trees. ... He alone was a man. . . . He repudiated and loathed his man- hood. He wished to be one with the rushing wind. Or the ocean would do. Man... ! III The birth of his eighth child. All the others had died of the most horrible illnesses. He had looked at them in their coffins; some of them had been blue, some scarlet, others mottled. ... He clenched his hands. The waste! The waste! The waste! Why? He thought of his wife. Who was she? A stranger, obese, remote; she hissed when she spoke. ... She put sugar on lettuce. ... Her heels were broad. ... Mar- riage! He looked at himself in the mirror. He was forty-five; he was a multimillionaire, only because this made Life worse for him. He had grown fat, ungainly; there was a i bald patch on his head, about his right eye were horizontal wrinkles to the number of seven; a black hair sprouted from his left nostril. . . . He slept after dinner. . . . This was Success. ... He laughed brutally. He thought of Pan and wood nymphs, of his stenographer, exquisite and aloof as a pond lily. .. . Of his eight children. ... (* Bree fir arm Hemet; IV Only when he lay in the hospital he didn’t know quite what to feel. He had no reliable guide for this interval. He knew about death as the supreme horror in a life made | up of horrors, but he knew also that one doesn’t begin to f | feel all that until the last moment. He was waiting pa- tiently and decently for the last moment, of which he would certainly be warned by the monstrous terror.... He didn’t know that it had come. ... He allowed himself a strange and reprehensible relapse; he remembered himself when he had been merely a boy, not an adolescent, when his home had been brown to him, when a fly was a fly, and he had known nothing. He forgot his mother’s throat and tooth, and thought of her singing in the kitchen. He forgot that his wife had broad heels and put sugar on lettuce, for- got that five million dollars meant the denial of Pan; he reflected with drowsy content that his family would never need worry except about the income tax. The room in the hospital, which in his senses he would have known to be a torture cell, the doctor who must of course be gross and cal- lous, the nurse who must certainly be thwarted and suffer- ing, even the sun that came in, although he knew it nour- ished the fetid life of the jungle, all these things had now something mystically soothing to him. He had no pain, even in his soul; he could remember no other moment like this since his awakening. . He looked up into the doctor’s face. | “Perhaps,” he murmured, “if I hadn’t been told... aboutmy soul . ... I'd have had’... lesssy.” He was too weak to say more. He looked at the blue Sky outside the window. He was unable at the moment to com- ! pare it with anything nauseating; it was blue, only that, and wide and clear. He wondered when the supreme horror ; would begin, and what the doctor and nurse would think of n the shrieks of his tormented soul. He saw his wife’s face; NS I IP Ae OO Be OE Ee et See [ Vol. 117, No. 8032 she didn’t speak, so he couldn’t hear her hiss; she had just then no opportunity to put sugar on lettuce, and her heels were not visible. He thought she was rather nice, and he smiled up at her. She took his hand; it felt like nothing on earth but a kindly human hand; the sun was warm and the sky blue, and he was very comfortable. He closed his eyes and gave a quick, panting little sigh. And that was the end of him. He was cheated out of his supreme horror. .. . The Flower- Vendor By ANN HAMILTON “Here I come With flowers to sell! Flowers from the country, Who wants some? Roses to smell And geranium Or purple pansy, I grew each one On my garden farm With only the sun To keep them warm; Who’ll buy one? Come to your doors And hear me cry Flowers! Flowers! Here’s mountain fern And mignonette Out of the hills With leaves still wet, Now who’ll buy? Here I come, Flowers from the country, Who wants some?” (“Giddup there, horse, Don’t sleep on your feet, Maybe there’s more folk Down the next street.’’) In the Driftway OTORISTS now, speeding up and down the mountains from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Vir- ginia, traverse a road perhaps twenty feet wide, in some places smooth macadam and in others the newer-fashioned concrete. If they think about the road at all it is with a sigh of pleasure, for it is hard to see how it could be better. Along the roadway are milestones about two feet high now, of stone, on which distances are carefully noted; and probably not one motorist in a thousand, includ- ing the Drifter himself—until he was taken with curiosity and found out—knows that these very milestones were once as high as a man and were set up when the road was built, more than a hundred years ago. Started in 1806 and built partly over the old road laid by the British under General Braddock in 1755, the Cumberland Road was finished about ten years later and was the main gateway to the West. Nor was it any of your puny, modern, twenty-foot roads; sixty-two feet wide it was, of good macadam, and all day

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long the stage coaches, drawn by four or six horses, rattled along it, doing their hundred miles a day with ease and assurance. * * * * * OR once the Drifter is quite willing to let someone else tell his story for him. Thomas B. Searight in “The Old Pike” records his reminiscences of the Cumberland Road: As many as twenty-four horse coaches have been counted in line at one time on the road, and large, broad-wheeled wagons, covered with white canvas stretched over bows, laden with merchandise and drawn by six Conestoga horses, were visible all the day long at every point, and many times until late in the evening, besides innumerable caravans of horses, mules, cattle, hogs, and sheep. ... The road was justly renowned for the great number and excellence of its inns and taverns. On the mountain division every mile had its tavern. ... Whiskey was the leading beverage, and it was plentiful and cheap. The price of a drink of whiskey was three cents, except at the stage houses, where by reason of an assumption of aristocracy the price was five cents. The whiskey of that day is said to have been pure, and many persons of unquestioned respectability affirm with much earnestness that it never produced delirium tremens. Which the Drifter, for one, is quite willing to believe. * * * * * HOSE were the days when a hungry traveler could re- gale himself on “wheat-bread and chicken fixings,” which included, strangely enough, broiled ham, sausages, veal chops, and various other dainties, for the sum of twelve and a half cents, with two drinks of the good, pure whiskey thrown in for a “fippenny bit” extra. “It may seem a trifling thing to be written down in serious history,” says Mr. Sea- right apologetically, “that the old taverns of the mountains excelled all others in the matter of serving buckwheat cakes.” * * * * * WN the Drifter’s opinion this is one of the trifles on which empires rise or fall, and his regard for Henry Clay thas advanced on hearing that that worthy praised these ‘mountain cakes with “as much fervor and more en- *thusiasm than he ever exhibited in commending his favorite ‘measure, the Protective Tariff.” Even after a day on this ‘Prince of Roads, the Drifter can imagine that a dish of ‘buckwheat cakes reaching two-thirds of the way to the ceil- sing would be acceptable. * * * * * OR did the travelers have to fear the want of cheer on cold days. Another memorable feature of the mountain taverns was the ‘immense fires kept constantly burning in the old bar rooms dur- ‘ing the old-time winters. In many instances the grates were -seven feet in length, with corresponding width and depth, and would contain an ordinary wagon load of coal. ... The old landlord of the mountains took special pride in keeping up his ‘bar-room fire. He kept a poker from six to eight feet long, and would not allow it to be used by any one but himself. The Drifter lays down his book and sighs; a sixty-foot road, a seven-foot grate, an eight-foot poker, and a three-cent -glass of whiskey! A heroic age indeed, and one that we shall not see again; we may conquer the air and annihilate space, but Plenty’s Falstaffian appearance has been lost for- wever, THE DRIFTER The Nation 163 An Appeal to America IFTEEN distinguished leaders of British thought have united in making the following appeal for American cooperation in European affairs: Many thoughtful men and women in Britain of various or no political attachment, but nourished upon liberal ideas and valuations, are convinced that the very existence of Western civilization is in jeopardy owing to the failure of Europe to make a good recovery from the material and moral injuries of the Great War. Believing that the strongest cooperation of liberal-minded people in all countries is urgently required if this peril is to be averted, they would naturally turn in the first instance to the people of America who have inherited so many of the same traditions and institutions as themselves. Though grave economic issues are involved in this task of safeguarding our common civilization, it is not for cooperation on the economic plane that we here appeal, but rather for a closer common understanding and sympathy upon other asrects of the situation. A CONFESSION OF ERROR Perhaps the best way of approach is by a short general state- ment of the situation from our point of view. For most of us that statement must be a confession of error and disillusion- ment. In the heat of the actual conflict many failed sufficiently to recognize the dangers of a victory so complete that the vic- tors would be able to force upon the vanquished any conditions, political, territorial, economic, or moral, which the interests or passions of any one of them might prompt. Some of us were not even disabused by the doings at Versailles, but still be- lieved and hoped that the lessons of the war would somehow liberate forces of reason and good-will adequate to redress any excesses in the operation of a dictated peace so as to make possible a pacific restoration of Europe. Such beliefs and hopes have now disappeared. The events of the past four years have shown us industrial and financial ruin, wars, famines, revolutions, springing up in quick succession over large tracts of Europe and West Asia from seed sown in the peace treaties and the subsequent policies of the great Western Powers. The professed conditions of a just and rea- sonable settlement in these treaties and policies are now seen to have been poisoned by the atmosphere of hate, greed, jeal- ousy, and suspicion in which they were conceived and adminis- tered. The Sevres Treaty for the settlement of the Near East quickly broke under the early strains of application, and has left a mere mass of political wreckage behind. The follies of the St. Germain Treaty have unfolded themselves in the un- speakable sufferings of Austria and the grave disorders which have occurred in most of the Austro-Hungarian Succession States. THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES But our most intense concern is now centered upon the opera- tions of the Versailles Treaty in the ruthless hands of its chief executant. Experience has shown that the rigorous adminis- tration of that instrument can yield neither of the two chief results for which it was designed: “Reparations” and “Secur- ity.” On the contrary, a sharp contradiction between these two prime purposes is contained in the fabric of the treaty, not in some simple error or inconsistency, but traversing the entire body of the treaty and penetrating its minutest recesses. Every- where runs the contradictory purpose, the crippling of the economic recovery in the supposed interests of French security, and the demand for reparations on such a scale that a complete restoration of Germany’s pre-war resources would not suffice for fulfilment. The occupation of the Ruhr is the supreme instance of the menace to civilization contained in France’s separate action, and her now manifest determination to impose her will on I

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164 The Nation Europe, regardless even of the plainest obligations as laid down in that very treaty to which she constantly appeals in justifica- tion of her conduct. For though all the Allies are responsible for the follies and injuries contained in the Versailles Treaty, it is notorious that every other government whose will is not controlled by French power now holds it to be unworkable and favors either formal and complete revision, or the more face- saving method of a non-enforcement of its bad provisions. France alone still stands by its integrity. France alone insists upon terms of reparation which all economists and financiers in America as in Europe know and have declared to be impossible. EUROPE’S STATE OF MIND Our object in this statement of the situation is not, however, to arraign France, but rather to invite consideration of the state of mind which continues to make European recovery impracticable. This state of mind, though not dominant as in France, is still prevalent in many circles in our own and other Allied countries. But our people as a whole has thrown off the definitely war mentality, with fear and hate as its chief ingredi- ents, and is anxious for a true peace of Europe and a realiza- tion of the ultimate community of material and moral inter- ests between the combatants in the late war. The signatories of this Appeal stand in a word for an inter- national order, not based on a fortuitous harmony of separate national interests, or upon a balance of power, but upon a con- scious regular agreement between the peoples cf the world to proserve the common order of the werld, and to cooperate in other ways for the achievement of objects which lie beyond the limits of merely national endeavor. That is not the cancelment or the abridgment of national patriotism, but its fulfilment. Just as an individual realizes his highest purposes in concert with his fellows, so a nation needs for its national perfection a society of nations. This is no merely pious aspiration or distant ideal. Such effective cooperation is an immediate need. Only by vigorous international cooperation can Europe escape the disaster we have indicated. The waste and ruin into which French policy is dragging Europe are implicit in two mischiev- ous articles of her faith. MISCHIEVOUS FRENCH POLICY The first is her insistence upon administering justice in her own case. The second is the execution of this self-made justice by her national force. The recent exchange of notes between France and Germany is the touchstone. However inadequate the German proposals for reparations and security may be, they are strengthened by the offer to accept an impartial inter- national tribunal as the final court of settlement. If France should continue to refuse this proposal she refuses the only way by which reparations and security can be made compatible. To extricate the mind of France from her fear complex and get her to recognize in international cooperation the only way of salvation, financial and political, is therefore the paramount need of the moment. France cannot extort by force from Ger- many either the money or the lasting security she needs. Only a wide cooperation in which she has faith can give her what she needs. It is to help in the establishment of that faith that we appeal to America. Will America participate, will she take that leading part to which her strength and disinterestedness entitle her? It is often said that she is not prepared after the recent unhappy experience to entangle herself again in the affairs of Europe. Even those Americans who are least intransigent may be disposed to say, “Let Europe first bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, let her cast out the evil spirits which still rule her policy, let her show by her own capacity of peaceful cooperation that she has learned the lesson of the war—and then we will consider your invitation.” As a commentary upon the many ill-considered approaches from Europe in demands for debt-remissions and monetary aids, this may well seem un- answerable. How can America be expected to enter into closer political or economic relations with states which amid all their [ Vol. 117, No. 3082 lamentations about poverty are finding fresh means to furnish armaments upon a more lavish scale than before the war, and are spending on them the money which they constantly profess their inability to repay to their creditors? A SPIRITUAL NEED But what if Europe is unable by her own moral resources to escape from this evil mentality? The efforts and suffering of war seem to have left an aftermath of spiritual lethargy, making Europe incapable of coping successfully, by her unaided moral resources, with the devastating ravages of fear and hate. Our appeal to America for cooperation is based upon a spiritual need. America is able to perform a great service of healing for the world, on the one hand, because of the position of de- tachment and security which she holds; on the other, because of the disinterested motives which brought her into the Great War. Having proved herself a principal agent of victory in the war, she had every right to a determinant voice in securing the fruits of victory through a just and healing peace. De- feated in this work four years ago by the passionate conduct of her war-associates, she still retains the opportunity to rescue Europe from the path of ruin. European nations alone have not the moral power to enforce fundamental changes in the terms of peace and in the practical relations between their governments and peoples. America by her cooperation could perform this immeasurable service to humanity. Her weight could turn the scale in favor of a just and healing policy. Her cooperation, either by adhesion, with or without reserves, to the League of Nations, or by some other method of her own choosing, would enable her to exercise the greatest influence in the ordering of world affairs ever vouchsafed to any coun- try. It is precisely because her action in the war carried so determinant a weight, precisely because her motives were dis- interested that this opportunity to complete the work in which she was interrupted four years ago arises. AMERICA’S OPPORTUNITY The war and the subsequent peace do not admit of abrupt separation. By the same act of free choice and moral impulse under which America entered the war she is involved in the sequel. We cannot believe that history will record that America after throwing her force into the war refused to bring her con- tribution of wisdom to the making of the peace. For the peace is not yet made. We ask America’s help in its making. We believe that America can, in that making, impose terms by which the future of world-history shall bear the clear impress of a just and clearer-sighted view of the needs of a distracted world and of the sane policies which should guide its statecraft. WILLIAM ARCHER (Playwright and Dramatic Critic), ARNOLD BENNETT (Novelist), JOHN DRINKWATER (Author of “Abraham Lincoln” and “Robert E. Lee”), A. G. GARDINER (late Editor, Daily News), PRoFessor L. T. HOBHOUSE (Professor of So- ciology, London University), J. A. HoBson (Economist), J. M. Keynes (Author of “Economic Conse- quences of the Peace’’), EARL LOREBURN (formerly Lord Chancellor), J. RAMSAY MACDONALD (Leader of the Opposi- tion, House of Commons), H. W. MASSINGHAM (late Editor, Nation), GILBERT Murray (Professor and Author), Sir Horace PLUNKETT (founder of the Irish Cooperative Movement), MAUDE ROYDEN (Lecturer), Mrs. PHILIP SNOWDEN (Lecturer), GRAHAM WALLAS (Sociologist and Author). =

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August 15, 1923] Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Another Dastardly Outrage To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The papers report that big employers in Chicago are requiring girls to wear sleeves or lose their jobs. How does this fadge with the Constitution, which says that the right of the people to bare arms shall not be infringed? Ballard Vale, Massachusetts, July 28 STEVEN T. BYINGTON Confiscation Pure and Simple To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: Your article in the issue of August 1 entitled “Are We Americans Thieves?” is certainly severe; but I can not find that its strictures are extravagant. Indeed, it appears to me that a plain statement of the essential facts would bring out even more strongly the immorality and the absurdity of our position. It cannot be questioned that the intent of the act was to take over the property of alien enemies, for the double purpose of conserving it, and of preventing its employment against our country. This appears from the very clear statements made by Secretary Lansing and Assistant Attorney General Warren before the Congressional committees, as also from the discus- sions in the committees and in both Houses of Congress. It should be added that for a time Mr. Palmer, as Alien Prop- erty Custodian, accepted that interpretation of the law. His later statement that in the darkest hour of the war he asked Congress for more power “to hit the Germans where it would hurt” may be dismissed with a sense of gratitude that our in- terests were generally in charge of men who had a more com- prehensive grasp of the factors that go to decide a war of such magnitude. But be that as it may, the fact is that Congress did not, in adopting the amendment, give greater power to the cus- todian for the purposes which he now advances. If that had been the thought, Congress would have declared for the con- fiscation of the property outright. Instead Congress through- out reserved the power ultimately to dispose of the alien prop- erty as it might determine. There is nowhere either direction or suggestion to confiscate or to destroy. The additional power was given solely to enable the custodian to conserve the prop- erty more effectually. The use to which the custodian con- fessedly put his new power was therefore nothing short of abuse of authority. In the discussions it is customary to rest with the case of the Chemical Foundation. In my opinion this case is nothing more than an illustration of the conduct that generally obtained. When going concerns were taken over but were not sold, they were at least subjected to the bur- den of well-paid directorates which were frequently chosen without regard to experience or fitness. Even United States citizens interested in the concerns and qualified by years of experience were removed to make place for favored directors. In other cases, going concerns engaged in ordinary commercial business—prosperous and without the suggestion of embarrass- ment—were sold outright, at sacrifice prices. These things were done many months after the armistice when there was no more occasion for war measures, even of the Palmer type. The fact is that an examination into the character and or- ganization of purchasers affords a very strong intimation that in many of the sales the motive of private profit came de- cidedly into play. The Chemical Foundation litigation is all very well. But The Nation 165 ET a EE BP aaa ae ae ED ERT va so far the Government has spoken only in its own behalf. It has not put the stamp of disapproval upon the injury in- flicted upon private owners. On the contrary, it has by legis- lation protected its officials from any chance to challenge mis- conduct, and it has, in other respects, rendered false the claim that private property has not been confiscated. To retain such property after the war emergency which gave occasion for its taking has passed; to hold such private prop- erty as a pledge for public debt; to withhold income and prin- cipal after the war during years of grinding necessity; to per- mit property to be sold after the war at sacrifice prices; to burden it with heavy expenses for lawyers’ and directors’ fees; and to deny all right or chance for relief for misconduct con- stitutes confiscation pure and simple. From that conclusion neither patriotic declamation nor plausible sophistry, nor the ctherwise competent and courteous administration of the office, will save us in the eyes of other nations. St. Louis, July 30 CHARLES NAGEL Misery in the Virgin Islands To THE EpiTor or THE NATION: sir: We write with the hope that your readers, who, we believe, form a majority of the American people, will realize that down in the Virgin Islands—a new possession of Uncle Sam—the economic conditions may safely be termed deplorable, bordering on total economic destruction, ruinous on account of the application of Federal laws, viz.: quarantine and coastwise laws; the Highteenth Amendment, and the Federal income-tax law. Eventual wholesale starvation threatens the entire population if relief be not forthcoming in the immediate future. Our merchants, in a large majority of cases, are unable to pay their taxes; our children are undernourished and their fathers move about in an undecided manner, desirous of work- ing but unable to procure employment. Life is something miserable in these islands. Surely it is not the thought of this Great American Nation to keep our people in a state of semi- starvation. We believe, and that implicitly, that they know very little of our condition and, therefore, we propose to tell them of it so that they may realize that in these Virgin Islands they have adopted children who need, in these trying days, their special attention so as to improve their deplorable economic condition. We request that your paper make direct inquiries about our statements and, after investigation, give publication to the find- ings, so as to quicken the leaders of this nation’s interest in these islands that “they acquired and then forgot.” We plead for immediate consideration and relief. We are not asking charity, but we certainly do believe that we ought to be given a chance to live as decent a life as we have been accustomed to. PUBLICITY COMMITTEE ROTHSCHILD FRANCIS, Chairman St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, July 23 Presidential Primaries To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: I suggest that the National Constitution be amended by adding the following article: Section 1. The President and Vice-President shall be elected by the people of the several States. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislatures. Section 2. Congress shall have full power to enforce and make this article effective. Under the second clause of this amendment let Congress pass an act for the enforcement of the amendment. It should pro- vide that every man and woman in the nation, of legal age, who is otherwise qualified according to his own State laws, should

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166 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 have the right to enter the primaries in his own State, and per- haps in one additional State, as candidate for the offices of President or Vice-President. It can be seen that many, per- haps hundreds or thousands, might enter the race in particu- lar States, but it can also be seen that out of such large num- bers of candidates only three in any one State could win— that is, a Republican, a Democrat, and probably an Independent. That would, if the winners all remained candidates, make 144 candidates for each of the great offices in the entire nation; but as many would no doubt withdraw and refuse to run, etc., it might be reduced to less than 100 candidates for each office. Let this law also provide that the nation itself, or the sepa- rate States, shall print the names of those candidates across the top of the ballot to be used at the November election, plac- ing the names in columns of about twenty-five each, and having four or five columns of them as might be necessary. The law should provide that at the November election every man and woman going to vote should, when in the booth, select and mark the ballot for his or her first, second, and third choice for President, and the same for Vice-President. This obliging the voters to make a first, second, and third choice, is in case no candidate receives a majority of the entire national vote to prevent a mere plurality candidate from being elected, and to make it compulsory to count second or even third choices un- der the Hare system in case that became necessary in order to determine who was elected to the great offices. The act would provide for the most modern system of count- ing the ballots during the polling day, probably having two sets of election officers, so that the counters would be within thirty minutes of the final count at the close of the polling day. It is believed that within a couple of hours thereafter the result would be known at the several State capitals and at the na- tional capital, and hence if any candidate for President or for Vice-President had an unquestioned majority of the votes of the entire nation, he or she would be known to be elected, and that would end it save for the mere official certification of the result. If no person received such unquestioned majority it might require two or three weeks to do the other counting and calculating, but it could be done and done correctly. The most important provisions of the act of Congress would, of course, be provisions for the payment of at least the cost of the national part of this sort of an election, so that no can- didate would have to be wealthy in order to be a candidate. Costs of all candidates would no doubt be strictly limited. The people of this nation have never directly nominated any candidate for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency, and such a law as this is necessary to make ours a government of the people. Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 11 B. S. RopEy A Statement by Edward A. Rumely To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: “I am not guilty” is the answer of my own conscience to the wartime verdict of the jury [in the case of the New York Evening Mail], now affirmed by the [United States Circuit] Court of Appeals. I have always been ready to carry the re- sponsibility for my acts to their final consequences. Now, I should either accept the sentence or, as was suggested by the court when it was imposed, ask for executive clemency, thereby making an implied acknowledgment of guilt. My manhood will allow me to do neither. The only course open is to petition the higher court. Time has obscured the issues of the case. The jury upheld me as the sole owner of the newspaper stock. I did not conceal my debt but reported it. The issue of the case was whether this debt should have been reported as owing to the Imperial German Government or to Herman Sielcken, who under the terms of the law had become an alien enemy. In 1914 I sent two emissaries—a great business man and a personal friend and director of a bank—to Herman Sielcken, who was interested in open trade relations between Germany and the United States, to invite him to join with me in the purchase of the Mail. The direct testimony of every witness who had any knowledge of the financial transactions, including the statements of Herman Sielcken himself to S. Walter Kauffmann, was that the moneys advanced in the spring of 1915 and afterward were for the account of Herman Sielcken and that I was so informed. By remaining in Germany until November, 1917, his property under the terms of the Alien Property Act was liable to seizure as that of an alien enemy. There was not a particle of direct evidence in the case which took thirty days to try that my statement was not truthful. A mass of suspicion and circumstantial evidence was built up which under the stress of war feeling at the time of my trial resulted in my conviction and which the Court of Appeals could not consider. There was no obstruction of our government, no disloyal act. The entire files of the paper were offered by us in evidence but disregarded by the jury. I challenge anyone to re-read the Mail, both in its editorial policies and news presentation, during the entire period of my ownership. Such an investigation will show it to have been a loyal, sincere, constructive, and worth- while effort in American journalism. New York, August 2 Epwarp A. RUMELY Educational Reaction in Canada To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The tide of reaction has swept over more than Am- herst College. I am a student of Outlook College, Saskatche- wan, where the trustees have just forced the resignation of Professor O. B. Grimley from his position as vice-president and teacher of history and economics. The forces to unseat him started this movement some three years ago and it was an expected thing that he would be forced out this year. In the seven years which Professor Grimley has spent at this institution he has won the admiration and respect of every student who has entered these halls by his love for the cause of suffering humanity and his fearless, uncompromising stand for truth and justice. When the president of the student body in the course of a conversation with one of the trustees told this gentleman of the unanimous protest of the students against Professor Grimley’s dismissal, the reply he received was: “We are not asking for, nor do we care about, the opinions of the students in this matter.” Is this the type of man who should be guiding the destinies of our higher institutions of learning? Macrorie, Saskatchewan, July 16 GEORGE E. BRITNELL Thanks to Natzon Readers To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Truly, indeed, it may be said that the “Nation Family” is a generous hearted one. The response to the letter by Mr.. W. T. Brown, published in the issue of June 20, has been over-. whelming. May I ask those kind persons who sent me valuable books,. which were to be returned after I had read them, to send me. their addresses, stating what books they sent and how many? Some children got into the cabin and destroyed the addresses. and a simple little file I had. Sometime and somewhere I heard the expression “literary- wealth.” It was an abstract statement then; now it is con-- crete. Thank you, every one—The Nation too. HARRY DICKENS Inwood, Shasta County, California, July 20

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August 15, 1923] The Nation 167 Books The Federation of Labor and the State Labor and Politics. By Mollie Ray Carroll. Houghton Mifflin Company. $2. 1. management of the Pennsylvania Railroad, after fight- ing the thing through to the Supreme Court and losing there, deliberately—and quite legally—rejects the decision of the Railroad Labor Board concerning its anti-union scheme of employee representation. The shopmen’s unions, no less deliber- ately and no less legally, reject the board’s wage decision and go on strike. In neither case is such action a defiance of law, but in both cases it is a conscious and deliberate rejection of a governmental agency established for the specific purpose of pre- venting just such one-sided attempts at settlement of contro- versies that involve three-sided interests. What is to be done with such determined efforts at industrial self-assertion and consequent social dominance? Crush them, most persons will reply without hesitation; enforce the law and the supremacy of the state. The reply is too simple. It neglects a basic consideration. All obedience is at bottom voluntary. Society is held together by consent, not by force. Labor, under whatever compulsion, is yet rendered voluntarily. The suprem- acy of law depends fundamentally on our maintaining condi- tions that will secure the free and unenforced cooperation of all the important social groups. To that end those groups must be understood. Of such groups in the American body politic, one of the most important, both in numbers included and in interests repre- sented, is the American Federation of Labor. Mollie Ray Car- roll’s unfortunately named “Labor and Politics” is an admirable statement and explanation of the policies and ideas of that or- ganization during the forty years of its existence. Written chiefly from the convention proceedings and official pronounce- ments of the Federation and the numerous writings of Mr. Gompers, the book is objective, informed, fair, severely and even dryly scientific, yet sympathetic and intelligently critical. Small wonder, perhaps, that it has already called down upon itself vitriolic condemnation in the columns of the American Federa- tionist as another bit of meddling outside interference. Gener- ously recognizing that industrial conservatism was probably political wisdom on the part of the Federation’s leaders in the past, Miss Carroll concludes, after a careful study of the his- tory and program of the organization and of its attitude to- ward the law and politics, that it “must develop constructive in place of its negative policies as regards legislation, research and higher education, and production, and that its progress in the future depends upon positive contributions to the welfare not only of its members, but as well of those outside its ranks, of industry, and of the state.” The Federation was born out of economic conflict. Its con- stituent organizations came into existence to bargain with em- ployers. As a result of long experience, it therefore prefers wherever possible to strive for better wages, hours, and working conditions by the use of its own economic power through col- lective bargaining and the threat of the strike rather than by law. It believes that in general it can get more for its members by direct economic means than by political ones; therefore in its philosophy the relations between employer and employee lie out- side the political realm. As regards special classes of workers, however, unable to bargain successfully—children, women, sea- men, and government employees—the Federation has _ persist- ently urged state action. Further, in reference to problems too broad to be settled by bargaining, it has favored legislation covering all workers, as is shown in the chapter dealing with insurance, safety, occupational disease, unemployment, convict labor, immigration, and Asiatic exclusion. Its interest in gen- eral social legislation, however, has been slight, centering chiefly on matters of direct concern to its members. Its policy has been to get all it could by bargaining, and where bargaining was impossible to use legislation. In the latter field its methods have been lobbying and non-partisan political activity. In the bargaining field, however, the Federation has wished to be free from the law, partly because of a general economic aversion to legal restriction, but perhaps more largely because of “the belief of the trade unionist that the law, as adminis- tered, is generally unduly favorable to the employer.” Instead of trying to secure a positive legal status for the unions and their activities such as was gained by the British organizations through the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, the Federation has thus far followed the negative policy of trying to exempt the unions from the effect of laws. Now all this, in the case of an organization of more than four million men, is a highly important phenomenon. While it con- tains sinister possibilities, it demands explanation rather than simple denunciation. Miss Carroll’s explanation is suggestive rather than exhaustive, and it rests on an unsatisfactorily nar- row body of evidence; yet it may be commended to those who are for the short and easy method of teaching labor once and for all to “know its place.” The propertyless man is still in process of acquiring a legal status even nominally equal to that of the propertied, and in the administration of the law he in- evitably finds himself at disadvantage—what else do laws for the protection of property mean? The inference, though Miss Carroll does not draw it, is clear. The only condition of social stability is the progressive modification of law to correspond with the changing distribution of economic and social power. With full recognition of the achievements of the Federation during the past third of a century, then, the thoughtful reader of these pages can scarcely avoid the conclusion that it has reached the end of the road which it has traveled hitherto. If violent social revolution is to be avoided, and if the Federation is not to wander off into the wilderness of syndicalism or to march along the highroad of political socialism (and both pos- sibilities are anathema to its present leaders), two things appear to be necessary. First, American society must find a place in its economic and legal scheme for labor organizations, not sim- ply for “labor organizations, but—.” Second, the Federation must discover that the world holds other possibilities than sim- ply fighting employers. However essential, from labor’s point of view, that policy may have been, and under certain conditions still may be, like all warfare it is socially barren and destruc- tive. Miss Carroll expresses a sound judgment in concluding that “its contribution toward a comprehensive program for in- creasing efficiency in production” should be the test of Federa- tion policy in the future, and that such a policy “should pre- sumably include an increasingly wider labor membership in the organization, increased production with decreased costs to the consumer, the stabilization of employment and wages, the lessen- ing of industrial warfare, and closer cooperation with those out- side the labor group who can aid in the development of a con- structive program along the lines indicated.” While there are signs of progress, the development of such a program must pre- sumably wait on new leadership; but in the American Federa- tion, as in other political organizations, “few die, and none resign.” HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY War or Civilization War: Its Nature, Cause and Cure. The Macmillan Company. eae is no one like your academic person to express him- self clearly and forcibly when he is profoundly moved. The notion that a classical education is fatal to a simple and strenuous English style would scarcely survive a reading of this book written by a Fellow of King’s and the author of “The Greek View of Life.” Not even the editorials of Arthur Bris- bane are more vigorous or easier to comprehend. We have here, indeed, an example of the most effective kind of pamphleteer- ing. Mr. Dickinson has set before himself the definite object By G. Lowes Dickinson.

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68 The Nation of making his readers, especially young men, feel as acutely as he does the menace of modern war, and of stirring them up to do something about it. Extensive as the literature of the sub- ject already is, he believes the time has come for a fresh treat- ment, for there is one fact that puts out of date all the ordi- nary discussion of war—namely, that, if mankind does not end war, war will end mankind. This has not been true in the past but it is true in the present. Modern science can destroy as easily as it can create, and all that it creates is useless if it creates only to destroy. To men of science themselves Mr. Dickinson addresses one pungent chapter, asking them to con- sider whether they are content to place their expert knowledge, as a mere blind tool, into the hands of such governments as in fact we get and such soldiers as we must always have so long as there are soldiers at all. But it is to the general public that Mr. Dickinson mainly appeals. Non-combatants are not allowed to know what war is really like. During the late war there was stretched, day by day, between them and the truth “the immense curtain of the press,” as irrelevant to what went on behind it as is the curtain of any theater. Mr. Dickinson strips off these veils of humbug. Then he deals faithfully with the various arguments with which people delude themselves; the arguments, for instance, that war is inevitable, and that men are naturally bellicose. Wars are caused, he maintains, not by the passions of ordinary men but by the playing upon these passions by particular men. In a brief but admirable sketch of diplomatic history from 1870 to 1914 he lays bare the real causes of the Great War, and he is equally illuminating and remorseless in his scrutiny of the following peace. (“No war ever fought,” he boldly asserts, “has ever been ended by anything but a base peace.’’) If civilization is to be saved, the author contends, we must learn to change altogether our traditional view of our relation to other states and other peoples. The dominant motive of war is always the economic cupidity of certain interests which sooner or later can produce a situation in which it is possible to appeal to the blind patriotism of the ordinary man. The weak point of the book is perhaps its failure to suggest any practical means by which the power of this appeal may be destroyed. Should not the next step in peace propaganda be an honest and courageous attempt—it would need to be cour- ageous because of the tremendous forces, secular and religious, that would at once be arrayed in opposition—to face the ques- tion whether or not patriotism is, after all, a virtue? Mr. Dickinson urges in particular that the theory commonly called “sovereignty” should be abandoned or at any rate modified. But the root of the evil lies far deeper, in a popular sentiment that urgently needs exposure to the light of common sense and Christian doctrine. HERBERT W. HORWILL Cocky Cocteau Le Grand Ecart. Paris: Librairie Stock. A T last Jean Cocteau has furnished the world with a weapon 4% against himself. His poetry—well, one must always be wary of new poetic forces, lest he comment condescendingly upon genius. His criticism—there is not much of it, and somehow through the scintillation of its many facets we hesitate to name it diamond or paste. His novel is a volume about which the fist can close, so as to thump it hard on the head of him who has so mocked his fellow-writers. , But where is the novel? The hero, if Jacques can support the title, is tossed gently from one sex adventure to another, while the reader has always a sense that the real story is still to come. The episode of the journalist who threatens to com- mit suicide in Venice, and does, would adorn the pages of Lea- cock’s “Nonsense Novels”; the relations of the menage Berlin -are pictured with the subtlety of Lawrence and the brilliance of Chesterton; in the lighter moments there is an underdepth, By Jean Cocteau. [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 in the serious sections, a surface sparkle; one would have difficulty in concentrating a characterization of Cocteau’s style. Yet certain of Cocteau’s ways are recognizable here. His manner of interjecting anecdotes that, Asopwise, point the thought of the moment, the ease with which he develops un- usual figures, still prevail. “His mother thought she was bring- ing back the same person. ... In fact, he left a dry skin floating on the Grand Canal, one of those skins that adders hang upon eglantines, light as foam, open at the mouth and at the eyes.”” And later, after love had changed him again: “At the circus, an imprudent mother let her child act as subject for a conjurer. He was put in a coffin. The coffin was opened; it was empty. The coffin was closed. It was opened; the child reappeared and returned to its place. Only, it was not the same child. No one suspected it.” More welcome are the casual drippings of philosophy, the epigrams that run so readily from Cocteau’s pen. “To love and to be loved: there is the ideal. Provided, of course, that it’s the same person.” “Her beauty hangs over ugliness, as the acrobat over death.” “Germaine did not hesitate to break a heart. She agreed with maidservants that a precious object, broken, glues itself again.” “He killed a little of the time that was killing so much of him.” Smart-Aleck Cocteau smirks in: “He was named Nestor Osiris, like a box of cigarettes.” But he draws us back to recognize that somehow, out of un- reality and dazzling fancies, he has embodied a real Jacques. Jacques, who wants to become that which he desires; until he falls in love, and wants to possess—himself in the beloved. Through her infidelity he loses himself, experiences all the sensations of suicide, but revives to come to the decision that “to live on earth he must keep in style, and hearts are no longer being carried.” JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY Pseudo-Classic The Literary Discipline. By John Erskine. Duffield and Com- pany. $1.50. ' ISTURBED by the vagaries of modern literature, Mr. Erskine bases his criticism on a theory of limits—the limits of decency, the limits of naturalism, and the limits of originality. His doctrine, he says, is based upon the belief “that language “as a medium of expression has certain limits which the writer must respect, and that the psychology of his audience limits him also in what he may say, if he would gain a wide hearing and keep it.” Now. something of the sort may possibly be true. The ab- solute and unchangeable may exist in manners, morals, science, and art. It may be said, however, not at all in cheap personal mockery but as the enunciation of a critical doctrine, that if rules exist in the realm of literature Mr. Erskine does not know what they are. The story of art, like the story of morals and the story of science, is the story of the breakers of tablets, and the business of a writer is not to be constantly afraid of overstepping the limits set by his material. Instead he should do all in his power to break through them, for every really important piece of writing is, in some sense, a crashing through the limits of what it was formerly believed possible to make words say and readers understand. The old saying that in art rules exist only to be broken holds true for content as well as for form, and what Mr. Erskine believes to be the eternal rules of propriety, for instance, are no more eternal than the rule of the three unities. Before a great writer who felt the need of breaking them he would be as impotent and as absurd as Thomas Rymer before Shakespeare. What passes with the school of conservative critics for the spirit of classicism is in reality only a sort of timidity. They are so thoroughly habituated to a certain kind of literature and a certain code of manners and morals that they feel uncom- fortable at the thought that there may be others. They would rather say to literature and society “Thus far shalt thou go

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August 15, 1923] and no further” than to expose themselves to the discomfort inherent in making a readjustment. In the interest of their own peace of mind they would set limits upon the human spirit, and shutting themselves up within the confines of one sort of literature and one group of social conventions they would say to the world “This is all.” In such an atmosphere, Alexan- drian rather than classic, men may grow learned and polished and sterile, but creative spirits will know that there is some- thing to be said, felt, and done beyond the limits of safe think- ing, good manners, and respectable behavior. As a reproach to the spirit and aims of modern literature Mr. Erskine does not hesitate to quote once more “saw life steadily and saw it whole.” Platitude though the phrase is, it is false. Not Sophocles and not Mr. Erskine’s revered Aristotle saw life whole, for such a vision is reserved alone for whatever gods may be. Of their knowledge and their experience, Sopho- cles and Aristotle made a synthesis more satisfactory, perhaps, than any which we moderns have achieved, but their task was simpler. Since their day the world has learned much and suf- fered much, penetrated many secrets, seen strange visions, and tossed through strange nightmares. Men of the younger times with their calm, complete art were happier perhaps than we, but we cannot return to them. And if we are to attain for ourselves a synthesis and a serenity we must win our own, not return to theirs. Romanticism is to art what experiment is to science—a gathering of the material from which synthesis is made. The over-particularity, the contemporaneity, the bar- barous novelty which Mr. Erskine perceives in contemporary literature are there, but they must be there as the waste pro- ducts of our experiment and we must suffer them. For us there is but one alternative—to experiment or to abandon all hope of putting the modern soul into literature and to rest con- tent in the platitudes of a pseudo-classicism. J. W. KrutTcu Nature and Human Nature The Desert Horizon. By E. L. Grant Watson. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. HE majority of readers, of metropolitan readers at any rate, do not care for stories in which nature plays a large part. Nature as a background for adventure is quite popular, but as an overpowering atmosphere it is distinctly out of favor with the fiction-devouring public. This may be due to any one, or to all, of a number of reasons. Most of us are out of touch with primitive nature; we cannot feel her moods as readily as the emotions of human beings, which are always in some way asso- ciated with our own; and because of this alienation it is more difficult for the writer to communicate the moods of nature. An analysis of them must necessarily be vague and leave much to the imagination. Descriptive passages cannot be read passively; they must be recreated and amplified to be felt. If the reader has seen nothing to parallel the environment sketched, a realistic description of it is likely to irritate him by exploiting what seem to be fantastic phenomena. Nevertheless a large proportion of great writers have drawn the strength and flavor of their work from the free, the unex- plored or hidden, places of the earth. Of these writers E. L. Grant Watson is one. He does not rank with Hardy and Con- rad; he is, relatively, a beginner. It is doubtful whether he will be able to attain their might and inclusiveness. Compared to their books, “The Desert Horizon” is a miniature: no great human action moves in its pages, which are filled by the Austra- lian bush with an undivided majesty that cannot be regretted. The story is slight. Martin O’Brien, the boy-hero, remains in the memory as a silent speck on the desert, watching it with wondering, awed eyes as he slowly becomes a part of its imper- sonal being. The characters and incidents are sparse, gripped in the relentless domination of the bush. Martin’s marriage, which is not likely tr’ be an unperturbed one, troubles the reader The Nation as an intrusion. But by his own submission to the spell of the desert he is persuaded that any conflict of loves in Martin will be a temporary one. Every personal passion must yield to that insatiable desire, that worship, for the bush. There is in this book a spirit different from that felt in finely done stories of the sea or mountains. In those there is com- monly a restlessness, an urge, on the part of the human being to be one with a greater turbulence expressed in nature; even the static mountains have some quality that arouses chaos in the individual at the same time it gives him serenity. Martin has a dark, inarticulate communion with the inscrutable character of the country about him, and the bush, like the sea and the mountains, is fierce and sinister, but in it these elements are feline, withdrawn like the claws of a cat beneath gentle paws. The impression created in the reader is one of peacefulness and light. It is as if the all-pervading sunlight annihilated strife and engendered single-mindedness. Martin’s love for the bush is chaste and content. It is enough for him that he can live there—all else he leaves to the imperceptible workings of un- known forces. The bright light and soft hues of an arid land are in Willa Cather’s earlier books, but they do not inform the consciousness of her characters as they do Martin’s. Mr. Wat- son conveys the purity and indomitableness of Martin’s love for the bush flawlessly in his brittle, pellucid sentences. His book is like a beautiful vase blown from the sands of the desert and tinted with its colors. Eva GOLDBECK The Evolution of Jahweh The Literature of the Old Testament. Columbia University Press. $5. HIS is one of the admirable “Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies,” edited by Professor James T. Shotwell. The first four volumes treated of Hellenic civilization, of Bishop Gregory’s history of the Franks, of the popes, and of the study of history in general. The present book is an attractive outline of the whole Old Testament, giving the various portions in their probable approximate chronology, from the song of the terrible Lamech, with its bloodthirsty “If Cain takes vengeance seven- fold, Lamech will truly seven and seventy fold!” to the last part of Zechariah (the Third or Trito-Zechariah). Passing from such ancient lyric outbursts as the Red Sea song of deliverance, the pledge of eternal warfare against the Amalekites, the Ark formulae, the taunt song against the Amorites, and the splendid paean of Deborah, it turns to the well-told tale of the founding of the kingdom, and the early laws. Next the author takes up the two chief accounts of the history of man intertwined in the Old Testament, the Yahwist from the southern tribes, and the Elohist from the northern. As was to have been expected, the Judean, with its worship of Jah, inclines toward monotheism, while the Elohist, sacred to the deity known as El or its plural form Elohim, was polytheistic and, indeed, polydemonistic. Then the prophets, led by Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, commence their process of expanding the conception of the incubus divinity to the all-creator, the all-father, to be incarnated in a man of sorrows, despised and rejected of men, who shall bring peace to the nations. There is a capable treatment of the poetic and wisdom books, of the smug Deuteronomist, of the post-exilic his- torians and prophets., The whole is amply garnished with quo- tations, and evidences a sound assimilation of the surface results of critical study of Old Testament sources. It closes with a broad implication that the whole is a part of the revelation of the living God. If all that was needed were a corrective blue-print of the externals of this polyandrous literature, this volume would earn wholehearted commendation. But modern man is interested at least as much in interpretation as in mere picturing: a topo- graphical map of the Panama region would gain immensely if it were explained that the winding clove in the hills was a great canal, marrying the commerce of two weighted seas. There By Julius A. Bewer.

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170 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3082 a ansinnnEnnnnnnIansinnnnnietann===——1—--oaoueis heen een a are certain well-buttressed authorities in interpretation who throw light upon the very chronology of Old Testament material: for instance, such an investigator as Lewis Wallis, in his “Sociology of the Bible.” His amazing contribution, that the major portions of the earlier covenant represent an economic conflict between the adopted city culture of the Canaanites and the primitive sheep-raising ideal and ethic of the nomad He- brews—a conflict which blesses the products of the shepherd and curses those of the agriculturist; and the most tenable hypothesis so far to explain such an isolated key-story as the Cain-Abel narrative—this earns a directing part in all Biblical criticism and exposition; and the author is apparently unaware of it. Budde, Wellhausen, and the older authorities are cited; but from Budde a hint of the notable exotic origin of Jahweh worship, so felicitously amplified by Wallis, might have been gathered. The latter’s theory is hinted at, although he is ap- parently not listed in the Bibliography. To locate the Garden of Eden myth as an agricultural product, as the author does, perhaps misses its entire point, namely, the impropriety of eating the fruits of the orchard, which is a form of agriculture; which might establish this, too, as a story with a shepherd moral concealed. Minor matters of over-enthusiasm, such as a pox of exclamation points, and loose superlatives of the type of “Jona- than, than whom no braver warrior ever lived,” indicate a type of mind which, either innately or purposely, tends toward a factitious popularity at the expense of scientific correctness. The volume is an admirable one; but a better one should at some future time be written. CLEMENT WOOD Hungary Misinterpreted An Outlaw’s Diary: Revolution. By Cecile Tormay. With a Foreword by the Duke of Northumberland. Robert M. Mc- Bride & Company. $3. i eg book of Miss Cecile Tormay is a so-called “historical diary,” describing the political events which took place in Hungary during the regime of Count Michael Karolyi, from October 31, 1918, to March 21, 1919, when the Hungarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed. Miss Tormay makes use of a kind of pious exorcism when she declares in the preface of her book that “here is no attempt to write the history of the revolution nor is this the diary of a witness of political events.” As a matter of fact, nothing upholds this assertion in the main nar- rative of the book, which is as peremptory and sententious in presenting its information as if the authoress had stood directly behind the governmental machine. Not for a moment is there any doubt in the mind of Miss Tormay as to the motives of the occurrences reported. She traces them back to a fiendish conspiracy of the Jewish race and of some “bad Hungarians” whose only desire it was to have their native country invaded and dismembered by the enemy. For Miss Tormay the regime of Count Karolyi was the empire of the evil spirit; Karolyi and his associates the reincarnations of the devil. There is no lack of falsifications in Miss Tormay’s book. When she thinks that her point would be more emphasized by showing the paramount Jewish influ- ence in the Hungarian revolution she makes two members of Karolyi’s cabinet, Professor Jaszi and Alexander Garami, both of undisputed Gentile origin, the “representatives of their Jew- ish race.” There is something elementally tempestuous in the hatred Miss Tormay feels toward everybody whom she suspects of having any connection with the regime of Count Karolyi or with progressivism in general. She hurls a legion of unjusti- fiable accusations at some of the most venerable participants in the shaping of contemporary Hungarian history. When characterizing Father Hock, the idol of the Hungarian nation, she describes him as a “guilty priest, a guilty Hungarian who betrayed his God and his country.” She forgets to mention that but for Father Hock the Hungarian revolution of 1918 would not be called the “bloodless revolution.” One could go over nearly every page of the book pointing out malicious invention and interpretation of events to which Miss Tormay must plead guilty. If the second part of the diary containing the account of the Hungarian Commune, which the publishers promise to bring out very shortly, is written in the same partisan spirit and with the same inaccuracy of facts and statement as the present vol- ume, the world will not get much nearer to an understanding of that mysterious phenomenon. EMIL LENGYEL A Courteous and Conciliatory Diplomat Under Four Administrations. From Cleveland to Taft. Recol- lections of Oscar S. Straus. Houghton Mifflin Company. $4. i is an exceptionally active life the larger part of whose story, happily not yet finished, Mr. Straus tells in this simply written volume. Rarely has it happened that an American pub- lic man, even when his views on national political questions were not very pronounced, has been appointed to political offices under presidents as different as Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Mr. Taft. Most of the men who served these executives have been perforce content to receive preferment at the hands of one or other of them and then to be discarded, but Mr. Straus has served them all. Appointed Minister to Turkey by Cleveland in 1887, he was again appointed to the same post by McKinley in 1898. In 1902 Roosevelt made him a member of the permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and in 1909 he returned to Turkey as ambassador under Mr. Taft. A fifth administration is in fact to be added to the list, for in 1919 Mr. Straus served as a member of the second industrial conference called by Mr. Wilson. The secret of Mr. Straus’s success under circumstances so diverse lies very largely in his possession of personal qualities all too uncommon in American public life. He is uniformly courteous and conciliatory, sympathetic and considerate. He is never in a hurry to rush in where trouble reigns, and he has refrained from speaking or acting until he has looked the matter up and decided upon what he wanted to say. Clearly a born diplomat, he appears to have looked upon diplomacy rather as an instrument for settling controversies by making the way of international relations plain than as a forum for proclaiming an aggressive Americanism or arguing to the last point of form and technicality every national pretension. This is not to say that the obligations of diplomacy or administrative office sat lightly upon him or that the interests intrusted to him were neglected or compromised. The recollections which he has writ- ten down contain abundant evidence of his vigor and persistence when occasion required, and of the success with which he won from the Sultan, the only head of a foreign government with whom he had officially to deal, concessions which the Sultan appeared at first loath to grant. Only, in his hands, quiet in- sistence was a better tool than bluster or threats. It did not fall to Mr. Straus, in the diplomatic portion of his eareer, to deal with any international question of the first im- portance, and his administration of the Department of Commerce and Labor, while characterized by useful achievements in policy and procedure, was without striking features. What he has to say about the activities of the Paris commission of the League to Enforce Peace, at the peace conference, adds something to our knowledge of what went on in Paris at that time. For most readers of the volume, however, we fancy that the greater in- terest will be found in the record of personal incidents and the allusions to notable people. There are informing glimpses of court formalities and social life at Constantinople, and sugges- tive comments on the status of Jews in various parts of Europe and on the activities of Christian missionaries in the Near East. That Mr. Straus should have been uniformly acceptable to the

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August 15, 1923] The Nation 171 missionary interests in spite of the divergence of faith is one of his most gratifying claims to remembrance. Mr. Straus’s personal contacts have been wide. His “Origin of the Republican Form of Government,” published in 1885, early attracted favorable notice abroad, and he was later one of the principal promoters of the American Society of International Law. He was on terms of special intimacy with Cleveland and Roosevelt, and the little-known history of cabinet meetings is enriched by a number of anecdotes which he records. It was characteristic of his general political independence, and perhaps also of his sense of personal loyalty, that he should have gone with Roosevelt into the Progressive movement, and accepted the nomination for governor which the New York convention of the party thrust upon him, without in either case cherishing any illusions as to the outcome of the revolt. WItt1AM MacDOoNALD The Problem of Style The Problem of Style. By J. Middleton Murry. Oxford Uni- versity Press. $2.20. HIS is a collection of six lectures delivered in the school of English literature at Oxford, wherein Mr. Murry brings his grain of enlightenment to the consideration of the problem of style with some little clarification and a great deal of entangle- ment. All those who are somewhat of obscurantists when it comes to the conundrum of theorizing about style will find in these papers adequate support of the belief that the most which can be given us is the individual’s conception, and none too lucid at that. Mr. Murry discards Buffon for Stendhal. “Le style, c’est VYhomme méme” is altogether too naive for this sophisticated age. “Le style, c’est ajouter 4 une pensée donnée toutes les circonstances propres 4 produire tout l’effet que doit produire cette pensée” is much better, though that little word “ought” is a puzzler and leads to no end of speculation. It leads to six lectures. Yet Mr. Murry takes an extremely common sense attitude toward the whole matter. He forbears to soar in those faery realms of superior criticism,, so dear to the hearts of all Frenchmen, dwells rather on the consideration of the hard fact that the writer has something to communicate to his reader and that which best permits communication is the best style. He throws out Arnold’s proposition that all great writing is primarily a “criticism of life’ as dangerous on the strength of the very passages which Arnold quoted to support his theory. He believes that style is rather a “combination of the maximum of personality with the maximum of impersonality; on the one hand, it is a concentration of peculiar and personal emotion, on the other it is a complete projection of this personal emotion into the created thing.” And if this may seem somewhat para- doxical, he repeats later that “to be impersonal is the best way of achieving personality, and it gives him [the writer] far less chance of deceiving himself.” The lecture on Poetry and Prose is masterly and clears up a lot of fol-de-rol about the inviolable wall dividing poetry and prose. Mr. Murry points out that the forms are interchangeable and are more often accepted than chosen, depending upon the taste of the age. Shakespeare, he believes, would have found himself entirely at home in the novel had be lived in the nine- teenth century. It follows that a lesser artist who cannot so easily fit himself into the idiom of his period must necessarily be somewhat cramped, but Mr. Murry does not give much thought to the proposition. He is inclined to dismiss the minors with too summary a wave of the hand. I wonder how many will agree with Mr. Murry’s easy as- sumption that “Shakespeare was, after all, the greatest writer the human race has produced,” or that Keats was a “poet of a higher order than Shelley.” For this latter statement he builds upon figments of promise only, what Keats wanted to do as revealed in his letters, the objectivity he should have liked to reach. After all, we actually have the last act of “Prometheus Unbound,” the great chorus of “Hellas,” which are without doubt two of the grandest contributions to the lyric poetry of all time. The English Bible and the Grand Style is a pretty keen piece of analysis and Mr. Murry brings a good deal of light to bear upon the advice so often given to aspiring young scribblers to study the Bible if they would learn to write beautifully. He believes that no little part of the effect produced by the Bible is due to the original religious predisposition of the reader which lends more significance to passages than can truly be ascribed to the literary style. Far better to play the sedulous ape to Shakespeare, he thinks. But, it seems to me, there is a simplicity, a directness stripped of elaborate detail and meta- phor about the Old Testament language that permits one far more easily to study the tremendous force of words than the complex combinations welded together on the anvil of Shakes- peare’s genius. Shakespeare brought up rich handfuls of pure gold from the highways and the market-places and knew how to use his lavish treasures splendidly, but the husbandry of the inevitable word is nowhere better shown than in the Old Testa- ment. EDWIN SEAVER An Argentinian Knight-Errant Mi Campana hispano-americana. By Manuel Ugarte. lona. Editorial Cervantes. 1922. SIDE from Mexico, the reviewer has no first-hand knowl- edge of political and social conditions in Latin America; but as a student of Latin-American literature he has become convinced that it is no random accident, nor yet an evidence of incurable Latin-American jealousy and perversity, that literary men to the south of us are almost invariably bitter critics of North American “imperialism.” The Latin is an enthusiast, a hothead, a lover of swelling invective, if you wish; but why do his verbal brickbats so generally fly in our direction rather than at the Spain of the conquistadores, the France of Louis Napoleon and Maximilian, the England of the Falklands, British Guiana, and Belize? The Lord endowed not only Anglo-Saxons, but also Spaniards and Indians, with reasoning powers; and if so many of the best minds of Spanish America dislike and fear us, it must be that in our Latin-American contacts we have at least sometimes been unkind and unfair. In the bulk of their writing, the dislike and fear show them- selves in vague rhetoric and random abuse. No race, perhaps, is quite so generally addicted as the Spanish Americans to the weakness of petitio principii; which, it is true, is only a phase of the impulsiveness and improvidence which have made it so easy for enterprising Yankees to dictate their policies and appropriate their customs receipts. But there are heartening exceptions. Manuel Ugarte, poet, essayist, novelist, is forceful, sober, responsible. He always writes well, and although he rises occasionally to flights of Latin eloquence, he is never ecstatic and never abusive. He is always careful, and always the gen- tleman. He would no doubt have deemed it both poor taste and poor judgment to manifest his disapproval of the Northern tyrant by undertaking, as did his fellow-patriot Blanco-Fom- bona of Venezuela, to chastise a New York policeman. He maintains that he is not anti-Yankee, but only pro-Hispanic. He is, however, courageous. In Barcelona and Cadiz he assures his audiences that the Spanish-American colonies threw off the yoke, not of Spain, but of a certain king’s absolutism. In Paris he almost regrets that Maximilian did not hold Mexico (as a check to Yankee imperialism), and quite regrets the failure of the French canal enterprise, for a similar reason. But at Co- lumbia University he repeats frankly in the second person what he told Spaniards and Frenchmen in the third, with the qualifi- Barce-

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ly 172 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3032 ee cation, to which most of us can subscribe, that American aggres- sions in the Latin countries are not the work of Americans in general, but of certain shrewd interests. It would seem that nothing could be less like the tactics of these “interests” than the generous Quixotism of the Buenos Aires journalist. On his own responsibility, it appears, and without financial backing, he covered three continents and deliv- ered a hundred addresses, describing a circle, from Barcelona in May, 1910, to Cadiz in January, 1920, and including Paris,: New York, Mexico City, and the leading capitals of Central and South America, pleading with Spaniards and French for moral support, with North Americans for fairness and justice, with Latin Americans for union, industry, caution, firmness. He was everywhere given at least a respectful hearing, except in Nicaragua, where the American marines ordered him out of the country—one of those tactical blunders which have hurt the American cause so often, by apparently establishing the shady nature of American activities. These addresses and their writ- ten record are a generous effort which can certainly do only good to Americans on both sides of the Rio Grande. Roy TEMPLE HOUSE Books in Brief The Reds Bring Reaction. By W. J. Ghent. Princeton Univer- sity Press. $1.50. Ghent is an unhappy socialist who believes that all other socialists are out of step. ‘The cause of Socialism is still my cause,” he says, after belaboring all socialists but himself in the columns of the Morgan-aided Weekly Review and Indepen- dent in essays here reprinted. The I.W.W., the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Communists, the radicals, the liberals, everybody has failed to agree with Ghent. But for these, Ghent seems to feel, he might have reformed America. As it is he concludes that “capitalism promotes political democ- racy” and constitutes satisfactory modus vivendi. Things Near and Far. By Arthur Machen. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. The spiritual autobiography of a Grub Street mystic. Beau- tifully written in the style now familiar to American readers. Giving and Receiving. By E. V. Lucas. Company. $2. Mr. Lucas devotes an essay on The Five Chief Cities of Italy to a description of the national passion for Lotto. Such is the method of one of the few men who is really master of the much- abused art of the familiar essay. Conquistador. By Katharine Fullerton Gerould. Charles Scrib- ner’s Sons. $1.50. As good a romance of adventure as is likely to be written by a sheltered lady with considerable technical adroitness. Art Cezanne AUL CEZANNE, the artist about whom the world of art is so much exercised these days, came from an Italian family of poor folk which had emigrated to France in the eighteenth century, to seek its fortune. His father was of Aix-en-Provence, where Paul also was born, and rose in time to be one of the leading and richest citizens of that little town. He objected strongly and shrewdly to his son’s interest in draw- ing and painting, for he saw no material advantages in such pursuits. But his wife was not of his peasant breed, and Elizabeth Aubert with her Creole temperament wanted her boy to be another Veronese or Rubens, for these also were named Paul. There was much a to-do in the Cézanne home because of this difference between the parents, but in the end George H. Doran the mother had her way. She had an egocentric nature, and her son was blessed or cursed with a like disposition. It thus hap- pened that the boy who had been an enigma to his father be- came, in after years, an enigma to the critics. But Paul Cézanne, the boy apprentice to art, no more troubled himself about his father’s opinion than did Cézanne the master artist about his critics’ opinions. He went his way and had that way all to himself. M. Ambroise Vollard, the well-known connoisseur and Cé- zanne enthusiast, and the author of this sketch of Cézanne’s life and art* tells us of the artist’s school days and his friend- ship with Zola, who was also of Aix, and with whom Cézanne formed a close friendship which endured until the vanity of the man of letters was no longer bearable to the simple and honest nature of the painter. M. Vollard reveals the diffi- culties which Cézanne experienced in his efforts to obtain an entry into the Salon, and tells of his struggles against an almost concerted refusal of officialdom to put the stamp of its approval on his work. These facts have been history for years, but their recital now affords food for thought when we contrast the ridicule which was then heaped on Cézanne with the praise which his work now receives. There must be a strange power in this man’s genius which has so moved the world to extremes of depreciation at one time and appreciation at another. M. Vollard has nothing to say on this matter. He is not a critic of art, but a dealer in works of art. His method of valuation is quantitative and not qualitative, so that his Life and Art of Cézanne is of the order of “ana” rather than of biography or criticism. Yet his brochure has an interest of its own which justifies its existence. It tells a story of devotion on the part of M. Vollard which is strangely at variance with the customs and habits of the more modern adventurers in the business of art, and reveals an insight on his part which is almost uncanny. When a pic- ture dealer has the courage which M. Vollard evinced in hold- ing the exhibition of Cézanne’s work in his galleries on the rue Lafayette, he deserves all the success and all praise. For that courage was charged with an enthusiasm which is akin to love. He championed this despised and rejected of men in the spirit of the religious fanatic, and risked his all on his faith. Despite the jeers and sneers of his contemporaries, M. Vollard has lived to see his faith justified and to reap the golden harvest which his shrewdness or his understanding or his intuition urged him to anticipate. In 1895 people came to Vollard’s windows to look at the “nightmares of atrocities in art” displayed there, as they would have gone to a circus or a raree-show. The honest vision of the painter of the pictures exhibited on the rue Lafayette was met by an equally honest vision of the crowd, and the crowd roared with mocking laughter. Even Huysmans shrieked that Cézanne was “an artist with diseased retinae who, exasperated by a faulty vision, has discovered the prodromes of a new art.” In 1904 it was no better. The critics said that Cézanne chose “to daub paint on a canvas and spread it around with a comb or a toothbrush”; that he didn’t know the first principles of art; that his work “might have been produced by a Zulu islander’; that his “daubed portraits bear witness to a fatal impotence”; that the room in which his pictures were hung was a chamber of horrors. But in 1912 he was “magnificent mon- ster,” and in 1923 people fought each other in the auction rooms to possess one of his paintings. Such is the way of the world of art, and those dealers who, like M. Vollard, have the foresight and the enthusiasm and the patience and who live long enough are to be pardoned if they relieve themselves of their surcharged vanity in being also among the prophets. This is the best that can be said of this book which as literature is negligible, and as a specimen of book-making far from dis- tinguished. TEMPLE SCOTT * Paul Cézanne, His Life and Art. By Ambroise Vollard. Translated by Harold L. Van Doren. Wicholas L. Brown. $3.

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Russia’s New Constitution HE constitution adopted at the session of the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics in Moscow on July 6 (published in the Moscow Tzvestia of July 7) is an enlargement and an elaboration of the Convention Creating the Union of Socialist Soviet Re- publics signed in Moscow on December 30, 1922, by the representatives of the several republics (published in The Nation of January 31, 1928). The new constitution is divided into two parts, the first part consisting of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (published in full in The Nation of January 31, last). The second part follows: The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR), the White Russian Socialist Soviet Republic (BSSR), and the Transcau- casian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (Georgia, Azerbai- jan, and Armenia) are concluding the present treaty on their consolidation into one united state—the “Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.” ARTICLE I ON THE SCOPE OF THE HIGHEST ORGANS OF AUTHORITY OF THE UNION oF SSR 1. The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics in the person of its highest organs of authority embraces in its scope: (a) Rep- resentation of the Union in its international relations, conduct of all diplomatic relations, conclusion of political and other treaties with foreign states; (b) changes in the foreign fron- tiers of the Union and also the regulation of questions relating to changes of frontiers between the several republics of the Union; (c) conclusion of treaties on the admission of new republics into the Union; (d) declaration of war and conclusion of peace; (e) making internal and foreign state loans for the Union of SSR and the confirmation of internal and foreign loans made by any of the uniting republics; (f) ratification of international treaties; (g) conducting the foreign trade and establishment of the system of internal trade; (h) establish- ment of the bases and the general plan of the entire public economy of the Union, taking charge of those branches of in- dustry and separate industrial plants which are of importance for the Union as a whole, conclusion of treaties granting con- cessions in the name of the Union, as well as in the name of the several republics; (i) regulation of the transport and the postal and telegraph service; (j) organization and command of the armed forces of the Union; (k) confirmation of a unified state budget for the Union containing the budgets of the several republics, establishment of a system of taxes and other incomes for the whole Union as well as the deductions and allowances for the budgets of the several republics, and the issuance of permissions for substitutional taxes and duties for the budgets of the several republics; (1) establishment of a unified coinage and credit system; (m) establishment of unified land regula- tions and regulations for the use of mines, forests, and waters in the whole territory of the Union; (n) legislation on migra- tion between the several uniting republics and the establish- ment of the migration fund; (0) establishment of the bases of the judicial organization and of court proceedings, as well as of the civil and criminal law of the Union; (p) establishment of constitutional laws on labor; (q) establishment of general prin- ciples of public education; (r) establishment of common meas- ures in the field of public health; (s) establishment of a com- mon system of weights and measures; (t) organization of sta- tistical work for the entire Union; (u) constitutional legislation concerning citizenship in the Union and in respect to the rights International Relations Section of foreigners; (v) the right of general amnesty extending over the entire territory of the Union; (w) repeal of such decisions of congresses of the Soviets, central executive committees, and councils of people’s commissars of the separate republics as are in violation of this constitution; (x) decision on conflicts which may arise between the united republics. 2. Only the Congress of the Soviets of the Union has the right to confirm, change, or amend the bases of this constitu- tion. ARTICLE II ON THE SOVEREIGN RIGHTS OF THE SEVERAL REPUBLICS AND UNION CITIZENSHIP 8. The sovereignty of the several republics is abridged only within the limits defined by this constitution and only in regard to matters within the scope of the Union. Outside of this scope each of the united republics enjoys its independent state power; the Union of SSR guarantees the sovereignty of the several republics. 4. Each of the uniting republics has the right of seceding from the Union. 5. The several republics are amending their constitutions to agree with the present constitution. 6. The territory of the several republics cannot be changed without their consent; the consent of all united republics must be had for any change, limitation, or the repeal of section 4 of this constitution. 7. A uniform citizenship is established for the citizens of the several republics. ARTICLE III ON THE CONGRESS OF THE SOVIETS OF THE UNION SSR 8. The highest organ of authority of the Union of SSR is the Congress of the Soviets of the Union of SSR and, during the periods between congresses, the Central Executive Committee of the Union which is made up of the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities. ®. The Congress of the Soviets of the Union of SSR is made up of the delegates of city soviets, each delegate representing 25,000 voters, and of delegates of provincial conventions of soviets, each delegate representing 125,000 population. 10. Delegates to the Congress of the Soviets of the Union are elected at the provincial conventions of the soviets. In those republics where there are no provincial divisions, the delegates are elected at the congress of the soviets of the republic. 11. Regular congresses of the soviets of the Union are con- vened by the Central Executive Committee of the Union once during the year; extraordinary congresses are convened by the CEC either by its own decision, or upon the demand of the Union Council, or the Council of Nationalities, or two republics included in the Union. 12. Under extraordinary conditions hindering the convention of the congress at the appointed time, the Central Executive Committee of the Union has the right to postpone the congress. ARTICLE IV ON THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE UNION oF SSR 13. The Central Executive Committee of the Union is made up of the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities. 14. The Congress of the Soviets of the Union elects the Union Council to be composed of 371 members representing the United republics proportionately to their population. 15. The Council of Nationalities is composed of representa- tives of the united and autonomous socialist soviet republics, each of the united and autonomous republics being represented by five members, and each of the autonomous provinces of the RSFSR being represented by one member. The full body of members of the Council of Nationalities is to be confirmed by the Congress of the Soviets of the Union. Note: The autonomous

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a a SSeS o> ee eee ee eee ee 7 > hee republics Adjaria and Abhasia and the autonomous province South-Osetia are represented in the Council of Nationalities by one member each. 16. The Union Council and the Council of Nationalities pass on laws, codes, and regulations submitted to them by the Praesi- dium of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union, by the several people’s com- missariats of the Union, by the central executive committees of the several republics, and also on those originated within the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities. 17. The Central Executive Committee of the Union of SSR issues codes, decrees, regulations, and orders, consolidates the legislative and administrative work of the Union, and defines the scope of the Praesidium of the Central Executive Commit- tee and of the Council of People’s Commissars. 18. All decrees and regulations determining the general rules of the political and economic life of the Union of SSR, as well as those which bring radical changes into the present practice of the state organs of the Union, must be submitted to the dis- cussion and approval of the CEC of the Union. 19. All decrees, regulations, and orders of the CEC of the Union must be executed directly on the whole territory of the Union. 20. The CEC of the Union of SSR has the right to repeal and annul decrees, regulations, and orders of the Praesidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Union, as well as those of the congresses of the soviets and central executive committees of the several republics and other organs of power acting within the territory of the Union of SSR. 21. Regular sessions of the Central Executive Committee of the Union are convened by the Praesidium of the CEC three times a year. Extraordinary sessions are held by the decision of the Praesidium of the Union Council, or the Praesidium of Council of Nationalities, or upon the demand of the central executive committee of one of the republics. 22. Legislative bills which are submitted to the CEC take effect only after they have been approved both by the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities and published by the CEC of the Union. 23. When there arises a difference of opinion between the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities, then the ques- tion is submitted to the decision of an arbitration board elected by both bodies. 24. If the arbitration board reaches no agreement, the ques- tion is submitted to a joint session of the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities, and if no majority of either the Union Council or the Council of Nationalities is reached, then the question may be submitted, upon the demand of either of these two bodies, to the decision of the regular or an extraor- dinary Congress of the Union of SSR. 25. The Union Council and the Council of Nationalities elect their praesidiums consisting of seven members each to prepare for their sessions and carry on their work. 26. In periods between sessions of the Central Executive Committee the highest authority of the Union is represented by the Praesidium of the CEC of the Union to be made up of twenty-one members and organized by the CEC in such manner as to include all the members of the praesidiums of both the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities. 27. The CEC elects four presidents to represent the four uniting republics. The presidents are selected from the mem- bers of the Praesidium of the CEC of the Union. 28. The Central Executive Committee of the Union is respon- sible to the Congress of the soviets of the Union. ARTICLE V ON THE PRAESIDIUM OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE UNION 29. The Praesidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Union represents in periods between sessions of the CEC, 174 The Nation .- [Vol. 117, No. 3032 the highest legislative, executive, and regulating organ of the Union. 30. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union takes care that the constitution of the Union and the decrees of the Congress of the soviets and of the central executive committee of the Union be executed by all authorities. 31. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union has the right to repeal the decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars and the several people’s commissariats, as well as those of the central executive committees and the commissariats of the several republics. 32. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union has the right to repeal the decisions of the congresses of the soviets of the several republics, but is obliged to submit such decisions to the subsequent discussion and approval by the Central Executive Committee of the Union. 33. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union issues decrees, regulations, and orders, passes on and confirms projects of decrees and regulations submitted to it by the Council of Peo- ple’s Commissars and the several authorities of the Union, by the central executive committees of the several republics, their praesidiums and other authorities. 34, Decrees and decisions of the Central Executive Commut- tees, its praesidium, and the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union are printed in the languages which are in general use in the allied republics (Russian, Ukrainian, White-Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Turk-Tartar). 35. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union decides upon the questions pertaining to the mutual relations between the Council of People’s Commissars and the several people’s com- missariats of the Union on one hand, and the central executive committees and their praesidiums of the several republics on the other hand. 36. The Praesidium of the CEC of the Union is responsible to the CEC of the Union. ARTICLE VI ON THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS OF THE UNION 37. The Council of People’s Commissars is the executive and regulating organ of the Central Executive Committee of the - Union elected by the latter, and consists of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union, Vice-Chairman of the Council, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, People’s Commissar of Foreign Trade, People’s Commissar of Transportation, Peo- ple’s Commissar of Posts and Telegraph, People’s Commissar of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, Chairman of the Highest Council of Public Economy, People’s Commissar of Labor, Peo- ple’s Commissar of Food, People’s Commissar of Finances. 38. Within the limits of the rights reserved to it by the CEC of the Union, and on the strength of a special regulation, the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union issues decrees and regulations which must be executed on the entire territory of the Union. 389. The Council of People’s Commissars of the Union ex- amines the decrees and regulations submitted by the several people’s. commissariats of the Union and by the central execu- tive committees of the united republics and their praesidiums. 40. The Council of People’s Commissars of the Union is responsible for all its activities to the CEC of the Union and to its praesidium. 41. The decrees and regulations of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union can be repealed and annulled by the CEC of the Union and by its praesidium. 42. The central executive committees of the allied republics may enter protests against decrees and decisions of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union with the Praesidium of the CEC of the Union, without, however, stopping their execu- tion.

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August 15, 1923] ARTICLE VII ON THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNION 43. For the purpose of affirming the revolutionary law on the territory of the Union, a Supreme Court is created in con- junction with the CEC of the Union with the following func- tions; (a) To give the supreme courts of the several repub- lics explanations on questions pertaining to Union legislation; (b) to examine, upon the suggestion of the leading prosecuting attorney, the decisions and verdicts of the supreme courts of the several republics and enter protests against such with the CEC of the Union whenever such decisions and verdicts are in violation of the Union laws or in conflict with the interests of the other republics; (c) to decide, upon presentations from the CEC of the Union, on the legality, from the standpoint of the constitution, of any decrees and regulations of the several re- publics; (d) to render decisions in legal conflicts between the allied republics; (e) to try the highest functionaries of the Union in cases of accusations of crimes committed in their official capacity. 44, The Supreme Court of the Union acts through (a) the plenary session of the Supreme Court of the Union, (b) the civil court and criminal court boards of the Supreme Court of the Union, and (c) the military and military-transport board. 45. In its plenary session the Supreme Court of the Union is made up of eleven members, including one chairman, one vice- chairman, the four chairmen of the plenary sessions of the supreme courts of the allied republics and one chairman of the United State political department of the Union. The chair- man, vice-chairman, and other five members are appointed by the Praesidium of the CEC of the Union. 46. The Prosecuting Attorney of the Supreme Court of the Union and his assistant are appointed by the Praesidium of the CEC of the Union. The functions of the Prosecuting At- torney are: to render opinions in all questions which are sub- mitted to the decision of the Supreme Court, to act as prose- cutor at the sessions of the Supreme Court, and, when, accord- ing to his opinion, the Supreme Court has rendered a decision which is not right, to enter his protest against such decision with the praesidium of the CEC of the Union. 47. The submission of the questions enumerated in section 43 to the decision of the plenary session of the Supreme Court of the Union can take place only through the initiative of the CEC of the Union, its Praesidium, the Prosecuting Attorney of the Supreme Courts, the prosecuting attorneys of the several re- publics, and the United States Political Department of the Union. 48. The plenary sessions of the Supreme Court form court boards for the trying of (a) criminal and civil cases of extraordinary importance which, in their content, touch upon the interests of two or more of the allied republics, (b) cases against members of the CEC and Council of People’s Commis- sars of the Union. The Supreme Court of the Union may start proceedings in such cases only upon the separate presentation of the CEC of the Union or its Praesidium in each case. ARTICLE VIII ' ON THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIATS OF THE UNION OF SSR 49. For the purpose of managing the several branches of State administration which are reserved to the scope of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union, ten people’s com- missariats are formed, in accordance with section 37 of this constitution, which carry out their functions on the basis of regulations confirmed by the CEC of the Union. 50. The people’s commissariats of the Union are divided into (a) exclusive people’s commissariats for the whole Union of SSR, and (b) united people’s commissariats of the Union. 51. The exclusive people’s commissariats of the Union are the following: the commissariats for foreign affairs, military The Nation 175 and naval affairs, foreign trade, transportation, posts and tele- graph. 52. The united people’s commissariats of the Union are the following: the Highest Council of Public Economy, the com- missariats of food, labor, finances, and workers’ and peasants’ inspection. 58. The exclusive people’s commissariats of the Union have in the several republics their representatives who are respon- sible to them. 54. The organs of the united people’s commissariats in the several republics are the respective people’s commissariats of those republics. 55. The people’s commissariats of the Union are headed by the members of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union—the people’s commissars of the Union. 56. Each people’s commissar presides over the board attached to his commissariat and appointed by the Council of People’s Commissars. 57. The people’s commissar has the right to make independent decisions in all questions entering into the scope of his commis- sariat, but he is obliged to inform the board of his decisions. In case the board or any member of the board does not agree with the decision of the people’s commissar, they may enter their protest with the Council of People’s Commissars, without, however stopping the execution of the contested decision. 58. The orders of the several people’s commissariats of the Union may be stopped by the Praesidium of the CEC and by the Council of People’s Commissiariats of the Union. 59. Orders issued by the People’s Commissars of the Union may be stopped by the central executive committees or by the praesidiums of the central executive committees of the several republics only in special cases when such orders are clearly op- posed to decisions of the Council of People’s Commissars or of the CEC of the Union. When such an order is stopped the fact should be immediately reported by the CEC or the Praesidium of the CEC of the republic to the Council of People’s Commis- sars of the Union and to the appropriate People’s Commissar of the Union. 60. The people’s commissars of the Union are responsible to the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union and to the CEC of the Union and its Praesidium. ARTICLE IX ON THE UNITED STATE POLITICAL DEPARTMENT 61. In order to unite the efforts of the allied republics in their struggle against the political and economic counter-revo- lution and against espionage and brigandage, a common organ of State Political Management is created in conjunction with the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union, the chairman of this Department entering the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union with the right of advisory vote. 62. The United State Political Department of the Union carries on the activities of the local organs of the State Political branches through its representatives in the councils of people’s commissars of the several republics acting in accordance with a special regulation to be confirmed in the order of legislation. 63. The control over the legality of the actions of the United State Political Department is carried out by the Prosecuting Attorney of the Union in accordance with a special regulation to be issued by the CEC of the Union. ARTICLE X ON THE ALLIED REPUBLICS 64. Within the territory of each of the allied republics the highest organ of authority is represented by the congress of the soviets of the republic and, in periods between congresses, by their central executive committees. 65. The mutual relations between the highest authorities of the several republics and the highest authorities of the Union of SSR are established by this constitution.

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176 “he Nation 66. The central executive committees of the allied republics elect their praesidiums to act as the highest authorities in periods between sessions of the central executive committees. 67. The central executive committees of the allied republics form their executive organs, the councils of people’s commissars to be made up of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Com- missars, Vice-Chairman of the Council, Chairman of the High- est Council of Public Economy, People’s Commissar of Agricul- ture, People’s Commissar of Food, People’s Commissar of Finances, People’s Commissar of Labor, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, People’s Commissar of Justice, People’s Com- missar of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, People’s Commis- sar of Public Education, People’s Commissar of Public Health, People’s Commissar of Social Maintenance, and also, with advisory vote, of representatives of the Union Commissariats of Foreign Affairs, of Military and Naval Affairs, of Foreign Trade, of Transportation, and of Posts and Telegraph. 68. The highest council of public economy and the commis- sariats of food, finances, labor, and workers’ and peasants’ in- spection of each of the several republics are directly subordinate to the central executive committees and the councils of people’s commissars of the several republics, and are guided in their activities by the decision of the corresponding people’s commis- sariats of the Union. 69. The right of amnesty as well as the right of pardon and rehabilitation of citizens condemned by the judicial or adminis- trative organs of the several republics is reserved to the central executive committees of the several republics. ARTICLE XI ON THE COAT OF ARMS, THE FLAG, AND THE CAPITAL OF THE UNION or SSR 70. The coat of arms of the Union of SSR consists of a sickle and hammer framed by spikes of wheat with the inscription “Workers of all countries, unite” in the six languages enumer- ated in, section 34. In the top part of the coat of arms is the five-pointed star. 71. The flag of the Union of SSR is made of scarlet or pur- ple red cloth with the representation of the coat of arms on it. 72. The capital of the Union of SSR is the city of Moscow. Mexico Pensions a Political Prisoner HE attitude of the people of Mexico in regard to politi- cal prisoners in the United States may be judged from the fact that the state of San Luis Potosi recently voted a pension to Librado Rivera, serving a fifteen-year sentence in the penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. Rivera was not convicted of any overt act but of an expression of opinion in a manifesto issued in conjunction with Ricardo Flores Magofi. The latter died in prison. Rivera was not included in the group of political prisoners to whom release on parole was recently offered. The decree granting him a pension (which he has declined to receive) follows: The citizen Rafael Nieto, Constitutional Governor of the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosi, to its inhabi- tants, makes known: That the XXVII Constitutional Congress of the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosi decrees the following: DECREE NUMBER 129 The Constitutional Congress of the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosi decrees the following: Article First—It is conceded to the citizen Librado Rivera, now in prison in the United States by reason of his advanced ideas, a pension of $150 national gold monthly, on charge of the revenue of the state. Article Second—He will enjoy this pension only during his actual [Vol. 117, No. 3082 imprisonment. It shall be understood by the Executive of the State, and he shall publish it, circulate, and obey. Issued in San Luis Potosi on the fourth day of the month of May, 1923. D. P., Lamberto Rocha; D. S., José Fraga; D. §S., Alfredo E. Garza. Therefore, I command to be fulfilled and executed the present decree and that all the authorities make it effective and take care of, and to that effect be it printed, published, and circu- lated to whom it may concern. Issued in the Palace of the Executive Power of San Luis Potosi on the 8th day of the month of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-three, Rafael Nieto; General Secretary of the Gov- ernment, A. Silva. THESE UNITED STATES ILLINOIS First Province of the Middle Kingdom by Howard Vincent O’Brien Author of “Trodden Gold” IN NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE OF The Nation PLEXO “TOILET LANOLINE” —the year-round skin treatment This wonderful emollient is used with great success by noted skin specialists for pimples, blotches, facial eruptions, roughness, abrasions and chapped lips and hands. It protects the delicate skin surfaces against trying weather conditions and by supplying nourish- ment to the facial nerves and skin cells, effaces wrinkles and restores the bloom of youthful health, “Toilet Lanoline” is especially recommended for cuts and burns and for relief of pain after exposure. “Toilet Lanoline” is a remarkable skin softener and preserver. A delicately scented preparation that is safe for SMALL CHILDREN. PREPARED BY PLEXO PREPARATIONS, Ine. NEW YORK | Sole Agents and Distributors i General Drug Co., N. Y., 94 N. Moore Street + i —

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865

Vol. CXVII Contents RIGOR ERAN Ey ALECA GrECA EVEL SS | \ciccsie, claim) ainimlciantle leleletetaphista's sl aiaisinis\eliels islel a/c) o\6 evn, 0:6 177 EDITORIALS: ienenCollanse. of) the: Unholy: Alliance) picrcteveisicisfetsts sic eleineve.e bjhiaile, sal ela esr 180 Cone rhe Publie’s | Responsibihty on ccc ccs calsioducceeciiasciccccesecse 181 PERE EDIIC: VAIIORICAHE cin) ciciaie n/evels/s) cieinvelalsiahelefetelvia’ss<s\eiaielslausialslsipic'sleieiose ove 182 Wentession and) Bhotosrapn ys. ccs stasis cla cistbictaletsicicle'es aidleiielsicciccveewce 182 PNG CIMIVErSICE arc VA TTES OOo. clsla ciclald cletete/sderaleinie 4 miateisiq’ale/s aielnie eis'e'ee 183 MISTREATING OUR EX-SERVICE MEN. By Samuel Danziger...... 184 MOVAy BABY. By Maxwell Bodenhetmis i. 5. .):\5/o)ec/srele olsmlnts ee llsiels seit ee cies 185 THESE UNITED STATES—XXXVI. ILLINOIS: FIRST PROVINCE OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM. By Howard Vincent O’Brien........ 186 PROGRESS (AND POVERTY) IN PORTO RICO. By Arthur Warner 189 THE ROOTS OF THE WAR—AND OF PEACE. By Count Harry PRESSION. Whi cl iulclcre ei atetaCalcis Gla Wieiel ates) a'nlejalieleraveh apuleitareie:orahia/elaiaial(e ela’e' eis: 6) 4° e elec 191 EASLEY TO THE RESCUE. By Hubert C. Herring.................-- 193 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...........cccccccccccscccccocees 194 CORRESPONDENCES melsitisyelsietivels aietieie’s\ sista slaleip’slebstpielcte ec s/slelsleialeinieis oie else's 0.0 194 BOOKS: Damaged Souls. By Samuel C. Chew.......cceccecscecscccceccsces 196 The Second Empire. By William H. Scheifley.........-.-eseeeeeees 196 Translations from the Danish and Swedish. By John Koren........ 197 Wide-Awake Dreamers. By Kathleen Millay...............eeeeeee- 197

The Government and the Worker. By Scott Nearing 198 On the Trail of Pickwick. By Ben Lucien Burman......... aeiaisd) 198 Lytton Strachey’s Encore. By Harry Salpeter............. tee 198 Brom ithe Sollt |) By wbiva |Goldbecks « -j..ccr\alesicla cccisiae ve gens ss ety. 199 A (Torch in the Dark.) ‘By Edward BE. Allene. ci... ct eines wee clsn eee 199 The Originator of the Monroe Doctrine. By William MacDonald.... 199 Treatise or Novel. By Johan J. Smertenko..........-..eeeeeeeeees 200 RRL TICE aati nkiaier el sisieislsleiel <tWiclalefcle vie uiwiatstal stale ele. 9c'gieyole'e ela/slejeiee eins 200 MUSIC: The Renaissance of English Music in England. By Henrietta Straus 201 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: PAEAST IE DASUTITOM HAY MLE ose cietetels) eceleiviapaleretatelel aleiere cle alatsiavatelejele's\ cele esis secs s 202

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprror ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EpiTor IRITA VAN DOREN, ApvertTIsSING MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS Sugpscrirtlon Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. OURLY the German situation becomes graver; hourly more blood flows, and hourly those who have hounded Germany into this misery gloat over her suffering and pre- pare to profit by it. As the New York World points out, the French have created a vicious circle: By their occu- pation of the Ruhr they have brought about the economic collapse of Germany; the collapse of Germany will give France the excuse for permanently holding on to the Ruhr that Germany, being in anarchy, cannot govern herself. In Hilferding Stresemann has selected one of Germany’s ablest Socialist economists to conduct the country’s finances. But whether real reform is possible depends upon the German industrialists who with the French imperialists are the enemies of the German people. Count Harry Kess- ler is, we believe, right in declaring that this Cabinet is Germany’s last hope. Is it not also likely to be Europe’s last hope, since America will not act? More than ever is it clear that if Germany goes down France and every neigh- boring country will also pay the price. Even in Hungary, Count Bethlen, the Prime Minister, apropos of his urgent appeal to the League of Nations for help, declares: “If by winter the Ruhr question is not solved by America and England, I am afraid serious social upheavals can be ex- pected in Central Europe.” NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1923

No. 3033 ee consciously or unconsciously, the long lassi- tude of British policy in the face of the Ruhr invasion was not unaffected by the boom in the British coal trade caused by the continental shortage, due to non-production in the Ruhr. Germany has been importing British coal; and the following French official figures are suggestive: First five Deliveries of Purchases o: months of German coal and coke English coal ee 1921 4,260,000 tons 1,985,000 tons 1922 3,597,000 ‘‘ 5,183,000 ‘ 1923 1,141,000 “ 7,700,000 ‘ Pe HE League of Nations seems bent on proving its weak- ness and inefficiency just as rapidly and completely as possible. Not only has it steadily ducked the Ruhr issue and meekly consented to having its face slapped by the Poles at Vilna; it has failed utterly to make good its promise really to investigate the scandalous French misgovernment of the Saar (involving such flagrant violations of the Ver- sailles Treaty that no Frenchman can deny them), and has accepted its Opium Committee’s report, which carefully re- frains from ending the Indian opium traffic whereby the British Government profits so greatly. As for the report of its Disarmament Commission, which Lord Robert Cecil proclaims a wonderful achievement, we are moved by it not at all, for it proposes an elaborate system of international guaranties which it would take a lawyer to understand, and it is all based upon the vicious principles of force, checks and balances, alliances and counter-alliances. True, it pro- poses to declare all “aggressive warfare an international crime.” But who is to decide when a war is aggressive? The Central Powers insist that not they but Russia was the aggressor in 1914, and the causes of the last war are still not yet wholly clear. What is needed is the outlawry of all war as war. We shall get nowhere until this step is taken and until we have real disarmament. Meanwhile the French papers openly say that the League proposal will not affect France at all! We have no quarrel with the Lon- don New Leader for declaring that the League behaves “as an organized hypocrisy.” ee Powers have presented a joint note to China regarding the capture by bandits last May of foreign- ers traveling on the Lincheng railway. The note tells China what she has to do. It is not a diplomatic communication from independent Powers to an independent Power; it is a set of instructions, signed by the strong Powers of the world, to a nation in trouble. The Chinese Government is ordered to pay damages, to dismiss certain officials, and to reorganize her army, and she is informed that the Powers are devising a plan for a special Chinese police force under the supervision of foreign officers. This marks one more stage in the subjection of China to Western capital. Let us not deceive ourselves. The foreigners in China who com- plain that life is unsafe and who move sixteen governments to act together are not missionaries of Christ; they are apostles of modern industry, of big business, the agents of Western finance. China is to be made safe, not for democ- racy but for investment. There is one consolation in the Spectacle. In past decades the financiers of the European

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countries, seeking control of Africa’s markets, raw mate- rials, and opportunities for investment, brought their gov- ernments to the verge of war; in China they seem to have achieved an international community of interest. PEAKERS at the Williamstown Institute of Politics have referred to the new self-consciousness of the East- ern peoples. Philip Kerr recalls that the democratization of Europe has a history less than a century long and sug- gests that Asia may move more rapidly. We are wont too easily to accept the colonial status of Asia and Africa as an immutable fact. But the partition of Africa lies not a half century behind us, and has just been revised. Such deci- sions as that of the British to bar new Indian immigration into the Kenya Colony in East Africa, and such suggestions as that recently made by General Smuts for the compulsory segregation of Indians in urban areas in South Africa, take on a new Significance when we look upon them as links in the chain of history. They are parts of the European white man’s attempt to stake out all unfilled regions of the earth as exclusive reserves for himself, and to reduce all darker- skinned races to a subordinate position wherever the two come into conflict. They may seem expedient in the present, but they mean terrific race conflicts for future generations. ae E mortuis nil nisi bonum” has always seemed to us an immoral motto. The only true respect for the dead comes in telling the truth, the whole truth, and noth- ing but the truth. No man of worth could relish the thought that when he died his political and personal op- ' ponents would join his friends and allies in fulsome, indis- criminate, half-meant praise. Had Mr. Harding been able to look down from the Great Beyond and watch the passage of his funeral train from West to East we suspect that he would have welcomed from his heart the silent crowds that paid respect to his human qualities; we feel as sure that he would have writhed at the use of mourning crape and black- bordered type to advertise banks and department-stores, and have been particularly disgusted had he seen the columns of newspapers which had been in constant opposi- tion to him in his life-time mawkishly gush unlimited re- spect when he was out of the way. There is in much of this funereal display something as cheap and maudlin as the cry of the street hawker: “Get your President Harding buttons here! Show your respect to the dead President! Only five cents!” More dignified and decent is the attempt to analyze honestly, with a respect for truth which even death cannot lessen, the real qualities of a well-meaning but not great man. UR army officers, the press reports, are delighted by the accession of Mr. Coolidge to the Presidency be- cause he is so thoroughly committed to preparedness for war. Has he not said that: “The only hope for peace lies in the perfection of the arts of war?” and that “One of our first duties is military training; we must never neglect military preparation again?” And is not a son of his in one of the military training camps in Massachusetts? Well, he comes to the Presidency in the nick of time. The very camp his son attends is 1,000 men short of its possible quota of candidates for military training. And as for the army, it is a fact that so few men are enlisting, and so many old soldiers are getting out, and so many more are distributed The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 among the ludicrously topheavy brigade divisions and corps that some regiments are almost bereft of men. In one of our oldest regiments recently a battalion commander paraded four companies which altogether comprised just nineteen men! Plainly, we need in the White House a glowing enthusiast for the manly art of learning to murder by wholesale, to arouse our recreant sons to their duty. OVERNOR HARDWICK of Georgia by executive order last spring abolished the lash in convict camps throughout the State. Representative Bennett of Dodge County, after visiting the camps following this order, re- ported to the recently adjourned legislature that he found convicts “hung up by their thumbs for hours, or kept all night in torture-boxes, or forced to sit on nails.” As a remedy he recommended a return to the lash. “I can hardly blame the wardens,” he said, “for resorting to these other measures. ... There is but one way to handle convicts and that is to put the lash on ’em.” Fortunately the Constitu- tional Amendments Committee disagreed with Mr. Bennett © and killed his bill by a vote of 9 to 4. We need in our prisons an entirely different type of mind that recognizes curative, not merely punitive, ends, and is willing to listen to the voice of modern psychology and psychiatry. There is little hope as long as the system prevails condemned in these words by a police court justice: “I think one of the worst evils grows out of the appointment of worn-out poli- ticians as wardens and superintendents. Take for example—the wardens and every guard are changed or practically so with each new State administration, and appointment is solely for political considerations.” E are beginning to think that the Ku Klux Klan is a reasonably open, democratic sort of an organization. After all, any man owning five dollars who is able to prove that he is neither a Catholic nor a Jew nor a Negro stands a fair chance of admission. Compared, for instance, with the task of achieving citizenship in the United States, the customs of the Klan look positively free and easy. Of course there are Jews and Catholics in the United States who are allowed to vote, and even a few Negroes here and there, but the tests for admission to citizenship are subtler and less easily defined than those of the Klan. You may, for instance, be an orthodox evangelical blond Nordic named Smith and still be blackballed by some judge because you were a conscientious objector in the World War. And just recently a new barrier to citizenship has been erected by a judge in West Virginia. According to a letter from the president of District 16, United Mine Workers, a young miner named Dan Spolarich, an ex-soldier, was denied citizenship papers because he was a member of the union and on strike. Apparently we are establishing a new or- ganization—the Exalted Order of Citizens of the United States, to which only those aliens may be admitted who fall in with the war policies of the Government and the labor policies of our leading coal operators. “BE XTRA” sessions of Congress are getting to be like “extra” and “special extra” and “special sporting extra” editions of our newspapers; they are becoming so frequent as to be no longer extra but regular aspects of our national legislative practice. An extra session of the new Congress, to be worth while, ought to have been called

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August 22, 1923] last spring, although it is a cruel if not an unusual punish- ment to compel a legislator to swelter through a summer in Washington which he had hoped to pass studying the financial situation in the Italian Alps or observing agricul- tural conditions on the beach at Deauville or Ostend. What is needed, as The Nation has pointed out before, is a change in our laws which will not leave a gap of more than a year between the election of a new Congress and its first legis- lative session. <é IVIC Federation Takes up Economics”—thus a head- line in the New York Times. We are gratified be- yond all words by the news; the Civic Federation has needed just the touch of studious resolve hinted at in those few words. Long has the Civic Federation expounded eco- nomics, ranted economics, unblushingly revealed its inno- cence of economics. Never, as far as we know, has it “taken up” the subject. Let us not read below the headlines or we might begin to doubt the modest, scholarly implication of those words, for our eye catches familiar phrases: “Rus- sian soviets,” “forcible overthrow of our government,” “worked out in Moscow with uncanny cleverness.” Might we discover, if we read with care, that the Civic Federation instead of “taking up” economics is only taking up on a larger scale its old sport of tossing up, and then with wild cries of alarm shooting down, its clay pigeons of revolution? HE third world congress of Zionists is in session at Carlsbad. Issues of so momentous a character are before the congress that its decisions are likely to be of lasting influence upon the whole movement. The crisis that confronts Zionism is, the world being what it is, a finan- cial one. The land must be bought, the colonists must be able to colonize; the chaluzim, pilgrims and pioneers at once, must be given work. Strictly Zionist resources can- not suffice. Hence it is the plan and purpose of Dr. Chaim Weizmann to throw the resonsibility for the rebuilding of the Homeland upon the whole of Jewry, and to dispense, in both donors and in a limited number of councillors, with adherence to the strict ideology of the Zionist cause. Oppo- sition to this course and plan comes naturally both from sensitive idealists and from determined zealots. But friends both of the movement and of humanity will wish Dr. Weiz- mann’s councils to prevail. A great and necessary work is to be done. Salvation is through a deed rather than through a thought. The new Zionist policy would at once render the work of the movement vastly more effective. It would temper bitterness; it would save lives. We hope that a speedy agreement will be reached. HE San Francisco war memorial site has been leased for five years to the Standard Oil Company, and the first emblem of the great conflict will be a gasoline station. Certain members of the American Legion are protesting against this “desecration of holy ground,” but we agree with the Oakland World that the memorial is most appro- priate and to convey a perfect lesson needs only an illumi- nated sign: “For such as this, American youth was con- scripted, drilled, and killed”’ We have it on no less an authority than that of Mr. Wilson himself that the causes of the European struggle were commercial rivalries; if oil was not the most potent cause of the last war to end war, it is likely to be the chief reason for the next war to end The Nation 179 war. San Francisco has done well. Sometimes, quite acci- dentally, events have a habit of conforming to the eternal fitness of things. USICIANS who contract to sing or play in Enid, Oklahoma, find a curious clause in their papers— “Subject to the approval of the K. K. K.” In this same Enid—whose chief boast is an annual export of $3,000,000 worth of poultry and eggs—is published the Fish Hook, organ of the Ku Klux Klan. The Fish Hook appears to dis- approve of William Allen White; at least it refers to him as a “little self-styled cheese-smelling demagogue” who “likes a dollar so well that if a fly were to alight on a dollar of his money he would catch him and scrape his legs.” The sage of Emporia being in Colorado, the staff of his Gazette seized the occasion of the Fish Hook’s outburst to comment: “The downtrodden and oppressed force on the Gazette that has to live with this old whangdoodle and listen to his preter- bacious scandulations have felt for some time that this town ought to have the truth about him... The culternacious old hypochloride certainly can’t fire the whole force when he comes back, and so we are giving the people of this man’s town the truth” (as seen in Enid, Oklahoma). They re- printed the Fish Hook’s saw-edged remarks, and—if he didn’t compose the accompaniment himself—William Allen must have roared when he read it. If Enid were capable of learning tolerance it might well ask William Allen White to compose correspondence lessons for its citizens. But perhaps correspondence courses, like music, would be “sub- ject to the approval of the K. K. K.” in Enid. 7 IVILIZATION, or Man and Man’s World” is a gen- erous field, yet Frederic C. Howe dares announce it as the subject for the 1923 session of the Sconset School ef Opinion. On the Continent, in England, and in the United States the happy habit of these summer forums, prolonged over a few weeks, is spreading. The Sconset “school,” only one year old, is particularly fortunate in its setting on the moors of Nantucket Island and in the inti- mate and informal spirit of its discussions. Candle-light in an old barn should loose any tongue and give it a sense of contact with the soil. Among the Sconset speakers this September are Carl Van Doren, Everett Dean Martin, James Harvey Robinson, Harry Dana, and Gutzon Borglum. May the example of this sublimated Chautauqua spread! HE death of Joaquin Sorolla means the passing of a _ source of vivid splendor and beauty. Spanish painting seems to have been less affected by the modernist move- ments than that of any other country. Here, at least, there was no attempt to pass beyond the representation of objects. The idiom of the art itself was never withdrawn from the vision of the willing beholder. In the canvasses of Sorolla, moreover, this idiom was used with a force and an elo- quence that no one could miss. Here sunshine came in a flood and the shade itself was brilliant. Here was the glow and flash of a Spain of artistic reality that answered all visions of a Spain of the imagination. And in this respect Sorolla, curiously enough, stood rather isolated among his compatriots. Zuloaga preferred the more somber aspects of his native landscape; Goya was concerned with heavy brocades and significant gestures; Sorolla took one back to the joyous colorists of an earlier and more lavish age.

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[ Vol. 117, No. 3033 180 The Nation’ - The Collapse of the Unholy Alliance eS FRANK espousal of the German cause” and “a posi- tive disavowal of Great Britain’s war allies’—that is the French official opinion, according to the Associated Press, of the British reply to the French and Belgian refusal jointly to consider Dr. Cuno’s last reparations pro- posal and to revise the Ruhr policy. There is no meeting of the British arguments, no question whether, after all, Mr. Baldwin perhaps voices the cause of justice and humanity and of common sense, but just the application of that worst of epithets—pro-German. “This amazing document,” says the anonymous Official spokesman, “proposes to haul France and Belgium before a tribunal to answer for their efforts to make Germany carry out her treaty obligations.”’ Well, why not, if those efforts threaten the very foundations of civilization, attempt the impossible, and are leading straight to that new war which everybody agrees will accomplish the downfall of Europe? What is there sacrosanct about France and Belgium to prevent their answering in the court of world opinion? Has their record been beyond criticism at all times in these last one hundred and fifty years? But “France and Belgium are not ready to answer such a sum- mons, even from Great Britain,’ Paris informs us. Very well, then France and Belgium must answer to the judgment of world opinion, precisely as Germany was overwhelmed by the weight of an unfavorable world judgment when she entered Belgium. The moral laws do not apply to Germans alone. One cannot escape human judgments because one calls oneself the land of the French or of the Belgians. So ends, let us hope, the unholy alliance of modern Eng- land with an imperialistic and militaristic France bent on dominating Europe and accomplishing what Napoleon failed to effect 110 years ago. We are, of course, still quite aware of the mixed motives which prompt the Baldwin Govern- ment. We do not blind our eyes to the fact that, as is usual with English cabinets, selfish reasons are well mixed with humanitarian. England feels deeply about the Ruhr pri- marily because it affects her pocket-nerve; we can only be thankful that in this case the British business magnates are on the side of those Englishmen who speak for reason and sanity as well as for justice and right. We are aware, too, that Mr. Baldwin’s position is probably inconsistent with some taken by his predecessors and that it may change again. The French did have reason to believe that the Eng- lish Government would sympathize with them. But if any- body can berate the British for inconsistency, it is not Poin- caré. Speaking to a group of journalists in July, 1922, that gentleman said: “We are simply heading toward the per- manent occupation of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and I feel very good about it. For my part, I should regret it if Ger- many should pay. Then we should have to evacuate the Rhineland... .” Speaking at Stenay on August 12, 1923, Poincaré assured his bamboozled auditors that “we would not annex a single foot of territory which is not ours.” And then he proceeded once more to berate Germany for what he called her deliberate attempt to destroy her cur- rency and to avoid the payment of reparations for which in his heart of hearts he is so grateful. Above all, this one fact is patent: Mr. Baldwin’s answer has hurt far more than the French dreamed it would. Hence the bitterness of their outcries and their invective and the open anger of their press. There is reason for them. Primarily, the English are now officially on record that the Ruhr invasion is contrary to the Treaty of Ver- Sailles and grossly illegal. Next, Mr. Baldwin challenges the French to submit that issue of legality to the new Hague tribunal for a decision. That France dares not do; she is well aware of the falsity of her pretext that this “sanction” is authorized, even by that impossible treaty which France violates at will, but for the slightest violation of which the Germans must be starved and throttled. It is not a pleasant thing for a nation which has made its injuries its stock in trade as if it were the only nation affected, to be rudely reminded by Lord Curzon that “sunk ships and cargoes rot- ting at the bottom of the sea may not shock the eye like the ruined villages of France and Belgium, but they are equally material damage caused by German aggression and repre- sent equally heavy losses of national wealth.” This is in reply to the Belgian suggestion that the reparations, which have not been collected, and which will never be collected if Germany is driven into communism and anarchy, should be devoted primarily to reconstruction of the devastated areas. To Belgium it will be an equal shock to find that England has now dropped the question of her future security because it is bound up with French security and France has “post- poned to an unnamed date in the future” any discussion of that French security about which Poincaré has bleated so much, which has been made to serve at once as justification and apology for the Ruhr crime. But it is time that that bogey should be dropped. As a matter of fact every action of the French since Versailles has been as if calculated to make France insecure by inflaming every German heart against her. The rest of the English program is familiar. The terri- ble thing about it is that it calls for time, time, and time for its working out. Time is the one element in the situa- tion. which is lacking. The fall of the Cuno Cabinet speaks for itself. It held office months longer than had been deemed possible, and held it as manfully as was possible for an avowedly weak compromise Government stumbling under the most terrific burdens and handicaps which any modern nation ever faced in time of peace. The Stresemann Gov- ernment may repudiate some of the Cuno policies and will, it is to be hoped, make a genuine effort, which Dr. Cuno did not or could not, to solve the financial problem. But we do not believe that it can exist twenty-four hours if it sur- renders in the matter of the Ruhr. And meanwhile the bloodshed reported from one German city after another, caused, in what was the most law-abiding country in the world, by sheer hunger and despair, shows how correct is the British statement that the occupation of the Ruhr “is already having directly and indirectly a grave effect on the economic and industrial outlook not only in Germany... .” That is the solemn truth. No blinking of facts can conceal it. If things continue as they are it will be patent to all the world within two months. All the rhodomontade and the fustian of a Poincaré will then be swept aside, and their sham and hypocrisy be exposed to the world. The better judgment of Europe and America will, we are certain, crystallize behind the British position, particularly if as now seems inevitable Germany rapidly falls into chaos.

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 181 Coal: The Public’s Responsibility COAL shortage threatens, and there is talk of a strike on September 1. Some newspapers are suggesting a boycott of anthracite coal “to teach the industry a lesson” and others are urging the President to take drastic meas- ures, to seize the mines, to prohibit a strike. The Federal Coal Commission at the eleventh hour is calling operators and miners into conference again, but there is little hope of more than a patched-up peace. The Commission has published a mild supplemental report on the anthracite in- dustry, suggesting various admirable forms of tinkering but nothing more than tinkering; the Children’s Bureau is cir- culating a report on child labor in the anthracite district; and a committee of public-spirited citizens, headed by Pro- fessor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., has issued a report exposing appalling conditions of feudalism in coal-mining areas, in- cluding leases by which the coal companies bind miners to permit no one but furniture-movers, doctors, and under- takers in their homes. The public pretty much deserves the hard treatment it is getting from the anthracite industry. It has always re- fused to do any serious thinking about coal. Until it gets over its habit of seasonal scares followed by seasonal for- getfulness it cannot expect much improvement. For coal has become of such importance to everyone that the public, which complains bitterly when the supply runs short and prices go skyrocketing, must assume and accept a primary responsibility. When the Federal Coal Commission was ap- pointed last autumn there seemed to be a possibility that public interest in coal, stirred by the long strike and conse- quent cold houses, would be sufficiently strong to force the Commission to suggest real, far-reaching, statesmanlike solutions. Instead, we have a series of minor suggestions obscured in the public mind by the major suggestion of Federal seizure of the mines. To seize the mines would be about as footless as the French attempt to get coal by sending soldiers into the Ruhr. The Ruhr workmen refused to dig coal at the behest of soldiers, and unless the public ceases shouting and be- gins thinking we may see American soldiers attempting to force American miners to dig coal. That would be a na- tional disgrace. The present problems of the coal industry would persist after seizure, and new problems would arise. What wages and what profits would the government pay? How would it deal with the miners in negotiating wages? Would it leave the same men in control who now rule the industry and with the industry the lives of the men who work in it? Seizure would be merely a magnificent gesture, emotionally satisfying, but settling nothing. Nor would it help to prohibit a strike. The miners’ lead- ers would probably yield to such a prohibition, but they would yield in anger. The miners have nothing to say about the administration of their industry, yet they have to bear the brunt of public anger when things go wrong. There is no democracy in the anthracite industry. The employers are the king and the parliament. When they refuse to grant the workers’ demands the workers have but one remedy: to strike. It is a poor weapon, and dan- gerous, but it is their only weapon. The miners’ attempt .to educate the public to the fundamental problems of coal by publicity has not yet succeeded. To forbid them to use their one weapon without providing some equally effective means of redress would mean to make slaves of them. And this indeed is the rock upon which employers and employees are at present splitting: the miners demand full recognition of the union, including the “check-off,” and the owners refuse to grant it. The “check-off” is essentially a tax upon the miner;- it is deducted with his wage; it goes to the union, which uses it primarily for the payment of check-weighmen and check docking-bosses—men who see that the miner is paid what he earns. It would be pre- posterous to drift into a strike upon such an issue; the anthracite miners are virtually 100 per cent organized, and the employers’ refusal to grant the recognition and the “check-off” (which is in effect with more than 400,000 soft- coal miners) is plainly an endeavor to keep the union weak. Here, then, is the first problem which must be faced. Shall the employers deal with the men through the organizations and system of representation which the men have devel- oped? Is it to the public interest, or not, to attempt to develop some measure of democracy, to work out a system of constitutional government within the industry? To us it seems that the first step is to recognize the human value of the coal miners and the value of their good will in the industry, and to give them every possible recog- nition. But the private owners have made it plain that they will not do so of their own free will. How shall they be made to do so? The public’s readiness to accept govern- mental intervention in the industry is obviously growing— the loose talk of “‘seizure of the mines” is evidence of that; it is clear that if we do not work out a coordinated plan of governmental control we shall drift into it helter-skelter. There is no single, simple solution of this coal problem which can be applied overnight. The Nation believes that sooner or later, in one form or another, government owner- ship is inevitable. The Federal Coal Commission disagrees with us. All the more then it is its function to help us find ways out of the present disorganization of the industry. The Commission has pointed out that part of the difficulty is that the population which uses anthracite has increased more rapidly than has the supply of anthracite. It has not yet touched upon the possibilities of increasing the effi- cieney of the coal by transforming it into power at the mines, or helped focus public attention upon the possibilities of the super-power plans now being discussed. It has not dwelt upon the evils of the interlocking coal and railway ownership, which permits the railroads to charge 30 per cent higher freight rates upon the anthracite we use in our homes than upon the soft coal used in industry. It has not probed—publicly, at any rate—into the feudal conditions of life forced upon the miners, into the ownership of whole towns, the prostitution of State constabularies into private agents of the coal-owners (which Professor Chafee’s com- mittee has exposed and proved with documents) ; it has made no constructive suggestions which would avoid a return of the present crisis next year or two years hence. Public attention is once more centering upon the coal industry. Will it last? Even a strike, if it meant that the public would honestly face and start to solve the problem of coal, would be preferable to more fitful forgetfulness followed by more fitful passion.

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182 The Timid American HEN one of the foreign visitors who write books about us labeled America “The Land of Contrasts,” he happened upon a formula that is capable of many appli- cations. While at times there seems no one more self- confident than the American, he is also exceptionally prone to follow the crowd. This is a nation which has led the way in all kinds of bold experimentation, but where, in certain respects, public opinion insists upon a rigid con- formity that would be resented by the people of almost any other country. It is not only aliens but native Americans that have to become assimilated. Just now, timidity is one of our most prominent national characteristics. Present- day America might almost be described by a schedule of her fears. She is afraid of active participation in European affairs, lest the statesmen of other countries should get the better of her own. She is afraid of immigration, lest this alien infusion corrupt—one can scarcely say the indigenous stock, but the stock of earlier arrivals. She is afraid of any criticism of her institutions, lest it prove to be dyna- mite for their upheaval. She is afraid especially of the bogey of Bolshevik propaganda, which she suspects as the real cause of labor troubles and social unrest for which, heaven knows, quite adequate and much simpler explana- tions can be found a great deal nearer home than Moscow. This timorousness is realized most clearly by those of us who have an opportunity of observing the attitude taken by citizens of other countries to the discontented elements in their own population. The Villager—a paper which, despite its modest name, has a truly cosmopolitan outlook —has noted recently that many an American returning from abroad is led by his foreign experiences to the con- clusion that his own country is a little off her balance on the subject of radicalism. He sees England a hundred years ahead on that road which he has always assumed is the very short road to revolution, yet he finds her busy, efficient, and not unduly perturbed. He hears a member of Parliament introduce a measure to make England over as a Socialist commonwealth and the next day he reads that the member has been invited to break bread with the king and queen. He is a guest at dinners where mine-owners sit down familiarly with agivators who are working for the nation- alization of the mines, and his fellow-guests argue state socialism calmly, point by point, as a thing to be reasoned about. He discovers some appalling concessions to radical- ism actually in operation—doles, insurances, workers’ rep- resentation, and so on—yet nobody’s flesh creeps. But as soon as he gets this side of the Statue of Liberty he hears one responsible citizen crying out that every radical should be deported, and finds another telling the Governor of New York that this is no time for repealing a law that restrains spinster school teachers from speaking their minds. The explanation suggested is that the American is so scared because he is by no means as certain as he professes to be of the stability of the institutions of his own land. The Englishman maintains his equable poise because he feels that it will need more than a little flurry of revolution to upset the government. But the American, in his heart of hearts, is not really convinced that the political system of the United States is weatherproof. “Americans,” the Villager reminds us, “have as yet scarcely made a govern- The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8083 ment. This political institution of ours has no roots, no solidity; a wind which might not even flutter the leaves of the English oak conceivably could rip up our political in- stitution and blow it over the plains of the world like a dry tumbleweed.” This may not be the whole story, but it cer- tainly goes a long way to account for the difference be- tween the typical American and English demeanor in face of political conflicts and rumors of conflicts. The perse- cutor is always a latent skeptic. He has no profound con- viction that his creed has within it the vital power to estab- lish its supremacy in the world, so it must be supported by privilege for those who accept it and pains and penalties for the dissenter. This phenomenon, so familiar in the history of religion, is repeating itself nowadays in politics and economics. It is the man of little faith who is most violent against the heretic. The noisy aggressiveness, then, of the hundred-per-cent American may have a lurking doubt as its secret spring. He would feel safer in his own mind if he could get every- ene to shout at the top of his voice: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” But if a sense, conscious or sub-conscious, of the instability of our institutions is the impelling force of the present outburst of intolerance, nothing will be gained by hitting on the head everyone who refuses to pro- claim them as divinely inspired ideals... The remedy is clearly so to modify them in accordance with the needs and aspirations of the time that they will stand any storm. We have been so absorbed in the unparallelled development of our national economic resources, in the transformation of a wilderness into a manufacturing nation, that we have given little attention to the political structure which has hardly changed while the nation it controls has been transmuted. As someone has well said, we do not know very much about the laws of the Medes and Persians, but we do know that the refusal to alter them did not save the Medo-Persian Empire from crumbling into ruin. Confession and Photography VERY now and then, in written and spoken criticism, one comes again upon the accusation addressed to all veracious art that it is photographic. It is clear that these critics and readers, whatever their acuteness and learning in other respects, have missed the experience of creation. They have, at least, not undergone that experience with any awareness of its true character. They have mistaken it for invention, which is almost the contradiction of it; they have mistaken it for detached observation in the scientific sense, a thing impossible in the life of art; they have forgotten that the most delicately made photograph gives the quan- titative equivalent of that upon which the lens is turned. Neither the lens of the camera nor of the eye can omit some things and give the essence of others. That is what the, creative imagination is forced to do. It is forced to do so since it arises from pain and from the artist’s strange need to identify himself with the source of his pain. It is easy and inexpensive to grow mystical on this point; it is safer to attribute the fact to laws and qualities of the mind that are yet unexplored. The fact remains and may be illustrated from a simple and popular instance. It is agreed by this time that Sinclair Lewis is something of a satirist and something of a moralist, that

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August 22, 1923] The Nation he dislikes the ways of many of his countrymen intensely and castigates them with something that often approaches a cold fury. Babbitt, to use the common phrase, is “on his nerves”; he has rebelled fiercely against Babbitt and Bab- bittry a hundred times. Yet all through the creative process, which, in the course of a longish novel, is an exten- sive one, Lewis identified himself with Babbitt, got a fierce and bitter joy out of that identification of his self with the self of his protagonist, lived in and with and through him as well as in and with and through his other characters, became each in turn without moral discrimination, and so liberated himself from the pain which they had made him suffer. Art, in brief, even the most realistic in method, is con- fession and abbreviation. It is confession through the very nature of the creative process; it is abbreviation through the necessary space and time conditions that determine artistic processes. A controversy between two people that goes on in life for years must be set down in a few chap- ters or in a few scenes. Where in life millions of words were used a few thousand must suffice in art. And those few must be used in such a way as to give the essence of the innumerable ones, and yet not fade into the abstract- ness of symbolism, and yet retain the tang and semblance of the real. All art, in other words, is symbolic. Realis- tic art symbolizes by essences; romantic art, under what- ever newer name, symbolizes by substituting analogous phenomena for those that had aroused the creative energy of the poet. But the former is no more photographic, no more a transcript of reality than the latter. Both seek, by different methods, to project an illusion of the ultimately real. The ultimately real! Goethe and Turgeniev and many other great writers were accused, in their day, of slander- ing their friends and acquaintances by direct representa- tion. Goethe had difficulty in calming the originals who sat for the story of Werther, Turgeniev was accused of having grossly betrayed the hospitality of the Russian squirearchy. It was the same old fallacy. The Goethes and Turgenievs by the creative imagination transform the superficially into the ultimately real, into the essential re- ality of art. The characters in their books transcend and essentialize the originals in nature to such an extent that interpretation has been wholly substituted for description and the writer ends by actually owing less to his angry friends and acquaintances than Shakespeare owed to the various sources of his plots. “The reality,” a very great novelist writes, “which the artist uses for his purposes may be the world of his daily life, it may include his nearest and his dearest, it may cling closely to every given detail and use those details with what may seem an impassioned sub- servience to the stuff of life. Yet in the end there will be not only for the artists but also for the world an unbridg- able chasm between reality and his creative structure— the difference in the very nature of the realm of reality and that of art. Thus it is well known that every true poet is to a certain extent identified with all his creatures. All the characters in a work, however hostile they may be to each other, are still emanations of the creative I, and Goethe is at the same time Antonio and Tasso just as Turgeniev is at the same time Basarov and Paul Petrovich. In brief, it is not invention that characterizes the poet; it is ‘animation’ —the putting of a soul into things.” The University and Marriage HE evil effects of a university education upon the mat- rimonial prospects and desires of our college women have so often been set forth in the press that we have turned with interest to some exceedingly illuminating statistics compiled by the secretary of the class of 1893 of Harvard University to ascertain just what the American college man is doing to increase his tribe. The figures we find are serious enough to cast into deepest gloom the professional opponents of race suicide. This class, graduated thirty years ago from our premier university, enrolled from first to last 451 members, of whom 341 are still alive and active. Given their degrees before the recent considerable acces- sion of Jewish students—of which it had but fifteen—this class is remarkably Anglo-Saxon in its composition. It contains not one Asiatic and not a single Negro. Some of the most familiar Back Bay names grace its pages; it has a considerable percentage of those well endowed with worldly goods and many whose struggles for a place in the sun have been hard and long. Its roll of names was even headed by a John Alden; it has members galore of the hereditary patriotic societies from those of the colonial wars down, and one of its members is of the sixth genera- tion of his family to graduate from Harvard. Taking them altogether ninety-seven are confirmed bach- elors, or 2114 per cent. That is startling enough, but worse still is the fact that eighty-six of the married men are with- out children; that is, of 451 men 183, or more than 40 per cent, have left or will leave no progeny. When we add that of the other married men sixty-five have had but one child it is plainly lucky for Harvard ’93 that Theodore Roosevelt is not alive to castigate these renegade sons of Cambridge. Sixty-five children among 248 possible fathers out of 451 is certainly a record to make the colonel turn in his grave. But he could take some comfort from the fact that 77 of this modest class have each two children, 57 three each, 38 four, and 19 five. Only five men, however, confess to six children apiece, but one to seven, and four to eight off- spring. The banner member (from one point of view) boasts of ten children—the only “old-fashioned New Eng- land family” produced by the entire class. If this does not prove that the pioneer stock is dying out and that the doc- trine of race suicide grows apace among the cultured and the prosperous group in our country, what could? There is only one redeeming fact: After thirty years the class secretary can record but thirty second marriages. Allow- ing for numerous deaths of first wives this fact does not bear out the prevailing theory that the world is divorcing itself. Of the 717 children the record states that but 391 are males. In other words, if every son of these Harvard fathers enters Harvard the class will not even have replaced itself in the student body of the succeeding generation. True, some women’s colleges may profit—indeed are profit- ing—by the 326 girls whose fathers were permanent or temporary members of the Harvard class in question. But that does not fill the bill. Let Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and Smith recruit where they may, the fact is that here is a worse menace to our future supply of cannon fodder and our Back Bay aristocracy than all the Negroes and Jews who have knocked at Harvard’s doors. Who can doubt now that the Nordic race fails and pales?

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184 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 Mistreating Our Eix-Service Men Story of a Former Employee of the Veterans’ Bureau By SAMUEL DANZIGER OR the second time in two years a congressional in- EF vestigation is under way of the manner in which the government’s obligations to disabled ex-service men are being fulfilled. When the first investigation took place, in 1921, the care of these men was divided between three agencies, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the Federal Board for Vocational Education, and the Public Health Service. The investigators failed to see that the first- named agency was negligent and inefficient, but made a report picking flaws in the really excellent work—under great difficulties—of the others. The functions of all three were combined in the United States Veterans’ Bureau, a proper course, but unfortunately the new bureau was headed by the same man, Colonel Charles R. Forbes, under whom the War Risk Insurance Bureau had been mismanaged. Colonel Forbes seems to have had difficulty in compre- hending that ex-service men are no longer soldiers but civilians, and want to remain so. Almost the first act of his administration was the establishment at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, of a vocational training school in charge of former colonels, majors, and captains, and equipped with barracks and other leftovers of a war-time cantonment. It was not so well equipped with competent teachers and ma- terial needed in vocational training. In this school Colonel Forbes planned to concentrate men from hundreds of miles about, taking them from “placement” training in shops and factories near their homes. The men went but did not stay. Many took French leave, returning to the local offices from which they had been sent, with complaints about lack of accommodations and the plentiful supply of military air. To prevent the school from becoming an entire failure Colonel Forbes was compelled to replace the military in- structors with civilians. Better equipment has also been installed, but Colonel Forbes got no further with his plan to create a chain of barracks as a substitute for home-town training. Fulfilment as quickly as possible of the letter of the re- habilitation act and disregard of the spirit has been the policy of the Veterans’ Bureau since its creation. While the Federal Board for Vocational Education was in con- trol the policy was to consider no man rehabilitated until his ability to hold a job had been satisfactorily demon- strated. The policy of the Veterans’ Bureau has been— and still is—to declare men rehabilitated, regardless of their vocational ability, as soon as a technical excuse can be found. This has been done by determining for each trade an arbitrary period within which a man in training is supposed to become proficient. Thirty days before ex- piration of that period the man must be given notice that he is soon to be thrown upon his own resources. He may appeal for more time and be awarded it, but as a rule this policy works so as to turn out “rehabilitated” men as help- less almost as when they entered training. In his last an- nual report Colonel Forbes stated that 22,000 had been turned out during the year. He was careful to avoid saying how many had been actually fitted for industry and for how many training had been merely discontinued, but the ordi- nary reader would erroneously infer from his statement that all had become self-supporting. That many men have been in training a much longer time than appears necessary to a superficial observer seems to have troubled Colonel Forbes and to be troubling his successor, General Hines. This may be because both, being military men, look upon the men as machines who should all show the same results in a given time. They do not realize that, aside from ordinary casualties of war, military training itself has so molded the temperament of the men as to render them less fit for industry than civilians. If every man, on entering vocational training, could be placed at once in the very occupation for which he is best fitted and kept steadily and intensively under competent instructors, the arbitrary periods fixed for each trade would probably suffice for rehabilitation. But this is seldom the case. The men at the head of the bureau are apparently unaware of what their subordinates in personal touch with the men in training well know, that ordinarily much time must be consumed in trying different occupations and in obtaining an opportunity in an industrial establishment (trade schools are not satisfactory substitutes) where proper instruction will be given. Ignorance of this seems the only explanation of a recently reported utterance by General Hines that 10,000 men should be rehabilitated because they have been in training for three years or more. It is interference with local workers by inexperienced and uninformed superiors in Washington, eager to make a paper showing of results, which lies at the bottom of most of the justifiable complaints against the vocational section of the bureau. This would have been avoided had the plan of the Federal Board for Vocational Education been allowed to continue. Shortly before it was supplanted by the bureau it had instituted a system of lo- cal autonomy under which local offices could handle their own problems in their own way without red tape or inter- ference from either the district offices or the central office. Unfortunately, Colonel Forbes saw fit to abolish this and General Hines has not seen fit to restore it. — More scandalous and outrageous is the red tape and neglect prevailing in the compensation section. The war risk insurance act allows a graded form of compensation to every man vocationally handicapped as a result of his mili- tary service. The government, having forcibly taken more or less unwilling men from their regular occupations and pushed them into camps and trenches, recognizes its respon- sibility for what has befallen them. To silence hairsplitters the act provides that, whatever the facts may be, any man must be held as in sound condition on induction into service who was so accepted without notation of his disabilities. Consequently any disability he may have had on his dis- charge must be held, without further discussion, to be due to service and entitle the man to compensation. There is a tale that in one place both draft board and camp physicians let a man slip through who had lost a leg in an accident two years before, that the man was rudely hushed when he tried to explain, and his condition was not realized until he

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 185 got to France. There he was put at some clerical work and on his discharge allowed compensation for his ante-bellum injury technically “due to service.” This tale, apparently well vouched for, may not be true, but it shows the intent of the compensation provisions of the act. Nevertheless the hairsplitters are at work on cases far more deserving than this one-legged hero. He is a fortu- nate man who can have his compensation status properly straightened out within three months of the time that it is due. Many unfortunates must struggle along disabled and unemployed for much longer periods without results. Cases are numerous enough to fill every column of a whole year’s issue of any magazine. One that goes under the file number _of C—373314 is a gassed and shell-shocked unfortunate so badly disabled that the bureau’s physicians have found training him not to be feasible, and, though he bears the signs of mustard gas on his body, he has been denied com- pensation. The reason given in a letter, in spite of the facts, is “You have no disability existing at this time by reason of alleged gas poisoning or chronic bronchitis.” This decision was reached by bureaucrats who had not seen the man but judged his case by examining some papers. C—262868 is an ex-navy man who was nearly killed as the result of a bungling operation on shipboard for gall- stones. He was so badly injured that he was declared to- tally and permanently disabled. At first he was allowed $100 a month compensation. Later, having a laudable de- sire to become self-supporting, he applied for vocational training. This was granted and automatically stopped his compensation, men in training receiving subsistence allow- ances from a different fund. A short trial at very light work proved training to be non-feasible. It was accordingly stopped, automatically putting an end to his subsistence allowance, and should as automatically have restored his $100 a month compensation. Instead he was given a partial rating and has received but $67.50 a month since. Unable to work and with a wife and child to support, he must strug- gle along on this meager amount unless helped by charity. Before enlistment in the navy he was earning $30 a week. An additional scandal in this same case is that the man had been carrying a $5,000 government insurance policy which he allowed to lapse after his injury. He was appar- ently unaware that permanent and total disability en- titles the holder to the benefits of his policy, for he did not apply for it. Later, still unaware of his rights, he applied for reinstatement. At that time he was rated on the bureau’s records as “permanent and total,” and his applica- tion should have brought the whole situation to the atten- tion of proper officials. Instead, reinstatement was allowed and premiums were paid and received for eleven months thereafter. Then some official noticed the man’s condition at time of reinstatement. Did he inform him of his rights under the policy? He did not. What happened was that a letter went out saying in substance: “Your policy is void since you were permanently and totally disabled at time of reinstatement.” Here a clear provision of the law was ignored which makes policies incontestable after being six months in force. Through the intervention of the Red Cross the bureau finally acknowledged its error and the acting director at that time, Leon Fraser, promised that the man would be given his total disability benefits. Since then Mr. Fraser has resigned, the man’s disability rating has been changed to “partial,” his insurance benefits re- main unpaid, and the bar against reinstatement remains. C—217186 is a drafted man who had made his living as a violin player. He was discharged with some psychopathic disorder which has been so aggravated as to render him unable to follow his vocation. Nevertheless, compensation is withheld on the ground that his disability antedates ser- vice. The law shuts out such a contention but it takes a skilled lawmaker to circumvent hairsplitters. In this case they get around it by claiming that the man has no dis- ability but has an “inability.” C—347902 is a volunteer who was gassed while fighting in the Argonne. Although suffering from throat and ner- vous troubles as a result, some one in Washington has concluded that “he is not suffering from any disability whatever connected with military service.” That settles his case. Gassed while on the firing line is apparently not a result of military service. Back of these and similar cases may be a laudable desire to avoid waste of public funds. General John F. O’Ryan, who has charge of the pending investigation, is said to be probing charges of extravagance. That is all very well, but there has probably been far greater wrong done through parsimony in some places than through extravagance in others. If the ruling powers, who were quite content that men be conscripted and slaughtered, would now evade pay- ment of the bill, let that be made known. To a Baby By MAXWELL BODENHEIM I The blue beginning of your eyes Condenses the sprawling and assured Blue with which the sky retreats From those confessions known as days. II Again, your battling mites of blue Try to stop the revolving monster of life And find the indelible persuasiveness Of single forms with the circling blur. Sundered bits of a soul, They are not sure that they have still survived, And plead for the conviction of sight. III But when they recollect The hugely placid manners Of their life, before the earthly exile Made them small and fastened To one pathetic puzzle, Their blue reverts to swelling reveries Whose outward circles spurn the curtained jail. IV Upon your softly incomplete Face, where germs of devils stir in curves That tremble into questioning symmetries, A thrust of darkness sometimes interferes With secret, virgin places underneath Your eyes, and where your leaf-thin nostrils pause. This darkness bends with helpless messages, Like history admonishing a world Personified in one composite face.

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186 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3083 These United States—X X XVI* ILLINOIS: First Province of the Middle Kingdom By HOWARD VINCENT O’BRIEN HE State of Illinois “in tres partes divisa est’: (a) Chicago; (b) “down State”; (c) the circulation of the Chicago Tribune—a domain of resentful serfs who pay their tributary coppers even beyond the Mississippi. The distillation of such complexity into the compass of a few thousand words presents difficulties, because, though the three parts have a semblance of geographic and political identity, they are really in no way related. Chicago is a part of Illinois only as Rome was a part of the Italian pen- insula; and the “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” as it mod- estly calls itself, belongs only to its owners. If one write of Illinois, with subordinate consideration of Chicago and the County of Cook, the citizenry of the metropolis will rise as one man to point out that he has rather absurdly discussed the dog’s tail, with only incidental mention of the dog. On the other hand, if he set forth Chicago, with Illinois as the side dish, he offers insult to half the population of a sovereign State. Nor can he strad- dle: to be neutral is to enjoy the unhappy ignominy of one in Dublin who is neither green nor orange. It is, indeed, a dilemma! To personalize the situation, one may picture a farmer, white and native born, who can read and write, but doesn’t —much—with a son who ran away and more or less acci- dentally got very rich. Relations between parent and off- spring are a trifle strained, son being somewhat contemptu- ous of dad, and dad in a constant state of irritation with son, because the latter appears to think he’s going to run the whole gosh-blamed farm. There were other children, of greater filial piety, some of whom went into manufac- turing, and have done very well, such as Rockford and Moline and Joliet. There was also Peoria, a dubious source of pride, which took to distilling, and until the ad- vent of a statesman of Scandinavian descent, from Minne- sota, was one of the most prosperous of the family. But to characterize Illinois as a farmer is only in part accurate. True, it ranks second in the production of corn and in the south is a land of dolce far niente, a low, hot region, with extraordinarily fertile soil, known, for various reasons, as “Egypt.” One of the reasons is the name of its principal city, which is Cairo. It would be impolitic to specify the other reasons. But as one proceeds northward, though the semblance is beautiful to the agricultural eye, the beauty is quite literally “skin deep,” for immediately below the green and smiling prairie lies a vast bed of bitu- minous coal, and the pick becomes almost as symbolical of the State as is the hoe. Statistics are dreadful things. But they are as insepar- able from a statement of Illinois as figures are from a bank. A European or a New Englander would consider Illinois as very sparsely populated. But the relative handful of people who inhabit it are extremely busy. With a population of six million odd, and a size less than the average of the Union—56,000 square miles—it ranks among the first three in manufacturing, savings-bank deposits, soft coal, pig iron, * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1928, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. and corn. And in the valwe of its agricultural produce, as distinguished from mere quantity, it ranks first. Contrary to Eastern notions of the Middle West, merely material distinctions are held of less moment than those which must be measured on finer scales. Illinois is proud of its rating in dollars and tonnage, but it is very much prouder of the fact that, although the density of its population is about three times that of the average of the country as a whole, its percentage of illiteracy is only 4.2 per cent, as opposed to 10.7 per cent in the country at large. The farmers, the miners, the artisans, and the shop- keepers of Illinois share an obsession with education. Scratch the average citizen, and you find an individual who has, or has had, or is about to have, a son or daughter in the University of Illinois. Eastern eyebrows may elevate at mention of this provincial seat of learning, and Eastern lips may curl at sheepskins awarded for excellence in hip- pology and Ph.D.’s in animal husbandry, and Eastern skin may creep at the spectacle of uncouth youths roaming what should be cloistered solitudes in sweaters. But the citizen of Illinois is placid. He knows the opulence his university enjoys, as a consequence of the provisions for education in the establishment of the Western Reserve. Through his legislature he is ever ready to supplement that wealth. And when legal methods are too slow, he is quick to dig down into his blue-jeans for what may be needed. At the moment, it is a stadium—an enormous affair, costing mil- lions, and every penny provided by private subscription. In Winnetka, a suburb of Chicago, when the school prob- lem became acute and the bonding capacity of the village was exhausted, the citizens, led by a lawyer who was serv- ing as the head of the school board, stepped in and built a magnificent public school. The principal contributor was a wealthy Jewish clothing manufacturer: the others were Tom, Dick, and Harry. The man of Illinois is a practical man, and he knows that money talks. It enables him to provide his university with better buildings and more of them than any seaboard seat of learning can boast, and it enables him to offer financial inducements to professorial skill that are beyond resisting. To an Eastern observer there is something appalling in the positive enormity of everything at the University of IIli- nois. After seeing the armory, an edifice large enough to house the old Yale campus, he is too numbed for comment when he hears that the student band alone is almost half the size of. the entire Princeton undergraduate body. A bell rings, and from a huge building come a swarm of girls and boys, like ants from a burning log. Ten thousand students, he mutters, and when he is told that the bass drum, used by the aforementioned student band, is of such magnitude that it requires a special flat car for its transport, he shivers and flees from further Brobdingnagian data. Illinois has a placid exterior. But there is turbulence within its bosom. It can run to extremes. It can, for in- stance, run a temperature as high as 107 degrees, and in a few weeks or hours—it is done by minutes in Chicago— drop to 24 below. This mercuric climate may, perhaps, be

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 187 held accountable for Illinois’s rather distinguished record for violence. Excluding minor lynchings, which, after all, are of importance chiefly to the individual concerned, Illi- nois has attained the front page of the yellower journals, and the editorial columns of the fireside press, several times of late years. ‘There were, several years ago, the Springfield riots, of a racial character, with fire, murder, and rapine flourishing in the very shadow of the State Capitol. There was, later, the outburst in Chicago, in which black men were murdered somewhat more atrociously than white men usually murder white men, and during which, in the heart of the city where the Great Emanci- pator was nominated, it was unsafe for a man of color to show himself on the street. And, most recently, there was the Herrin “massacre,” in which the ever-present emotional dynamite of the coal fields was bloodily detonated. The real feature of this last affair, in which murder was followed by mutilations worthy of Armenia, was the lineage of the malefactors. As in the great railway strike, the devilment was not the work of alien “reds,” but of more or less direct descendants of Mayflower stock. Much edi- torial comment damned the atrocities at Herrin as “un- American,” whereas, like the anarchy which ruled the streets of Chicago in the summer of 1894, it was as thor- oughly American as the Declaration of Independence. The people of Herrin are singularly free from any conscious- ness of sin. They recently reelected to office, by an over- whelming majority, a local official admittedly involved in the affair. This gave great pain to Chicago, which, having forgotten the race riots of 1919, refers piously to the Her- rin incident as a blot on the State’s escutcheon. Chicago is old enough to have forgotten a number of things. One of them is its origin. Everyone knows that Chicago is the greatest railway center in the world. But no one can really explain why. The fact is that Chicago is an accident. It did not begin, as most cities do, as an answer to the needs of commerce. Its nucleus was not a trading-post, but a military one—Fort Dearborn—situate (the military methods of the period apparently not differ- ing from those now current) in a peculiarly disagreeable and unhealthful swamp, beside a wretched little river, the Indian name of which was Wild Onion. One likes to picture the pioneers, those sparks from Plymouth Rock, as foreseeing the greatness of Chicago. But unfortunately some of them made the mistake of com- mitting their views to paper. One, for instance, came to the little hamlet, tarried a while, and then, when he had satisfied himself, moved on to a village in the neighbor- ing Fox River valley, where he settled. That village, he said, was destined to be the metropolis of the Western Reserve. The Fox River still flows, and the village is still there—no larger than when he found it! Another, owning a lot on what is today Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s prin- cipal boulevard, allowed it to be sold for taxes, and moved his family to Milwaukee, a city which had a “future.” The Chicago city seal is graced by a somewhat portly female of Grecian origin, whose motto is “I will.” The words are better than the picture. There is nothing feminine or Hellenic about Chicago. A better personaliza- tion of it would be the type so familiar in the recent era of high prices and labor scarcity—hands rough and a little soiled, wearing a silk shirt and diamonds, who ordered two pianos at a time, stripping bills from the “wad” ex- tracted from his “pants,” to pay for them. It is, in short, a gross lout of a city, long on health and vigor and ruthlessness and imagination and money, and with less sign of sprouting what is known as “culture” than a cement sidewalk shows of sprouting grass. H. G. Wells called it a “lapse from civilization.” An Oriental undoubtedly had it in mind when he spoke of America as being inhabited by the flattest-minded people on the globe. And for anyone whose interest in babies, prohibition, and the stock market is tepid, dining out is a weary business. And yet—there is a population of some four hundred thousand Jews. Where there are Jews, the cultural spark is never quite extinguished. Under the glossy concrete shell of commercialism there is evidence of a warm lush soil in which good seed will one day flourish. There are pianos. The fathers bought them for decorative purposes: signs are not wanting that sons and daughters are learning to play them. The bluff scorn of the pioneers for effete things like opera has softened. Opera has had the acco- lade of “civic” accorded it, and the plain people are begin- ning to give it the respect they give the Cubs and the Stock Yards and the Municipal Pier. It has lost something of its mere social significance, and the gallery sells out be- fore the boxes. The Symphony Orchestra—still referred to by ladies of the old school as the Thomas orchestra— and Ravinia, that extraordinary outdoor temple to the muse, on the North Shore—nothing like it this side of Germany—are known wherever music matters. Not long ago, a fountain by a famous sculptor was unveiled on a city thoroughfare. Every city, of course, has fountains by famous sculptors. But the significant thing about this one was the fact that it was paid for from a fund bequeathed by an utter unknown—a man of the people who had amassed riches out of lumber, a Maecenas of the democratic order. Near the river, on the West Side, is a grim pile of red brick—a monument to that refinement of modernism, the mail-order business. It is quintessential of merchandising and turnover and distribution and profit. And in the Art Institute, held worthy of place on walls with Corot and VanDyke, are canvases painted by the active head of that mail-order business. Nor is his case isolated. There is an active and not inconsiderable group of business men who paint pictures—many of the members being highly success- ful business men, who paint extremely well. In Chicago hospitality has retained its small-town qual- ity. Unlike the New Yorker, the Chicagoan does not dine his outlander friend at a restaurant and take him to: 4 theater—he takes him home. That is one of the reasons why the visitor does not see the “night life’ of Chicago. The other reason is that there isn’t any. Nightfall sees the streets deserted, save on what the newspapers call the Rialto, ordinarily known as Randolph Street, where one may see some of the New York shows, acted by the kind of actor that doesn’t mind traveling. There are also sev- eral places for circumspect dancing, after twelve. And at Huyler’s, if you go early enough, you can secure excellent soda water. The lake front is an evidence of the profound foresight the city’s forefathers did not have. One wonders what was in their minds—or in their pockets—when they allowed the Illinois Central Railroad to lay its tracks in the munici- pal front yard, quite literally under their very noses. This civic Helgoland was, until recently, both in figure and in fact, nothing more than a dump. But as time passed it became evident that rubbish is objectionable only when

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188 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 eee eee ee eee ee ener ene eT there is not enough of it; for the dreadful litter of dirt and garbage and tin cans presently became a considerable area of new land. The water was driven back, and beyond the railroad tracks lies the broad expanse of Grant Park. The only building ever raised on the lake side of Michi- gan Avenue was the Art Institute. But some years ago all the realtors of the city, as if moved by a common impulse, suddenly announced their intention of putting up new, large, incomparably magnificent edifices to flank the insti- tute. There was great jubilation. “Boosting” attained the proportions of a delirium. The Avenue, which about this time became the Boulevard, or as B.L.T. dubbed it, the Boul Mich, was, in the familiar American hyperbole, to be the finest in the world. But into this iridescent dream stepped the unpleasant reality of one Montgomery Ward, another man who had made a success of the mail-order business. His weapons were law-suits and injunctions: his purpose to keep the far side of the Boulevard forever free of buildings. The litigation was endless, and to a cheated and outraged public the name of Ward became anathema. But the Watch Dog of the Lake Front never let go, and the city can still see the blue waters of the lake. And today there is a widespread contention that Grant Park ought to be Ward Park. The beautification of the land which this obstinate old man preserved for the people against their will continues steadily. The Illinois Central is to be put under ground and electrified. There are to be flowers, plashing fountains, gondolas on the silver bosom of a lake tamed into lagoons, a stadium, museums, and what not— all for the pleasure and edification of the common people. The quality of paradox in the composition of Chicago reached its climax in the person of its erstwhile mayor, Mr. William Hale Thompson, who gained international fame for quite accurately, but with poor judgment, char- acterizing the place he governed as the “sixth German city of the world.” Chicago, like other American cities, has always enjoyed varying degrees of bad government. But several years ago the “better element” was roused to reform. It was time, they said, to take the city out of politics. So, very carefully, they picked a man with no political affiliations, of independent means, and of good, sound American stock, to raise the banner of civic virtue. Their candidate was duly elected. Whereupon he put a sombrero on his head and became “Big Pill’”—prince of demagogues. Before the ink was dry on the felicitations of press and pulpit, Chicago was in the grip of a political machine that made the efforts of such men as Tweed seem bungling and experimental. Thompson has now passed from the scene. But what may be called Thompsonism remains. It is a kind of bond between Chicago and Illinois, because it rules both. The governor of the State, Len Small, yields fealty to the “or- ganization.” Not long ago he was tried for the unromantic crime of embezzlement—and acquitted. Now, those who acquitted him are about to be tried. When members of the Chicago school board were under a similar indictment the case could not be brought to trial because the attorney general of the State lacked the funds necessary to prose- cute it. And he lacked them because the governor had vetoed the necessary appropriations. No, this is not a scene from the “Mikado”— it is just Illinois politics. Thompsonism has many friends and apologists. But their loyalty is for the most part negative—inspired by their dislike of the Tribune, which is bitterly hostile to Thomp- sonism. But why is it so hostile and so bitter? Well, dear children, that goes back to its feud with Senator Lorimer, who, not a little from its efforts, was chased out of the United States Senate. Mr. Lorimer was, in a way, the pro- genitor of Thompsonism, and a little verse which appeared in the “Line o’ Type” summarizes the whole matter: You may ventilate, fumigate, douche if you will, But the odor of Lorimer will cling to you still! The Tribune is vindictive, clever, and irreconcilable. It is rich beyond computation, and enormously powerful. It is as personal and unstable as a country weekly—which is natural, since its owners are also its active editors. It is less popular than prohibition. A great many people hate it violently. Those who have anything like affection for it are negligible. And yet one out of every five families, in five States, subscribes to it. The people of Illinois have no enthusiasm for Thompsonism, and less for the Tribune. But they vote for the one, and buy the other. They would shed no tears at the downfall of either. But the fact re- mains that the Tribune, if not the world’s greatest news- paper, certainly is one of them, and Thompsonism does build roads and bridges and supply fetes, even if they cost more than they should. Youthful and masculine is Chicago—generous, impulsive, and somewhat skeptical of “dog.” It takes a person of great hardihood to stroll down the Boulevard carrying a cane. Though that skepticism is more for the stroll than the stick. One does not stroll in Chicago. Neither does one contemplate. One goes and one does—at the greatest possible speed. The Frenchman, sipping his sirop grena- dine and discussing Balkan politics, and the German, with his beer, listening to Wagner, are alike beyond the compre- hension of Chicago. The Chicagoan does not discuss poli- tics—he takes sides; and he would rather dance to music than listen to it. And he regards his watch more highly than his imagination. And yet, he has a boundless imagination. His dreams have magnitude, if not intensity, and he has the energy to bring great plans to fruition. His city is all compact of the yea and nay which is in him. It is tolerant of graft, and prudish about art. It is liberal as regards business ethics, and bigoted as regards social ethics. It is polyglot and conservative. It welcomes new people, and mistrusts new ideas. And though, unlike other great cities, it has no leisure class, and the sons of wealth are obliged by the pres- sure of public opinion to toil as sweatily as their grand- fathers did, there is a certain unmistakable wistfulness for the things which set human life apart from the beasts of the field, and make of the human economy something more than a digestive tube. Chicago has the feeling for Illinois that the dweller within gates has always had for the outlander; and Illinois fears and dislikes Chicago because it is “foreign.” But under the surface of mutual distrust, of vainglorious pride, of crude commercialism on the one hand and smug ruralism on the other, lies a questioning and hopeful pessimism. It is like the coal beds under the fields of smiling corn—latent fire. Illinois, by the record, has done well in all the ways of the flesh. To the historian, if not the prophet, it is clear that she will presently flower into achievement in the things of the spirit. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of September 5, will be Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle, by Willa Sibert Cather.

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 189

Progress (and Poverty) in Porto Rico By ARTHUR WARNER IV. WHEN Do WE EAT? HE crying economic question in Porto Rico is: “When do we eat?” <A great majority of the people do not get enough food even in quantity; still fewer get an ade- quate variety. An occasional purchase of codfish provides about the only meat. The great national dish is rice and beans, which is nourishing though heavy. But all three of these foods are imported, and therefore cost money. So the native relies a good deal upon bananas and sweet pota- toes which he can raise himself or buy at trifling cost. In periods of unemployment he falls back upon them almost entirely. His diet is always deficient in good fats, but the craving for them leads to an inordinate use of bad lard or vegetable oils in his cooking when he can afford them. Probably ninety-nine children in a hundred grow up vir- tually without milk after their nursing days. Better subsistence for the masses is imperative if they are to develop the mental and physical energy necessary to improve the other conditions of their life. It is true that until the hookworm is eradicated the people will continue to be anemic and without endurance, no matter how good their food. The prevalence of the hookworm disease is the greatest obstacle to progress in the island. But the elimi- nation of the hookworm is only a necessary condition for improving the standard of living. In itself it is not an improvement of that standard. Improvement must begin with more food; and for the present, at least, it must be produced by the island itself. Porto Rico’s food problem is due to the extraordinary and rapidly increasing density of the population. There are 378 persons to the square mile, an increase of 100 per- sons to the square mile since the beginning of American rule. The density of the population is about twice that in France and ten times the average for continental United States. To employ such a population—and thus to feed it— involves either large manufacturing development (an im- probability) or more scientific and extensive agriculture. Unemployment is chronic. There are no comprehensive statistics, but in 1920, before the post-war industrial slump had fairly begun, the insular Bureau of Labor estimated that, except in San Juan, there were five men for every job not requiring technical knowledge. The great export crops of Porto Rico are sugar-cane, to- bacco, and coffee, with grapefruit making rapid headway in recent years. Both rice and beans—the staple foods of the people—are raised to some extent, but not in sufficient quantities to fill the home demand. Sweet potatoes and bananas are raised for domestic use only. It is thought that neither can be exported at a profit against present competition. In Spanish days coffee was Porto Rico’s great crop. It has since become secondary to both sugar and tobacco. Sugar now comprises about half of the entire agricul- tural wealth of the island and employs 40 per cent of all the farm labor. Unfortunately, it is a crop which calls for many workers through the harvest season from January to June, for fewer during the planting season of the next few months, and for a still smaller number during the grow- ing season from October to the end of the year. Another objection to sugar-cane from the social standpoint is that in Porto Rico it is essentially a large-scale crop, ill adapted to small holdings or the poor man. The increasing em- phasis on sugar-cane is probably responsible for the ten- dency toward larger and larger single holdings and the continual elimination of the small farmer, whereas the island obviously needs an agriculture that will increase rather than diminish the number of persons who are cul- tivators on their own account. The absence of small farmers has always been one of the unfortunate aspects of Porto Rican life, but the census shows that the number of individual farms dropped from 58,371 in 1910 to 41,078 in 1920, a decline of almost one third. Likewise the number of farms of less than ten acres decreased in the same period from 31,959 to 15,981, a loss of one half. The census of 1910 included as farms a good many holdings that were excluded under the more exact classification of ten years later, but this can account only partially for the statistics indicating the astonishing decline of the small farmer, as there are other figures show- ing the increasing consolidation of the land in the hands of large owners. For instance, the area in farms of 1,000 or more acres increased by 16 per cent between 1910 and 1920, although the number of such holdings decreased from 207 to 167, indicating a grouping even of the large plantations into the hands of fewer persons. Fifty or more acres in Porto Rico may be regarded as a large farm. It is signifi- cant, therefore, that three-fourths of the farm land of the island is in holdings of more than that size. Not only is the farm land predominantly and increas- ingly in the hands of a few owners, but it is passing more and more into the hands of alien or absentee landlords. Leopoldo Feliti, ex-Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor, estimates that three-fourths of the cane land is owned or leased by three big companies, the stock of which is owned chiefly in the United States, while about the same propor- tion of the tobacco land is controlled by the Porto Rican- American Tobacco Company, a subsidiary of the American Tobacco Company. The coffee plantations, according to Mr. Feliu, have been gradually passing into the hands of Spanish merchants who have obtained mortgages on them for goods supplied—and under the stress of hard times have been able to foreclose. Probably the chief reason for the growing domination of the island by outsiders is the high cost of money, making it extremely precarious for anyone without ready capital to embark upon industry. The regular bank rate is 10 per cent on loans of $2,000 or less, 9 per cent on sums from $2,000 to $50,000, and 8 per cent on amounts above $50,000. But this is not all of the story. There are various extras in the way of commissions and the like, especially among the money lenders to whom the small borrower is largely compelled to resort, in consequence of which the actual in- terest rate commonly runs from 12 to 18 per cent, with cases where it has been 48 per cent! Obviously it is impossible for industry to pay such inter- est rates and have anything left as wages for the workers

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190 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 who sustain it. No wonder that the island is bled white of its riches, that its industry, like its population, is anemic! It has been estimated that two-thirds of the wealth pro- duced in Porto Rico goes abroad in the form of rents, com- missions, or dividends. As C. Toro Labarthe, formerly, Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor, has put it: “The island is well organized as a factory for production of profits, and it is worked by unhappy peons the fruit of whose toil goes to the enrichment of owners and stock- holders most of whom are absentees.” V. EMIGRATION—OR WHAT? From what has been said it should be clear that Porto Rican industry, as it exists, is inadequate to afford a decent or even a tolerable life to a population already oriental in its density and still rapidly increasing. Not a few students of conditions have thrown up their hands and counseled emigration as the only solution. Cuba and Santo Domingo, they have argued, need agricultural labor, not to speak of more distant points. But the Porto Rican cannot be forced to leave home, and he evinces no wish to do so voluntarily in any but insignificant numbers. Emigration is probably impractical and certainly deplorable as a remedy. There must be a better alternative. In the future some reliance may be placed on the development of light manufacturing, because although lacking in iron, coal, or water power, and remote from world markets, the island has an important asset in its abundant labor supply. The making of cigars and cigarettes from native tobacco is already an industry of importance, while Porto Rican hand-made lace and women’s blouses command a ready market in the United States. The island ought to make all of its cotton clothing, instead of importing it, and probably its shoes. But for the present the hope of better living conditions lies chiefly in a more extensive and diversified agriculture. Presumably the present landowners are cultivating all the acreage that their resources permit or their judgment dic- tates. Likewise they are raising the crops that they be- lieve to be most profitable. Hope of more extensive and diversified agriculture lies not in them but in putting new men on the land as small cultivators on their own account. Such men would inevitably increase the number of acres under cultivation and, as small producers working fresh land of varying possibilities, would be likely to find profit in new crops, especially if encouraged by experimentation on the part of the government and assisted in marketing their products. To put any substantial number of men on the land as cul- tivators on their own account will require a new taxation system, devised to make unprofitable the holding of idle land, together with a policy of land purchase by the gov- ernment and redistribution in small holdings on leasehold. There is now a homestead law in Porto Rico, designed to utilize public lands as small farms, but as the government owns little property that is of any promise agriculturally, this effort does not go far enough. Along with a policy of land enfranchisement for a new crop of small farmers must go a method of supplying them with working capital at lower interest than the exorbitant rates now current. A start in this direction was made by the extension to Porto Rico last autumn of the Federal Land Bank. This promises important relief to small farmers through money at 6 per cent, although its field is limited on account of the provision restricting any individual loan to $5,000 and making only a first mortgage on land accept- able as security. Additional credit is needed, supplied if necessary by insular bond issues, available in larger sums than $5,000 and obtainable on crops as well as on land. To put the now landless and commonly jobless Porto Rican in the fields as an independent cultivator is, of course, encompassed by many difficulties and likely to result in numerous failures. Generations of virtual serfdom have unfitted him temperamentally for the work. But with the advice and assistance of a competent agricultural service the mountains in the way, though lofty, are not impassable. VI. THE POLITICAL FUTURE I have left until last a discussion of the island’s political future. Last but not least? No, as I see it, last and least. That, of course, is contrary to the prevailing opinion in Porto Rico, where the future form of government is re- garded as first and foremost and is above all else the sub- ject of discussion and controversy. And that is just the trouble. All over the world, to be sure, people are talking and thinking in the language of outworn political systems instead of in modern economic terms. But Porto Rico is in such desperate need of economic reconstitution that the subordination of this task te the puerilities and personalities that occupy the atten- tion of the Unionists and the Republicans—the largest two parties—is especially tragic. Porto Rico is too poor to afford the luxury of much politics; it ought not to afford even the luxury of much graft. (Or is that a necessity?) Graft works greater hardship there than in the United States. For instance, when visiting Ponce, I remarked to a friend who was showing me about that the high-school building was much in need of a coat of paint. He agreed, adding sadly that money for such work had been appro- priated a year or so previously but had leaked away before it got as far as the high-school walls. Now that illustrates a difference between Porto Rico and the United States. I do not know that there is more graft in one place than in the other, but the United States is a richer country and although, in most public work, a good deal of money trickles into wrong channels, there is usually something left for the original purpose. Out of a similar appropriation there might have been as much extracted in graft as in Porto Rico, but the total would have been sufficient so that the high-school would have got at least a cheap coat of paint. In my judgment it does not matter a picayune whether the form of government in Porto Rico remains what it is, or whether the island is organized as a territory, admitted to the Union as a State, or constituted as some sort of free state. (No considerable group is any longer asking for independence.) Yet, as long as people are as they are, it seems advisable to seek some solution of Porto Rico’s politi- cal future in order to remove the question from party poli- tics and induce the island to occupy itself with more im- portant subjects. In any event the future form of government in Porto Rico is essentially an insular question, and should be so recognized in the United States. It is true that, if the island is admitted as a State to the Union, it will there- after have its share in determining the national destiny, but its influence in that respect will be hardly large enough to be of either appreciable benefit or calculable harm. About the only novelty in the Federal government that has

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August 22, 1923] been suggested as likely to ensue from Porto Rico’s admis- sion to statehood would be the probability that the island would send some Negroes to sit in Congress. Anyhow it is for Porto Rico, primarily, to determine its political future. Any attempt to fabricate a form of gov- ernment in the United States and foist it upon the island would be resented, no matter how excellent the device. Congress must wait for some fairly general crystallization of opinion in Porto Rico before it can do anything. Until recently this has been lacking, but there is now a movement in the Unionist Party to abandon the demand for a free state and to unite with others in asking for a territorial government now, with statehood as a probable sequel. At first sight there seems to be no virtue in a territorial government as an intermediate step. The Jones Act, of 1917, probably gives Porto Rico as much self-government The Nation 191 already as it would have under territorial organization, un- less the island be allowed—as Porto Ricans suggest—to elect its Governor. But in spite of first appearances to the contrary, there would be one great advantage in or- ganizing Porto Rico as a territory. It would be a tacit promise on the part of Congress, and a virtual acceptance by the island, that statehood was the eventual goal, and agreement on that point would be invaluable in removing the question from insular politics. Congress would be ill-advised to thrust statehood, or any- thing else, upon Porto Rico. But if determinable sentiment in the island should swing definitely toward incorporation in the Union, Congress could commemorate the completion of twenty-five years of American administration in no bet- ter way than by giving to Porto Rico the territorial organi- zation which would be the token of statehood to come. The Roots of the War—And of Peace® By COUNT HARRY KESSLER F course, most of the problems of which the war and the present critical state of Europe are the outcome were not new in 1914; they date back far behind the war. At the root of all I think you will find, if you dig down, two fundamental facts: (1) An immense and unprece- dented growth of population in almost all the European countries within the last century; (2) An awakening, still more unprecedented, of the masses, of the self-conscious- ness of the masses, due to popular education, to the popular press, and to all sorts of authorized and unauthorized propa- @anega....°. The growth of population beyond the sustaining capacity of its soil gave every European nation the millions of hungry workers necessary to start great industries, to start “big business” on an unprecedented scale. It gave each of these expanding nations not only the opportunity; it forced upon it also the necessity of creating and maintaining great industries; for it forced them to buy food and raw mate- rials in great quantities in foreign markets; and forced them, therefore, to sell in foreign markets great quantities of-their own products, in order to pay for what they urg- ently needed. The English people could not live more than two months in the year on the food produced in the British Isles; or, putting it another way, five-sixths of the people of Great Britain would have to starve if it lost the capacity of buying food in foreign markets. Germany, even before the war, had to import about one-third of its food stuffs and almost all its raw materials. Here you have the roots of modern industrial competition as between nations. .. . No less urgent were the questions arising out of the awakening of the masses, and, first and foremost, nation- alism and the growing will of nations to self-determination and unity. I believe it was Secretary Lansing who noted down in his diary at Paris that the idea of self-determina- tion carried by President Wilson into the councils at Ver- sailles would work like dynamite on Europe; well, that dynamite was always smoldering and sometimes violently exploding in most of the great empires of Europe during the greater part of the last century. Not only the Ottoman Empire, but also Austria, Germany, Great Britain were Ee * From a lecture delivered before the Institute of Politics, Williamstown, Massachusetts, on July 30. never in the course of the last hundred years safe from its effects. It made a burning problem of the reorganization of Europe on national lines, in so far as the wars and revo- lutions of the nineteenth century had not already brought about this reorganization by force. Democracy itself did not lessen but increased these diffi- culties. I believe in democracy. I believe that true world democracy will in the future be the chief safeguard of peace and prosperity. But the separate democracies of the dif- ferent competing nations before the war were the very objects, and must necessarily be the first victims, of defeat in economic competition. These separate and water-tight democracies were therefore ideal hunting grounds for the nationalist scaremonger. And besides, these democracies added force to the disrupting idea of national self-determi- nation. To aid this scaremongering, an old tradition in all European states made it more or less constitutional to keep from democracy all real knowledge of international affairs. Under these circumstances, it therefore became increas- ingly urgent to organize cooperation between the dif- ferent national democracies, through open diplomacy and other appropriate machinery, lest they should come to blows. Last, but not least, class consciousness raised the whole question of the share of labor in the profits and dignity of production—a question which alone was sufficient to shake the social structure of Europe to its foundations. On the other hand, the new constructive forces were no less in magnitude than these great problems. Allow me to mention some of these forces only: the increase in power of industry and transportation, the tightening web of world economy, the revolutionary onward rush of science, the moral and spiritual vigor of the awakened masses, ready to hand for any one to use for constructive, as well as for destructive, purposes. But the trouble was the politicians did not care or did not know how to use these forces for constructive purposes and for the solution of the problems overhanging Europe. On the other hand, these problems and the dangers which they threatened, so long as they remained unsolved, were so patent that they resulted in an universal feeling of inse- curity. Now here, in this universal feeling of insecurity, I

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think we have the immediate cause of the great tragedy. For this universal sense of insecurity forced the politicians to find, or at least to pretend to find, solutions and reme- dies; and the remedies they applied were armaments, im- perialism and alliances. But it is an unfortunate fact that every one of those remedies added new formidable dangers to those already threatening, and far from making the dif- ferent countries really safe, could not even make them feel Barer « ey) At any rate, when the catastrophe came, it struck Europe with all its great problems unsolved, and the devastation wrought by the great catastrophe added new problems to the old ones. This devastation was, of course, terrific. The committee constituted at Copenhagen to investigate the social effects of the war makes out a total of 35,000,000 lives lost in Europe: mR FATICOs Ne vicious cicrere 1,400,000 _—ikilled 1,500,000 by the decrease of birth rate. ngelitallivioe<ciave's avec 600,000 =—ikililed 1,400,000 by the decrease of birth rate. TE RV IESSIAN ciel ciejeroister ee 9,829,000 killed 20,000,000 by the decrease of birth rate. Nees Bn land) ve 2)-,< -'-) ene 800,000 _ _—ikilled 850,000 _—iby the decrease of birth rate. ae Germanyes cc. st sie- 2,000,000 _—ikilled 3,600,000 by the decrease of birth rate. and added to them 763,000 _ killed by the blockade during the war and after. I call your special attention to these 763,000, because they were mostly women and children and old men and a large proportion were killed after the fighting was over. They total almost as many lives as England lost in all through the war. The destruction of property was not less appalling. In France 285,000 houses were destroyed and 400,000 dam- aged; over 3,000,000 acres of French soil devastated; 2,400 kilometers of her main railway lines and 22,000 of her fac- tories destroyed. Everybody who realizes this, and still more, those who have seen the devastated areas in France, must feel deeply with the French people; and also with Europe for the frightful injury inflicted, in part, as must be admitted, wantonly, on one of its richest provinces. But unfortunately these French ruins are not the only wound on the fair face of Europe. Few people, I believe, realize the devastation of Poland which the Russian armies inflicted on that unfortunate country in their retreat. I witnessed that retreat and that destruction, as they were in progress. Hun- dreds of miles of Russian front rolled back over the villages and cities, setting fire to each as it was evacuated, and leaving behind nothing but charred ruins... . So much for the loss of life and property; but this almost pales before the worst devastation wrought by the war; the poisoning of the moral atmosphere. Atrocities there al- ways have been and always will be in every war. War is not a clean or moral business. Certainly, where individual atrocities occur they should be denounced. I never hesi- tated to do so myself, when I had any suspicions against any of our own men. But on the whole, I think there were fewer atrocities on all sides than the world has been led to think. Human nature, after all, was not quite so black as it was painted. ... But it is not the very right and natural outcry against individual atrocities that has created the atmosphere of hate; rather, this was studiously prepared by the denunciation of whole nations through well-organ- ized propaganda. Immediately the war began, the war minister of one of the great powers involved told the jour- nalists: ‘You shall be the sowers of hate.” ... The lessons and forces which sprang from the great changes of the nineteenth century I have already at least mentioned: the immensely increased power of production and transportation, the gradual tightening of the web of world economy, the driving power of science, the moral and spiritual forces called into being by the awakening of the masses. What did the war add to all these? First of all, in the economic field, the lessons of a great experiment: the experiment of withdrawing the supreme control of produc- tion and distribution from private enterprise and from the mere pursuit of individual profit, and handing it over to a council representing, on the allied side, twenty-six states, with the purpose of adapting both production and distribu- tion to the needs of the peoples. The Supreme Economic Council of the Allies, controlling industries and shipping, may have been defective and irksome; but it certainly demonstrated one thing: that the international control of foodstufis and raw materials and the international adjust- ment of their distribution to the needs of the different nations are at any rate possible. Hardly less important was the lesson given by the co- operation of organized labor with the governments, both in Germany and on the allied side. It proved that these great organized bodies of workers, that had been growing up in the various trades, had not only become a power which forced recognition, but also that invaluable use can be made of them for intensifying and quickening production. What bearings these two lessons may have on the great problems of Europe we shall have to consider in a later lecture. But whatever we may find, these bearings and all economic and social solutions will depend, in the last resort, on the spirit of humanity. And it is therefore to the spirit we must look if we are.to decide whether there are at present, or were when the war ceased, any serious hopes of a better world. Now I think that nothing can strengthen these hopes more than the spirit of purest self-sacrifice with which hundreds of thousands on all sides went out to lay down their lives in what to them was a sacred cause. I wish to quote as a particularly moving document of that spirit, the book of a young Frenchman killed in the war: “Lettres d’un Soldat.” I should like to add to these the memory of Rupert Brooke; and also the memory of one or two young prisoners with whom I had the privilege of speaking. Often, when I have been moved to indignation by some particularly poisonous product of the propaganda of hate, I have thought of these splendid young Frenchmen or Eng- lishmen, and the feeling has died away. Against the propa- ganda of hate we have to set this magnificent triumph of the idea of service. JI doubt whether at any other time this triumph could have been so complete. For this same idea of service was living, also, in all countries; in those courageous men and women who re- sisted the war at the cost of their liberty and even of their lives; in the Quakers and conscientious objectors in Eng- land, or in strong individual characters such as Rosa Lux- emburg and Theodore Liebknecht in Germany. Here was the idea of service, and also the promise of something new and great; of a moral revolt against the ancient law of blood, of an uncompromising stand for the rights of hu- manity.n. .

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 193 Easley to the Rescue By HUBERT C. HERRING The incident related below, is an actual happening. The name of the institution is suppressed at the instance of the author, who writes: “My good friends at the University of are having a very difficult time inducing any men of liberal tendencies to come down into their country.” HE Stars and Stripes still fly over The University. Thanks to Mr. Easley and his Civic Federation. The National Student Forum, in its effort to promote friendship and understanding between European and American students, arranged a tour of the colleges by a select group of students. They came to The University. A brilliant young Englishman. A Czech filled with enthu- siasm for the student Renaissance movement of his own country. And—tread gently—one of our late enemy, a brilliant lad of twenty-one years from the University of Heidelberg. They came to tell of the spiritual ideals of the youth of Europe. They came as harbingers of a new Europe, in which youth shall come to its own. Thanks to Mr. Easley, their heresies did not foul the pure air of The University. The redoubtable Hasley issued an encyclical. It told the dreadful truth. He waxed elo- qu-nt over the youth movement of Europe. He saw them leading in a concerted protest against war. They were, they, must bee. . red... pacifists ... socialists... anarchists. It was a delightful bit of literature. It fairly oozed with that unflinching, die-if-I-must-but-here-I-stand- so-help-me-God patriotism which has led friend Easley in his brave assault on windmills throughout his naive career. It reached The University. Faculty and students fairly lapped it up. They licked their chops over its fine phrases. They tightened their belts and cleaned their guns. Enter the villains. They were summoned into executive session. Faculty and students were represented. The cordial atmosphere of a juicy bit of beefsteak with twenty dogs looking it over. The Inquisition was on. They asked questions. ‘You would recommend that mere freshmen be lectured by Bolsheviks?” No answers were needed. It was not a trial—simply a conviction. It was made perfectly clear that The University would allow no foreigner to come over and tell us native Americans how to run our country. Not by a long shot. The Inquisition continued. A student approached the leader of the party, one of the officers of the Student Forum. He asked him about religion. It must be regretfully recorded that the answer indicated a shattered faith in Jonah, or something of the sort. This was enough. It was announced that these visi- tors not only refused to believe in the everlasting curse of war ... but that they were heretics. The University may have faults . .. but it is firm for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch . . . and the doctrine of the Trinity. To aggravate the situation, one of the group remarked that a Negro college in Washington was equal to any white college which they had visited. We believe in keeping the Nigger in his place down our way. Retribution was swift. The University newspaper came out with emphatic head- lines. “Parlor Bolshevism Fails To Impress Students.” Naively it went on to say that “the four men’s ideas did not meet with approval here.” The four were reported as being “individualists, which is generally regarded here as synonymous with ‘parlor Bolsheviks’.” Again they were summoned into solemn conclave. They were firmly informed that the students were too young .. . that they were not prepared to hear such doc- trines . . . and that, furthermore, the students did not wish to hear them. Perfectly lucid. The Y.M.C.A. secretary also made it clear that his or- ganization was having difficulty getting on its feet... and that if it got the reputation of harboring Bolsheviks . it would suffer financially. The spokesman concluded: “We are not telling you when to go... but we must tell you that there is danger that the students might get excited and throw you out.” The spokesman for the students frankly answered: “This is a friendship tour. We have no other aim. If you do not wish to meet us on this basis, we gladly leave.” They left. In peace. The University is at peace. No enemy breaks her tran- quillity. She is free to believe in the divine sanction of war ... and the eternity of confusion . . . and the Trin- ity . .. and the blood atonement. The president can peace- fully continue his educational task of coaxing a few more unwilling dollars from a reluctant legislature. But—where will the boys and girls get educated? It whets my curiosity. What kind of two-headed calves are these dreadful students? I hear Antonin Palecek tell of the spiritual urge and intensity of the students of Czecho-Slovakia. Their vision of the new republic’s mis- sion. Their enthusiasm in intellectual pursuit. Their glowing idealism. I hear Joachim Friedrich pleading for @ new age in which all of the beauty of life shall not be crushed out by the ponderous mechanism of modern indus- try. I hear him explain his own ambition—politics in his own country. “Each nation, after all, must clean house for itself.” I hope it is true... that the youth of Europe . . are looking to the stars. But the Easley is undoubtedly right. It is dangerous doctrine . . . to talk about new worlds. So is Christianity dangerous. I suppose that is the reason it is not taught . very widely. I am on the train. Four boys sit opposite me. Students from The University. One of them is reading the Outlook. I ask him: “Did you meet those foreign boys last week?” “Huh, we kicked ’em out!” “You don’t stand for any new-fangled ideas down there, do you?” “T should say not!’ Conversation lagged. “Say,” says he, “see that Nigger up there in this white coach?” “Vag?” “Well, we wouldn’t stand for that in our State! Would kick him right out.” I wager that he believes in the inerrancy of the Scrip- tures ... and the Ku Klux Klan... . But where can he get an education?

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194 The Nation In the Driftway T has often been remarked that we live in an age which has no time to waste. The telephone, the wireless, the railroad train, the automobile, the talking machine, the mo- tion picture, all are time savers or labor savers. And fully in tune with these we have an outline of history, an outline of science, and now an outline of literature. * * * * * S one contemplates these volumes it is all too evident that this business of outlining is only at its beginning. The Drifter is confident that all the main branches of human knowledge, all the great divisions into which thought can be marked off, will presently have their outlines. What worries him is that some of the side paths may be over- looked. * * * * * S if in answer to this very point, the following letter was left on the Drifter’s doorstep by his favorite and only postman: “Dear Sir:” it said, “I can furnish you with all information on cookery in every branch for every age, yet brief and to the point. Would you know how the great Roman Empire ate fish, or how long the Spartans boiled their spinach? Are you curious about the sandwiches eaten by Saint Augustine in the small hours after a day of fast- ing, and what do you suppose was in Martin Luther’s ink- well when he tasted it and then threw it at the Devil? The seventeenth-century pastry, the eighteenth-century meat pudding, the nineteenth-century boiled potato, and the thoroughly modern strawberry shortcake are all described, analyzed, and prepared for digestion by you in my marvel- ous work, ‘An Outline of the World’s Cookery.’ Buy Volume I today and you will never regret it.” * * * * * HIS extraordinary document, which the Drifter would not vouch for in any court of law, set his mind completely at rest. Outlines of the more delectable things of life are evidently not to be lacking. He can imagine sitting down with joy to the perusal of an outline of cos- tumes, with the inevitable fascinating pictures (all out- lines have them); or of crime, where the pictures would probably crowd out the text; or of university presidents, whose pictures would not be so essential; or of sports, where beautiful Greek maidens playing ball would vie with beauti- ful California young men playing tennis. Quite irresistible would be an outline of leisure, with every different way of © wasting time catalogued and diagrammed, with all the lazy boyhoods of great men set-down, and all the priceless book- sellers’ lists, and the useless carpentry, and the ways of cleaning pipes and painting boats that really make life worth living. * * * * * HE Drifter has long been in favor of subsidies for indigent authors. He would doubly favor such aids in the case of a writer of outlines. Unfortunately he will never have time to compile one himself. In the first place he is too busy reading the outlines already written: and besides he is occupied with a greater work. When it is finished it will be worthy, he hopes, to stand by the best that has gone before. Seventeen volumes it will be, all bound in bright red cloth with a modest title in gold: “An Outline of the World’s Outlines,” by THE DRIFTER [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 400 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Oklahoma Talks Back TO THE EpiIToR oF THE NATION: Sir: The article on Oklahoma in the issue of The Nation for July 11 contains so many distortions of fact and errors of judg- ment that it should not be permitted to pass unnoticed and un- challenged. “The theft by night of the State papers ... by automobile bandits.” The capital was changed from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in an election legally called and participated in by all quali- fied electors of the State. The seal of the State and archives were removed by C. N. Haskell, who was Governor of the State at that time. He has never before been referred to as an “auto- mobile bandit.” Neither did the Supreme Court of the State find anything nefarious in this act. “The indictment of a governor,” etc. The governor referred -to appeared before a court of competent jurisdiction and the case was dismissed. Does The Nation reverse the ordinary process of American law and assume that the accused is always guilty until he establishes his innocence? “There was coal to be mined near El Reno, Oklahoma City, and Guthrie.” If Comrade Rascoe can point out the exact loca- tion of coal mines within fifty miles of any one of the aforemen- tioned cities, he will be conferring a great favor upon those com- munities. The statements of Comrade Rascoe in regard to the banking system of the State are correct in so far as he gives Oklahoma credit for good banking laws; his other assertions are childish and puerile. The depositors are made up of the same kind of people as those who make up the clientele of similar banks in other States. The bankers of Oklahoma make their living in the same way that the bankers of Yonkers or Albany eke out their livelihood. “A State young and unpopulous”—We refer you to the United States Census for 1920: Nebraska, 1,296,372; New York, 10,- 385,227; Oklahoma, 2,028,288; Kansas, 1,769,257; Iowa, 2,404,- 021; Indiana, 2,930,390; Colorado, 939,629; Maine, 768,014; Michigan, 3,668,412; Minnesota, 2,387,125. One gathers that all the bright young men are leaving the State. Witness the case of Comrade Rascoe. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” We must bear up. Oklahoma does not have a larger percentage than any other State of Sunday-school superintendents who go wrong; its bootleggers are only as corrupt as those of other States. I have been in, around, and on practically every Indian reser- vation in the State of Oklahoma. The Indians of this State were not inclosed in stockades in this State at any time for any purpose. If it had been necessary it would have been done. Your neighbor in Oklahoma may be an Indian. He may be a graduate of Carlisle. He may be very wealthy and he may even pass as of pure white blood. It is possible to travel hun- dreds of miles in Oklahoma and never see the Indian blanket. In that travel you will be safer than on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. There is no essential difference between life-in Oklahoma and life in Evanston, Kokomo, South Bend, except that life in Oklahoma is safer. Norman, Oklahoma, July 18 JESSE LEE RADER To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: It is generally conceded that a country can safely be judged by its women; therefore, I state to you that Oklahoma is just under New York and California in its number of branches of the American Association of University Women. We have

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 195 women poets, writers, artists, and musicians of national fame —not counting the finest womanhood in general that any State can boast of. You evidently failed to observe that an Oklahoma girl— Nellie Marita Miller, of Oklahoma City—won the National Pianist Contest held in June by the National Federation of Music Clubs, Illinois and California following. Last year Mildred Davis, of Guthrie, Oklahoma, won second place in a similar contest, under a New York man of twenty-eight who had toured Europe in concert. Fine arts couldn’t possibly be developed to this extent under conditions as reported in your article. Our national resources compare most favorably with those of the best States in our United States of America. As a rose State we rank with any; and as for our classification in oil— ask the Standard, which is trying to gobble the State. Your Rascoe must have gotten into an ex-Texan’s or Arkansas farmer’s shack and enjoyed so much the diet of “corn bread, salt pork, and sorghum molasses” that he refers to that he remained and went no further. Chicago, July 16 Susan B. Scortr To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Perhaps you would be interested in the following ex- tract from a letter from my sister, Mrs. Florence Phin, now in Oklahoma: No doubt you read the article on Oklahoma in a recent issue of The Nation. You can scarcely imagine the furor it has created. Feeling ranges from furious rage through surprise and indigna- tion to wounded hearts. You can’t pick up a local paper without seeing some reference to it in the editorial column, correspondents’ corner, or funny page. I venture to say that Mr. Burton Rascoe’s name is on the black list of the Ku Klux Klan, and that in the future it would be safer for him to travel around Oklahoma than through it. The State Historian has written an open letter, characterizing the article in The Nation as a tissue of unmitigated lies and scan- dalous libel—so everything’s all serene once more. New York, July $1 SoLton DE LEON To THE EpiTorR oF THE NATION: Sir: Overnight the name of Burton Rascoe has become as famous in Oklahoma as that of Henry Starr, the bank bandit. Rotarians, Lions, Civitans, Chambers of Commerce, Kiwanis, Elks, Oowahs, Laff-a-lots, Joy de Vies, Ku Kluxers—all across the State there has risen a mighty howl of rage from the regi- mented Babbitts over the publication in The Nation of Mr. Rascoe’s recent article on the Sooner State. Speakers have been sent out from the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce to “blow up that Rascoe boy” and sell Oklahoma to its citizens. The most successful have been the press agent for the Bell telephone company and the local head of a mortgage-loan society. Summed up, the refutations of Mr. Rascoe’s comment on the socio-economic condition of Oklahoma run as follows: “Rascoe should be called Boscoe, the Barnum wild man.” “Oklahoma City has 21.6 telephones to every 100 citizens, which is more than there are in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, or Passyak (sic), New Jersey.” “The investment of the Bell Telephone Company in Oklahoma City comes to $4,000,000. There are three exchanges in town and the company employs more than a thousand men and women.” “Rascoe must wear a black, flowing tie.” “Rascoe is afraid to come out here and live because he hasn’t got the spirit of the pioneers that built up this glorious State of ours.” “Young girls in New York smoke cigarettes and two years ago there was a hold-up in the Hotel Astor in broad daylight.” When the speeches are concluded, a vote of thanks is in- variably extended to Mr. Rascoe for giving the people of the State an opportunity to find out that they are living in the “best city in the best State in the Union.” Silent amid this indignant outburst are the men and women of the Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League, the progressive organization that elected Governor Walton last fall. They realize all too well the force of Mr. Rascoe’s indictment. It was against the mortgage-loan societies, the oil interests, the landlords, the gamblers in wheat and real estate that the League campaigned. Today the League members are grimly watching the victorious return of their defeated foes of last autumn. Their newspaper, the Oklahoma Leader, is being driven to the wall by the withdrawal of advertising patronage, the bank- ruptcy of farmer subscribers, the successful tactics of the Open Shoppers. The Governor on whom they had pinned their faith is turning Farmer-Labor men out of office every day. He is parading around the State accompanied by a retinue of mili- tary men assuring the business men that his opinions of radi- cals are “unprintable.” The Klan, which took to cover at Walton’s election, is out again with public ceremonies attended by 30,000 people in Oklahoma City. Independent oil men are having their runs pro-rated by the Standard and their crude prices cut daily. Tenant-farmers, unable to keep body and soul together at the present price of wheat, are drifting aimlessly about in covered wagons. Coal miners are rapidly becoming vagrants. But Rascoe’s a liar, God’s in His Heaven, and there are 21.6 telephone subscribers to every 100 citizens in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City, July 21 McALISTER COLEMAN The West Virginia Article To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Cain seems to have overlooked the State motto: “Montani semper liberi,” which, I am told, is carved, with no attempt at humor, over the State penitentiary at Moundsville. The motto has an ironical sound also when one thinks of the situation in the embattled coal fields. And though I take issue with the statement that “culture is at a standstill,” I well remember hearing a governor say in an address that the “duties of a governor is ard-i-ous” while de- claiming on the virtues of “this commonwealth of West Vir- ginny.” Chicago, June 29 FRANCES KLEIN VINER Leipzig’s Need To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: The Leipzig Handels-Hochschule is founding a Welt- wirtschafts-Institut. In view of the difficulty of supplying its library under the present exchange conditions, we hope that some of your readers will find it possible to send newspapers, maga- zines, books, pamphlets, and statistical publications to us. We hope later to invite foreign economists to lecture. At pres- ent we can pay for such privileges only the trifling sum current in Germany. If American economists coming to Germany or their friends would inform us, we should be glad to have them speak under our auspices. Leipzig, June 1 ERNST SCHULTZE, Rector = ee ee ee ee Contributors to This Issue SAMUEL DANZIGER, recently connected with the Veterans’ Bureau, has made a first-hand study of the problems of disabled ex-service men. HOWARD VINCENT O’BRIEN is a native of Illinois. His most recent book is “Trodden Gold.” CounT Harry KeEssier, formerly German Minister to Poland, is a leader of the Democratic Party. HUBERT C. HERRING is the pastor of the United Church of Wichita, Kansas. Sse

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good rather than the evil. surface. ‘mauled to make the effort of repair worth while. ‘tively little moment. “than has Mr. Gamaliel Bradford. 196 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 Books Damaged Souls By Gamaliel Bradford. Houghton Mifflin Damaged Souls. Company. $83. es was characteristic of the editor of a popular magazine to suggest to Mr. Bradford that he should undertake a series of “iconoclastic portraits” in which he should go back through our national history and select prominent figures who have loomed overlarge in their own day and have shone with a false glory. “Of course,” wrote the editor, “in dealing with such a gallery we should expect you to proceed ruthlessly and with scant deference to tradition.” It was equally characteristic of Mr. Bradford that he should reply that the suggestion made “a fascinating appeal to the worst elements in his nature” and that he should make the counter-proposal of “a group of some- what discredited figures” whom he would not attempt to re- habilitate or whitewash but whom he would so probe and examine as to bring out their real humanity and to show that they possessed something of the same strength and weakness as all of us. For, as Mr. Bradford justly remarks, in every character that he has portrayed his effort has been to find the It must be added that in some of those that are grouped together in his latest volume of por- traits “the soul of goodness in things evil” lies far below the The first five subjects of his inquiry are worthy of his deft sympathy; the last two—Phineas Taylor Barnum and Benjamin Franklin Butler—are hardly subjects for such nice ‘treatment, for Barnum’s was not the sort of soul that could sustain serious damage and Butler’s was too much patched and Of Barnum we learn that he hugely enjoyed life, and of Butler that his wife loved him. After reading these two studies in biography one is tempted to commend Mr. Horatio Bottomley to Mr. Bradford’s attention. But the portraitist’s finest art has gone into the other studies. The gallantry and pathos of Benedict Arnold perhaps appeal to him most of all; but the unquenchable joie de vivre and the Casanova-like amours and romantic flittings of Aaron Burr -afford material for picturesque narrative, while in both these cases the devoted love of noble women (unless women can be at once noble and blind) gives testimony to the hidden werth within these so discredited personalities. At all events there can be no question of the extent and seriousness of the damage to these two souls. When we come to Thomas Paine and John Randolph and John Brown we find an element of strength or of grandeur or at least (in the case of Paine) of positive and important achievement that renders the damage of compara- I do not think that any of these three men can fairly be called “discredited.” It is of course absurd to say, as Mr. Mencken has said in an appreciation of Mr. Bradford which has been widely circulated ‘by canny publishers, that Mr. Bradford “invented the formula of Lytton Strachey’s” studies in biography. One need not enter into debate on the relative value of the American’s and the Englishman’s work; if Mr. Bradford is more mellow, Mr. Strachey is more witty, and years may supply him with the mellowness while, meantime, wit is a good thing. But of course neither writer “invented the formula.” It is present in Sainte- Beuve’s causeries. There are suggestions of it in the eigh- teenth-century theory of “the ruling passion.” Clarendon prac- ticed it. Indeed there is something of it in Plutarch: But there are qualities quite as excellent as originality; and few writers have applied this formula of careful inquiry into the hidden motives of the heart and of nice adjustment and bal- ancing of evidence with more wisdom and more humaneness SAMUEL C. CHEW The Second Empire Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France. son. Longmans, Green and Company. $6. qs to the progress of research and the shift in per- spective, contemporary history usually needs revising as soon as passions have cooled. A notable illustration is afforded by the career of Louis Napoleon, whom until a generation ago most historians either scornfully decried or praised unduly. It was only in the late nineties that moderate appreciations of the Second Empire began to appear. To be sure, Ollivier, while generally reliable, is frankly apologetic. La Gorce, on the contrary, occasionally does Napoleon III injustice, espe- cially in considering relations with the church. Although Mr. Simpson stands for unbiased liberalism, his “Rise of Louis Napoleon” (1909) revealed him as entirely fair to the con- spiring prince. The present sequel, covering the period from 1848 to the Congress of Paris in 1856, exhibits similar impartiality, but is broader in scope. For in the light of documents hitherto unavailable, Louis Napoleon’s struggles after 1848 emerge, not as the Utopian schemes for which on their morrow they were dismissed, but as events fraught with consequences of supreme importance to Europe. Without the aid of this crowned cham- pion the unorthodox cause of nationalism could not have achieved its triumphs. Thus the enigmatic Napoleon III, even though neglected at home for his overshadowing uncle, well deserves the attention of foreign historians. Says Mr. Simp- son: “No other ruler of France—none perhaps of any European country—was so cosmopolitan in his training and outlook. None certainly was less French. Essentially he was an inter- national figure: too good a citizen of Europe to be the ulti- mately successful ruler of any one country in it.” True, owing to his precarious power under the regime of 1848, the Prince President’s cosmopolitanism at first remained latent. According to his conviction, it was only as emperor that he could reopen the Treaty of Vienna and deliver the na- tionalities oppressed by Metternich and Nicholas. So “the man of December” must first consolidate his power by a revi- sion of the constitution of 1848. But that masterpiece of stupidity, so framed by ideologists as to force upon France a republican form of government, made a revision impossible. ° Mr. Simpson affirms that no single cause has done so much to obscure the history of the Second Empire as the failure of historians to read this entangled document. After three years of vain attempts to unravel the entanglement, Louis, “still a liberal at heart,” cut through it by a coup d’état. Criminal as was this step, Mr. Simpson thinks it justifiable in principle, since France yearned for some means of averting the dreaded crisis due the next year. While naturally refus- ing to condone the indiscriminate fusillade upon non-combatants and the deportations, he asserts that English condemnation of , pa coup d’état was based on a very imperfect knowledge of the acts. Firmly established in power, Napoleon III could tackle broad questions, domestic and foreign. His constructive decrees pro- moting agriculture, industry, and commerce brought France unprecedented prosperity. On the other hand, education and the intellectual life did not flourish. Nor had the Roman ex- pedition satisfied either party, because the President wavered between a radical and a conservative policy. But the event revived Louis’s dream of liberating Italy, a project delayed by the conflict with Russia. Various accusations charging Napoleon III with responsi- bility for the Crimean War are disproved by Mr. Simpson. True, the apostle of nationalism was eager to protect the threatened principalities against Russia. But when England refused to fight on for Polish independence, he quickly accepted peace. Napoleon III apparently entered the conflict chiefly to By F. A. Simp-

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 197 cement the alliance with England. Yet no sooner had France emerged from it as the first continental Power than Albion began to fear her. Nor, English support lacking, were the Emperor’s hopes regarding the nationalities realized at the Congress of Paris. To crown misfortune, his cosmopolitan aberrations on this occasion formed the ominous prelude to a series of services which in the next ten years he was spon- taneously to render to the champions of new Italy and new Germany. However, it was through diplomacy that Louis Napoleon had at first hoped to achieve his aims. Thus he is shown by Mr. Simpson to have been, in the first month of his presidency, the author of the most drastic proposal for the limitation of naval armaments ever put forward by the head of any nation. But England, needless to say, would not consider the sugges- tion. Equally futile was his appeal in 1849 for an interna- tional congress to deal with problems that threatened the peace of Europe. All his life Louis Napoleon oscillated between semi-socialist inclinations and a cult of discipline, his one conviction being that liberty could not found, but only crown, the political edi- fice. Mr. Simpson characterizes him as a ruler by instinct generous to a fault, humane to the verge of weakness. “Former governments,” the Emperor used to say, “tried to reign by the support of one million of the educated classes. I have tried to reach the other twenty-nine.” But in bringing the other twenty and nine from the wilderness he lost the one million that really mattered. For that one outraged million embodied nearly all the political and diplomatic experience of France. As our historian says, it was the tragedy of the reign that the Emperor’s illness allowed him just time enough to acquire the strongest hand in Europe, and then intervened to disable him from playing it even tolerably. Evidently Mr. Simpson has challenged not a few current opinions regarding Louis Napoleon. He apparently believes that certain self-styled impartial historians have shielded the French republics and slandered the Second Empire. Fre- quently, however, his convictions are based on documents not hitherto utilized. If from the French point of view he judges too leniently the naive cosmopolitan of Napoleon III, this is probably because, after all, he wishes there had been other visionary champions of the oppressed nationalities. Be this as it may, for substance, lucidity, and felicity of epithet his “Louis Napoleon” is an unusual achievement. A penetrating analyst, a logical thinker, a dispassionate critic, Mr. Simpson brings to his subject the most convincing evidence yet presented. WILLIAM H. SCHEIFLEY Translations from the Danish and Swedish A Book of Danish Verse. Translated by F. Foster Damon and Robert Hillyer. The American-Scandinavian Foundation. $2. Selected Short Stories. By Per Hallstrém. Translated by F. J. Fielden. The American-Scandinavian Foundation. $2. WF reads translated poetry, particularly the lyrics of a bygone age, with large expectations is foreordained to some disappointment. It is like opening a jar of rose leaves culled long ago in forgotten gardens: the petals are crumpled, the color well-nigh lost and the fragrance faint. Danish verse is generally too fragile, too unmittelbar and naive to make a brave impression in other than native garb. Even the rug- gedness of some of the lines, like those by Grundtvig, becomes mere verbal humpiness in the attempted English transmutation. The implication is not that the translators have essayed a most difficult task in an indifferent manner. They have perhaps done as well as possible with an inherently unplastic material. The selections capably represent the best of Danish poetry from the early to modern times. Denmark has never been rich in poets.and surely does not count many who can be acclaimed great. It may be said not disparagingly that most of the writers of Danish verse have been homey and comfy persons with an enduring and endearing if not always very discriminating love of the native heath, and no greater tinge of northern melan- choly and seriousness than their deep and somber beechwoods that fringe smiling seas. Per Hallstrém is at his best in the short story and ranks high. Why compare him with Maupassant or any other writer? Being a Swede, it is natural that most things he writes, and he has been prolific in novels, plays and poems as well as in stories, should be ‘‘touched by an all-pervading lyricism, for that be- longs to the genius of the literature of his country.” But he is more than a lyricist. Let him explain himself: “Here, as in the world of reality, the universe reechoes in the individual fate, hangs upon it by a thousand slender threads. The drama is not isolated upon a stage, it moves past like a stream, where wind and waves come from far and have farther yet to go.” Fortunately, the translator, in selecting the stories, has largely chosen tales with a Swedish setting that give one a breath from Hallstrém’s wonderful surroundings in nature, for he conveys it in words with a masterhand. But he is at home in many fields; and in A Secret Idyll, a charmingly pathetic tale of the French Revolution, one recognizes the romantic coun- tryman of Count Axel Fersen. The American-Scandinavian Foundation has put us under new obligations by making this verse and prose accessible to American readers. JOHN KOREN Wide-Awake Dreamers The History of Utopian Thought. By Joyce Oramel Hertzler, Ph.D. The Macmillan Company. $3. HAT Mr. Hertzler is a clever writer as well as an excellent historian is well proved by the fact that even while im- pressing his readers with his unquestionable knowledge of the subject under discussion he forestalls their naturally pugna- cious barriers toward an authority by being open to argument. He is not afraid of the qualifying phrase, nor does he think that by admitting that a point at issue is largely a matter of opinion he thereby belittles his position. Taking the Utopians from their literary pigeonhole of impossible idealism he places them in their logical position in the evolution of sociological thought and civilized government. He begins with Amos, about the middle of the eighth cen- tury B.c., and, briefly taking up five other Hebrew prophets, he comes down through the Apocalyptists to the Kingdom of God as seen by Jesus. Thus, instead of beginning with Plato, as another writer on Utopians might do, Mr. Hertzler starts with the foundations of idealistic social thought put down in writing. Then he comes to Plato (whom he calls the father of idealism in philosophy) and the early modern Utopians, such as More and Bacon, and so on to the Utopian Socialists of the last two centuries, mostly French, and including such remark- able pioneers as Morelly and Fourier. Finally, with the recent pseudo-Utopias, including such works as Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” and H. G. Wells’s “Modern Utopia,” he finishes the first part of his book, which is actually about five-sixths of it. But Mr. Hertzler does not simply repeat what the individual Utopians wrote, or show how they differed from each other; he gives a brief biographical sketch of each (and here it is inter- esting to note that most of them spent some part of their lives in prison and a number were put to death), he connects each one with the society of his time, shows the effect of his en- vironment on his writings, and the probable effect of his writ- ings upon future societies. The second part of the book is an analysis and critique of social Utopias and Utopians. Mr. Hertzler makes these ideal- ists live as real human beings (and surely they must have been alive in order to be put to death), instead of phantoms of a ——

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pleasant but impossible social nowhere. He shows their un- questionable importance in the history of social evolution and makes the materialistic masses look rather stupid, even from a practical point of view, for having lightly passed them up for so many centuries. He says of them: “The Utopians are only ‘dreamers’ in the sense that such is a popular description of any man who is wide awake and a hundred years or so ahead of his time.” And, having lifted the curse from their weary heads and wiped the patronizing smirk from our complacent counte- nances, he immediately and nimbly jumps to the other side and dims the idolatrous light that is beginning to kindle in our eyes by calling attention to their shortcomings. He logically points out that the inevitability of social change renders any static society, however perfect and desirable, practically im- possible. So the Utopians swing down from their brief pedestal and come to a standstill in the half-idealistic and half-human but extremely important position where they belong in the his- tory of social progress. Unfortunately Mr. Hertzler’s book will not, in all probability, be widely read. He has not stooped to patronize the public by talking baby-talk to them, he does not hide behind a sugar- coating of sentimental moralizings. It is not a book to lie in a hammock and read through in one lazy summer afternoon, but a book that might make a person think—and that is disastrous for its popularity. While it is an excellent piece of work from a literary standpoint, it is also, of course, historical and politi- cal. But, since it is literary, the politicians will have nothing to do with it, and, since it is political, the literati will have none of it, and since it is historical, few will even consider it. KATHLEEN MILLAY ~The Government and the Worker The Government—Strikebreaker. Workers Party of America. $1. Bele years of American history through the eyes of a Marxist” would be a very fair title for this study of the class struggle in the United States. The book carries a real contribution, for it is a collection of facts by a radical author and publisher, selected and commented upon by those very per- sons against whom the full vigor of the Department of Justice is now being directed. The author begins with a statement of the labor policy of the government during the war, and a summary of the promises that were made to the workers when the life of the republic seemed to be threatened. He then traces the position of the authorities in the textile, mine, and the railway-shop strikes to prove his contention that the government is America’s strike- breaker-in-chief. Following two chapters on the use of the in- junction in labor disputes there are a number of sections devoted to the army, employers’ associations, and the press. The con- clusion of the whole matter is that the so-called American democracy is in reality a capitalist dictatorship. There is noth- ing new in this conclusion. It is unusual, however, to have the issue so well presented by a radical writer. Despite an unfortunate reliance on the Congressional Record, and a somewhat too frequent quotation from the Labor Herald, the study is a really noteworthy presentation of the social prob- lem, with an astonishingly small amount of bias, and a very praiseworthy evidence of diligent research. Occasionally there is a relapse into the style of the soap-boxer, with such phrases as “truth yells for help” and “jail and the gallows for hun- dreds of strikers.” Such slips are exceptional, however, and the student of current events will want to read very carefully this exposition of class rule in the United States. Perhaps the book would have been stronger if the author had begun with the steel strike of 1919. Certainly he should have given credit to the workers in the needle trades, and par- ticularly to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers for their spec- By Jay Lovestone. The The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 30388 tacular stand against the union-smashing campaign’ of the bosses. Then, too, the case is a bit overstated. The govern- ment is not really the strike-breaker, but a combination police department, sanitary squad, and propaganda bureau for the vested interests. However, these are minor matters of opinion. The major fact is the diligent collection and clear presentation of a very large number of salient industrial and social facts in a low-priced, readable form. Dollar books are almost as rare nowadays as dollar dinners: Both the author and the pub- lishers are to be congratulated upon their ability to talk Eng- lish at popular prices. Scott NEARING On the Trail of Pickwick Dickensian Inns and Taverns. By B. W. Matz. Charles Scrib- ner’s Sons. $3. T last the auto has been found worthy! Impossible, will protest the pauper pedestrian, whose eyes have become crossed and legs four-directioned in frantic attempts to escape the charging demons of the city streets. But his disclaimers must be overruled. The soft-footed god of the machine has saved the English coaching inn from extinction, extinction all but consummated by the unaesthetic railroad. Is it not worth the occasional fracture of a rib by a drunken taxicab driver to know that somewhere, even though the land be across the seas, Three Jolly Bachelors Inn signs again creak joyously in the spring wind, inns where one meal consisted of two little salmon trout, a sirloin steak, a brace of partridges, seven dishes of meats, five dishes of dessert led off by a bowl of peaches, and cake? Taverns where for turtle soup “turtles were kept alive in huge vats, and as many as two tons were seen swimming in the vat at one time.” Who of a cafeteried generation, elbow- frayed from the iron-wood seats of the one-armed, can read without a sigh? For glimpses such as these he who turns the pages of “Dick- ensian Inns and Taverns” is grateful. But the glimpses are too few. Moreover, humor is too much absent. Were Matz writing of Milton, Macaulay, or Kant Inns and Taverns, the pin-and- chart method he here employs might be appropriate. Dickens hostelries, however, antithesis of the scientific, demand the pen of a man who laughs heartily upon every slightest occasion; a man sitting in front of a chuckling fire, and smoking, preferably a fat man. With this volume ensues a feeling that the author is cold, tobaccoless, and thin. To the pilgrim who would go along Nicholas Nickleby highroads, or sleep in Davy Copper- field beds, the volume is invaluable. Infinite research is evident in the effort to identify in fact, where only the slightest fictional clue is given. But the writer has followed his Dickens with a mathematician and a square rule instead of some jovial village bumpkin and a mug of ale. BEN LUCIEN BURMAN Lytton Strachey’s Encore Landmarks in French Literature. By Lytton Strachey. Henry Holt and Company. $2. I N the differences between the formats of the original Home University Library edition of this work, published in 1912 and then sold for 50 cents a copy, and the present handsome volume, one may measure the distance traversed by Lytton Strachey toward popular esteem. Lytton Strachey, critic, was obliged to wait for the almost turbulent receptions his bio-- graphical works received to make his name coin current on the critical exchange, although this book, published in 1912, fore- shadowed every excellence of his later work, particularly that of impaling complex qualities on a phrase. The Who’s Who (London) of 1920, the compilation of which proceeded long after the publication of “Landmarks in French Literature” and the brilliant essays that now form “Books and Characters,” ignored Mr. Strachey, not counting even his baronial ancestry

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August 22, 1923] The Nation in his favor, but “Queen Victoria” and “Eminent Victorians,” forcing lifted eyebrows everywhere, made precious every morsel concerning this rare student and writer. This volume, as well as “Books and Characters,” bears elo- quent testimony to Mr. Strachey’s profound absorption and de- light in French letters, biography and history. His essays on Racine and Stendhal in “Books and Characters” are rated as the first truly appreciative studies, by a foreigner, of French- men honored in their own country, yet not appraised at their true value across the Channel. He writes of those Frenchmen and every other in the critical chronology contained in the volume under notice with the intimacy and aplomb of a native guide, recalling Arthur Symons in the intensity of his interest in French life and letters. With Symons he shares the dis- tinction of being so remarkably bilingual that he might be taken as easily for a Frenchman in a Paris salon as for the Englishman he is in his native country-side. For one who loves English literature deeply and understands it with discernment uncommon to the mere amateur, this volume is a triumph. Here we find placed, in intelligible relationship with each other and with the times in which they created, the hosts of French poets, essayists, novelists, dramatists and even philosophers. One must know thoroughly to be able to sum- marize with the aptness which Strachey always employs. His phrases are delectable, but they are used, not to sweeten stale judgments, but to give force to iconoclast conclusions. ‘“Mon- taigne was neither a great artist nor a great philosopher; he was not great at all’’; his reflections were superficial and in- significant before “the tremendous introspection of Rousseau.” Referring to Racine’s medium, he writes that that poet soared in shackles; Hugo possessed ‘‘the powers of a great genius and the soul of an ordinary man”; Voltaire’s style is “like a rapier —all point”; Flaubert is at once the heir of, and the antithesis to, Balzac, while Dumas, the beloved Dumas, is mentioned only as “among those present.” HARRY SALPETER From the Soil Stonecrop. By Cécile Tormay. Robert M. McBride and Com- pany. $2. ITH the succession of generations that look upon cities as natural phenomena, books as well as people have grown away from the land. The cry ‘Back to Nature!” seems forced and artificially romantic. Nevertheless, to a public accustomed to novels that specialize in the consideration of human conduct and present only glimpses of nature such as may be seen from a car window, a story rooted in the soil is invigorating. A smothered but persistent instinct tells us that we are dependent on the soil, and any tale which makes us feel, even temporarily, the powerful influence it still exerts, stabilizes us—although only in imagination—and refreshes us. The title of Cécile Tormay’s new book symbolizes not only the story but the book itself: it is as if hewn from the Croatian mountains. Like a piece of sculpture it epitomizes them; it is molded of their substance and preserves their rugged outlines. The tragedy is stark and unadorned save by the appeal and strength of the heroine. Her life has no incidents; it is a period of purely instinctive existence broken by a few drastic changes. Her long lonely wanderings among the great forests that foster an inborn love for the overhanging wild mountains; the contempt bestowed upon her by the hamlet in which she lives; her distressed longing for her mother, and the horror at her death; her dull marriage to the elderly track-walker; her primi- tive, untamed, subversive passion that at last, inevitably, ends her unhappiness with death—these are the materials of the story. To convey the inarticulate simplicity of the characters de- mands, not a like untutored mode of utterance on the part of the author, but a difficult technique severely used to remove all marks of sophistication and deliberately to imitate, but at the same time to shape, the original innocence of expression. Miss Tormay has perfected this technique; not only does she picture the force and vivid color of the mountains and of the girl who lives on them, but she endows them with a beauty that is entirely of her own creating. Her prose is restrained even in crises, dramatic even in descriptions; it reproduces crude majesties. of nature and glorifies them by its mellowness; and whatever is tender in that harsh scenery, whatever is especially womanly in the beautiful child of the mountains, it turns into quiet and memorable lyrics. EvA GOLDBECK A Torch in the Dark The Light Which Cannot Fail. By Winifred Holt. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3.50. Ee a man close his eyes trying to imagine himself blind; and though he try never so hard he cannot even appreciate the reality. For the condition of blindness is without doubt far blacker and far brighter than what even I, though many years closely associated with blind people, can appre- ciate, since like most people I can by wishing open my eyes and see again with all that this means. However, I will hazard this generalization: the chief handicap of the blind is not their blindness but the attitude of the world toward them. This attitude varies all the way from that of David who refers to them as “‘the hated of my soul,” to that of the extreme sentimen- talist concerning whom Miss Holt writes under the caption Cupid Makes Havoc: “The first French blinded soldiers of the war were literally deluged with offers of marriage.” It is mainly to guide people to think and act sanely and therefore happily toward the blind that this “Keeper of the Light” has written her book. Any reader of it who approaches it sympathetically and with open mind must perceive that the author counsels wisely because she is herself wisely though deeply sympathetic. She tells many beautiful stories and she tells them well. The reader need not fear constant appeal to the emotions, but can rise from the book refreshed and in- vigorated, holding a new conception of what blindness may mean, and perhaps entertaining a desire to share in ameliorat- ing it, surely in preventing it. “The Light Which Cannot Fail” consists both of true tales and incidents, showing what and how the properly lighted torch can illumine and reveal unsuspected reserves in human strength under tragic circumstances, and of a handbook for the blind and their friends. There is also an appendix of memorable letters. A librarian might classify it all under Re-education of the Blinded; but it is more than that: it is, as already indi- cated, a message of hope and encouragement, having for its theme not only alleviation of the greatest burden of the blind but also what is fundamental, arousing interest in the preven- tion of blindness itself. It is beautifully printed. Read parts or all of it, and recommend it to your friends. EDWARD FE. ALLEN The Originator of the Monroe Doctrine The Personal Genesis of the Monroe Doctrine. By William A. MacCorkle, LL.D., D.C.L. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $1.50. pees since Mr. Worthington C. Ford, in a paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1902, adduced evi- dence drawn from the papers of John Quincy Adams tending to show that Adams, and not Monroe, was the essential originator of the Monroe doctrine, historical students have been inclined to accept Mr. Ford’s conclusions as final. It is true that the chain of evidence was not complete, since memoranda by Adams for the period from September 11 to November 7, 1823, just before Monroe’s message was sent to Congress, were lacking, but what remained seemed at least to indicate a joint authorship of the doctrine, so far as Monroe’s statement of it was concerned, in

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which Adams was to be credited with the larger share. Mr. MacCorkle has come to the defense of Monroe in a book which, if no more conclusive than Mr. Ford’s paper, is fairly to be accorded equal weight. Writing with no attempt to be- little either Adams or Mr. Ford, Mr. MacCorkle undertakes to clear Monroe of the charge of natural timidity which historians have been disposed to make, and of the further charge that his views, prior to the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine, were not consonant with the vigorous phraseology of the doctrine itself. The imputation of timidity may be regarded as dis- posed of so far as argument drawn mainly from inference can serve. A man who, as Mr. MacCorkle points out, filled more. important offices, in an ascending series, than have ever been held by any other American public man—member of the Vir- ginia Assembly, of the Federal House of Representatives and of the Senate, and an officer in the army, twice governor of Vir- ginia, minister to England, France, and Spain, member of the executive council of Virginia, of two State constitutional conven- tions, and president of the State convention of 1820, twice secre- tary of state, secretary of war, and in the War of 1812 prac- tically secretary of the treasury, and twice president of the United States—is hardly entitled to be characterized as timid even if his record was not in any case one of great personal initiative or distinction. The case for Monroe’s attitude toward European relations with America, and his personal responsibility for the formula- tion of the doctrine which bears his name, turns upon the inter- pretation of scattered passages in his letters and messages. The evidence which Mr. MacCorkle adduces is too extensive and detailed to be examined here. The passages which he cites, however, go to show that Monroe was not at all unmindful of the danger to the United States of European encroachment, especially in South America, and that on several occasions prior to November, 1823, he expressed himself in no uncertain terms in opposition to European meddling. That his declarations at this point were hardly more than a reiteration of a policy whose origin goes back to the beginning of the republic may, indeed, be urged, but the argument applies with as much force to Adams as it does to Monroe. One puts down the book with a fairly clear impression that the famous message of 1823 stated in forcible language, at the psychological moment, an historical policy which neither Monroe nor Adams originated; that the formal statements of the message were a summary of views al- ready expressed in Adams’s communication to Rush, the Ameri- can minister at London, which Monroe himself had revised, and in letters which had been exchanged between Monroe, Jefferson, and Madison, and that the credit for the formulation and an- nouncement of the doctrine in the November message is, ac- cordingly, an honor in which both Monroe and Adams are entitled to participate. WILLIAM MacDoNALp Treatise or Novel After All. By George F. Hummel. Boni and Liveright. $2. AD the subject of this work been less vital and less absorb- ing Mr. Hummel would undoubtedly have achieved a better novel, for, as yet, he has not the power of H. G. Wells to make a piece a thése fascinating. His thesis is tremendously interest- ing; his writing astoundingly crude even for a first novel. Though there can be no question of the heartfelt sincerity with which he seeks to present the troubles of matrimony, there is grave doubt whether he realizes the difference between a novel and a Miltonian tractate. After all, an author must decide whether he intends to write a treatise or a novel. He who has the courage to choose the latter bids farewell to commonplace incidents and insignificant arguments however large they may be writ in his diary; he recognizes, moreover, that a plot and not a brief is the foun- dation of his structure. On the other hand, a novel differs from an extended lyric poem in that it does not permit a complete katharsis. [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 One could more admire Mr. Hummel’s indifference to these prohibitions of the novel form if its results were greater. But to represent a college debate on the advisability of building the Panama Canal as the field of battle where the presence of the object of an illicit puppy-love inspires our hero to victory, to repeat this motif with equal seriousness in a chess game, is treading with sublime unconsciousness on Max Beerbohm’s pre- serves. In the domain of sex, however, the author marks off his own province. Boldly and simply he narrates the erotic adventures that, in a modified quantity, fall to the lot of Everyman. “Seule- ment, la réserve n’était pas son fait.” Or, as his wife puts it when she refuses a reconciliation, “I have never been able to convince you of how you handicap your usefulness by your im- patience with any kind of reticence.” In fact, though he im- proves much after the first part, Mr. Hummel has painstakingly overwritten his story by one hundred and fifty pages; the re- maining two hundred pages are richly worth reading. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Books in Brief The Bridal Wreath. By Sigrid Undset. Translated from the Norwegian by C. Archer and J. S. Scott. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. Sigrid Undset is a capable writer. She knows how to tell a tale engagingly, and her present narrative of Viking life in old Norway is entertaining enough. Yet “The Bridal Wreath” is not unusual in substance or in form and its technique is time honored. It is the type of book which, once read, is put on the shelves for good or taken off only to make room for another novel. That the ripples created by it in the vast ocean of novels should reach the shores of America is amazing. The Eternal Masquerade. By H. Dennis Bradley. Boni and Liveright. $2. The theme of Mr. H. Dennis Bradley’s book is simple to the point of absurdity. Having read somewhat in English history and delved more or less into intimate accounts of the manners and customs of the various periods, he goes about proving that the dress of an age always reflects its spirit. He holds strictly to the symbolism of clothes, and has cribbed the general idea of “Sartor Resartus,” patched it up here and there with rem- nants of satire filched from Anatole France, and wrapped the much-used and abused philosophy of Nietzsche about him for greater protection. The result is history written with the air of a dancing-master. The Dream and Other Poems. By John Masefield. The Mac- millan Company. $1.25. A slight volume, containing nothing that will substantially increase the reputation of Mr. Masefield. Only three poems, The Dream of Daniel, The Rider at the Gate, and The Racer, are above his average. The first is a philosophical piece, rather rich in atmosphere but inconclusive and ill-rhymed. The second is a Roman ballad. The third is a vigorous and entirely characteristic sonnet. A Book of Love. Translated by Witter Bynner from the French of Charles Vildrac. With an Introductory Note by Emile Verhaeren. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2.50. A modest and competent rendering of an honest and beautiful book. Some of the dignity and therefore some of the poetry of the original has been lost, but the loss was scarcely avoidable in translation. Mr. Bynner now and then is more familiar than Vildrac, and more sentimental. The love here celebrated is a man’s delicate love for the world and all things in it, with- out regard to sex or station. Verhaeren’s introduction is a masterpiece of unaffected analysis. Vildrac, he points out, has made us love not only the world he moves in but himself and ourselves too. That is the whole matter.

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August 22, 1923] The Nation 201 The Handling of Words. Company. $2.50. Penetrating, concrete studies in the psychology of literary effectiveness. Genuinely illuminating for both the reader and the writer. By Vernon Lee. Dodd, Mead and Music The Renaissance of English Music in England I‘ seems a curious commentary upon our prejudices and dis- cernment that a people can struggle into musical indepen- dence before we are apparently even aware of the struggle. Yet something like this has been happening in England. We have been so absorbed in the revolts of those countries on which we have always depended for leadership that we have failed to notice a much deeper and farther reaching movement nearby. The rebirth of a nation into its musical heritage has been over- looked, probably because we have so long denied the existence of that heritage; and its early cries have been more or less lost in the tonal unrest that has been sweeping the musical world, be- cause the making of new idioms is usually a more obtrusive process than the making of new music. Not that England has escaped this unrest. The exhaustion imposed by the war was too general and too profound for that; and the sustained intensity of those years of conflict left her, as her fellow combatants, bereft of emotional resources. But where her continental neighbors were, for the time being, bank- rupt in those passional impulses so essential to their art, Eng- land, who had always depended more upon this art itself than upon its mainsprings, was merely deprived of a ready-made stimulus rather than of a fundamental need. Her native inspi- rational sources were still practically untouched; for her three hundred years of Puritanism and superimposed culture had left her past almost as fresh as her present. As long as that culture was guided by some living genius, she had allowed that culture to dominate her. She had, indeed, been too long crushed into disbelief in her own powers to resist any active creative force her neighbors might impose. Now, however, that the latter, in lieu of such a force, had resorted to artificial expedients and restoratives, she had found herself, for the first time in cen- turies, without the leadership of the Continent. Its cerebral concoctions could only scratch the surface of her mind, and their past, though fabulous in wealth, could only penetrate, not pos- sess, her. And so, while the rest of Europe was following these experi- ments, and dividing itself into musical camps, England was gradually throwing off all allegiances. Her composers no longer tried to write like Brahms or Wagner or Debussy, and, better still, her public no longer demanded it. Old favorites remained old favorites. But along with these foreign master- pieces could be heard another music peculiarly native to British ears: madrigals and motets, passacaglias and sarabandes, songs once sung to virginals and lutes and sonatas made for harpsi- chord and spinet, eighteenth-century satire and twentieth-cen- tury symbolism, and quartets and trios, symphonies and operas based on Celtic tales and Arthurian legend and the environs that gave them birth. It was a music that had no kinship with either German romanticism, Russian idealism, French impres- sionism or Italian melodrama, but had its roots in the rich lyricism of Tudor England, and in the mystic elements of folk- lore and of Nature. To the former belong the works of Gustav Holst and Vaughan Williams; to the latter, those of Arnold Bax and John Ireland. From the Elizabethans, Holst drew largely of those virtues which make his symphony, “The Planets,” a distinctly English work. And so great an admirer is he of their choral works that he not only built his own noble “Hymn of Jesus” upon their traditions, but, busy man that he is, takes one night a week to teach them to a club of working men and women. Vaughan Williams has also sought inspiration at the same wells, but has used his more preciously, perhaps, to weave the complexities of city and cockney life into a “London Symphony.” On the other hand, Bax and Ireland have turned to the phe- nomena of Nature for their strength. Bax, particularly, has drunk deeply of the magic that dwells in the Land of the Shee— that lovely strip of western coast so identified with the Irish literary movement. Here he spent the impressionable years of his youth in company with that group of young poets and intel- lectuals later known as “the Dublin crowd,” and, Englishman though he is, the mysticism he imbibed in this atmosphere has left him touched ever since with its Celtic fire and melancholy. John Ireland, too, has gathered a certain rugged power from the soil, but he is still too inarticulate to express himself other than thickly. Of these four men, Holst and Bax undoubtedly stand fore- most. The other two of England’s “Six,” Eugene Goossens and Arthur Bliss, are more important for their value to the move- ment itself than for the intrinsic worth of their works, for Goossens is too facile in his instrumental writing, and Bliss in- dulges too much in trivialities and experiments to accomplish more than surface results. Neither, as yet, has developed a full and striking musical physiognomy. Both are generous, how- ever, in making propaganda for their colleagues. On the whole, the distinguishing features of this movement have been the musical independence of its individual members, and the ever-widening support which is being given to British music, both new and old. Where Schoenberg has his “school,” Satie his five disciples, Stravinsky his followers and imitators, these men in England are neither sitting at anyone’s feet, nor having anyone sitting at their own. As Goossens has so aptly put it, “Each man is a god, not to, but in himself.” And with the British composer in his efforts are the British artist, the British publisher, the British public, and the British critic. We find Arnold Bax’s publishers presenting his works in re- cital, and a large and distinguished audience paying to hear them performed by British artists. We find a famous organiza- tion like the Birmingham Repertory Theater devoting its high- est artistry to a musical work of Celtic symbolism, Rutland Boughton’s “The Immortal Hour,” and enjoying an unprece- dented run for such a venture. And we find, too, a cooperative organization, the British National Opera Company, taking a cer- tain financial risk by producing a modern English opera, “The Perfect Fool,” by Holst, and meeting with instantaneous suc- cess. At the same time, with this satire and symbolism of twentieth-century Britain, the Golden Age of the Elizabethans and the delicious lyricism of eighteenth-century England have been vying for favor in concert hall and theater, as though this florescence of everything English in sound must go back to the seeds from which it sprang. It seems, indeed, that Eng- land has remembered that she was once a great musical country, and, in the remembering, has discovered that she can be one again. HENRIETTA STRAUS PERSONAL STATIONERY DE LUXE— Monte Carlo Special. Your name and address or monogram in our relief engraving (without plate or die), any color ink. Sheet 5% x 8, white or grey. 100 double sheets or 200 single sheets (100 marked—100 plain) 2 OO 100 envelopes $ : For marking entire 200 single sheets add 50c. PRINT plainly. Enclose check or money order. West of Miss. add. 20c. We invite comparison. Samples gladly submitted. DE LUXE STATIONERY Co. 505 Fifth Avenue, New York THE HACK DRIVER A new story by Sinclair Lewis In next week’s issue of The Nation.

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International Relations: Section Labor Disunion in Italy HE left-wing union movement in Italy began after the collapse of the Labor Alliance last August, when the failure of the general strike broke up the effort at unity of the labor movement. Revolutionary leaders (left Social- ists and Communists) and moderate leaders (General Fed- eration of Labor officials) attacked each other violently, creating so much dissension that for a while the ranks of labor were thrown into confusion. The Fascist unions used this situation to increase their prestige and intensify their appeal to the spirit of nationalism, and the revolu- tionary elements lost ground. The left-wing-union move- ment represents the efforts of the Communists and Maxi- malists (left-wing Socialists) to gather up their scattered forces and put a straight class program before the workers. The “Labor Constituency” represents the moderate “unity” movement, and draws its inspiration from D’Annunzio, the mouthpiece of Italian Nationalists. For A UNITED FRONT In January the following manifesto, bearing on this situation, was addressed to the Italian workers by three groups, the Executive Committee of the Third International, the Executive Committee of the Red Trade Union Inter- national, and the Committee for Fusion between the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian Communist Party. To THE ITALIAN PROLETARIAT: For two years the Italian working class has been forced to bend little by little under the violent pressure of the capitalist offensive. ... All civil, syndical, and political liberties have been trampled under foot; the standard of living for the work- ers and peasants has been forced down lower and lower; Fas- cist Italy has swept away the economic and social gains made by the workers in nearly thirty years of struggle.... Disappointed in its hopes of great gains at the close of the war, and incapable of following any other course, capitalism is preparing on the one hand for new wars, while on the other it is attempting to guarantee its profits by applying to the workers and peasants of Italy, as well as to those of other countries, the same ferocious exploitation it has adopted in dealing with colonial populations. The Italian workers are re- duced to the rank of Chinese coolies and Egyptian fellahs. Faced with the enormous annual deficit of several billions, which is plunging the balance of the Italian state into hopeless depths, the Fascist Government has been driven to adopt “economy” measures which, in the long run, will only result in increasing the hunger and unemployment of the workers, who have already been driven to the verge of desperation. There is no ground for illusion, therefore, regarding any change in the situation of the working class which is not based on the reorganization of its capacity for resistance and strug- gle. For this to be possible it is necessary to examine coolly the mistakes and failures of the past, the dangers to be avoided and overcome, and to propose tasks and methods adequate for the common struggle. The withdrawal of the Italian Socialist Party from the Third International, and of the General Federa- tion of Labor from the Red Trade Union International, oc- curred in the first months of 1921, just at the time whén the legal and illegal capitalist offensive was developing, and through these withdrawals the Italian proletariat was plunged into the greatest confusion, being left a victim to the maneuvers of reformist opportunism. ... The class instinct of the masses brought the Socialist Party to a realization of the abyss it was headed for, and the Con- gress of Rome broke the bonds that had united it with the Social-Democrats. ... The essential condition for the recovery of the workers’ movement is that the working class regain its direction and put its hope solely in its own forces. . . . The policy of the Federa- tion during these last two years of uninterrupted defeats for the working class has been based entirely on the stubborn illusion of collaborationism and on sabotage of the class struggle. The magnificent seizure of lands and factories in 1920 was crushed in order not to compromise the chance of participation in the ministry—the price which was hoped for from the bour- geoisie in exchange for having “prevented revolution,” accord- ing to the cynical confession of D’Aragona. The development of the factory councils . . . was interfered with by the Federa- tion officials, in tacit and complete understanding with the em- ployers, and the provisions for “syndical control” were hailed as a victory, though it has become a terrible farce for the workers, who, unarmed, were left helpless under the blows of revenge hurled at them by the employers. .. . Thus, when the Communists proposed the united front, the Federation officials tried to counteract it by proposing “in- dustrial investigation” at the Council of Verona; thus their only response to the insistent demand for the revival of the class struggle, which was made also by the Maximalists at the National Council of Genoa (July, 1922), was to talk about “making use of parliamentary action”; and thus in the Labor Alliance the reformists, with the aid of the Masonic pseudo- revolutionists, passed over every opportunity for carrying on the struggle under favorable conditions, and, with an unscru- pulousness amounting to the blackest betrayal, spread confu- sion in the ranks of the working class by dragging it into a movement [the general strike of August, 1922] for which it was utterly unprepared, for the sole purpose of using the situation to gain parliamentary influence after the fall of Prime Minis- ter Facta, and obtain a so-called radical solution. The revival of the labor movement must be aimed not only at reestablishing the material conditions necessary for the functioning of the unions, but also and above all at checking the Fascist attempt to eradicate all class character and inter- nationalism from the unions—an attempt in which the com- plicity of the Federation leaders is becoming more and more evident. Internationalism is not a purely “technical” need (for the protection of emigrants, etc.), as the Social-Democrats would have it appear, but it is connected with the whole development of the labor movement, with the true meaning of the prole- tarian revolution, and with the role of the proletariat. ... The world is sorely in need of order and unity. Imperialism itself, according to the keen analysis of Comrade Trotzky, is nothing but “the necessary expression of this need for unity and control of the whole economic life of the globe”; ... But capitalism, because of the contradictions which are a necessary part of its existence, is no longer in a position to develop the task which it has taken upon itself: this is the task of social- ism. .... To renounce the internationalism of the labor move- ment is to sabotage the only reconstruction which is possible— that which is brought about by the working class in all coun- tries, by the producers of the whole world, for the international administration and control of the various national industries and their harmonious coordination for the common good.... This brings up the problem of the relationship between the unions and political parties of the working class. The system of “alliance agreements” based on the ridiculous separation of the economic struggle from the political struggle ... is now out of date and is being readily abandoned. But this is not a reason for giving way to the theory of “political neutrality for unions,” which practically amounts to an attempt on the part of i i i ia i Ti i ade, Mie

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August 22, 1923] The Nation | 208 the reformists or the Fascisti to get control of the unions in order to use them for bourgeois and counter-revolutionary pur- poses. We, who stand for independence of the unions from control by any party... warn the proletariat against the proposals of the Federation leaders, who, allied with the old- style syndicalists, want to transform the whole trade-union structure into a collaborationist and meek labor party... . An organization which is actually free from any alliance with political parties should attract all workers who are pledged to struggle against capitalist exploitation. ...In such an or- ganization, each politically organized group of workers shall formulate its own interpretations and draw up its own program and methods. But this process of selecting methods and forming an origi- nal and unprejudiced policy of syndical action is not possible unless the organized masses can participate more directly and more constantly in union affairs. The system which has been adopted by the Federation offi- cials, especially in recent times, of taking the initiative in ques- tions of greatest importance without consulting the masses, is in open violation of the statutes and of the deliberations of the national conventions, and is the cause of much confusion and demoralization in the ranks. These “full powers” of the Federation bureaucracy must come to an end, especially at this time when the most vital interests of the labor movement are at stake. ... One of the most scandalous manifestations of usurpation by Federation organizers and officials of power that had not been conferred on them is the tactics which they have adopted toward the so-called Fascist unions. The General Federation of Labor, always ready to threaten with expulsion Communist minorities ... has ignored the alliance signed by Giulietti [with the Fascisti]. The initiative for the “labor constituency” is being carried out with the participation of well-known Fed- eration organizers, and no step has been taken to publicly re- pudiate them and denounce them as traitors of the working class. ... In dealing with problems of relationship with the Fascist unions it is impossible to ignore their coercive character. Knowing that the workers enlisted in these unions have not gone over to the other side of the barricade, but are just de- moralized and terrorized, we do not consider possible a pure and simple “fusion” of these organizations with the General Federation of Labor, because they are not free to carry on activities of a syndical nature. The problem must be met in an- other way. The work of union reorganization must be quickly resumed, and class organizations must be strengthened in the industrial centers where the Fascist unions have had little success because it was not possible for the Fascisti to keep up their reign of terror forever. ... As this action develops, the implicit con- tradictions in the economic program and syndical action of the Fascisti are bound to become evident. When the workers in the Fascist unions return to the unified Federation, class or- ganization and class consciousness . .. will triumph over all the transformations and adulterations that took place under the pressure of hunger and violence. We are therefore opposed to any fusion which is purely the product of an infamous alli- ance between reformist and Fascist leaders, for the purpose of checking the revival of class activity in the unions and to complete the work of destruction begun by the capitalist of- fensive. In the face of the grave difficulties of the situation . . . it is necessary to store up all the reserve energy of the working class and mobilize it untiringly in the task of reorganization. ... The need for the united front is self-evident. ... To make over the unions—this is the first call of the united front. We must not tire of proposing it day after day, on every occa- sion and to all the workers, even the Social-Democrats, making them choose between class struggle and collaboration, so that we may work hand in hand with them or show them up in their true colors if they refuse. ... The united front cannot be brought about through propa- ganda and persuasion alone; it must be built up by daily ac- tion, in answer to the evident need of the whole trade-union structure. It must propose demands which represent the inter- ests of all workers without distinction and which respond to the most urgent needs of working-class life, namely, (1) For collective agreements in industry and agriculture, and defense of the standard of living of the workers and the contract clauses dealing with the high cost of living; (2) for the eight-hour day, even in relation to the problem of unemployment; (3) against all forms of wage taxation; (4) against the policy of indirect taxation, which is a burden on consumers and in- ‘creases the hardships of the working class; (5) for the main- tenance of social insurance, its extension to the agricultural proletariat, and its adoption with new provisions for the aid of the unemployed and their families; (6) for a policy in de- fense of poor rent-payers; (7) against the transfer of govern- ment-owned industries to private control; (8) for the func- tioning of the shop-committees for the effective protection of the interests of the workers on the job. Systematic daily action, using the united front to agitate for these immediate demands of the present situation, must cul- minate in general political action of the working class. The bitter experiences of these past years have shown us that each individual gain in the syndical and political fields soon becomes a vain illusion unless it is consolidated and made permanent through the conquest of political power by the class that will use it to defend the immediate gains in the interests of all producers and develop them into a new form of social organi- WAGON: «6s In the unified ranks of the united front the group of left- wing unions must continue its work of defending the class and international character of the unions. And if this means losing the chance to participate in the deliberative bodies of the gov- ernment, we claim that such participation is not worth the sac- rificing of the most elemental rights of the proletariat. The pacifist and collaborationist theories and tactics of the Amsterdam group and its “reconstruction” policy must be fought with all possible publicity, because they are responsible for the weakness of the trade-union movement and are always standing in the way of mass action by disarming the masses at the very time when the capitalist offensive is spreading and growing more violent. The watchword “For Moscow, Against Amsterdam” expresses the class tactics which will give life to the unions and enable them to face the new situation. We, like the Communists in other countries, do not want to affiliate with the Red Trade Union International as a small fraction or even an appreciable part of the labor movement, but only after we have won over the majority so that we can assume on be- half of the whole working class the direct responsibility for the new tactics and the new policy... . Day by day and hour by hour we must labor to unite the ex- ploited workers in the bonds of organization, and utilize the unions to form contacts with the workers and peasants. We call upon all organized workers, the old militants as well as the young recruits, to aid us in this task. It must have for its starting-point the fields and factories, where the workers can be reached on their jobs and where their personal experience makes them strongly conscious of the need for this work... . This simple but essential program can best be carried out by a fusion of the two proletarian parties, Socialist and Communist, and of their respective trade-union committees. This is bound to result in an immediate renewal of all forms of labor activi- ties. The working class has not resigned itself to slavery; it is chafing under bonds which it abhors and longing to free itself. But this cannot be done if the Fascisti, aided by the tactics of the reformists, get control of the unions, which would simply mean letting them fall into the hands of the employers.

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204 The Nation . Comrades, to work! ... Fusion of the two parties is the dawn of a bitter but splendid struggle, through which the working class will regain its right to life and set out again on the road leading to its own emancipation from the political and economic slavery of the capitalist class. Moscow’s FOURTEEN POINTS This urgent plea for a “united front” on the basis of left-wing tactics was doomed to failure. The Italian So- cialist Party has always indorsed the Third International but its reservations in regard to Moscow’s famous “Twenty- one Conditions” for entrance have made it impossible for the Italian Socialists to join. In order to try to reach an agreement with Moscow the party sent a delegation to the Fourth Congress of the Third International. The delegates returned with fourteen new conditions which were sub- mitted to a special party congress held at Rome in April. The conditions were as follows: In consideration of the decision of the congress of the Italian Socialist Party at Rome (October, 1922), which expelled the reformists from the party and declared itself ready to adhere unreservedly to the Communist International, the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International decides: 1. The general situation in Italy, especially after the victory of Fascist reaction, urgently demands immediate union of all the revolutionary forces of the proletariat... . 2. The Communist International sends to the long-suffering proletariat of Italy its fraternal greetings. It is firmly con- vinced of the sincerity of the proletarian elements in the Italian Socialist Party, and decides to receive it into the Communist International. 3. The application of the Twenty-one Points is considered by the Fourth World Congress as beyond dispute. Therefore it instructs the executive committee of the Communist Inter- national to take charge of the application of these conditions, as well as any measures which they may involve. 4, After examining the speech made by Deputy Vella at the party congress in Rome, the Fourth Congress holds that Vella and those who support him shall not be included in the future unified Communist Party of Italy. The Fourth Congress calls upon the executive committee of the Italian Socialist Party to expel from the party all those who make reservations regard- ing the application of the twenty-one conditions. 5. Whereas according to the statutes of the Communist Inter- national there cannot be more than one section of the Com- munist International in a country, the Fourth World Congress decides that fusion between the Socialist and Communist parties of Italy must take piace at once. The unified party shall be ealled Unified Communist Party of Italy (section of the Communist International). 6. For the practical realization of this fusion, the Fourth Congress will appoint a special organization committee com- posed of three members for each party, which shall be pre- sided over by a member of the executive committee. From now on this committee shall determine the course to be followed for the fusion in Italy and supervise the process of this fusion. The executive committee of the Communist International shall have the final decision with regard to all the deliberations of this committee. The central committees of the two parties shall have charge of the affairs of their respective parties, but they shall be subordinate to the organization committee in all political matters except those relating to preparation for the fusion. 7. Organization committees shall be established in the various industries and in the large cities, and shall be composed of two members from the Communist Party and two from the Socialist Party; the president shall be chosen by the representative of the executive committee. 8. These organization committees shall not only prepare the [ Vol. 117, No. 3033 way for actual fusion, but shall also supervise the common political activities of the two organizations. 9. A syndical committee shall be established at once, whose task it shall be to show up the treason of the Amsterdam men in the General Federation of Labor and obtain a majority for the Profintern. This committee also shall be composed of two representatives from each party, presided over by a comrade named by the executive committee of the Communist Interna- tional and by the organization committee. The syndical com- mittee shall be controlled by the organization committee. 10. In cities where there is a Communist paper and a Socialist paper, they must be merged not later than January 1, 1923. The editorial staff of the central organ shall be appointed by the executive committee of the Communist International for the coming year. 11. The congress for fusion shall take place not later than March 15, 1923. If before this congress it should be necessary to hold special congresses of the two parties for purposes of information or preparation, it shall rest with the executive committee of the Communist International to decide upon the date, the place, and the conditions of such congresses. 12. The congress shall instruct the central committee of five to formulate a particular plan of procedure. 18. The congress decides to issue a special manifesto on the question of fusion. This manifesto must be published imme- diately with the signatures of the president and the delegates of both parties to the Fourth Congress. 14. The congress reminds all the Italian comrades of the necessity for the strictest discipline. All comrades, without exception, are obliged to do their utmost to complete the fusion without further delay. Any breach of discipline in the present situation will be a crime against the Italian proletariat and against the Communist International. The congress of the Communist International also sent a message to the Socialist Party congress urging unity on these terms. The Fourteen Points were debated at some length and the opposition formed itself into a Committee for Socialist Defense which fought with particular vigor against acceptance of the Moscow terms. They argued that these conditions involved “the dissolution of the Italian Socialist Party” and moved their rejection. The original motion in favor of union on the basis of the terms laid down by the Communist congress was decisively defeated. At present the labor front in Italy is still disunited and the Socialists, although they have rejected the Amsterdam International and have “purged” their own ranks of re- formists and collaborationists, are outside the Third Inter- national. Ahead of the Tzmes On August 12th the New York Times announced that the full text of the new Russian Constitution had just reached this country, and it printed a translation “made from a copy in German sent to the [New York] Volkszeitung by a high official of the Russian Soviet Government.” Part of that constitution had been printed in The Nation for January 31,1923. The remaining part was printed in copies of The Nation on sale in New York on August 9th. The Nation translated it from the original Russian as printed in the official organ of the Soviet Government, the Moscow Izvestia.

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1923 No. 3034 Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS ........ cece cece cece cece cee er ee eeeceesceces 205 EDITORIALS: On Exalting the President: An Open Letter.......--+.+e-eseeeeeeeee 208 The Lion Pays. a, Prices .... cc ccccccccwncevcnsscneceseccecercescess 209 The Big and the Little at Sea........ cc cece cree eee e ences serecee 209 Parents—Gods, Policemen, or Friends?........sseseeeseeerecereces 210 THE HACK DRIVER. By Sinclair Lewis............sseseeeeeeeeeees 211 STINNES—AND STRESEMANN. By Jerome Lachenbruch...........- 213 THE GALLIC WAR IN RHODE ISLAND. By Robert C. Dexter....... 215 SONG OVERHEARD ON THE HIGHWAY. By Ann Hamilton........ 216 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...........--eseeeeseeceeeeeeees 216 CORRESPONDENCE: 2.20. ccc ccc ccm c cece cc cct eect encenesrescccrcccnes 217 BOOKS: Red Man or Mongrel White? By Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant........ 218 A Poet in Prison. By Miriam Allen deFord.............++sees005 219 Causeries du Dimanche. By Samuel C. Chew........esseeeeeereeeee 219 Russian Masters. By Herbert J. Seligmann...........s.sseeseeeeee 220 War Production and Profiteers. By George Soule.............+.+.- 221 The Government of France. By L. S. G...... cece ee eee ee ee eens 221 State and Nation. By Phillips Bradley..............seeeeeseseaees 221 PIGOMA TINY PREICE ie cc cise ee nice ainicroue lace eicemigiN celecle Dec usececescosece 222 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: The Oil Situation Today. By Herman Silverman.................+ 223 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprror AssocIaTs Eprrors LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY ; JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LirerARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApverTIsSING MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SUBSCRIPTION Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. ROM unimpeachable American sources come almost daily indictments of the French folly in the Ruhr. Here is General Henry T. Allen, lately commander of our army in Germany, declaring at Williamstown that changes impend in Europe “that may wreck our Western civiliza- tion”; that if the American people were “fully abreast of the horrors awaiting Europe and the irreparable injuries that must be ours by chaos on the Continent they would force action while there may yet be time.” Then there comes Basil Miles, with a report to the International Cham- ber of Commerce which shows once more that the French occupation is netting them only one-third the coal and coke they obtained before they went into the Ruhr, and that all they get is from stocks on hand, which will be exhausted “in four or five months.” “The idea,’ he says, “that the French can produce Ruhr coal, coke, and steel without the cooperation of German labor and management is fantastic.” Irving T. Bush, lately president of the New York Chamber of Commerce, pleads upon his return from Europe: “Let me say very frankly that what France needs now is not to have us shout ‘Vive la France,’ not to kiss her on both cheeks and weep with her, but to push some sound business sense into her., Carried to its logical conclusion, the French policy . . . will bankrupt her, it will break her back, it will bring upon her certain destruction.” - HEN Northern newspapers make remarks about a Southern lynching it is not uncommon to find South- ern newspapers suggesting by way of retort that outsiders “keep their hands off.” Great Britain occasionally exhibited similar feeling in regard to American comments on the “purely domestic” issue of Ireland. We are all more or less given to resenting outside comment on our misdeeds, and to assuming that our resentment somehow answers and effectively disposes of any given bill of complaints. Yet when Ambassador Geddes tells us, in the form of a report to the British Foreign Secretary, that the accommodations for aliens at Ellis Island are wholly inadequate and the methods in use unsatisfactory, it will not do merely to reply that Sir Auckland Geddes is a Britisher. From reports by American investigators as well as from persons who have watched the insane turmoil created on the first of each month by the workings of the immigration law it is evi- dent that conditions on the Island are thoroughly bad. Ambassador Geddes’s concrete suggestions for improving the equipment and the methods sound reasonable and mod- erate; and proposals from other sources regarding the limi- tation of numbers either by the steamship companies or by American consuls should be considered. But even before such changes can be accomplished a miracle of improvement could be wrought by eliminating some of the heartbreaking regimentation that makes immigrants to the United States feel, no matter what the quality of their bedding and their food, that they are considered as little more than a herd of helpless driven cattle. O the President has chosen C. Bascom Slemp of Vir- ginia as his private secretary. Lately Congressman from that State, he was caught red-handed in disposing post- masterships in return for cold cash. You drew a postoffice and then you got a letter, not from Mr. Slemp—oh, dear, no —hbut from his private secretary, explaining that the Con- gressman had worked very hard to put this over, and that party expenses were costly. These epistles wound up with “please remit,” $60 or $200 or $250. Of course, when the exposure came Mr. Slemp was quite certain that his secretary and others who wrote these letters had acted entirely without his knowledge. But somehow this never quite satisfied Congress; it may have had some effect upon his constituents, for he is no longer in Congress, and we have yet to hear that anybody returned to anybody any of the sums so collected. So far as the President is concerned we are not surprised by the appointment. Our guess is that Mr. Coolidge will not be found to be lacking in knowl- edge of, or skill in, the political game, and that he will be an exceedingly astute candidate for the Presidential nomi- nation next year unless his own mistakes and the trend of the times compel the leaders to seek a new “leader.” Mr. Coolidge rose as a Massachusetts politician through the party machine. Anyone who has done that need never be accused of being a tenderfoot or an idealist in politics. MERICAN news agencies and newspapers cannot af- ford full-time correspondents at Manila, and the cabled news almost inevitably comes either from writers on papers closely attached to the governor-general’s administration or from subordinate officials dependent upon his good will.

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it 206 The Nation - When General Wood denounces the native opposition we hear of it in full; but we find it difficult to discover the other side. In his latest blast upon the conduct of the Philippine National Bank we have to read between the Governor’s own lines. When, however, we find his expert reporting against the continuation of the bank because he is opposed to gov- ernment ownership, and the Governor condemning the bank because it “undermines private initiative” and is “contrary to the Government’s policy of getting the Government out of business,” we can make a pretty good guess. General Wood is acting in the interest of the American companies which want to make Philippine industry an economic prov- ince of Wall Street, and the Filipino leaders are trying to maintain a degree of economic independence. When you have analyzed the dispute into those terms you do not have to read much further. The question whether native mis- management or the world sugar erisis—which also put out of business every private bank in Cuba which did not have outside support—was responsible for the difficulties of the Philippine National Bank does not need to be answered. Your conclusion depends upon whether you approve or dread the trend to put into the hands of a few financiers world- power beyond the dreams of Alexander, Napoleon, or any modern ruler. UBA too is having a hard time. First there was the lottery which she reestablished against General Crow- der’s advice. We cannot take that as a very serious crime. The Cubans will some day learn that a lottery is a poor way to make money, but, after all, they are Latins with Latin habits and might be allowed the privilege of deciding such matters for themselves. France, Italy, and Spain all have state lotteries; Anglo-Saxon Queensland has a lottery the proceeds of which go to child welfare work; and our own Louisiana lottery carried on long after the close of the Spanish-American War. ORE difficult is the question of the Tarafa railroad bill. The Cuban Legislature has passed an act pro- viding for consolidation of the Cuban railway system, and putting exceptionally high taxes on products exported over private railways through private ports unless the owners of these roads will come into the consolidation plan. There are, it seems, some forty-seven private ports owned by American sugar companies, through which about one-third of Cuba’s sugar is exported. It is admitted that under the Tarafa plan railway schedules could be more efficiently maintained, exchange of rolling stock facilitated, and vari- ous economies of operation made possible. It is also ad- mitted that the sugar companies controlling the private ports pay the officials supervising them, that violations of the Cuban customs laws constantly occur at them, and that Chinese are frequently smuggled from them into the United States. But the American property-owners of course pro- tested loudly to Washington, and Washington, always re- sponsive to the call of oppressed property, immediately asked the Cuban Government to hold up the bill, accompany- ing this diplomatic protest by a press barrage threatening intervention. Thereupon another group of American in- vestors, interested in Cuban railroads, issued a counter- protest. We know very little of the merits of the Tarafa bill—it sounds like an honest attempt to end special privi- leges—but we should like to see it settled as a Cuban ques- tion, not by Washington acting as the agent of anybody else. [ Vol. 117, No. 3034 EXICAN and American commissioners have signed the minutes of their meetings and reached agreement upon many of the issues at stake, but it is not yet certain that recognition will result nor is it clear precisely what has been agreed upon. All that is sure is that the American delegates have sought to force Mexico to agree to an Ameri- can interpretation of American property rights in Mexico. The Mexican delegates have accepted the principle that the constitution of 1917 is not retroactive, thereby confirming American oil rights acquired prior to that date. The Mexi- can law, however, with its drastic provisions regarding sub- soil rights, is recognized as henceforth valid. The cables are conflicting regarding the division of landed estates. Some local governments in Mexico have carried the policy of di- viding up the large estates so far that every peasant now has his own land, and the landlords, even when they have plenty of land left to work, cannot find men to work for them. This is the crux of Mexico’s new policy. It is im- portant not because of the amount of territory involved—in the first two years of the Obregon Administration only 4,400 square miles was allotted, and the entire program affects only 16,000 square miles—but because in this policy of mak- ing Mexico a republic of landowners lies the hope of a free Mexico. If the Obregon Government surrenders on this— as some of the dispatches seem to indicate—it will pay far too high a price for recognition. UST what the Irish Free State will do with Eamonn De Valera now that it has him in jail is a problem. Presumably he will go on a hunger strike, and if he sticks it out they will have to release him as they did Mary MacSwiney, or make an eternal martyr of him as the British did of Terence MacSwiney. De Valera in prison is worth more to the Republican cause than De Valera free. The only possible defense of the Free State treaty is that it allows Ireland a greater measure of freedom than it would be possible to win except by prolonged and bloody ‘civil war—if then; and when the Free State keeps ten thousand Irishmen in jail it strikes at the root of its own position. We have believed the Free State worth a trial; but the Free Staters make that faith difficult. The coming election was to have revealed the opinion of Ireland; but when the Government jails its chief political opponent the election can hardly be called free. ECRETARY WORK’S latest defense of his action in S ousting Arthur Powell Davis from the post of Director of the Reclamation Service will not satisfy the engineers who have been so vehemently protesting to him. The facts in the case are now a matter of record. Mr. Davis, an eminent engineer, had been in the service for thirty-five years and his work had been entirely satisfactory. With- out warning Secretary Work called him into his office and asked for his resignation. When Mr. Davis gave it in a form which made plain that it had been requested Secretary Work asked him to rewrite it, concealing that pertinent fact. Mr. Davis refused. Dr. Work thereupon explained that the service required a business man rather than an engineer in the post and named an Idaho politician, Mr. D. W. Davis. This new Davis’s record as a “business man” consisted in service as a grocery clerk, followed by a few years of unsuccessful banking (his bank failed) and a term as Republican governor of Idaho. The position of Director of the Reclamation Service was under the civil-service rules, AS stewie i

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August 29, 1923] The Nation 207 and the new Mr. Davis possibly could not have passed the examinations required by law for the post. Dr. Work abol- ished the post of Director and created a new one, Commis- sioner of the Reclamation Service, which had the same func- tions but dispensed with civil-service requirements, enabling the new Mr. Davis to hold it. Dr. Work, by using his office for partisan ends, lessens the attractiveness of all govern- ment service to the kind of experts it needs. EN are still rotting in jail in these United States for having given utterance to opinions which those in control of our national and of some of our State govern- ments believed dangerous to our established political and industrial institutions. They are in jail for opinion’s sake —not for the commission of any act of crime. The time has gone when this violation of civil liberty can be excused on the ground of a national or world crisis; the outrage stands forth today stark and bare, an attempt to control the expression of opinion in this country. From time to time a few men have been released, perhaps with the hope of thus stifling agitation for freedom of speech but scores are still kept behind prison walls. Every prisoner for opin- ion’s sake is a denial of the claim that this is a country of freemen. Small wonder that a statesman from the Orient looking at the cracked old Liberty Bell in Philadelphia asked “Is Liberty cracked too?” or that a Frenchman re- marked, when passing the Statue of Liberty, that ‘In France, too, we build statues in honor of our dead heroes.” S the United States Government acting as the agent of Mussolini’s dictatorship? When Carlo Tresca claimed, several weeks ago, that it was the influence of Prince Cae- tani, the Italian Ambassador, which caused a July issue of his anti-fascist weekly, the Martello, to be barred from the American mails, the charge seemed incredible. It seemed beyond belief that our American post-office should so prosti- tute itself as to interfere with the freedom of the press here upon Italian instructions. The French Government before the war, bound up as it was with the Czar’s financial regime, used to act as the agent of the Russian secret police, but one would hardly expect this republic to copy so detestable a policy. However, Carlo Tresca was arrested on August 14, charged with publishing obscene matter, because of an article which appeared in the issue of his paper for May 5. Copies of this paper had meanwhile traveled to Italy; and the article protested was one called “Down with the Mon- archy.” The so-called obscenity consisted of rather impu- dent references to the motives and circumstances which determine royal marriages. HEN Lloyd George went out of office last November it was a common prediction in this country—much more so than in England—that “he’ll soon come back.” To- day the prospect of his return to power seems more remote than ever. The English people have little more use for him now than for Lord Rosebery or Horatio Bottomley. Critical as the international situation may be, nobody is calling for “the little Welsh wizard” to show the way out. Over the present House of Commons he casts no spell. He sits there no longer as a master of legions, but as the leader of a small group, whose members are one by one drifting away from kim and transferring their allegiance to the Conservative Party. For many months before the fall of the Coalition, the question asked by many who would gladly have got rid of him was: “But who is there to take his place?” In the light of what has happened since, it seems almost incredible that such a problem could ever have been seriously posed. Neither Bonar Law nor Stanley Baldwin possesses the ora- torical gifts of Lloyd George nor his skill in the rapid im- provisation of policies, but these less brilliant men have qualities of character in which he is lamentably deficient, and in the long run character tells. His reputation, too, has steadily dwindled in proportion as the test of time has shown the flimsiness of his boasted statesmanship, The dis- appearance of the last scrap of his “Doomsday Book” has taken the halo from his career as a social reformer, while one has only to mention the Treaty of Versailles—to say nothing of the Treaty of Lausanne—to realize how short- sighted and pretentious were his achievements in the world of international affairs. **7 TS editors will be Mr. George Jean Nathan and Mr. H. L. Mencken”—that announcement is quite enough to assure an eager audience for a new American monthly re- view. “The point of view that it will seek to maintain will be that of the civilized minority”—that but repeats the an- nouncement that Mencken and Nathan will edit the Ameri- can Mercury. There is no team to compare with them in present-day letters. Find fault with them as one may— and it is not difficult to pick holes in their armor—no two men in America today are doing more to stir the youth in the colleges and out of them to independent, critical, crea- tive thinking than Mencken and Nathan. The fact that Alfred A. Knopf will publish the new review gives the added assurance that its typography and make-up will be at once modern and distinguished. The monthlies are pick- ing up. The recent announcement that Henry Goddard Leach has taken over the Forum means a new fair-minded- ness and thoughtfulness, and a return to the fine old tradi- tions of that veteran of American journalism. HEN the editor of The Nation was in college, it came about that a certain undergraduate secret society chose to initiate into its mysteries and fellowship a member of the Cabot family. Known for the public character of its rites and their power to take the sublimity out of any sophomore, the society took this particularly interesting candidate, placed him on what was then the most fre- quented corner in Boston, decorated him with a large paste- board reading I AM A CABOT, and kept him there through- out the daylight hours. If we mistake not, this same Cabot is one of the members of his family who has just protested, in vain, to a Philadelphia judge who had before him the application of Harry and Myrtle Kabotchnik to change their name to Cabot. Now we should have thought that this indi- cated a most praiseworthy desire on the part of these Slavs, of a race which Charles Steinmetz has just declared will shortly rule the world and triumph upon the ruins of Anglo- Saxon civilization, to become 100 per cent Americans, and to stamp that Americanism with an authenticity beyond question—at least in the land of the cod. The judge ap- parently thought so, too, for he granted the petition, though he might have insisted upon their being Kabots and not Cabots. But the Cabots are outraged to their depths. Their name is their property and theirs alone. We suggest to them that they take a leaf out of the undergraduate book. Why should they not each wear a neat little badge, deco- rated with a codfish, and marked: “I am a real Cabot’?

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The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3034 On Exalting the President: An Open Letter To Major J DEAR SIR: E are in receipt of your letter saying you are “shocked” by reading in a recent issue of The Nation an “attack” upon the President of the United States and one upon Messrs. Hughes and Hoover. “At a time like the present,” you declare, “every good citizen ought to do his utmost to uphold our new President.” Anything else is, in your judgment, not only “bad taste” but “unpatriotic.” Our editorial you are pleased to consider “an open and flagrant abuse of free speech.” This point of view of yours interests us not a little because it is so illustrative of a type of confused thinking that is all too prevalent at this juncture. What is there in the “present time” to make an editor surrender the right of criticism? Is there anything serious in a change of Presi- dents because of the death of the incumbent of the office? We have been through it six times without a jar even at the hour of Lincoln’s assassination. We shall certainly never experience it again under more peaceful conditions than exist in these United States today. Then why should any- body be called upon “to his utmost” to “uphold” our new President? There is no crisis in existence or in sight; no- body menaces the government; we are waging at this mo- ment no war to make the world safe for democracy, or to end war; Congress is not even in session. The country in fact, was never safer for the humbugging of politicians than today. Then why in the world must one refrain from criti- cizing the new President? The truth is that men like yourself seem fs think that the President of the United States is a king or a kaiser and so beyond criticism, not only when he succeeds to office but at all times. The President of the United States is nothing of the kind. He is a servant of the people, elected by their votes for a brief service and subject at all times to their criticism. If you knew anything about the tra- ditions and history of your country you would know that nobody was subjected to more criticism than George Wash- ington, even when the country was on the verge of war with France. It was the object of the founders to differ- entiate the Presidency in every way from the position held by the King of England, and to divest it of all attributes of majesty. Their ideal was that of a Cincinnatus leaving his plow for a period of public service and then returning to it. The founders, as the debates show, never dreamed of exalting their chief servant above criticism, if only be- cause they knew that criticism is the greatest safeguard of the Republic; remove that, and the citizens are helpless against their own creatures in office. The fact that Presi- dent Coolidge has reached his office by the accident of a widely-lamented death throws no veil of sanctity about him, establishes no close season for public criticism, and in no wise even raises a question whether such criticism is in good or in bad taste, or is patriotic or unpatriotic. Indeed, there are several facts about Mr. Coolidge’s rise to his high office by one of those myths we Americans love to build up about our public men, which make truth-telling at this time particularly necessary, for these myths con- stantly mislead the public and lead to frequent, dishearten- ing, faith-destroying disillusionment. There is no more im- Ss portant duty, in our judgment, for an honest and truth- serving journalist than to set forth the truth about every public man. Certainly his duty is to the American people that they may be informed, and only very secondarily to the man who has just assumed office by the gift of the peo- ple and the intervention of fate. The time of Mr. Coolidge’s accession to office was precisely the hour to make people aware of the facts as to the police strike. The editorial in The Nation to which you object contained, moreover, not editorial opinion of ours, but the statement of a responsi- ble citizens’ committee of Boston headed by the foremost banker in New England. If this was an “attack” upon the President, then the fault lies with the facts and not with us. It is needless to add that not only the New York Even- ing Post but numerous other journals throughout the coun- try took this occasion to print the facts without thought that they thereby rendered themselves “unpatriotic.” As for free speech, there is never any time when it can be “abused” unless it contravenes explicit statutes. The fact is that all this undue exaltation of the office of President dates back to the day when we began our im- perialistic career. It gained a tremendous currency during the World War. When setting out to destroy a kaiser we were, of course, bound to exalt our President and to clothe him with many of the panoplies and rites, such as a military guard around the White House, which were appurtenances of the Kaiser and had hitherto been deemed un-republican and un-American. As your letter proves, we are even now extending this doctrine of sanctity to Cabinet officers. You say it is wrong for The Nation to suggest that Messrs. Hughes and Hoover, having buncoed many thousands of their fellow-citizens into voting for President Harding on the ground that such was the surest way to get the United States into the League of Nations, ought to take the oppor- tunity afforded by the change in the Administration and gracefully retire to private life. If your point of view con- trolled, it would surely be only a short time before a statute made it treasonable to criticize any Cabinet officer. We pre- sume that you are today ablaze with rage because many newspapers have criticized Mr. Coolidge for choosing as his private secretary an office-broker and a spoils-monger. Since men of your type of mind are impervious to the history of our own institutions and the spirit and tradition of American democracy, we can only hope that there will be elected a man of the type of Henry Ford (not that we favor Mr. Ford’s candidacy). For if there should be chosen a person who would violate the traditions and the conven- tionalities which the modern imperialistic and big-business control of America is building up about our public officials, solely in the interest of increasing the power of authority and further buttressing the present rotting social order, we should see all this precious nonsense about the sanctity of a President go overboard in an hour. The very ones who, like yourself, are now shouting that office throws a mantle of holiness about any man who receives it would then be foremost in criticism and in denunciation, precisely as they now have no words to do reverence to a Magnus Johnson, a La Follette, or a Smith Brookhart. They would suddenly discover that it was the man in the Presidency that counted, not the office or its authority. THE NATION Oe,

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August 29, 1923] The Lion Pays a Price HAT greater irony could fate have in store for British statesmen than that five years after they went to war—under false pretenses, it is true—to aid France and Belgium, they find themselves apparently bound and delivered to their ancient cross-Channel enemy? That is their fix today. England protests against French wick- edness and folly in the Ruhr. Today France thumbs her nose at the Lion. Conscious of an army nearly five times the size of Great Britain’s; able to imitate Germany and let loose a fleet of submarines at any moment; provided with a force of 5,000 airplanes vastly superior to the Brit- ish in numbers and in personnel, France is quite ready to go her own way, and is even at the point of threatening an economic war against her quondam ally. It is regrettable, of course, says Paris, to lose the ally to whom one was so grateful, and to whom one sang such paeans of praise from 1914 to 1918, and one must be polite always. But, if the parting must needs be, why, it is not England who holds the trump cards. So the country which for centuries armed against France; which for eighty years has declined to permit an under- channel tunnel lest the French army pour through it at night—Cobden began his peace agitation in 1847 by defend- ing France and again in 1852 he inveighed against the “vague terror” of his day; which for decades maintained a two-power naval standard at double the Gallic strength; which for generations has sung Britannia Rule the Waves, and periodically has roused her inhabitants to such a pitch of feverish fear of France as led to the great volunteer movement of mid-Victorian days, now finds herself check- mated and, from a militarist point of view, humiliated as never before. The British Lion for once cannot have his way by force. His growl no longer shakes the walls of Paris; the battlements of Calais no longer tremble when his hearts of oak and walls of steel pass slowly by on maneuvers bent. The new arts of war and the new instru- ments have placed the French on top. This time England fears in truth; this time the invasion of England is pos- sible—through the air; today the dream of Bonaparte is nearer realization than ever before. In deciding to destroy her German commercial rival, Great Britain played into France’s hands. She can no longer enact her old role of wielding a balance of power in Europe because the old Rus- sia is gone, Germany is prostrate, and Austria is dismem- bered. France no longer dreads a British threat of war because she knows, and all the world knows, that London wants no more bombing; that the British people, struggling against a cruel business depression and against sickening and palsying unemployment, with their fleets of peace rust- ing at their anchors, have no more stomach and no more treasure for a fight. The Gallic cock may crow as never before. Now from many points of view this is not a bad situa- tion, if it means that, as the Germans have turned to pas- sive resistance against which the French army has been as useless as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, the British statesmen will now have to try other means to bring France to her senses than the rattling of the sword and the mobiliz- ing of fleets. We are heartily glad that England is im- potent, precisely as we rejoice that no German scientist has invented a scientific way of destroying the French The Nation 209 cities from an automatic airplane station in the suburbs of Berlin. Such a liberation would merely emphasize the rule of force. We want Germany treated in the spirit of the Good Samaritan and restored to her rightful place as a member of the human family, misled once, but on the road to democracy and humility and sanity today. We want France brought to a realization of the utterly detest- able and unethical character of her conduct since the Treaty of Versailles. But we have only one prayer, and that is that these things may be brought about by the arts of peace, by sound and calm reasoning, by the marshaling of eco- nomic power, and by the pressure of world opinion. So, we repeat, we cannot grieve that England cannot fight; that her statesmen are not in a position to threaten a war, or lightly and mistakenly to throw the fate of their people into another struggle, as they lightly and mistakenly threw it in 1914 by reason of secret agreements, lied about in the Commons and carefully concealed from the people themselves. It is humiliating, from the old-fashioned dip- lomatic point of view, for England to be bound and de- livered to her ancient enemy, but the lesson is not to arm additionally, or to engage in another struggle which must result in the ruin of all concerned, but to turn to the weap- ons of the spirit reinforced by the possibility of isolating the erring French by international agreement and inter- national cooperation. Militarily the British are today hopelessly inferior; yet they are, in the matter of the re- construction of Europe, more powerful than ever before because they have never been more firmly intrenched in sanity, wisdom, humanity, and justice—nor more strongly fortified by economic truths. The Big and the Little at Sea ESPITE the fame of the Leviathan and the Majestic and all the rest of the ocean giants, the supremacy of the big ships is not complete, nor is their future domi- nation unchallenged. We all know how in war time the tiny submarine drove the monster battleship into hiding. To- day the largest liners are the most fashionable and for a period in each year the most profitable. Then, when the winter storms begin, they run at such a loss that only a shipping tyro, like Albert Lasker, suggests any more. He wants three more Leviathans built—apparently for adver- tising reasons. The German steamship-men who built these giant liners of. which the American and British merchant marines are now so proud, declare openly that, if the trade were to be restored over-night to the favorable pre-war con- ditions, they would not think of building any more floating cities but would stick to the 20,000 to 25,000 ton steamers which they are now rapidly turning out. Certainly, if the world continues in its present slough of despond, the pas- senger line which would build a fifty thousand tonner would be considered to have gone mad. If there must be fast ships we may see a leaf taken out of the books of the great navies which are now turning out scout cruisers of 100,000 horse-power and thirty-four or thirty-five knots speed. Such a ship could run across the Atlantic in the summer months in four days, charging extra fare like the limited trains to those to whom haste was essential, and then in winter time could voyage slowly under half its power in order to save expense. As it is, the Mauretanias eagerly seek engagements for winter Mediter-

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h 210 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3034 ranean cruises to cut the very heavy losses of the bad months on the Atlantic. Then the smaller, more economical, and cheaper ships come into their own. The glory of the monster vessel wanes, even in the society columns. In still another marine field the small boat challenges the larger. The remarkable Bermuda yacht race, participated in by no less than twenty-two yachts of all rigs, varying in length from 37 to 81 feet, with their auxiliary engines sealed, resulted in eighteen of them crossing the finish line within sixteen hours after the winner’s appearance. This was an amazing achievement for amateurs in small boats, who encountered very rough going in the Gulf Stream, and found navigation extremely difficult in rough seas under cloudy skies. Here again the smalier boats distinguished themselves. The editor of Yachting, Mr. Herbert L. Stone, who inspired the race and sailed in it, writes that aside from some better luck in the winds than the big fellows, the little ones carried sail longer than their larger competitors, their skippers feeling that they could shorten sail more easily in case of necessity, while the big fellows with their bulky canvas could not afford to wait until the bad weather set in. The best record was made by Malabar IV, which won the race on corrected time. She has but forty-seven feet of length. Yet her owner and designer boasts that she was comfortable and easily handled. Ever since the war there has been a recrudescence of faith in the small ocean-going vessels; the yachting maga- zines constantly record the voyages of small schooners crossing the Atlantic and exploring the South Seas. It does not take the income of a million dollars to round the globe on such a noble little schooner as lay in Gloucester Harbor last summer fitting out for a three-year cruise with but one paid hand aboard. She was built as though for the North Pole, with timbers fit for any sea and any gale, safe inboard rigging, heavy spars, no topmasts, and a powerful engine—all the comforts of home for five men within her sixty feet—and what a life! Daring, adventure by day and by night; no pressure for time and no haste—just the challenge of the elements by a floating speck on the vasty deep, with all the chances as much in her favor as those of a 250-foot yacht or a 4,000-ton bark. If the fabric is sound, and the science is there, and courage as well, one may play Columbus at will and count upon his luck. Parents—Gods, Policemen, or Friends? AVE you ever tried being friends with a small child? t is being attempted in these days in thousands of American homes and in a few American schools of the “experimental” variety. We are beginning to shrink from enforcing the various gestures of authority on the one hand and of respect and obedience on the other that ordi- narily make up a large part of the relationship between parents and their children and between teachers and their pupils. We are making a brave effort to go along with our children on their educational adventurings and to try the ex- periment of friendship with them. And in doing this we are setting ourselves a task as hard as that of stopping wars or establishing the coopera- tive commonwealth. Every day of their lives children want to commit at least fifty acts that must somehow be prevented. They wish to consume candy and cake at wrong moments. They want to play while they eat their meals. They want to go in swim- ming right after lunch. They want to kill harmless insects. They want to play in the dim, damp twilight zone under the front porch. Left to themselves they will commit these acts and all be friends in misdoing. If they happen to re- member stray phrases of adult reasoning or adult punish- ment, they may stop. Solemnly, one of them may remark: “It isn’t nice to pick cats up around their middles.” But the thought and the sentiment must needs come from with- out; there is nu inner grace in the treatment of cats. And every day children balk at doing a great number of things which somehow they must be cajoled or reasoned or forced into doing. They balk at cleansings and tooth-brush- ings; at eating porridge or spinach or whole-wheat bread; at taking naps; at picking up their playthings. There is no use in citing the rare child that does these things without being told. That child has only learned his lesson a little better; civilization, the adult world, has more quickly changed him and stamped him and made him her own. Superiority wrecks friendliness; and, amiably or brutally, all adults are wielders of a fatal authority. Equality is the blood and bone of friendship, and none of us, whatever our I. Q.s may be, can be the joyous equals of our children— talk the juvenile language, ask and answer the endless ques- tions, or laugh at the humor of the very young. Until a parent can fall into sincere mirth when his offspring re- peats an endless string of senseless sounds, exhilarating to the infant ear; or spend a happy morning climbing in and out of empty packing boxes—until that time comes, let him give up hope of being the friend of his child. And when that time comes, alas, he must give up hope of his own mental competence. Of course this states both sides of the matter too baldly. If we are honest in our desire for friendship we can occa- sionally approach the standards of childhood and for a few moments find ourselves let into the charmed circle of equality and companionship. But such a relationship is a fragile thing, easily shattered by the exercise of even a gentle authority or the assumption of adult wisdom. Every time we say “no” to a child, and, equally, every time we say “ves,”’ we climb out of friendship and into a region of au- thority and force—however disguised. We sadly put the hope of complete friendship from us—forever; for by the time our children reach an age when they conform to adult standards without direction or compulsion they have be- hind them years of inequality which make any sort of true intimacy acutely difficult. They will be able to make friends more easily with strangers than with their own parents. Ordinarily child-training is looked at from the child’s point of view alone; few people have analyzed the ruinous effect on adult character of the Olympian role that is forced upon parents. Children and grown-ups alike need to get away from this role, and probably the only way they can ever hope to is by getting away from each other. Bernard Shaw has suggested some admirable schemes for accom- plishing this end, but unfortunately they all involve the previous establishment of an economic Utopia. Short of that we can only compromise. We can treat our children’s most painfully experimental moods with a certain respect. And when we must assume the character of gods or police- men we can do it with an air of humility and humor that may dispel some of the reasonable hostility with which the young view all attempts at their betterment.

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August 29, 1923] The Nation The Hack Driver By SINCLAIR LEWIS DARE say there’s no man of. large affairs, whether he is bank president or senator or dramatist, who hasn’t a sneaking love for some old rum-hound in a frightful hat, living back in a shanty and making his living by ways you wouldn’t care to examine too closely. (It was the Supreme Court justice speaking. I do not pretend to guarantee his theories or his story.) He may be a Maine guide, or the old garageman who used to keep the livery stable, or a per- fectly useless innkeeper who sneaks off to shoot ducks when he ought to be sweeping the floors, but your pompous big- city man will contrive to get back and see him every year, and loaf with him, and secretly prefer him to all the high- falutin’ leaders of the city. There’s that much truth, at least, to this Open Spaces stuff you read in advertisements of wild and woolly Western novels. I don’t know the philosophy of it; perhaps it means that we retain a decent simplicity, no matter how much we are tied to Things, to houses and motors and ex- pensive wives. Or again it may give away the whole game of civilization; may mean that the apparently civilized man is at heart nothing but a hobo who prefers flannel shirts and bristly cheeks and cussing and dirty tin plates to all the trim, hygienic, forward-looking life our womenfolks make us put on for them. When I graduated from law school I suppose I was about as artificial and idiotic and ambitious as most youngsters. I wanted to climb, socially and financially. I wanted to be famous, and dine at large houses with men who shuddered at the Common People who don’t dress for dinner. You see, I hadn’t learned that the only thing duller than a polite dinner is the conversation afterward, when the victims are digesting the dinner and accumulating enough strength to be able to play bridge. Oh, I was a fine young calf! I even planned a rich marriage. Imagine then how I felt when, after taking honors and becoming fifteenth assistant clerk in the magnificent law firm of Hodgins, Hodgins, Berkman and Taupe, I was set not at preparing briefs but at serving summonses! Like a cheap private detective! Like a mangy sheriff’s officer! They told me I had to begin that way and, holding my nose, I feebly went to work. I was kicked out of actresses’ dressing-rooms, and from time to time I was righteously beaten by large and indignant litigants. I came to know, and still more to hate, every dirty and shad- owy corner of the city. I thought of fleeing to my home town, where I could at once become a full-fledged attorney- at-law. I rejoiced one day when they sent me out forty miles or so to a town called New Mullion, to serve a sum- mons on one Oliver Lutkins. This Lutkins had worked in the Northern woods, and he knew the facts about a certain timberland boundary agreement; we needed him as a wit- ness, and he had dodged service. When I got off the train at New Mullion, my sudden affec- tion for sweet and simple villages was dashed by the look of the place, with its mud-gushing streets and its rows of shops either paintless or daubed with a sour brown. Though it must have numbered eight or nine thousand in- habitants, New Mullion was as littered as a mining camp. There was one agreeable-looking man at the station—the expressman. He was a person of perhaps forty, red-faced, cheerful, thick; he wore his overalls and denim jumper as though they belonged to him; he was quite dirty and very friendly, and you knew at once that he liked people and slapped them on the back out of pure easy affection. “IT want,” I told him, “to find a fellow named Oliver Lut- kins.” “Him? I saw him ’round here ’twa’n’t an hour ago. Hard fellow to catch, though—always chasing around on some phony business or other. Probably trying to get up a poker game in the back of Fritz Beineke’s harness-shop. I'll tell you, boy Any hurry about locating Lutkins?” “Yes. I want to catch the afternoon train back.” I was as impressively secret as a stage detective. “T’ll tell you. I’ve got a hack. I’ll get out the old bone- shaker and we can drive around together and find Lutkins. I know most of the places he hangs out.” He was so frankly friendly, he so immediately took me into the circle of his affection, that I glowed with the warmth of it. I knew, of course, that he was drumming up business, but his kindness was real, and if I had to pay hack fare in order to find my man, I was glad that the money would go to this good fellow. I got him down to two dol- lars an hour; he brought from his cottage, a block away, an object like a black piano-box on wheels. He didn’t hold the door open, certainly he didn’t say: “Ready, sir.” I think he would have died before calling anybody “sir.” When he gets to Heaven’s gate he’ll call St. Peter “Pete,” and I imagine the good saint will like it. He remarked, “Well, young fellow, here’s the handsome equipage,” and his grin—well, it made me feel that I had always been his neighbor. They’re so ready to help a stranger, those villagers. He had already made it his own task to find Oliver Lutkins for me. He said, and almost shyly: “I don’t want to butt in on your private business, young fellow, but my guess is that you want to collect some money from Lutkins—he never pays anybody a cent; he still owes me six bits on a poker game I was fool enough to get into. He ain’t a bad sort of a Yahoo but he just naturally hates to loosen up on coin of the realm. So if you’re trying to collect any money off him, we better kind of you might say creep up on him and sur- round him. If you go asking for him—anybody can tell you come from the city, with that trick Fedora of yours— he’ll suspect something and take a sneak. If you want me to, I'll go into Fritz Beineke’s and ask for him, and you can keep out of sight behind me.” I loved him for it. By myself I might never have found Lutkins. Now, I was an army with reserves. In a burst I told the hack driver that I wanted to serve a summons on Lutkins; that the fellow had viciously refused to testify in a suit where his knowledge of a certain conversation would clear up everything. The driver listened earnestly—and I was still young enough to be grateful at being taken seri- ously by any man of forty. At the end he pounded my shoulder (very painfully) and chuckled: “Well, we’ll spring a little surprise on Br’er Lutkins.” “Let’s start, driver.” “Most folks around here call me Bill. William Magnuson, fancy carting and hauling. Or Magnuson. ”

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212 “All right, Bill. Shall we tackle this harness-shop— Beineke’s?” “Yes, jus’ likely to be there as anywheres. Plays a lot of poker, and a great hand at bluffing—damn him!” Bill seemed to admire Mr. Lutkins’s ability as a scoundrel; I fancied that if he had been sheriff he would have caught Lutkins with fervor and hanged him with affection. At the somewhat gloomy harness-shop we descended and went in The room was odorous with the smell of dressed leather. A scanty sort of man, presumably Mr. Beineke, was selling a horse-collar to a farmer. “Seen Nolly Lutkins around today? Friend of his look- ing for him,” said Bill, -with treacherous heartiness. Beineke looked past him at my shrinking alien self; he hesitated, and owned: “Yuh, he was in here little while ago. Guess he’s gone over to the Swede’s to get a shave.” “Well, if he comes in, tell him I’m looking for him. Might get up a little game of poker. I’ve heard tell that Lutkins plays these here immoral games of chance.” “Yuh, I believe he’s known to sit in on Authors,” Beineke growled. We sought the barber-shop of “the Swede.” Bill was again good enough to take the lead, while I lurked at the door. He asked not only the Swede but two customers if they had seen Lutkins. The Swede decidedly had not; he raged: “I ain’t seen him, and I don’t want to, but if you find him you can just collect the dollar thirty-five he owes me!” One of the customers thought he had seen Lutkins “hiking down Main Street, this side of the hotel.” “Well then,” Bill concluded, as we labored up into the hack, “his credit at the Swede’s being ausgewent, he’s probably getting a scrape at Heinie Gray’s. He’s too darn lazy to shave himself.” At Gray’s barber-shop we missed Lutkins by only five minutes. He had just left—presumably for the poolroom. At the poolroom it appeared that he had merely bought a “pack” of cigarettes and gone on. Thus we pursued him, just behind him but never catching him, for an hour, till it was past one and I was hungry. Village born as I was and in the city often lonely for good coarse country wit, I was so delighted by Bill’s cynical opinions on the barbers and clergymen and doctors and draymen of New Mullion that I scarcely cared whether I found Lutkins or not. “How about something to eat?” I suggested. ‘“Let’s go to a restaurant and I’ll buy you a lunch.” “Well, ought to go home to the old woman. And I don’t care much for these restaurants—ain’t but four of ’em and they’re all rotten. Tell you what we’ll do. Like nice scenery? There’s an elegant view from Wade’s Hill. We'll get the old woman to put us up a lunch—she won’t charge you but half a dollar, and it’d cost you that for a greasy feed at the caif—and we'll go up there and have a Sunday- school picnic.” I knew that my friend Bill was not free from guile; I knew that his hospitality to the Young Fellow from the City was not altogether a matter of brotherly love. I was paying him for his time; in all I paid him for six hours (including the lunch hour!) at what was then a terrific price. But he was no more dishonest than I, who charged the whole thing up to the Firm, and it would have been worth paying him myself to have his presence. His country serenity, his natural wisdom, was a refreshing bath to the city-twitching youngster. As we sat on the hilltop, looking across orchards and a creek which slipped among the wil- The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3034 lows, he talked of New Mullion, gave a whole gallery of portraits. He was cynical yet tender. Nothing had es- caped him, yet there was nothing, no matter how ironically he laughed at it, which was beyond his understanding and forgiveness. In ruddy color he painted the rector’s wife who when she was most in debt most loudly gave the re- sponses at what he called the “Episcopalopian church.” He commented on the boys who.came home from college in “ice-cream pants,” and on the lawyer who, after years of torrential argument with his wife, would put on either a linen collar or a necktie, but never both. He made them live. In that day I came to know New Mullion better than I did the city, and to love it better. If Bill was ignorant of universities and of urban ways, yet much had he traveled in the realm of jobs. He had worked on railroad section gangs, in harvest fields and con- tractors’ camps, and from his adventures he had brought back a philosophy of simplicity and laughter. He strength- ened me. Nowadays, thinking of Bill, I know what people mean (though I abominate the simpering phrase) when they yearn over “real he-men.” We left that placid place of orchards and resumed the search for Oliver Lutkins. We could not find him. At last Bill cornered a friend of Lutkins and made him admit that “he guessed Oliver’d gone out to his ma’s farm, three miles north.” We drove out there, mighty with strategy. “I know Oliver’s ma. She’s a terror. She’s a cyclone,” Bill sighed. “I took a trunk out for her once, and she pretty near took my hide off because I didn’t treat it like it was a crate of eggs. She’s somewheres about nine feet tall and four feet thick and quick’s a cat, and she sure manhandles the Queen’s English. I’ll bet Oliver has heard that somebody’s on his trail, and he’s sneaked out there to hide behind ma’s skirts. Well, we’ll try bawling her out. But you better let me do it, boy. You may be great at Latin and geography, but you ain’t educated in cussing.” _We drove into a poor farmyard; we were faced by an enor- mous and cheerful old woman. My guardian stockily stood before her and snarled, ‘‘Remember me? I’m Bill Magnu- son, the expressman. I want to find your son Oliver. Friend of mine here from the city got a present for him.” “T don’t know anything about Oliver and I don’t want to,” she bellowed. “Now you look here. We’ve stood for just about enough plenty nonsense. This young man is the attorney general’s provost, and we got legal right to search any and all prem- ises for the person of one Oliver Lutkins.” Bill made it sound terrific, and the Amazon seemed im- pressed. She retired into the kitchen and we followed. From the low old range, turned by years of heat into a dark silvery gray, she snatched a sad iron, and she marched on us, clamoring, “You just search all you want to—pro- vidin’ you don’t mind getting burnt to a cinder?” She bel- lowed, she swelled, she laughed at our nervous retreat. “Let’s get out of this. She’ll murder us,” Bill groaned and, outside: ‘Did you see her grin? She was making fun of us. Can you beat that for nerve?” I agreed that it was lése majesté. We did, however, make adequate search. The cottage had but one story. Bill went round it, peeking in at all the windows. We explored the barn and the stable; we were reasonably certain that Lutkins was not there. It was nearly time for me to catch the afternoon train, and Bill

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August 29, 1923] drove me to the station. On the way to the city I worried very little over my failure to find Lutkins. I was too ab- sorbed in the thought of Bill Magnuson. Really, I con- sidered returning to New Mullion to practice law. If I had found Bill so deeply and richly human, might I not come to love the yet uncharted Fritz Beineke and the Swede barber and a hundred other slow-spoken, simple, wise neighbors? I saw a candid and happy life beyond the neat learnings of universities and law firms. I was excited, as one who has found a treasure. But if I did not think much about Lutkins, the office did. I found them in a state, next morning; the suit was ready _to come to trial; they had to have Lutkins; I was a disgrace and a fool. That morning my eminent legal career almost came to anend. The Chief did everything but commit may- hem; he somewhat more than hinted that I would do well at ditch-digging. I was ordered back to New Mullion, and with me they sent an ex-lumber-camp clerk who knew Lut- kins. I was rather sorry, because it would prevent my loaf- ing again in the gorgeous indolence of Bill Magnuson. The Nation 213 When the train drew in at New Mullion, Bill was on the station platform, near his dray. What was curious was that the old dragon, Lutkins’s mother, was there talking to him, and they were not quarreling but laughing. From the car steps I pointed Bill out to the lumber-camp clerk, and in young hero-worship I murmured: “There’s a fine fellow, a real man.” “Meet him here yesterday?” asked the clerk. “TI spent the day with him.” “He help you hunt for Oliver Lutkins?” “Yes, he helped me a lot.” “He must have! He’s Lutkins himself!” s But what really hurt was that when I served the sum- mons Lutkins and his mother laughed at me as though I were a bright boy of seven, and with loving solicitude they begged me to go to a neighbor’s house and take a cup of coffee. “T told ’em about you, and they’re dying to have a look at you,” said Lutkins joyfully. “They’re about the only folks in town that missed seeing you yesterday.” Stinnes—and Stresemann By JEROME LACHENBRUCH Berlin, July OU must always remember that Mr. Stinnes is a modern business man’—that was the reply of one of his “factory scouts” with whom I once shared a railroad compartment, when I asked if Hugo Stinnes was a patriot. Hugo Stinnes is said to have more power in shaping the policies of his country than had the former Kaiser. His interests include a large steamship company, mines, oil- wells, innumerable factories, hotels, newspapers, and banks. Yet he remains a riddle. Now “a modern business man” may act to the mutual profit of himself and his countrymen, or he may act to their disadvantage and his own personal gain. Evidence is ac- cumulating that Hugo Stinnes’s power is a menace to the welfare of the German people. As the largest individual representative of the industrial interests of Germany, a member of the Reichstag, and a newspaper owner, Stinnes is constantly consulted in the formulation of government plans. Even during the war, his ideas were influential enough with the war leaders to result in the prolonging of the war after many leaders, the Kaiser and the Crown Prince included, had become convinced that a defi- nite Germany victory was no longer possible. His annexa- tion policy, his desire that Germany retain Belgium and the mines in Northern France, had much to do with side- tracking peace by negotiation in 1917. When the German army collapsed in 1918, the mark grew weaker. Many industrialists in Germany found them- selves financially embarrassed. Stinnes, always forehanded, disposed of some of his properties in Lorraine, and with his confederates began a buying campaign in Germany, purchasing factories, mines, landed estates, wooded tracts, and other properties. The constantly decreasing value of the mark has made it possible for Hugo Stinnes to continue his purchasing, for he buys at one real value and pays later in depreciated currency. The number of marks paid is the agreed price, but the value of the marks paid has de- preciated between the date of purchase and that of payment. ee After the Spa conference in 1920 failed to bring French and German big industry together the two nations worried along grumblingly until an attempt was made by Mr. Stinnes to appease the French industrialists through the compact known as the Stinnes-Lubersac agreement. Under the terms of this agreement, the German government was to deliver raw materials to the French through a Stinnes concern, the Hoch und Tiefbau Gesellschaft, for reconstruc- tion in northern France. The Hoch und Tiefbau Gesell- schaft acted as purchasing and forwarding agents and re- ceived a 6 per cent commission on millions of dollars worth of materials delivered across the border. But Germany’s ability to deliver was waning, and this agreement proved to have come too late to save Germany from a direct seizure of properties within her borders. . Mr. Stinnes had nothing to lose but his commissions. So, in his propaganda he supported the passive-resistance groups and advocated, not too loudly, opposition by the Ruhr workingmen to the French invasion. The Stinnes press helped stiffen the resistance. It has been estimated that he controls 90 per cent of the newspapers and periodi- cals of the country, though this estimate is perhaps exag- gerated. If his control extends to 40 per cent he still con- trols a tremendous body of public opinion. Consequently, every proposal of the Government must take Stinnes’s power into consideration. His opposition can devitalize the best intentions of the Government. On the other hand, his in- side information of the Government’s plans gives him an advantage over smaller industrialists. Recently, within the ranks of Stinnes’s party, the Deutsche Volkspartei, the political expression of big business, a dif- ference of opinion as to how the Ruhr conflict should be met has arisen. The official leader of the party, Strese- mann, believes that the Ruhr question should be settled immediately, and that whatever terms or forms that settle- ment takes should be carried out at once. Stinnes, as a patrioteer, is all for continuing the passive resistance. It is the same policy as he advocated in regard to Belgium.

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214 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3034 Stresemann represents the middle-sized industries of Sax- ony; and the owners of these smaller industries realize that, with a continued absence of cheap coal and other raw ma- terials, they cannot continue to hold out much longer. Their properties must eventually be sold. There are two groups of interests strong enough to absorb them. One is repre- sented by Stinnes; the other is headed by the German General Electric Company, the Hamburg-American Line, and Otto Wolff. Both are buying up German industries. Their foreign holdings and connections give them a solid foundation that enables them to command the use of stable foreign moneys. In the present situation in the Ruhr, Stinnes’s political position is not unlike that of the mon- archist, or German Nationalist party, but for different rea- sons. “Don’t give up the Ruhr,” is their motto. It is a patriotic slogan and looks well in print. Furthermore, as long as the Government subsidizes the Ruhr industrialists so that their workingmen may be paid a nominal wage, a wage that is far below any known standard minimum wage, the owners of the Ruhr properties can afford to wait. A recent business deal in Upper Silesia sheds light upon Mr. Stinnes’s business acumen. Most of Upper Silesia, after the plebiscite which resulted in a German majority, was given to Poland. Poland has become a foster-child of France, and consequently German industrial interests are not as safe there today as a few years ago. Recently two large Stinnes enterprises in Upper Silesia were taken over by the Deutsch-Oesterreich Alpine-Montagne Gesellschaft, an Austrian organization, and new stock was issued. This stock has been placed in the hands of a syndicate which in- cludes the large French industrialist, Schneider-Creusot, and it is not now likely that the Stinnes holding in Polish Silesia will be disturbed. They have the protection of the French industrialists with the French army behind them. That Hugo Stinnes, as well as all large industrialists, has profited by the decline of the mark, is beyond question. The government has made it impossible for them not to profit. A year ago, the mark stood at about 300 to the dol- lar. It now stands at 3,000,000 to the dollar. Taxes are paid yearly, and in depreciated paper marks, not in the equivalent of gold values. The tax on profits earned, let us say, in June, 1922, when the mark was quoted at 300, is paid in 1928 with marks that are worth about one ten- thousandth of what they were at the time the profits were earned. Toward the end of 1922, the mark had already gone up into the thousands; and so, for this period, a larger percentage of taxes was obtained by the Govern- ment than for the earlier months of 1922. Still, the actual gold value of the money the Government has collected for the year 1922 is infinitesimal compared to what it would have been had the Government devised some method of computing taxes on business profits based on the gold value of the profits, at the time these profits were earned. Now, when the German treasury is practically empty, conferences are being held to see what can be done about revising the taxation laws so that big industry will pay its share. A large-factory owner in Berlin told me that his tax bill for 1922 amounted to about 1 per cent of his net profits. Besides this, the Government collects a tax on the year’s turn-over, amounting to 2 per cent of the total business of all enterprises. But as all business taxes are collected at the end of the year, and paid in deflated currency, it is evident that big business does not have to worry about pay- ing enormous taxes. The workingmen, however, pay 10 per cent of their monthly wages every month to the Government. They do not profit by the decline of the mark. In the pursuit of new properties, it is to the purchaser’s interest for the mark to continue on the toboggan. The charge has been made that Stinnes and his business con- federates have accelerated this decline in direct defiance of the Government’s attempt to stabilize the currency. The Government succeeded last spring in keeping the mark stationary for about six weeks at the rate of 20,000 per dollar. Confidence began to return to the people. Then, suddenly, the mark took another tumble. The Government could not afford to throw any more of its gold reserves into the market, and the inevitable happened. The mark de- clined to 30,000, to 40,000, and has kept sliding downward. A new law was passed prohibiting purchase of foreign ex- change, save on the Exchange, and also hedging speculation with a great many minor ordinances. The panic that resulted from the somersaulting of the mark led the Government to investigate the cause of the decline. It seemed a clear case of speculative frenzy, and Stinnes was called to tell what he knew about it. The evidence presented showed that the Stinnes firm, on April 12, bid for 93,000 pounds after the close of the Exchange. This bid was advertised in banking circles and resulted in the weakening of the market on the Exchange. The Stinnes firm was able to obtain 60,000 pounds of the 93,000 it needed. Mr. Kalveram, its financial director, de- clared that, during the months when the Government was at- tempting to stabilize the mark, all the purchases of foreign exchange made by Stinnes were contracted for in the open market, not on the Exchange. On the Exchange, it was possible for the Reichsbank to meet the demands for for- eign money when no other sellers appeared, and so satisfy demands at prevailing rates. In the open market, after Exchange hours, the Reichsbank could have no supporting influence. Hence the Stinnes action effectively sabotaged the Reichsbank’s supports of the mark. In March Stinnes had written to the Minister of Finance, Dr. Hermes: “I have such strong doubts as to the efficacy of this type of foreign exchange politics that you may expect extreme measures from me, if I do not directly oppose them.” With the tremendous power at his command, a power that many German journalists have already characterized as playing ducks and drakes with the best intentions of the Government, Hugo Stinnes is gradually earning the repu- tation of a menace to the German people. The workingmen have long hated him because of his demand for a longer working day. Not many months ago Stinnes announced that reparations could be paid only if the workingmen worked harder and longer, The workingmen were to pay the reparations out of their starvation wages. In highly skilled industries in America, where wages are high and the percentage relation between labor cost and total production cost is higher than in Germany, it has been found poor business to work more than eight hours because fatigue reduces productivity. In Germany, how- ever, wages are so pitifully low that, even with a fatigue period entering after eight hours, the employer would still reap a rich profit from the labor of his employees. Mr. Stinnes’s propaganda department advertises to all Ger- many and to the rest of the world that he works from four- teen to sixteen hours a day. Mr. Stinnes at least knows what he gets out of his work; but what the workingmen in big industry in Germany get “is something else again, Mawruss,” as Montague Glass has told us again and again.

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August 29, 1923] The Nation 215 The Gallic War in Rhode Island By ROBERT C. DEXTER ITH the adjournment of the Rhode Island Legis- lature in June the second chapter in a battle cen- tering around the question of language in the schools was brought to a close. For forty years Rhode Island has had on her statute books legislation making compulsory the teaching of the English language in all the schools of the State, public and private. For an even longer time she has had pouring into her manufacturing centers thousands of foreign mill operatives. The largest element among them has been the French-Canadians, who constitute today over one-sixth of the population of the State. These French- Canadians have struggled to keep themselves a separate group, untouched by any assimilative tendency. The pres- ent conflict had its origin in the report of a Commission on Public School Finance and Administration made to the Assembly in 1922. The particular clause which was objec- tionable to the French element was the following: The State Board of Education shall approve a private school only when it appears that the period of attendance of the pupils in such schools is substantially equal to that required by law in the public schools, that the instruction in such schools, except foreign languages and any studies not tavght in the public schools, is in the English language, that such instruction is thor- ough and efficient.* The italicized statement had been embodied in previous laws, but the crux of the situation was that control was now placed with the State Board, instead of being left to local school committees as hitherto. This provision, to- gether with most of the other recommendations of the com- mission, came before the Assembly on motion of Repre- sentative Peck, and the resulting legislation is known as the Peck bill. The English-language requirement and the transfer of approval to the State Board were bitterly fought in the lower house. Representative Toupin, Democrat, now Lieutenant-Governor, moved an immediate amendment to strike out the English requirement; Representative Miette (now judge of the District Court of Woonsocket) moved to strike out the section giving the right of approval to the State Board. In 1922 the Rhode Island House was Republican, and since the opponents of the bill, Toupin, Miette, and Flynn (now Governor of the State), were Democrats, it became a party measure and passed the lower house with a party majority. In the Senate in 1922 it met practically no opposition. The Peck bill, with this provision for the compulsory teaching of English and State supervision, was then sent to Governor Sans Souci, a Republican of French extraction. Governor Sans Souci was in a predicament. All sorts of influences were brought to bear on him to veto the bill, but it was a strictly party measure sponsored by his own party. The State law holds that a governor approves a bill ipso facto if he does not veto it within ten days after the legislature adjourns. Governor Sans Souci waited twelve days and then vetoed the Peck bill, holding that there were two Sundays in the interval and that he was thus within *The Rhode Island law requires all children between six and fifteen years of age either to attend a public school or to receive approved private in- struction. his rights in so doing. The Board of Education, through its assistant commissioner, Dr. Charles Carroll, took the matter to the Supreme Court of the State, and obtained a decision that the veto was unconstitutional. The Peck bill thus went into effect on May 1, 1922. One suggestive feature of this period of the conflict is that Monsignor Blessing, the representative of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rhode Island, was in consultation with the members of the commission that was framing the bill, and expressed his approval. Furthermore, Dr. Carroll is a member of the Catholic communion. It could not thus be considered that the opposition to the bill was strictly or even mainly on religious grounds, although its opponents attempt to place it thereon. The opponents of the English language were not beaten. “Le Bill Peck” was made a feature of the campaign of November, 1922, and the fires of race hatred and race ambi- tion were stirred to the depths. As a result of this and other political factors, the normal Republican majority in Rhode Island was overturned by a sweeping Democratic victory, and the French vote was an essential element in the outcome. This election made Mr. Flynn, an opponent of the bill, Governor, and Mr. Toupin, the leader of the opposition, Lieutenant-Governor, and it also gave the French element and their friends a large majority in the lower house. The Senate kept a very small Republican majority. As soon as the new House assembled, Representatives Lamarre, of Pawtucket, and Belhumeur, of Woonsocket, introduced House Bill 699, nullifying the provisions of the Peck act so far as State supervision of private schools is concerned, and removing the mandatory teaching of the English language in such schools. School committees were authorized to approve private schools when the “period of attendance of the pupils or the teaching of the English language and of any studies in such schools is substantially equal to that required of a pupil attending a public school.” The particular difficulty there is with the conjunction “or.” The placing of approval with the local school committees, however, in many cases largely or entirely French in com- position, would nullify the whole purpose of the Peck act. The original bill was later modified, to the extent of pro- viding for the teaching of “reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, the history of the United States, the history of Rhode Island, and the principles of the American govern- ment” in English. The revised bill, however, definitely stated that other subjects than those mentioned might be taught in any language other than English, and insured to rrivate schools the absolute right to teach languages other than English. In this form, the bill passed the lower house by a large majority. Meanwhile, considerable opposition to the Lamarre-Bel- humeur bill had developed in the community and an aggres- sive campaign led by the Providence Journal and the Provi- dence Tribune, the League of Women Voters, and the Board of Education was waged against its passage. Such organi- zations as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Council of Women, the Ladies of the Grand Army, the Unitarian Lay-

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216 The Nation men’s League, the Federation of Women’s Clubs of the State, and the American Legion all passed resolutions con- demning the weakening of the State’s educational and Americanization policy, which the passage of this bill in- volved. The French societies and the French clergy were equally active on the other side. The Peck act was depicted as a Ku Klux measure, and the assistant secretary of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, the strongest Canadian fraternal order in America, was retained as legislative counsel for the proponents of the new bill. In the Senate the bill was sent to the Judiciary Commit- tee for action. This committee decided that it would not report the bill to the Senate as a whole. The French-Cana- dian interests then brought pressure to bear on the Senate, and a motion was made to discharge the committee. This motion was lost by only two votes. However, it was lost, and when the Assembly adjourned the bill had not been presented to the Senate, and thus did not become law. The French group are by no means through, however, They are sharpening their weapons for the next conflict, which will come during the ensuing elections and at the next session of the Assembly. They state that they will not remain satisfied until the provisions of the Peck act, providing for teaching in English and particularly for the enforcement of that provision by the State Board, are re- pealed. It is the possible enforcement which worries them most.- They admit that they do not fear that the present board has any intention of interfering with their institu- tions, but they are fearful of the future. They intend to see to it that their young people remain French-Americans. They not only do not fear the hyphen; they glory in it, and are using every effort to preserve it. The Canadian lead- ers of Rhode Island have apparently taken to heart the advice of Ferdinand Gagnon, who, in addressing a group of American citizens, advised them to “Be loyal, but remain French-Canadians; loyal (to America), yes; French, always.” Such is the problem which the citizens of Rhode Island, the most densely populated and the most thoroughly foreign State in the Union, are facing. Song Overheard on the Highway By ANN HAMILTON If I had only a hod To carry up the road I would be praising God For such a light load; Or if I had to lift Only a pack of stone I would welcome the gift Of work to be done. Oh there’s no lusty lad But can bear stone’s weight, And every man be glad If a hod be his fate; So wonder at my breaking— For how are you to see There is no leave-taking Of the heart in me? [Vol. 117, No. 3084 In the Driftway HE Drifter confesses to being almost as liberal-minded as his colleagues the editors of The Nation. Particu- larly in regard to the rights and privileges of woman is he ready to admit that the conventions of the past should no longer be binding. He is willing that the creatures should wear as short skirts and as sleeveless dresses as they de- sire. He submits, with some compunctions, to bobbed hair and the concomitant shaved necks, and he is willing that women office-workers should come to their offices without hats. He is mildly interested in that change in public taste which permits the most reputable Sunday pictorial supple- ments to portray our young women bathing marvels in one- piece suits which, when he was a boy, were pictured only in the columns of the Police Gazette, hoping that thereby healthful athletic pursuits are being encouraged and that the morbid and prurient curiosity aroused in his sex by undue concealment of the female figure will be eliminated. He has long since abandoned all opposition to the growing use of cosmetics, realizing that they are as old as humanity and as inevitable. Has he not read somewhere that Ameri- cans spend yearly more money on cosmetics and chewing gum than on the education of their children? * * * * * LL of which leads up to the observation that there is one place where the Drifter’s inborn conservatism makes him draw the line, and that is at the public applica- tion of rouge and powder. The original theory of cosmetics was that they should be used so skilfully as to deceive the male animal. If that element of deceit made the use of cosmetics unethical, if not immoral, there was interjected at least an element of art and of skill. You put on your false color so admirably that your innocent type of lover or courtier never suspected it. Of course the French courts in the time of the Louis’s and the license of the court of Charles the Second changed all that. Powder came into the open. You authenticated and legitimized it in the white wig; you laid it on thick to make greater the contrast with the obvious rouge, and called attention to both by your beauty spots—originally used to hide defects. * * * * * N more modern times, however, milady has not been sup- posed to use cosmetics at all. She frequently did, of course, but always in the sanctity of her boudoir or her bedchamber. All that has gone with the arrival of the modern bathing suit whose frank revelations led one young girl to defend the custom of concealing her ears with her hair by explaining that she did it in order to have at least one surprise in reserve for her future husband. Your mod- ern young woman draws out her powder-puff, rouge-box, and lipstick in the subway as readily as in a railway train, a motor, a hotel-lobby, or in her seat in the theater, wishing, apparently, to be as frank as truth, and to let the truth prevail. But not even that defensible policy can placate the Drifter, or make him feel happy when, as the commuter- train draws in to the Grand Central, he sees young and old of the fair sex about him pull out their mirrors and their puffs. For, as they dab, he is invariably beset by the hor- rible suspicion that the puff has taken the place of soap with many of these young persons, and that it is used to conceal a multitude of lapses just before train-time. The very motions of this swabbing suggest nothing so much as those ET

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August 29, 1923] The Nation of a cat in the process of cleansing herself—a lick, a pat, a circular stroke, a promise, a lick again. * * * * * T this point the Drifter’s office mate looked over his shoulder: ‘Well, they are cats, the hussies!” ‘Not all of them,” replied THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 400 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. The IL.W.W. to Warren G. Harding To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: , Sir: The enclosed I wrote last evening. My husband, a Wobbly, said: “Send it to The Nation, where it will reach peo- ple who need to understand the Wob.” I did not change it. It may be a little too strong for you to use. But it’s good. Enemy, you have gone. We do you no wrong to call you “enemy.” Indeed, we do you honor. For we are the hated I.W.W. We were the poles of Society, you and we. You the great reactionary negative; we the revolutionary positive. Nowhere in Science, in History, nor in a horse-shoe magnet have we ever met. Joe Eads went as quickly. You never knew Joe—he was just an I.W.W. A saw mill got him. Zzz! and out went Joe... You and he may meet out there in the Great Gray Fog. And perhaps you two will argue—Joe loved an argument. You were of about the same age; you will look much alike out there, two gray wraiths—arguing. You did much to further the revolutionary cause—Warren G. Harding. More than Joe, although Joe was a good traveling delegate. History moves stately, unhurried, and with a pitiless inevita- bility. You had a part in the great drama and you played it well. You had good support—Taft, Hughes, Hoover, Daugherty. Your part was to pull—back. And you did. That “pardon” you gave our boys in Leavenworth, how true to form it was! Why should anyone be personal? You laid a wreath on the graves of the boys who fell in the battle of Centralia, on your side of the Class War. Perhaps some day you will creep back from the Great Gray Fog and lay a wreath of everlastings on the grave of Wesley Everett. I’ve always thought that folks go on, Out There. You loved your dog Laddie. We, too, have loved a dog. I knew a Wobbly once who owned a dog, and when this Wobbly fellow would hop a freight this dog would hide from the rail- road “bulls” and then sneak along under the cars to where his master, riding the rods, would reach down and gather him up. Perhaps you and Joe will have a dog apiece out there, for I’ve always thought that dogs go where men go. You and Joe; it makes me smile to think how much you'll look alike out in the Fog; just gray wraiths you'll be—Out There. Fate cuts her capers. That you should go in California and so close to San Quentin that shelters so many rebels—was it trony? Well, Warren G. Harding, you've gone. The nation will do you honor. Rockefeller and Gompers and all the rest will send you flowers. What shall we send, we lumber-jacks, mule-skin- ners, harvest hands, sailors, workers in dirt—I.W.W.? We were never personal about this business. Waris War. Events are Events. And Men are Pawns. You were a man who loved his dog. So what shall we send you—something that you may take with you out into the Great Gray Fog? Warren G. Hard- ing—Our Pardon. Seattle, Washington, August 4 CATHERINE HOUGHTELING Mr. Townley and Magnus Johnson To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: I am writing you briefly to say that your article on “Minnesota, the Nonpartisan League, and the Future” contains at least one big mistake. In the article it is stated: “Mr. Townley seems to have thrown such influence as was left to him in Minnesota against Magnus Johnson.” Now this is cer- tainly entirely wrong, for Mr. Townley was for me in the campaign; in fact I might say that he was one of the men who was most anxious for me to file. The Nonpartisan League is still the active organization among the farmers, and it is only proper to say that had it not been for the Nonpartisan League we could have won no victory on July 16. j I am sorry that your otherwise splendid magazine should have published this erroneous statement. It has given people a very wrong idea as to the situation in the State. Minneapolis, August 15 MAGNUS JOHNSON, United States Senator - Cutting Gasoline Prices To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The action taken by the Governor of South Dakota to force down the price of gasoline will temporarily benefit the consumer, but in the final analysis the Standard Oil group will emerge from the fray stronger than ever. A drop in the price of crude oil will most certainly follow so drastic a cut in the price of the refined product. Such a drop will place in financial straits many small producers who are just hanging on by their eyebrows, and the Standard will come to their “rescue” in- directly, and purchase their holdings at the Standard’s own figure. The Standard “courts competition’—for public consumption, but in reality there is no competition in either the crude or refined oil industry. As an illustration: Some two years ago Kentucky crude had a ready market at around $5 a barrel, and drilling became very active, which resulted in the discovery of a number of valuable oil pools by independent companies. Operators in general were happy and growing prosperous. Sud- denly the price of crude hit the toboggan and slid down to about a dollar a barrel. When the smoke cleared away, the discovery was made that the Standard group had gathered into its net such properties as it desired, and at its own figure. The price then began to advance, is now around $3.00 a barrel, and will probably keep advancing locally until venturesome spirits open up other new fields for the Standard to acquire by again drop- ping the price of crude. The Governor of South Dakota will momentarily be hailed by flivver owners and the uninitiated as a great benefactor of the human race. But where is the Governor going to get gaso- line to keep the price down? Surely not from the Standard Oil Company or any of its affiliated companies. If not there, where then? Independents cannot supply the demand if they would, and there is no independent who is avariciously inclined that dares to buck the Standard. The Standard has taught these so-called independents many a lesson that they know to be vital to their continuous and prosperous existence. They take their cue from the market quotations of the crude and refined product, and all operators and refiners know whence these emanate. A disregard of these quotations often spells disorder to those who are so foolhardy as to violate them. In Los Angeles some ten years ago ten or twelve independent refiners of crude oil undertook to buck the Standard. The Standard met the independent cut until the wholesale price of gasoline to filling stations dropped to 9 cents a gallon. The independents then got together and formed a price-boosting association. This

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218 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3034 bright idea was submitted to the Standard’s local manager and approved. On a certain Monday morning the price was to be boosted one cent a gallon, and similar boosts were to follow at reasonable intervals until the price had reached “all the traffic would stand.” The independents had their filling-station bulle- tins reprinted for the great event, and advised their customers to “fill up” prior to the coming price boost. You can imagine the consternation in the camp of the independents when they awoke on this eventful Monday morning and found the old price cut half a cent a gallon at all Standard filling stations. The Standard’s local manager “explained” that he had received orders from San Francisco to make the cut too late to notify the independents, some of which went to the wall, while the lesson it taught the others will never be forgotten. Well, what are we going to do about it? Nothing whatsoever so long as we permit ourselves to be governed by a clique of plutocrats and nonproducers. New York City, August 14 F. H. ALLEN Mill on Marriage To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Will you permit an admiring reader of both Mr. Mill and Mr. Lewisohn to point out an extremely misleading state- ment in Mr. Lewisohn’s review of Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” which he evidently read more enthusiastically than accurately. In Mr. Lewisohn’s review (The Democrat’s Handbook, The Nation, July 4) the reviewer says of Mill: Regarding “all restraint qua restraint as evil” he pleads for the right of man to break all engagements that have become devoid of inner meaning and survive as mere forms, and hence asserts that “the most important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both parties are in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will of either party to dissolve it.” If you will consult the text of Mill’s “On Liberty,” Chapter V, you will find that this statement is quoted by Mill from Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, and that so far from sharing Von Hum- boldt’s view Mill proceeds to refute it by the following argu- ment: When a person, either by express promise or by conduct, has encouraged another to rely upon his continuing to act ina certain way—to build expectations and calculations, and stake any part of his life upon that supposition—a new series of moral obligations arises on his part toward that person, which may possibly be over- ruled, but cannot be ignored. And again, if the relation between two contracting parties has been followed by consequences to others; if it has placed third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case of marrixge, has even called third parties into exist- ence, obligations arise on the part of both the contracting parties toward those third persons, the fulfilment of which, or at all events the mode of fulfilment, must be greatly affected by the continu- ance or disruption of the relation between the original parties to the contract... A person is bound to take all these circum- stances into account before resolving on a step which may affect such important interests of others; and if he does not allow proper weight to those interests, he is morally responsible for the wrong. Mill’s rationalization of fidelity to the marriage vow is espe- cially interesting to readers of his “Autobiography,” who will remember that for over twenty years before his marriage to Mrs. Taylor, with whose advice and inspiration he wrote the “Essay On Liberty,” he had loved her “in a relation of strong affection and confidential intimacy only. For though we did not consider the ordinances of society binding on a subject so entirely personal, we did feel bound that our conduct should be such as in no degree to bring discredit on her husband, nor therefore on herself.” (Autobiography, Chapter VII.) I trust that The Democrat’s Handbook will be no less safe for democracy because of this evidence that its author belongs among the virtuous Victorians. Mills College, California, July 6 Lucy Lockwoop Hazarp Books Red Man or Mongrel White? Old Indian Trails. By Walter McClintock. Houghton Mifflin Company. $5. The Red Man in the United States. Made under the direc- tion of G. E. E. Lindquist. George H. Doran Company. $3.50. E are not moving; we are just standing still. The buffalo are all gone, the antelope and the rest of the game also. The white men continue to drive us toward the set- ting sun; but now the Rocky Mountains face us like a wall and we can go no farther. I do not care for myself; I shall soon go to the Great Spirit. But I am anxious for our little children; I know not what will become of them.” So spoke Mad Wolf to his people, at the end of a great Sun Dance, some twenty-five years ago. Those who have seen his descendants, war-dancing at hotels in Glacier Park and swearing in the ready tourist as blood brother, should read this beautiful and Arcadian story by a genuine white son of the tribe, adopted before the free life in the nomadic hunting lodge had quite passed away. Mr. McClin- tock, we understand, is now a State historian, but the quality of his record of Blackfoot customs, ceremonies, folk tales is anything but dry as dust. An instinctive kinship with the Indian world surely led him to Mad Wolf’s tipi. Somehow he helps us to see, as in a crystal, a race of beings of another substance than our own, allied to trees and streams and animals, and, as animals and forests, nourished generically by some primordial life-stream very different from the highly distilled fluid that runs in white man’s veins. If New York were en- veloped and destroyed by an alien army, many individual New Yorkers would survive and recreate a new personal life. Look- ing into McClintock’s crystal, I see that when the Blackfoot were surrounded, it was as if the lumbermen had taken posses- sion of a mountain side; the great trees fell, the pristine sap flowed away, and there remained only a scarified surface and a scrub growth which could never again aspire to be virgin forest. With scrub growth the Indian historian of the twentieth cen- tury has largely to deal, and “The Red Man in the United States” may inaugurate an era in which the present hybrid social and economic life of our wards will receive more atten- tion than their legendary past. This survey is not a work of science. It is written with a definite bias and propagandist aim —the Protestant Christianization of all Indians. But it does contain a formidable array of facts. Let us look at the Black- foot. He lives today on a reservation in northwestern Montana, with certain Piegans and Bloods of the same confederacy, 3,007 in all, of whom 220 are citizens. A large proportion of the land has been allotted, but most of the irrigable tracts are leased to white men (450 on the reservation) at low rentals, and are in any case “of very little use to the Indians, on account of the expense involved in irrigation, and the distance to be traveled.” Loan sharks are also obtaining much land by fore- closure; oil prospecting is going on. The tribal herd of cattle is diminishing, rations have been issued for two years, “poverty is almost universal.” In the generous days of the tipi, it seems that chiefs had several wives to aid in the dispensing of hos- pitality. Now “marriage laws are generally observed.” But housing conditions are “unsatisfactory.” Ten per cent of the population have tuberculosis, and 25 per cent trachoma. “By way of amusement” five dance-halls, two movie-houses, three pool-rooms, and Indian dances, held twice a month, help to “keep alive the old superstitions” and maintain 25 per cent of the Indians “under the influence of the old religion.” Crime is increasing, gambling is common, alcohol and prostitution pre- vail in Browning (the white town). But “school facilities are ample” and there are Presbyterian, Methodist, and Catholic missions. 6% ll

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August 29, 1923 | RT The Nation 219 Such facts, says Mr. Lindquist, tell their own story. We only wish we agreed with him. The interpretation of the editor of the survey, fully in accord with the Indian Bureau, is that, whatever our past failures, we are now, governmentally, on the right track in Indian policy. Absorption is the solution. A little more white-manization, accompanied by complete de- paganization, and the trick is turned. But other groups of Indian experts and altruists hold views diametrically opposed. Compare the “conclusions” of the missionary group with a tentative program of Indian policy recently drawn up by five societies—including two scientific societies—concerned with In- dian welfare. “The Red Man” postulates eleven points of needed reform. Seven have to do with Christian propaganda; the other four are gradual advance to full citizenship, suppres- sion of disease, emancipation from harmful practices, notably from peyote and Indian dances, and adequate educational facili- ties, with enrolment in public schools as ultimate goal. The welfare group also stress the need for an effective health pro- gram, but their seven remaining requirements deal with edu- cation, industry, land tenure, irrigation, religion, autonomy, and administration along the lines of the development, not the destruction, of Indian race pride. Call into service group and communal loyalties instead of suppressing them, utilize native arts and industries commercially, retain Indian land and water rights in tribal hands, protect native dances, customs, and re- ligious freedom, increase Indian autonomy, create a new atti- tude toward Indian culture on the part of the Indian’s friends and guardians—this is, in substance, their Magna Carta. What would the Indians themselves say if the programs were put to a vote? We know many who are asking the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness as their own communal needs and race consciousness demand. Granted that we have, in the case of many Indian tribes, a fairly degenerate stock; even a scrub pine may take a noble height, if the slash is cleared away, and the roots strike deep into native earth. ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT A Poet in Prison Bars and Shadows: Revised Edition. By Ralph Chaplin. Nellie Seeds Nearing. $1. LAeeet must be regarded as a more or less chance mercy has freed the body of Ralph Chaplin from Leavenworth Peni- tentiary, where he served five years of his twenty-year sentence for having anticipated the conclusions of Woodrow Wilson con- cerning the economic purpose of the late war. The nine new lyrics in this 1923 edition of his prison poems add to the testi- mony of the twenty-eight retained from the 1922 edition, that Chaplin’s soul continues to walk in the black shadows of those bars. Ralph Chaplin, the rebel, is still in Leavenworth, which did so incomparably much, and so inadvertently, for Ralph Chaplin, the poet. The growth of this man’s poetic gift through the anguish of those five years is startling to those who remember his earlier work, flaming but still unformed. Nearly all the pure propa- ganda and rhetoric have been burnt out of his writing; he is no longer a revolutionist who writes poetry, but a poet who is in- spired by revolution. The tragic Mourn Not the Dead, the ardent Warrior Wind, have company now in the dreary Rain on the Roofs and the heart-breaking Some Day a Silent Guard. The Villanelle, charming as it is, has no place here; Salaam and one or two others, for all their fine defiance, retain a little of youthful stridency. But most of these thirty-six poems challenge the world of literature as surely as they have already challenged the world of radicalism. The stirring introduction by Scott Nearing to the first edition is retained in the second, and the little volume carries an interesting cover-paper designed by Hugo Gellert, and a symbolic title-page drawing by the poet himself. Many of the older poems have been reprinted widely, Mourn Not the Dead most of all. One which has not received the pub- licity its beauty and spirit deserve is To Freedom, which with several others displays Chaplin’s use of the sonnet form: Up on the “lookout” in the wind and sleet, Out in the woods of fir and spruce and pine, Down in the hot stopes of the dripping mine, We dreamed of you and Oh the dream was sweet! And now you bless the felon food we eat And make each iron cell a sacred shrine; For when your love thrills in the blood like wine, The very stones grow holy to our feet. We shall be faithful though we march with Death And singing storm the battlements of Wrong, For life is such a little thing to give. So we shall fight as long as we have breath— Love in our hearts and on our lips a song— Without you it were better not to live! MIRIAM ALLEN DEF ORD Causeries du Dimanche More Books on the Table. By Edmund Gosse. Charles Scrib- ners Sons. $2.50. HE characteristics of Mr. Gosse’s essays in criticism are so well known that this latest series of critical kit-cats (re- printed thriftily from the columns of the Sunday Times) offers small opportunity for novel comment on the part of the re- viewer. The suaviter in modo is, as usual, more apparent than the fortiter in re; but the gentility and elegance of manner is not a covering for an entire absence of substance. True, the criti- cism is not very profound or original, but it is founded upon wide culture, discriminating taste, and a scholarship which though not impeccable is carried witout effort or self-con- sciousness. All these causeries have to do with recently pub- lished books, and the subject is dictated by the chance of the publishers’ “offering” during the current week. Mr. Gosse’s mind flits up and down the centuries, and the range of his in- terests is so broad as to cast doubt in some cases upon the value and authority of his opinions. One cannot receive in an equally unquestioning spirit pronouncements from a “secular pulpit” upon such widely contrasting themes as “Beowulf” and “Earl- ham,” Rostand and Philostratus. At times Mr. Gosse seems to be feeling his way, delicately and gingerly; at others he chats charmingly in arm-chair fire-side ease. The passage of years has not a whit dampened his enthusiasm for literature, and he bestows generous yet wisely qualified praise upon the work of “the younger men”; even Proust is not beyond his sympathetic ken. But he is most happy when the weekly book upon his table offers an excuse for an excursion into some half-forgotten corner of the literature of former times. If his remarks are often apt and acute when weighing the merits of, say, Mr. Lytton Strachey or Mr. Percy Lubbock, he is nevertheless more at ease when he writes of Charles Cot- ton and seventeenth-century burlesque, of Mark Akenside, or of that curious publication “The Oxford Sausage” (for my in- troduction to which I am grateful to Mr. Gosse). His personal experiences with the English and continental literary world of half a century enable him to draw upon a vast fund of anecdote and ana, and in sentences and paragraphs scattered through many of the essays he offers choice bits of reminiscence. He is, of course, at his best when considering a writer with whom he is thoroughly in sympathy (as in the essay on Ste. Beuve), or when attempting the difficult task of appraising the merits of a writer concerning whom the critics have arrived at no final estimate (as in the essay on Leigh Hunt, perhaps the best in this volume). Mr. Gosse’s remarks upon Lamartine’s indebtedness to Eng-

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220 The Nation lish literature are somewhat thin, and he gives no evidence of acquaintance with Estéve’s admirable studies in this field of in- quiry. And, like so many English critics, his knowledge of American contributions to literary criticism stands in need of enrichment. Thus, he writes of Browning in France with no apparent awareness of the fact that the same subject has been already treated more authoritatively and with far more docu- mentation in an admirable paper by Professor W. L. Phelps. He says roundly that “no imposing contribution to Browning literature has been produced” during the last twenty years, re- vealing by the assertion the fact that he does not know the magnificent photographie facsimile of “The Old Yellow Book” issued by the Carnegie Institute. His essay on the Wrenn library is not without value; but to speak of Austin, Texas, as “a small town on the Mexican border” is as though an American should describe the Hebrides as a group of islands situated in the su- burbs of London. Mr. Gosse will be interested to learn that it takes twenty hours by train to reach the border from Austin. With all his urbanity this critic has always been a master of genteel, discreet malice. A method often employed to train kittens not to scratch is to squeeze their paws as soon as they give evidence of that obnoxious habit. Mr. Gosse’s paws were manipulated in that fashion at an early age; and through his velvet pads the claws are hardly perceptible. But they are there and are felt on occasion. There is a quiet controlled irony in his review of Mrs. Watts-Dunton’s absurd book “The Home Life of Swinburne” that is more dangerous than loud denunciation or raucous laughter. The claws are again unsheathed, barely un- sheathed, in the essay on Lord Rosebery. But most of the time they are quite withdrawn, and Mr. Gosse purrs contentedly. SAMUEL C. CHEW Russian Masters Talks with Tolstoy. By A. B. Goldenveizer. Tolstoy’s Love Letters; with a Study of the Autobiographical Elements in Tolstoy’s Work. By Paul Biryukov. Both trans- lated by S. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf. The Hogarth Press. Each 5s. Dostoievsky: Letters and Reminiscences. Translated by S. S. Koteliansky and J. Middleton Murry. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. “. . . remember that art is not everything. ...In your rela- tions with people it is necessary to try to give them as much as possible and to take from them as little as possible.” So the pianist, A. B. Goldenveizer, reports Tolstoi spoke to him. M. Goldenveizer noted many fragments of conversation at Yas- naya Polyana, many brief episodes displaying Tolstoi’s superb bodily and mental vigor, his horsemanship, his peasant-like shrewdness applied to a vast reading, the primitive Christian asceticism that made the memory of his youthful excesses a torture. No words than these, however, more closely approach one of the central problems of Tolstoi’s life. He was artist in the early Caucasus and Sebastopol works as in the later pano- rama of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina.” He was artist even in his exposition of the two aspects of social horror, corrupt luxury and wretched poverty, and his impotence in face of it, contained in “What Is to Be Done?” He was not artist only. Feeling that art cannot truly exist in a corrupt society divorced entirely from the toiling masses, he was reformer too. He foresaw that the Russian upper class, resting dizzily and in sterile self-indulgence upon the backs of the peasantry, in- dulging themselves in Western European culture that had no derivation from the common people, must eventually be de- stroyed. Searching for the humanity of the heart and shrewd earthy wisdom, he found it among the peasants to whom his temper and character were in many ways kin. His own posi- tion, infected in youth by upper class vices as he felt him- self, was an impossible one. Even the homely life and work [ Vol. 117, No. 3034 among peasants he chose at Yasnaya Polyana, he knew to be makeshift only. Did not his family, surrounding him, misunder- stand his aims and repudiate his actions? “I live in the wrong way,” Goldenveizer quotes him as saying, “and know it is the wrong way, but I have always wanted and tried to live bet- ter, only I could not...” He foresaw the implications of a freer, saner way of life, without hermetic partition of rich from poor, and imagined the ingenuousness that would be possible for men of letters truly expressing a people’s life: “It seems to me that in time works of art will cease to be invented. It will be a shame to invent a story about a fictitious Ivan Ivano- vich or Marie Petrovna. Writers, if such there be, will not invent, but will only describe the significant or interesting things which they have happened to observe in life.” For most fiction, as M. Biryukov’s parallels between Tolstoi’s memoirs and novels illustrate, is only the truth slightly displaced. The theme of simplicity, directness and search for truth runs through Tolstoi’s letters to the young girl to whom he was betrothed in his 28th year. The frivolous society to which she was addicted meant death to Tolstoi’s struggle: and to that struggle he adhered. Dostoievski brought to literature much of the human docu- ment for which Tolstoi was contending. Dostoievski’s poverty and illness, the imprisonment for four years among common criminals, his own weaknesses of gambling and impulsiveness, with the displacement conventional to fiction found expression in his novels. He lacked Turguenev’s Poe-like elegance of imagination that came of detachment from existence. Dostoiev- ski was sometimes hasty, and wrote in desperate need to obtain money. Yet the life he knew, had lived and had seen being lived in Russia, flowed unceasingly from his pen. The title of his first book, significant of all his work, was “Poor People.” Dostoievski’s letters to Maikov, partly translated before this, and his wife’s reminiscences newly englished, recall the human being, appealing in exile for money advances from his pub- lishers, providing for an unworthy stepson even while with wife and infant child he freezes and well-nigh starves in Geneva. The letters develop his credo that culminated in the address on Pushkin delivered in Moscow the year before he died. The address drew together the threads of his faith and of aspects of Tolstoi’s faith. Dostoievski, too, saw in the com- ‘mon people the salvation of art and of life. He turned from Western Europe whose collapse he predicted with uncanny prescience in 1880. He was the “queer fellow” whose dream he wrote, imagining gentleness, humanity and lovely people reign- ing on earth. He denounced the intellectuals who had deplored the institution of serfdom while continuing to live in Paris on the income from their serfs, diverting themselves by publish- ing radical leaflets. A simple faith and spirit of sacrifice in- forming the individual life, not intellectual formulas borrowed from without, Dostoievski felt to be the creator and sustainer of a nation. It was to the Russia of Pushkin’s Tatiana, the Russia of the common people, and to their Gospel faith that he turned. The address on Pushkin earned for Dostoievski the title of reactionary. Even Tolstoi later remarked to Gorki that Dostoievski had coquetted and gone in for politics. It may be true, moreover, that Dostoievski in the letters to his wife on that occasion, included in the present volume, exaggerated Turgue- nev’s opposition, had an eye to fame and income from the sale of his books. Yet he was contending for a profound truth, one of especial importance to America where the soulless tyranny of business and the machine-sodden mob threaten to reign supreme. He was affirming the primacy of human gen- tleness, of the faith to be found among the Russian people, as a soil from which all literature might spring, not as an adornment to drawing rooms but as an expression of the peo- ple’s soul, the only thing that makes a nation. The present volumes are to be regarded rather as footnotes than contributions of first importance in the record of these lives. HERBERT J. SELIGMANN ; ; 7 {

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August 29, 1923] The Nation 221 War Production and Profiteers Industrial America in the World War. By Grosvenor B. Clark- son. Houghton Mifflin Company. $6. HE king of France, with twenty thousand men, marched up a hill, and then marched down again. The Council of National Defense, and its offspring, the War Industries Board, were formed to rope what Mr. Clarkson rightly calls “the wild horses of American economic and political tradition and habit” and to tie them “into a mechanism of purposeful control.” When the proposal was first made to General Wood he is re- ported to have exclaimed, “Three cheers; this is exactly what we need.” And so the dollar-a-year men came to Washington. Requirements of the many government bureaus were studied, coordinated, and recoordinated. Sources of supplies were charted. Priorities were issued. Prices were set. The tangle of industrial planlessness was cleared enough so that we could get out the mountains of necessary products with the best fifth of our working population in the army. Billions of profits were made. A slight beginning was marked in the reduction of economic waste. “It was found that almost all industries were encumbered with an unbelievable amount of unexamined tra- dition, that resulted in duplication of effort, waste of material, and unnecessary expenditure of energy.” An example of economy was the partial standardization of coffins, which alone saved at the yearly rate of 35 per cent of labor, 6,000 tons of steel, 285 tons of tin plate, 275,000 pounds of copper, 90,000 pounds of brass, 74,000 pounds of bronze, 70,000 pounds of pig tin, 17,000 pounds of nickel, 2,200 tons of coal, and 212,000 yards of wool fabrics. At length the war was won. It was felt, with the resumption of private and retail death, that a pro- pensity for greater variety in coffins must be encouraged. The wild horses were champing at their bits. So we gave up any attempt at purposeful control, and went back to the wilderness of peace. And the General Woods again said, in effect, ““Three cheers; this is exactly what we need.” One would require both the pen of Thomas Hardy and the dictaphone of Bernard Shaw to picture the farce-tragedy of industrial America in the World War. This equipment Mr. Clarkson has not, but his book will arouse many suggestive reminiscences among those who saw intimately what he is pleased to call the “mechanism of purposeful control.” The farce consisted in the stubborn stupidity of bureaucrats who would not sing the words of cooperation to the tune of coordi- nation, the efforts to exercise control without authority and authority without control, the appeals to the patriotism of profiteers to set their own prices low enough so that the nation would not break under the strain, the final semi-mastery of the situation by a shrewd and imaginative millionaire speculator. The tragedy lay in the great ani heroic attempt to improvise a real national economy through drawing up and executing a plan for production and consumption, followed by the scram- ble to abandon any plan as soon as the business of living was substituted for the business of killing. There were substantial reasons why the war-industries ma- chine could not be immediately converted to the uses of peace. One was loss of the purchasing power from the government to thousands of private agencies. Another was the lack of a social state of mind on the part of those business and financial execu- tives whose good-will was, barring a revolution, essential. But in the war experience social scientists will in the course of time find many fruitful hints for an ordered world. Mr. Clarkson is sorry the machine was scrapped, since he wanted to use it to carry on the commercial conflict for foreign trade. Some time enough people may desire to build a similar agency for the welfare of all the citizens so that the idea of planning will be revived. The significance of the experiment is not yet under- stood, even in a small degree. Anyone reading this book with imagination may understand it a little better. GEORGE SOULE The Government of France French Parties and Politics. By Roger H. Soltau. Oxford Uni- versity Press. 85 cents. OGER SOLTAU has done well in seventy-cight pages what others have done blurredly in thick volumes. He has given a succinct sketch of the primary questions which agitate French politics, an illuminating résumé of the history of political parties in the Third Republic, and an estimate of the status of those parties today. In no great country are political lines as con- fused as in France; Mr. Soltau, unlike some recent American writers who came into post-war France with only an ample stock of war-time prejudices, went to school in France and has a back- ground; unlike M. Poincaré, whose “How France is Governed,” intended for French school children, has puzzled many English adults, he has an Anglo-Saxon outlook. His study of the origin of present-day politics in the conflicts of the Dreyfus period and of the persistent importance of the religious issue in French politics is particularly satisfying. He is generally free from partisan prejudice, although he handles the persecution of Cail- laux and Malvy with a reserve which seems to be born of fear of offending prejudice. One might wish, in a record which is so contemporaneous, for some hint of the politics behind the neglect of General Sarrail and the succession of Joffre, Nivelle, and Pétain, and one might look for more understanding of post-war syndicalism than Mr. Soltau shows—but these are slight blem- ishes on a difficult task well done. LSeGe State and Nation Our Changing Constitution. By Charles W. Pierson. Double- day, Page and Company. $1.50. — modest volume might well have been submitted as a brief for Rhode Island in the National Prohibition cases. It is written “to point out the change” which has been going on for half a century and more, no less significant in the theory than in the practice of our government. “The idea which con- stituted its most distinctive feature, and in the belief of many represents America’s most valuable contribution to the science of government, is being forgotten. Formed to be ‘an indestruc- tible Union composed of indestructible States,’ our dual system is losing its duality. The States are fading out of the picture.” The phenomenon has lost much of its novelty, but none of its juristic perplexities or historical anomalies. Witness the legal talent which has supported an anciently respectable the- ory of our political structure against the onslaughts of modern short-cut politicians who pass such constitutional iniquities as the Sheppard-Towner Act and the Child Labor Act. Or the divergence of opinion which so frequently crops out among the final interpreters of our constitutional theory in the Supreme Court when faced by State laws on the borderline of States’ rights. Mr. Pierson has collected a number of points in an argument against the logical outcome in theory of the growth of national unity since the Civil War. He does it, not blindly or passion- ately, but quietly, almost regretfully. It is a forensic suitable to the atmosphere of the courtroom; it would hardly catch the ear of the political multitudes. Why argue the constitutionality of the Federal corporation tax (and there are some rather nice points involved, perhaps) when its working is so obviously little more than another failure of a theory of corporation control by government? The author’s discussion of the taxation of State and municipal bonds is a fair index of his viewpoint on all questions close to that line which Mr. Justice Holmes has so aptly said must be “pricked out” by decisions on its opposite sides. “The im- munity enjoyed by State bond issues is coming to be regarded less as a safeguard of State rights than as a means whereby the rich escape Federal income surtaxes. One is tempted to

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predict that the next formal amendment of the Constitution will deal with this subject. If so, another inroad will have been made by the general government on the failing powers of the States.” The philosophy of Taney found its practical answer in a new formula of nationalism; “the fear of Federal encroachment, so strong in the minds of the makers of our Constitution” has indeed “become little more than a tradition”—among the people. But it shows no signs of legal decrepitude or forensic sterility. And it is still the refuge of our most far-seeing and open- minded jurists against an increasing flood of laws from our forty-nine sovereign legislatures which in the conflict between expediency and orthodoxy are given “a coating of constitution- ality,” as Mr. Justice Holmes has well defined it. If it were possible to get even an approximate agreement as to the mean- ing and content of the doctrine of States’ rights among the nine members of the Supreme Court, it would doubtless do as well as any other “legal litmus paper” to test the coating. But like so many other formulas it has as many interpretations as there are interpreters, among whom Mr. Pierson may be numbered well to the Right. He has given us a conservative view of a conservative theory. PHILLIPS BRADLEY Books in Brief The Peterborough Anthology. Being a Selection from the Work of the Poets who have been Members of the MacDowell Colony. Compiled and with an Introduction by Jean Wright Gorman and Herbert S. Gorman. Theater Arts, Inc. $2. This volume, which contains nearly as much first-rate poetry as can be read in any contemporary anthology, is a profound testimonial to the doctrine that art flourishes in quietude. The “long, cool days among deep green trees” at Peterborough have been and will continue to be responsible for many extraordinary poems, novels, essays, paintings, sculptures, and musical com- positions of a sort that cannot be happily produced in cities. At the same time, a few pieces included here are reminders that quiet alone does not create a poet. Stories, Dreams and Allegories. By Olive Schreiner. Fred- erick A. Stokes Company. $1.75. Nothing that Olive Schreiner wrote is negligible. From this point of view Mr. Cronwright-Schreiner was quite justi- fied in collecting the author’s posthumous papers into a book. One feels the woman in her creations. And when all is said and done that is where justification for her work must finally reside. Her naturalism, displayed in a story like “Highteen- Ninety-Nine,” is not of sufficient strength to stand the corrosion of years. Her dreams are mystical to be sure, but without that tremendous volcanic poetry which is the only thing worth while in mysticism. And her allegories—well, these posthumous alle- gories at any rate—simply do not get across. Nevertheless, a truly emancipated woman years before her time wrote these papers. One feels that in reading her work, and it is sufficient. American Addresses. By Chaim Weizmann. Preface by Samuel Untermyer. Palestine Foundation Fund. Both the appalling magnitude of the Zionist task and the in- spiring efforts made by Jews the world over in its accomplish- ment are vividly presented in these concise statements of the material and spiritual problems of Palestine which the presi- dent of the World Zionist Organization made to his American constituents. Brief though they are, the speeches are charged with a current of energetic idealism which flashes to the soul of the reader as readily as it communicated itself to the audi- ences that responded with magnificent enthusiasm. A Sheaf from Lermontov. Translated from J. J. Robins. Lieber and Lewis. $1.50. Welcome but exceedingly unskilful versions of some of the most brilliant poems ever written in Europe. The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3084 Health Building and Life Extension. By Eugene Lyman Fisk. The Macmillan Company. $3.50. For ten years the Life Extension Institute has been investi- gating the causes of ill-health, trying to discover how the fac- tory employee can be so fortified against disease that he can work 304 days a year instead of 300. It has long been known that many diseases were preventable, but only in recent years have there been systematic attempts to study the data avail- able. The present book shows the poor physical state of civi- lized man and indicates how his life span may be increased. From the physical standpoint it is very good, but there is little about the mental causes of ill-health. One chapter purports to deal with psychic trauma and another with psychic apathy, but they are very incomplete. The National Committee for Mental Hygiene should be asked to furnish a section for future editions of this book. The JEFFERSON SCHOOL 23 West 87th Street, At Central Park West For Boys and Girls, 3 to 12 Years The School will open Sept. 27th in a new building equipped with every modern facility for the best Elementary and Kindergarten Education. The course of study provides the child with experiences which result in definite values—health, skill, knowledge, habits and attitudes. The methods employed are approved by the foremost educators. The teaching staff is carefully chosen for experience and training in these methods. All day ac- tivities; hot lunches served. French, Industrial Arts, Nature Study, Music and Rhythms are featured. Pupils now being enrolled. For catalog and appointments, address SYLVIA J. MARKS, Director Until Sept. 1st, at 1 West 92d St. Telephone Riverside 2501. PLEXO “TOILET LANOLINE” | —the year-round skin treatment This wonderful emollient is used with great success by noted skin specialists for pimples, blotches, facial eruptions, roughness, abrasions and chapped lips and hands. It protects the delicate skin surfaces against trying weather conditions and by supplying nourish- ment to the facial nerves and skin cells, effaces wrinkles and restores the bloom of youthful health. “Toilet Lanoline” is especially recommended for cuts and burns and for relief of pain after exposure. “Toilet Lanoline” is a remarkable skin softener and preserver. A delicately scented preparation that is safe for SMALL CHILDREN. PREPARED BY PLEXO PREPARATIONS, Inc. NEW YORK Sole Agents and Distributors General Drug Co., N. Y., 94 N. Moore Street

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International Relations Section _ The Oil Situation Today By HERMAN SILVERMAN I. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION ITH the exception of water, petroleum enjoys a wider distribution than any of the other natural resources. Even a hurried reading of the world’s oil map is sufficient to convince us of the lavishness with which nature has given off herself. The entire world is practically covered by a series of circular or rectangular color areas, in red, yellow, black, and blue, that not only denote the presence of this precious liquid, but also indicate the relative importance of each territory. According to the most trustworthy authorities, petro- leum is found in Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Trinidad, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. It is hoped that future discoveries will show the presence of oil in Brazil and in Uruguay. All these are in the Western Hemisphere. Europe is not blessed with such great riches. Her prin- cipal fields are in Galicia and in Rumania; and oil in smaller quantities is also found in Hanover, Alsace, Italy, Ukraine, and possibly in Hungary. The world must look to Asia for its future oil supply. That continent possesses some of the world’s greatest fields: Persia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus Region, the Dutch East Indies, Mosul, and Burma. There are others, less known, in Siam, China, Japan, and Formosa. Egypt has been the only African contributor. The rest of the continent has remained un- explored and is still a closed book. It has recently been stated in the press that French and British experts are “active” in Northern Africa, but no progress has been re- ported thus far. Investigations are being conducted in other sections of the Dark Continent. A news item in the Philadelphia Public Ledger informs us that “The search for oil in the Angola district of Portuguese Africa is about to start under the direction of the Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation, which is to have charge of the development work in behalf of a Belgo-American syndicate. A well or two have already been driven, but the work is to be more energetically carried on in the near future... .” II. WORLD PRODUCTION The United States is the world’s greatest producer of crude petroleum. Before the war, Russia ranked second, but she has since lost ground. Mexico has taken her place, and is now producing twice as much as Russia when the latter was in her prime. The United States supplies two- thirds of the world’s oil; Mexico, one-fourth. Out of a total of 688 million barrels—the world’s production for 1920—443 million came from the United States, and 160 million from Mexico. In twenty years, the petroleum pro- duction of the United States has increased sixfold; 69.4 million barrels for 1901; 210 million barrels for 1910; 281 million barrels for 1915; and 443 million barrels for 1920. Mexico’s first million was produced in 1907. Since then the growth in her output has risen at a phenomenal rate. In 1 Special to the Business Section, Public Ledger, June 25, 1923. 1915 Mexico produced 32.9 million barrels, and in 1920 the output jumped to 160 million barrels. There was a time when Russia threatened the oil suprem- acy of the United States. That was twenty and some years ago when the Baku oil boom was still in full swing. After 1901, however, production began to decline. Labor trouble invaded the Baku district. Then came the Russo- Japanese War followed by the revolutionary days of 1905. In that year scores of wells were destroyed by the excited mob. The years that followed brought no stability to the oil region. Work was constantly interfered with and pro- duction suffered as a consequence. Another war came and brought in its wake a series of revolutions that shook Rus- sia to her very foundation. Oil-production figures of these eventful years show clearly what has happened to the in- dustry. From 72.8 million barrels produced in 1916, the output fell to 40.5 million barrels in 1918. The next year was the lowest on record since 1900. Only 25.5 million bar- rels were produced. Figures for 1920, however, showed a slight improvement. Two fields are now coming into prominence: Persia and the Dutch East Indies. Persia is but a recent contributor, and production is first recorded for 1917. She made her debut with 6.86 million barrels, and has shown no improve- ment ever since. The Dutch East Indies, on the other hand, are veterans. Progress is slow but steady. In twenty years they have quadrupled their output, which in 1920 amounted to 16 million barrels. India has been a steady contributor, but has made little progress in the last few years. Modern machinery and bet- ter technique must be introduced before a substantial in- crease in the yield can be expected. Two more veterans remain: Galicia and Rumania. In the antebellum days these fields supplied a considerable amount of oil. No in- crease, however, is to be expected. Both territories are well known to the experts, and these do not predict any too brilliant a future. The Rumanian fields had suffered a severe blow during the German invasion. In order to pre- vent their falling into the hands of the enemy, the wells were destroyed under the direction of Col. Norton Griffith, of the British Army, sent there for that very purpose. The figures for the world’s production show a remarkable Increase in the output of petroleum. In 1901 the total amounted to 167 million barrels; in 1905 production rose to 215 million barrels; in 1910 to 328 million barrels; in 1915 one hundred million barrels were added to the previous figure, making a total of 428 million barrels; and in 1920 the recorded yield amounted to 688 million barrels. III. FUTURE PRODUCTIVITY This tremendous increase has hardly kept pace with the forever increasing demand. The development of the auto- motive industry, of the oil-burning merchant marine and railroad locomotive, of oil-using navies, and of a dozen other indexes of modern progress—the development of all these has created a situation that makes it more difficult as time goes on for the supply to keep up with the demand. The entire world has taken to oil as naturally as a fish takes to the water, without any consideration for the future. And already a note of warning has been sounded by one of our ablest writers on this question.

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The advantages of fuel oil for ocean transportation and naval operations have undoubtedly played an important part in de- termining the policy of Great Britain in acquiring foreign re- serves of petroleum, while these factors had also influenced the activities of the United States. The suggestion has been ad- vanced that the growing social consciousness of the coal miners in Great Britain has been an added incentive for an active development of a petroleum supply. At any rate the signifi- cance of oil in the maritime field is a sufficient explanation of the world-wide interest that has been taken in oil. The ques- tion therefore arises as to whether the world’s supply of petro- leum is sufficiently great to sustain automotive transportation on land, lubricate the wheels of industry and commerce, and support the revolution in ocean shipping to an oil-burning basis. It is by no means a forgone conelusion that the merchant ma- rine of the world can count upon a supply of oil sufficiently cheap to sustain its operations for more than a relatively brief period of years. There are approximately 55 million tons of shipping in this world, and, roughly speaking, its entire conversion to an oil- fire basis would require an annual consumption of over 509 million barrels of oil, or nearly the total quantity of petroleum produced today. The universal adoption of Diesel engines would, of course, reduce the unit consumption; but at best the oil consumption would still be of outstanding size.? A preliminary estimate of the petroleum resources of the world had been made by Eugene Stebenger, of the U. S. Geological Survey, the results of which are presented to the reader: Approximate Quantity in Millions of Regions Barrels The: United’ States and Alaska’... .i5/je cients 6 ote 7,000 MOEA AL Noor chs teliaie Sigh ahsyic es verres Bh ce ay eh eee ete ay ee eee he 995 HVE Osta sy caer cnet oof si sirxchor aes sersudi HORRORS RR To 4,525 Northern South America, including Peru.......... 5,730 Southern South America, including Bolivia........ 3,550 RT TEL eto VDL c-.. ais wieteabeee eleun feyowtaiere leieigszha «as 925 S. E. Russia, S. W. Siberia, and the Caucasus...... 5,820 Rumania, Galicia, and Western Europe............ 1,135 Northern Russia ard’ Saghalien.................. 925 ahebia Mt SAT WRONG IAG Fash snlvtatcdalcha cals» atere eters ote oes! £235 Giang 8 Fees hats theta hams oid abet vee Gee tobete Ue 1,375 Pi Shon sacs Rite Sin eetiae ess sie se Atay 995 ASL MING ese: ote sciroettrcasreietn ceo PEO ate erate ae 3,015 SU QAM rag tce eke esta “cut teiedlg eee RIEL SAR a eta arn te 43,055 Mr. David White, reviewing the above estimate in the Annals of the American Academy of May, 1920, concludes that “these forecasts, or geological guesses, formulated conservatively with the probability that deficiencies will be much more than compensated by excesses, lead one to con- clude that there are probably 20 billion barrels of oil avail- able in the world in addition to the 43 billion barrels con- tained in regions covered by Mr. Stebinger’s estimates—or as much in round numbers as 60 billions of barrels in all.” IV. OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL The present ownership or control of the world’s oil fields is divided between the United States and Great Britain. The first is strongly intrenched in the Western Hemi- sphere; the second in the Eastern Hemisphere. America is now producing two-thirds of the world’s oil, and Ameri- can interests are practically supreme in the United States, Canada,® Mexico, and Peru. According to a table drawn up by J. D. Northrop, only four per cent of the American 2? Pogue: ‘‘Economics of Petroleum,” 317. 8 Americans control the refining end of the industry. The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3034 supply was under foreign control; while nationals of this country control 65 per cent of the Mexican, 70 per cent of the Peruvian, and the entire Canadian output. In addition, American interests are holding substantial blocks in Trini- dad, Venezuela, the Central American Republics, and Colom- bia. Great Britain easily controls the Eastern Hemisphere. Her position today is not so strong as that of the United States, but the future promises to reverse the situation. The trend of Empire—in so far as oil is concerned—is mov- ing eastward. Through the Royal Dutch Shell, which “rep- resents purely British interests to at least 40 per cent, and whose general policy is as much English as Dutch,” Eng- land has been able to get a control in “the Dutch East Indies, South Russia, Rumania, Venezuela, Trinidad, Cur- acao, Egypt, Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the British West Indies.” British nationals have made inroads into “French West Africa, South Africa, Algeria, Australia, British West Indies, Canada, Cuba, Cyprus, East Indies, Ecuador, Egypt, Rumania, Trinidad, Turkey, Galicia, India, Italy, Madagascar, Mexico, Morocco, New Guinea, Peru, Syria, Tunis, the United States, Venezuela, and the Russian Empire.’ France, Germany, and Japan are entirely eclipsed by the two Anglo-Saxon countries. Germany once controlled the Galician and the Alsatian oil fields. She also held a sub- stantial block in Turkey. Alsace has since gone to France, and Galicia to Poland. In France, oil and gas belong to the state, and no concessions in either are granted unless the majority control is in French hands. Recent news from Poland has thrown no light on the Galician oil situation. The situation in Turkey is no less confusing, for Turkey is now the center of the world’s oil conflict. Rumors have it that the control of the former German concessions in Tur- key has been transferred to a Swiss syndicate (secretly controlled by them); but who really knows? Japan has invested mainly in her own territories; that is, in Japan proper and Formosa. The Japanese Government, however, is fully alive to the situation, and no one can pre- dict future Japanese investments in China, Russia, and Mexico. In the latter country, Japanese activity has made itself felt in the provinces of Lower California and Sonora. Japan has also started negotiations with the Soviet Gov- ernment, and, in spite of hostility from certain quarters, Japanese statesmanship is now drifting toward a recogni- tion of the Soviet regime. But Russia will have to pay for this favor with some concession, the basis of which, I dare say, will be oil. 4From a Congressional Report made by Dr. Van Manning. Contributors to This Issue SrncLAIR LrEwis is the author of “Main Street” and “Babbitt.” JEROME LACHENBRUCH is an American journalist who has been living in Germany for the past two years. Ropert C. DExTER recently resigned from the department of political and social science of Clark University and will be at Skidmore College next year. ANN HAMILTON is a poet familiar to Nation readers. HERMAN SILVERMAN is a graduate of the Wharton School of Economics of the University of Pennsylvania.

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1923 No. 30385 Contents of Calvin Coolidge, and therein lies the hope. Naturally the miners distrusted arbitration if the arbitrators were EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS .........cceeeeeeeeeedeee eee seen teen eens 225 to be appointed by an open-shopper who boasts of strike- Seed he United States Occupy Mrance?.........-.0sccesecceesnes 228 breaking even if the claim be a myth. (It has been amus- A Naked Challenge. --,.-vvcvvccusectrsitinie ts!) 999 ing to watch this Massachusetts “strong man” flinch in the a test Berions problem.) ’ Governor Pinchow fs WASHINGTON: A CAPITAL WITHOUT A THUNDERER. By ie another type of man} he is not afraid to tackle a hard job, THOSE UNITED STATES_XXXVII. NEBRASKA: THE END OF and he is not primarily a politician. THE FIRST CYCLE. By Willa Sibert Cather.............+...++. 236 | OP ean DRT WAY. Famosos) Deaaee. pee ety 240 PACE grows the new American crime of lese majeste. ee ONDE Be RE as ee 241 teat tora Bipkcwhead has tragepressed because neta Une American Short Stary. By Jolien J. Gmertenko......-.---.. 248 “Britisher, has dared to cross the seas and beard us in our Wan Vechten's New York, By Hrnest Boyd. 10.003.0....-....... 244 den with some criticisms of Woodrow Wilson—for which The. Dry Rot of Laer eee Henry Raymond Mussey. ... 246 he is solemnly taken to task by 2 ee crane office- The Sacred Shades. — By Clement ee ee. 246 holder and charged with unblushing impudence. Now, ee ieee eee ot | aeord Birkenhead we have no use whatever. He has ee attistini By Pitts Samborn..........-seec cece cecccccocecceeccces 248 always coe ee er ver DO ey Lee me a es Seen: Le il ae one of those who stirred up Ulster the year before the war Sanueeraus) Thoughts’: in Japan. o....lsc.+s-1c0csenwecceesceccess 251 with the express purpose of warring on his own govern- OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpiTor ASSOCIATE Eprrors LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LitgRARY EpIToR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApverTISING MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SuBSCRIPTION RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. RBITRATION is a fine-sounding word. The difficulty with arbitration as a solution of industrial disputes is that there is no accepted code or common understanding of what “justice” means. In practice arbitration settles down to reference of a dispute to some supposedly neutral individual or group of individuals, and the settlement is in fact a precipitation of his prejudices. Almost inevitably, as things are today, such individuals—supposed to repre- sent “the public’—are men who have arrived, men of wealth and position whose sympathies, associations, and prejudices class them with the employers rather than with workers. A “minimum standard of living” is a mere text-book phrase to them, not a vivid daily agony. Then, too, such arbitra- tors are not unmoved by political considerations. In 1920 Secretary William B. Wilson acted as arbitrator in the coal industry. His economic expert recommended an increase in wages of 27 per cent; overnight, apparently for political reasons, someone reduced the figure to 17 per cent. That memory still colors the miners’ picture of “arbitration.” To them the word means not impartial settlement, but a politi- cal club. OVERNOR PINCHOT’S intervention puts a new face on the situation. This issue of The Nation must go to press before the question: Strike or no strike, is settled, but a new optimism already seems justified. Gifford Pin- chot’s personality and record are very different from those ment if need be. As to whether his remarks before the Institute of Politics at Williamstown were true or untrue, tactful or unwise, there will be great differences of opinion. But has it really come to such a pass that a distinguished— or, if you please, notorious—foreigner may not come to this country and express his honest judgment about an his- torical figure who already, historically speaking, belongs to the past? It is bad enough to have President Coolidge and his Cabinet exalted as beyond criticism merely because Mr. Harding died in office. But, thin-skinned as we Americans are, we Shall surely make fools of ourselves if we stir up an international rumpus over the words of a British politician. His criticisms of Woodrow Wilson are the same that have been voiced by millions of Americans. They will stand or fall by their truth. If they are unfounded they will soon find their way to oblivion. (‘\HOOTING Klansmen is no way to combat intolerance SS and bigotry. However sinister the influence of the white-robed fraternity, its own methods must not be used against it. Klansmen have a right to hate Jews, Catholics, and Negroes; they even have a right to parade, to make speeches, and to hold meetings in the hope of spreading their disagreeable doctrines—even though it is absurd to hear these lynchers and floggers claiming civil rights for themselves. Liberals who detest the race-hatred propa- ganda of the Klan will do well not to forget that free speech is meaningless unless it applies to those with whom we most violently disagree. Mob violence is a bestial thing even when its victims are Klansmen. It is possible to force the Klan into daylight—there is no reason why men who wish to parade should not be made to show their faces, or why the identity of Klansmen who get into trouble should be concealed. The authorities of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, are reported refusing information as to the identity of the Klansmen injured in the riot there. “Well known men are reported to be among them.” If Klansmen believe in the Klan they should court publicity rather than thus play the coward. Klansmen carrying arms should be arrested and disarmed and their names should be made public, as would

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296 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3035 be done with common criminals. The Klan is a disgrace to America; but the disgrace would be deeper still were its own methods adopted to combat it. E are heartily in accord with the proposal of the W American Legion Weekly that there be called at once an international conference to limit the military use of aircraft, and we are the happier to say so in view of the fact that we so rarely agree with the Legion’s policies. Like the Legion Weekly, we want nothing more than the ending of international competition for military supremacy in the air, for, as we have repeatedly pointed out, if this senseless race continues another war is as inevitable as the World War was after the naval competition between Eng- land and Germany got under way. The one success of the Harding Administration was the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armaments. President Coolidge’s opposition to the Legion’s project is hard to understand. One might expect the Republican leaders to jump at the chance to take another spectacular step forward just before the Presidential campaign, and we sincerely trust that the Legion Weekly and all its cohorts will use their great in- fluence to move him in that direction. But with one of the doctrines of the Weekly we must heartily disagree. It de- clares that if no such step is taken the United States must enter the aircraft race. That is absurd. It recalls Wood- row Wilson’s saying that if we did not join the League of Nations we must have the largest navy on earth. There was a way out of that and there are several alternatives to the United States squandering treasure and engaging on so senseless a policy as rivaling England and France in the air. Meanwhile, to the crusade of the American Legion Weekly, all possible success! HE formal ratification on August 17 of the two impor- tant treaties negotiated at the Washington Conference ought in itself to suggest to Secretary Hughes and Presi- dent Coolidge the desirability of acting on the proposal of the Legion Weekly. While we were and are very doubt- ful of the Four-Power Pacific Treaty, we cannot but feel that the other marks a distinct step forward. In this we are aware that we differ from other liberal editors who have, from the beginning, taken the stand that it was not worth the paper i+ was written on. We are aware, of course, that the battleships which are to be scrapped were obsolete anyhow, and we are not unaware that a most dangerous naval competition is now going on in scout cruisers, air- craft carriers, submarines, destroyers, and other light ships. Yet the ending of the battleship competition between Eng- land, Japan and the United States is a great step forward. It is half a loaf, if you please, but in these days when all the great nations are acting like senseless, drunken cow- boys and some of them are doing their best to bring on another general shooting-up of the world, it is certainly a cause for gratitude that the international rivalry in battle- ships, constantly fanned by the press, has come to an end. No one can deny that the talk of war between the United States and Japan has all but faded out since the.Confer- ence was held. As for our relations with England, one of the most important causes of friction we dwelt upon in 1921 in our series of articles entitled No War With England, the competition in battleships, has been removed, and another, the war in Ireland, has been mitigated. Again, for this much progress, all gratitude. RESIDENT COOLIDGE’S interview with the Washing- ton correspondents on amnesty was surprisingly open- minded. He stated that he did not believe that any man should be kept in jail for mere opinion, although men guilty of overt acts of hostility against the government should be punished. If he will hold to that ground the I.W.W.s still in jail will be released. Despite the ignorant resolutions of Legion posts and rotary clubs the record shows that these men are in jail for “crimes” of opinion and nothing more. Senator Pepper’s careful study of their cases has brought him, a thorough conservative but fair- minded, to that conclusion—he even goes so far as to urge that unconditional pardons be granted them. May the President keep his pledge even though it carries him fur- ther than he expects! REAT BRITAIN is now approaching, with anxious concern, a fourth winter of serious unemployment. The numbers on the unemployed registers had steadily de- clined from 1,823,700 in January, 1922, to 1,185,000 at the time of the Parliamentary debate of August 1, 1923. A recent cablegram, however, reports a turn in the wrong direction, bringing the present total up to 1,212,000. It is generally recognized that the official figures understate the gravity of the situation, for many out-of-works, disap- pointed at the failure of the labor exchanges to do anything for them, have taken their names off the books. The sta- tistics, moreover, do not take into account the growing army of workers who have been placed on short time. What makes things worse is the progressive exhaustion and de- moralization of those who have been victims of the trade depression for a long period. The plans contemplated by the Government do not profess to provide work for more than 200,000 persons directly and 100,000 indirectly, so by the time they are in operation they will probably leave a million or so out in the cold. There are to be extensions of the existing Exports Credits scheme and the Trade Facili- ties Act, and further grants are to be made to local authori- ties to encourage them to start work on useful enterprises, the subvention being more generous when the work pro- vided is not revenue-producing. In complaining of these proposals as hopelessly inadequate the Labor Party is sup- ported by the influential body of employers known as the House of Commons Industrial Group. Both alike have put forward constructive suggestions of their own on a much larger scale. But not even the boldest plans can be more than palliatives as long as, to use the Prime Minister’s metaphor, the Ruhr knife-blade remains thrust in the watch of international trade and prevents its wheels from re- volving. HAOS is a mild word for it. What the collapse of the . mark does to German daily life cannot be realized in the comfortable normalcy of America. Take the daily news- papers as an example. The German dailies long ago re- nounced annual subscriptions; the price had to be changed each month. On July 24 the Association of German News- paper Publishers increased the daily rates and announced monthly subscription prices for August. On July 27, the mark having meanwhile plunged again, it made the extraor- dinary announcement that the newspapers could no longer accept monthly subscriptions. The price would have to re- main open, subject to change from day to day. The Post Office took the same step, refusing to fix rates ahead. The

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Sept. 5, 1923] cost of a single copy of the Berliner Tageblatt, raised to 2,500 marks on July 24, jumped to 5,000 marks on July 29, to 6,000 on August 1, to 10,000 on August 5, and to 30,000 on August 12! Amid such chaos the normal economic life of the nation simply disintegrates. ROM the Crisis, of which Dr. DuBois is the brilliant editor, we take the following delightful and truthful analysis of the state of mind of the Southern press con- cerning the Negro exodus from that section of the country: We have carefully read a sheaf of white Southern papers and gleaned the following facts concerning the continued migra- tion of Negroes: 1. No Negroes are leaving the South. save a few of the ne’er-do-well floaters. Negroes are leaving daily by the tens of thousands. 2. The South is glad to see them go. The South is going to stop their going. 8. Cotton and Southern agriculture are threatened with ruin. The migration is the best thing for the South. 4. The Negro loves the South. The South has lynched 4,000 Negroes and will lynch others when it pleases. We are certainly glad to get this clear outline of fact on which to base our own conclusions. RIZE fighting is brutal, says the Methodist Episcopal Church, which is trying to create a public sentiment for its suppression, “especially in the army and navy.” Well, such a public sentiment existed once. Ten years ago it was legally impossible to arrange a prize fight in the United States in any except a few States popularly regarded as renegades. That was in the day when there was also a strong public sentiment against another form of fighting for prizes, known as war. When the United States entered the European massacre the churches, for the most part, put into cold storage their doctrine against human slaughter, and it was natural that they should do likewise with a peccadillo like prize fighting. Indeed, the Young Men’s Christian Association and other religious bodies did their best to foster pugilism among our service men. Springing from that time, there has been a great reversal in public sentiment, and prize fighting (now usually sweetened under the term professional boxing) has become more than re- spectable; it has become fashionable. The Methodist Epis- copal Church may find that it is harder to put up the bars than to let them down. Certainly the last place where the sup- pression of the sport should be demanded is the army and navy. If it is legitimate to support and train a force of man-killers, surely it is reasonable to let the individuals knock each other about a bit to relieve their boredom while waiting for the final coup from poison gas, bayonet point, or high-explosive shell. AXIM GORKI’S bitter arraignment of his own peo- ple, printed elsewhere in this issue of The Nation, will come as a shock to many. To others it will bring a flash of revelation. We have been so drenched in sugar- coated romanticism about the “Slav soul” and the “simple mujik” that we have lost our bearings. Outbreaks of cruelty in Russia have been treated as new phenomena and laid to immediate causes—whereas the history of Russia is a long story of sinister cruelty. The war, of course, and the con- sequent breakdown of government, gave an outlet to brutal The Nation 227 passions that had been repressed and hidden in the soil. That new village literature of which Gorki speaks may, perhaps, be compared with the new literature of our own Middle West. The post-war period has brought disillu- sioned truth-telling in every country. Some of Sherwood Anderson’s stories reveal depths of repressed animalism where we had been taught to see only the pioneer virtues of the frontier, and a new world literature supplants the glowing color of post-war chronicles with a dull gray. T the mature age of three and a half years “Baby Peggy” of Los Angeles is beginning what will proba- bly be the most important—and possibly the only—work of her life. Her parents have signed a contract according to which, instead of playing with dolls and sucking her thumb, “Baby Peggy” will spend the next three years pos- ing for the movies at a salary—so the newspapers report— of $1,500,000 annually and a bonus of $500,000. Infant prodigies in all ages have made handsome earnings, but never before was there anything so infantile and so pro- digious as this. Most persons count themselves lucky if they can retire at sixty on a few thousand dollars. “Baby Peggy” will be able to retire at six with five million! Possibly the salary has been inflated by the press agents, but, supposing it were only a tenth of what has been reported, she would still have enough to keep her in dresses, automobiles, lip- sticks, and other necessities, with something left over for the luxury of a Paris divorce, if needed. It is a splendid vista —for Baby Peggy’s parents. As for the little “film star” herself, probably it doesn’t matter now, but fifty years hence she may wish she had spent the time playing with dolls and sucking her thumb. ATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN will be remembered affec- tionately by thousands of readers, and undoubtedly her books will be read by thousands more who are yet unborn. Her modestly distinguished place in literature is secure. Before she was a writer she was a kindergarten teacher, and she organized the first free kindergarten for poor chil- dren on the Pacific coast—she was more proud of that and of her books on education than she was of her fiction. From her experiences with children, in school and out, she drew her adorable youngsters, Timothy, Patsy, Rebecca, and the rest. She portrayed the happiness of childhood, with its touch of pathos, but she was too sane and honest to descend to pollyanna gladness. Her grown people, who appear as the mothers, fathers, and aunts of her heroes and heroines, are shrewdly observed, and she had a keen knowledge of the New England folk among whom she lived. But she seldom touched the deeper motives of which adult fiction is made. When her friends advised her to write a novel, she said: “IT don’t know how; I can just write my kind of stories.” Her kind is quite her own, original and charming. The first of her books, “The Birds’ Christmas Carol,’’ has a touch of Dickens, but only because Dickens had preempted Christ- mas as his private holiday. For thirty years the head of the American family has been sure that Mrs. Wiggins’s next book was one that the children must have so that he could read it himself. Within her quiet limits her work is admirable; it is natural and amusing in substance and writ- ten in sound simple English. Wholesome is the right word for her if we cure it of its moralistic connotation, as she did, with the salt of humor. 1!

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228 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3085 Should the United States Occupy France? HE logic of M. Poincaré’s reply to the British Govern- ment is that the United States and Great Britain should at once proceed to a joint occupation of Bordeaux, le Havre, and Cherbourg, in order to make France pay her debts to them. It would not matter whether France could pay—the debt was legally contracted; while France has on occasion repeated her promise to pay she has given no evi- dence of any serious effort to make good her promise; she has not suggested methods of payment; and it would there- fore be our right to seize the ports and collect what we could, even though all France and ourselves were ruined in the process. That France and other nations might think the process illegal would matter no whit more, for the debt is a sacred debt, consecrated by the blood of our sons who died in France, and we could not submit such a debt to arbitration or adjudication. This sounds wild, but it comes very close to being a para- phrase of the latest Poincaré note. It is even somewhat more moderately phrased. The note abounds in flat contra- dictions of Lord Curzon’s statements. ‘We have never been vague,” retorts Poincaré to Lord Curzon’s inquiry as to the meaning of a vague phrase. He seems to think it a suffi- cient reply to a reasoned argument to say that the English statement is “entirely inexact’”—which is a strong word in French. When Lord Curzon says that French statements “can only be interpreted as an intention to remain in occu- pation of the Ruhr for a number of years which . . . may be extended indefinitely, if not in perpetuity,” and, quoting the language of the League Covenant, adds that he “can- not believe that the French and Belgian governments will be able to reconcile the opinion of the world to indefinite maintenance of so perilous a situation,” M. Poincaré re- plies: “We protest once more indignantly against the hypothesis that France desires to annex the Ruhr or remain there. The British Government threatens us with an ap- peal to the League of Nations as if there were danger or even the possibility of war. We cannot for one moment allow such discussion of our actions.” This is the language of a peevish small boy; it is the diplomatic equivalent of “You lie’ and “Shut up.” This is mere invective and ora- tory—especially when in the same note he asserts his “resolution not to renounce the pledge we hold (the Ruhr) until reparations are paid in full” and admits that “the capacity for payment of Germany today is equal to zero.” If the British press finds in such a note a “conciliatory spirit” and hope for future agreement it can only be because the British Government has requested it not to disturb negotiations by too frank comment. There is no concilia- tion in Poincaré’s 12,000 words, and the only hope for agree- ment which he holds out is based upon surrender to the French point of view. It must indeed be gall and worm- wood to Lord Curzon and Mr. Stanley Baldwin, but M. Poincaré’s reply says in substance “I don’t care what you think, for I hold the Ruhr and can get along without you,” and their decision to return to the method of secret diplo- matic conference can mean only a desire to camouflage defeat. Cuno is out of office; unemployed or underpaid mobs are rushing through German streets; the mark has dropped out of sight; and France hopes to profit by the ruin she has wrought. In the mazes of these incredibly long notes which France and England have been exchanging it is easy to lose the thread and to forget with what the negotiations are con- cerned. It is well to look back. The discussion really centers about the German offer, in their note of June 7, to accept the Hughes proposal of .referring the question of Germany’s capacity to pay to a commission of neutral experts. Ger- many offered unequivocally to accept the findings of such a commission. England attempted to win France and Bel- gium to an interest in the offer. They refused even to reply to it, and rejected, even as a basis for discussion, the Brit- ish draft of a proposed joint note. On August 11 Lord Curzon replied in the long note arraigning France which was immediately made public. It is to this long note that Poincaré has just replied in a still longer message. Lord Curzon began by what would seem to be the axio- matic remark: “There can be no use in demanding from Germany more than she is capable of paying.” M. Poin- caré replies reiterating “our resolution, a hundred times expressed, not to renounce one centime of our reparations claim.” Lord Curzon complained of the method hitherto followed in assessing Germany’s capacity to pay. The Re- paration Commission, he said, “has become in practice an instrument of Franco-Belgian policy alone,” and he pre- ferred a neutral commission on which would sit experts representing not only the Allied countries but also the United States, the neutrals, and even Germany. To ques- tion of Germany’s good faith in accepting the report of such a commission he replied in these significant words, which condemn past British policy as violently as France’s: An undertaking freely entered into because acknowledged to be just and reasonable stands in practice on a different footing and offers better prospects of faithful execution than an engage- ment subscribed to under compulsion of an ultimatum and pro- tested against at the very moment of signature as beyond the signatory’s capacity to make good. Those are true words, and while they hit the record of Lloyd George as much as or more even than that of Poincaré they cut to the very root of Poincaré’s complaint that the Ger- mans have not kept their word in the past. “What Germany’s maximum capacity for payment may be is a matter which should be determined by impartial inquiry into the facts,” said Lord Curzon. “To ask for more than Germany’s maximum capacity cannot assist in the actual.recovery of reparations; it can only destroy assets which Germany can offer to the Allies.” And to this the French Premier replied in words which contradict his own past: “We did not go into the Ruhr to find imme- diate money for reparations but above all to create in the German Government a wish to pay and to seize guaranties.” In that, surely, he has most lamentably failed. Germany was never less disposed to pay. And meanwhile, in Poin- caré’s own words, Germany’s “capacity for payment is pro- visionally reduced to zero.” He thinks it impossible to evaluate today Germany’s potential capacity. But how else can the world get on? France is demanding that Germany once more pledge the impossible and says she will not let go her stranglehold on the Ruhr until Germany has paid it. She will not allow discussion of her right to hold the Ruhr, she will not permit impartial assessment of Germany’s

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Sept. 5, 1923] capacity to pay, she will not reply to Germany’s note, she will not pay her own debts or discuss payment of them. Could a mad dog be madder? There is a sentence in Poincaré’s note which is both hypo- critical and revealing. “France has never repudiated her debts and will not repudiate them,” he says in a note which virtually repudiates them, “but she is convinced that no British Government will ever bring to bear upon an allied country the pressure which the British Cabinet does not think it possible to bring to bear today against the former enemies of England and France.” It sounds like a threat not to pay. We hope that England and the United States never will use such pressure against France as France is today using against Germany, but in that sentence M. Poin- caré admits that his own logic would justify us in occupy- ing France to force her to pay. A Naked Challenge ie HE audience realized, with appropriate gasps, a few moments after the curtain had risen, that the girls of the ensemble were entirely unclothed from the waist up”; “they saw one young woman wearing nothing except a slen- der piece of chiffon draped rather carelessly about her hips, and twenty-five other young women with nothing on above the waist except a still more slender bit of chiffon.” These are descriptions of the latest Shubert revue in New York from the pens of the critics of the Times and Herald, re- spectively. It is universally agreed that for daring this show surpasses anything ever produced on the American stage; that what was deemed possible only in Paris, Ber- lin, or Bucharest has come to pass in New York. We submit that this is a direct challenge to the censors and to the authorities. Especially is it a test of the sin- cerity of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, which, under the leadership of Mr. John S. Sumner, has made itself particularly obnoxious by proceeding against various pub- lishers of works of art and literature. Will these gentlemen concern themselves with this play and inquire what the au- thorities propose to do about it? If this show is permis- sible, and so responsible a press critic as Heywood Broun says it is, we can hardly justify rigid lines against serious literature. Moreover, it will not have escaped the vigilant Mr. Sumner that Mr. Broun reports that not in his entire career as a theatrical critic has he seen so long a queue of ticket-purchasers as that before the Shubert theater. We are the more moved to inquire why this show is un- challenged because we are still indignant at the conviction of the manager and the actors in Sholom Asch’s “God of Vengeance” for the production of what was from the point of view of conventional ethics one of the most effective of moral plays. Despite a blemish or two in the acting, the “lesson” of the piece was such that it merited the hearty approval not only of the vice suppressors but of every Sun- day-school teacher and of every John Roach Straton. It was the story of a father who kept a house of prostitution, upon whom descended the vengeance of the gods, in the form of the prostitution, under his own roof, of his cher- ished and carefully protected daughter. Yet for some rea- son or other it was determined to make an example of this company. They were convicted on the testimony of two ordinary policemen, all expert opinions being excluded, and received severe though suspended sentences. Among the The Nation 229 theatrical men who gave interviews to the New York World when the conviction took place were the Shuberts. Here are their words: “No salacious play should be presented on the American stage. Anything that tends to lower the standard of public morals should never be produced.” Yet these sanctimonious moralizers are now coining untold dol- lars out of the openly displayed nudity of twenty-six women. From the scribes and the Pharisees, good Lord, deliver us! The “God of Vengeance” case was the more remarkable because during the previous winter there appeared at a New York theater a play called the ‘“‘Demi-Virgin” as to whose unfitness for production the police were quite agreed. They made many gestures and threatened every sort of thing, the least being the closing of the show. But the play con- tinued to the end of its run and is now appearing in our provinces; the police pretended that they had no statute which exactly covered such a play. This raises the question in our minds whether the power and influence of the pro- ducer have not something to do with the case. “The God of Vengeance” was not put on by influential members of what is known as the theatrical trust, but by little known people who were, it might be said, amateurs in the business. Upon them the might of the law, voiced by an unlettered police private, fell heavily. ‘As far as could be learned,” says the Herald of the Shubert production, ‘‘no police officials saw the production.” The Shuberts are rich and powerful; they are of the mightiest on the New York Rialto. Does their position place them above the law? Is their play a proper exhibition? Or is all the talk of censorship but another bit of our inborn, but none the less disgusting, Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness, combined with a toadying to the rich and powerful? We eagerly await the answer to this question by the Sumners, the dis- trict attorney, and the police commissioner. “The Men of the Trees’’ OY Scouts have become common sights along the high- ways of America. We see them everywhere in strag- gling, dusty little bands, carrying packs and luncheons, with handkerchiefs around their necks. They swarm on out- going ferryboats and commuters’ trains on Sunday morn- ings. They wig-wag from hilltops and camps along the dusty edges of the towns. Whatever may be the aims of the Boy Scout organization or its power for good or evil, it has added a recognizable feature to the American land- scape—a feature as common as signboards along a railway line or radio aerials on the housetops. And so, although we know the movement is not indigen- ous nor limited to the United States or even to the civilized world, we read with a certain incredulity about the rapid growth of the Watu Wa Miti—the Boy Scouts of Kenya in the dark interior of East Africa. A special correspond- ent of the London Times reports the development of this organization with a certain prosaic solemnity, oppressed apparently by no sense of the humor or the romance of his story. The Scouts (the literal translation of Watu Wa Miti is “Men of the Trees’) were first organized by officers of the forestry department to help in reforesting areas which had been stripped by the natives in the process of clearing the land for cultivation. Each member swears to the high God, N’gai, that he will plant ten trees a year and take care of all trees. He wears the green and white emblem of the

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230 The Nation F [Vol. 117, No. 3085 ee ee eee organization on a leather strap attached to his wrist—a custom strongly suggestive of the style in which loyal mem- bers of American college fraternities are said to wear their pins while in the bath tub. The green of the emblem repre- sents the forest; the white, a pure heart. Like their khaki- clad American brothers, each member is pledged to do one kind act a day, but, if he positively cannot think of any, he may plant several trees instead. “This act was allowed to count as a good deed, although at the same time the ratives were told that it was not necessarily the best kind of good deed, and they must search their own hearts to find other things to do.” “Although the movement has been organized on Scout lines,” continues the Times correspondent, “it does not in- terfere with tribal customs; rather it makes use of the best of them for furthering the aims of the organization. At the native dances, songs descriptive of tree-planting and tree-lore have been substituted for the old meaningless chants.” Shades of Batouala! What will Nordic enterprise not attempt? Do the Scoutmasters teach these dark chil- dren of the forest how to start a campfire with a single match? Do they give instruction in the language of signal fires—those immemorial symbols of warning or invitation or appeal? Perhaps they tell the Kenya Scouts about the ways of wild animals and impart bits of woodland lore. Or, perhaps, the forestry officials may only be using the natives’ love of ritual and association—common, it seems, to men of all races and degrees of education—to help pre- serve the forests of the Kenya colony. This strictly prac- tical purpose may excuse a certain amount of absurdity. And if they can induce their dark-skinned subjects to sing songs about trees instead of their “meaningless” chants, the proprieties, at least, may be better preserved at African dances than we have been led to expect. The movement may be admirable, intelligent, serious. And yet it is hard not to smile at the strange vision of a noisy, pushing American schoolboy in his Scout uniform and his blue handkerchief, and beside him a stripped, black-skinned African with a green-and-white badge on his bare wrist—both earnestly seeking to perform one kind deed before the sun sets. Literature Flourishes HE word masterpiece when not used by reviewers in their intellectual teens is uttered with bated breath and is accompanied by the mental image of a drama or epic in verse, of great length and of considerable antiquity. That image is by no means as inept as the militantly unaca- demic would have us think, for the greater number of the authentic and ultimately tested masterpieces of literature are indeed of the character described. But care must be taken not to let this undoubted fact overshadow the present or blur the future. It does seem more and more that Mat- thew Arnold was right when he declared that imaginative prose was destined to be the characteristic art of the mod- ern world. Once this is granted the picture changes. The academic tradition permits few even among practiced and thoughtful readers to be aware of the glories amid which they live. But to say of a book: “It’s only a novel,” is saying nothing at all. So is “Tom Jones”; so, after all, is the Odyssey. Strip the word masterpiece of preconceptions; grant our period its characteristic mode of expression. At once it begins to glow. For it opens with Butler’s “The Way of All Flesh,” a work that literally made an epoch. We are all the disciples and imitators of that extraordinary sage and creator who wrote: “Someone should do for morals what that old Pecksniff Bacon has obtained the credit of having done for science.”’ That is what every modern novel- ist who is worth his salt is trying, consciously or uncon- sciously, to do; that is the sum and substance of the great dealings of Bertrand Russell—another mighty name—with the art and science of human life. But let the philosophy go if you can—though all great literature is philosophical at core and by necessity—and still “The Way of All Flesh” remains one of the major stories in our speech. We are a little doubtful of “Old Wives’ Tale.” ‘“Clay- hanger” on rereading seemed both a little thin and a little gritty after the opening chapters. We are not at all doubt- ful of that astonishing and still neglected masterpiece— yes, masterpiece—called “Of Human Bondage.” Somerset Maugham has written many clever and some brilliant things. His plays, novels, sketches, will be remembered because he wrote “Of Human Bondage.” It is a very long book and we wish it longer. It is a bare, unadorned record of life. It is quiet, sad, rich—quiet as the earth, sad as the very core of mortality, rich as the lives and fates of men. You lose yourself in it; you are rapt by it from your personal world and fate; yet you are in the end brought more pro- foundly home by it to both and to the whole of man and nature and human life. Does “The Forsyte Saga” rank below “Of Human Bond- age’? The question is not a fruitful one and will be answered according to mood and temperament. It suffices that “The Forsyte Saga” too is great—great in its suaver, subtler, and less naked manner, great in breadth and rich- ness of delineation, in wisdom and insight and unforced beauty of speech. And we should like to ruffle the invet- erate praisers of time past by saying that for these three books we should gladly give up the whole of Balzac. And yet these are but three books published within a quarter of a century in a single language and of a single kind. We could go to the Continent and add the sovereign lucidity and depth of Thomas Mann, the valiant creative speech of Romain Roland, the exquisite, glowing patterns of Ricarda Huch. We could go to the drama and to lyric verse. But in the latter especially there would be obscuration and doubt. America has produced no masterpiece that equals any of the three mentioned. It would be foolish not to admit that. But if some Charles Lamb of the future were to gather, not specimens from Elizabethan dramatists but specimens from the American novelists of our period, those specimens would have to run to many volumes and would outshine in every quality that makes great literature except the management of verse any conceivable selection from the Elizabethan or Jacobean playwrights. Beside the “Death of Hurstwood” the most poignant scenes by John Ford would lose edge and pathos; the mighty quarrel be- tween Lee and Fanny from “Cytherea” would equal in en- eigy and vitality and truth any comparable writing of for- mer times; Mr. Babbitt’s address before the Zenith Real Estate Board would leap for comparison beyond the age of Shakespeare to that of Swift. Yet these are but three examples where we might have cited thirty. The world seems to be disintegrating politically and economically. Literature flourishes. We are not, at least, living in an inarticulate age. There is comfort in that.

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 231 The Cruelty of the Russian By MAXIM GORKI RUELTY is something which I have never in all my life been able to understand and which has always disturbed me. Where are the roots of human cruelty? That is a problem upon which I have meditated a long time but which I have never understood. Some time ago I read a book which bore the suggestive title: ‘“‘The Progress and Evolution of Cruelty.” The author, after carefully choosing facts to prove his thesis, tried to show that as the human race progressed men tortured each other physically, spir- itually, and still more sensually. I read this book with dis- gust; I did not want to believe the things it told me, and I hastened to refute its paradoxes. But now, after the terri- ble madness of the European war and the bloody episodes of the Revolution, these bitter paradoxes have more than once returned to my memory. Yet it seems to me that there is no evolution in Russian cruelty. Its forms do not seem to change. A chronicler reports in the beginning of the seventeenth century that in his days they practiced in Russia tortures such as these: they put powder in a victim’s mouth and then set it afire; they pierced women’s throats, inserted ropes in the wounds, and so hung them. In the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- turies they did the same things in the territories of the Don and the Ural; they inserted dynamite cartridges into the victim’s body and then made them explode. In Russian cruelty one feels a diabolic ingenuity, as if it were a question of something exquisite and delicate. One cannot explain it by the words “psychic abnormality” and “sadism,” which really explain nothing at all. I sometimes wonder if it is not a product of excessive alcoholism, but I tell myself that the Russian people are not more poisoned by alcohol than the other peoples of Europe, although it is possible that the mind of the ill-nourished Russian peasant is more poisoned than in other countries where men have more food and more varied food. It may be, too, that the favorite pastime of those who are not illiterate in the vil- lages—reading the lives of the martyrs—has an influence upon the origins of the ingenious Russian cruelty. If cruelty were only a psychological perversion of the individual I might refrain from speaking of it for it would be a subject rather for the psychiatrist than for the his- torian. But I see before me whole groups of men enjoying human torture. In Siberia soldiers of the Red Army taken prisoner were put head first into trenches dug in the earth. The legs were left free, and the trenches were filled little by little, while the spectators watched the convulsions of the legs to see which victim had most resistance and would be last to die of suffocation. In the Government of Tambov Communists were nailed to trees, a yard above the ground, by the hands and the left foot, and the torments of these miserable creatures thus irregularly crucified excited sur- prise and curiosity. . . . [Incidents too horrible for trans- lation are omitted.|] I could recall many more such horrors, but they are so terrible that I think it wise not to mention them. Which is more cruel, the Reds or the Whites? Prob- ably one is as bad as the other, for both are Russian. I believe that in no other country of the world are women treated as pitilessly and terribly as in the Russian villages; perhaps no other country boasts such popular wisdom as is expressed in the following proverbs: “Beat your wife with the butt of your gun; then lean over and listen—if she still breathes she is joking and needs more blows.” ‘A woman is twice beloved: the day of her mar- riage and the day of her death.” “There is no law for women and beasts. The more you beat your wife the better your soup will taste.” Hundreds of such aphorisms containing the fine flower of centuries of popular wisdom are current in Russian vil- lages. . Young girls are brought up on them; these proverbs are their school. And the young girls, too, are beaten with equal ardor. I once studied the records of the Moscow courts for the decade 1901-1910; I was struck by the enor- mous number of outrages upon young girls and of all sorts of other crimes with minors. Beating is a favorite pastime in Russia and it matters little whom one beats. I have asked persons who took an active part in our civil war if they were not disturbed by mutual massacre. No, not at all. “He has a gun, I have a gun, we are equal. It makes no difference. We will kill off a few and then there will be more room on the earth.” I once had a very curious reply from a soldier who had taken part in the European War and who is now in com- mand of a considerable body in the Red Army: “Civil war,” he said, “is nothing. It is international war, fight- ing strangers, that hurts the soul. I tell you frankly, com- rade, it is easier to kill Russians. We have so many of them and our property means so little. You set a village on fire; what then? One day or another it would burn of itself and, after all, that is our business, like military maneuvers. But when I put my feet on Prussian soil at the beginning of the war, God! how I pitied that people! What villages, what cities, what farms! What magnificent things we destroyed without even knowing why! It was really shameful; I was almost happy when I was wounded. I had suffered so much because of the abominable vandal- ism. Later, they sent me down to the Caucasus in Jude- nich’s army. There we fought Turks and other black- skinned people. Fine men, very poor, always smiling with- out any apparent reason. And we fought them when they smiled. One could not help pitying them. They all had their tasks, their families...’ He who told me these things was humane after his fashion. He treats his soldiers well and they seem to respect him. He likes his military profession. I tried to give him some idea of Russia and of its importance in the world. He listened to me for a mo- ment pensively, smoking a cigarette, then seemed bored, and said with a sigh: “It is true. Russia was an exceptional force, an extraordinary force, but now, in my opinion, it has become a country of fools!” A scientific expedition which worked in the Ural region in 1921 reports that a peasant made the following simple request to its members: ‘You who are educated people, tell me what I ought to do. A Bashkir killed one of my cows. Naturally I killed the Bashkir, and I stole a cow which belonged to his family. Will I still be punished for stealing it?’”’ When they told him he should rather fear being punished for killing a human being, he replied: “That is nothing. Men are cheap today.” Both of these

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oe 232 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3035 || incidents show that homicide has become a simple and banal affair, the result of civil war and brigandage. It seems to me that the war has made many men like him and that the leaders of innumerable bands uncon- sciously have the same psychology. It is hard to deny the character of the pogroms. The fact that the anti-Jewish pogroms were permitted by the evil idiots who represented public authority justifies noth- ing and nobody. In permitting pillage and massacre of Jews, these idiots certainly did not recommend that hun- dreds of the pogrom-makers should cut the breasts of Jew- ish women, kill children, or drive nails into Jewish skulls. These bloody atrocities were due to the initiative of the masses. Where, then, is that good and meditative Russian peas- ant, devoted to truth and justice, of whom nineteenth-cen- tury Russian literature gave the world so beautiful and so convincing a portrait? I sought and sought for such a man in the Russian villages when I was young, but I did not find him. On the contrary, I found an opportunist Russian, rather shrewd, who, when he had got what he wanted, could play the part of a simple-minded soul magnificently. He was not born stupid and knows it very well. He has composed melancholy songs, and cruel and vulgar stories, and invented thousands of proverbs which contain the ex- perience of his harsh life. He knows that the mujik is not stupid, but that the community is stupid. He says that one should fear men rather than devils. He has not too high an idea of truth: “Truth doesn’t fill your stomach.” “The honest man is as dangerous as an imbecile.” He has thousands of such sayings and knows how to use them. He has heard them repeated since babyhood, and from infancy the conviction has been establishing itself in him that in them are revealed many austere and bitter truths, that they have much irony for him and much point for others. He does not think that other people, particu- larly the city people who meddle in his affairs, have any- thing to do with his soil, which is literally soaked with his sweat and his blood. He loves that soil with ‘a mystic love. He firmly believes that in it is something of his own flesh. Although made of his blood, that soil has been stolen from him by a ruse. The mujik has been idealized in Russian literature by the populist school because that literature used him for political propaganda. But toward the end of the nineteenth century the literary point of view toward the village and the peasant clearly showed a change. It became less com- passionate and more honest. Anton Chekhov was the first to mark this change with his “In the Ravine” and “The Mujiks.” At the beginning of the twentieth century appeared a series of novels by Ivan Bunin, the best of con- temporary Russian writers. His “Conversation in the Night,” his story called “The Village,” magnificent for its stylistic beauty and its rude sincerity, have built up a new, critical conception of the Russian peasant. They say in Russia that Bunin, because he is of noble birth, gives a prejudiced and hostile picture of the mujik. That is not true. Bunin is an excellent artist, nothing more. But we find in contemporary Russian literature even more serious and more impressive documents upon the coarse obscurant- ism of the village. There is, for example, “Youth,” a novel by an intelligent peasant from the Province of Orel, Ivan Volny. There are the stories by the Moscow peasant, Semen Podiachev, those of the Siberian peasant, Vsevolod Ivanov, an extremely promising young writer. One can- not suspect them of preconceived hostility for the group to which they are related by blood and from which they are not yet detached. The fact is that they know and under- stand, better than others, the life of the peasant, the vul- gar sorrows and joys of the village, its intellectual blind- ness, and its psychic cruelty. Washington: A Capital Without a Thunderer By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD ASHINGTON is beyond doubt a difficult newspaper field. Unlike the other great capitals, it has been merely the seat of the national government and not until comparatively recently has it even taken on the outward aspects of an impressive residential city. A dozen years ago its fashionables never shopped except in New York or Baltimore; today its shopping district impresses. Only within the last twenty years has it been discovered as a delightful winter resort for retired civilians or the idle rich who are beginning to play such a part in its social life. It is wholly without the great industrial plants usually to be found at a seat of government. The war gave it, of course, a tremendous impulse in every direction, and, despite the extra homes built in the war years, it is still building new apartments at an amazing rate. But aside from governmental activities, Washington yet bears many aspects of the small town; it is surely the only capital.of a great nation which does not have its own orchestra or support a permanent theater or even an attractive resort where one may dine and hear fine music of an evening. Under these circumstances the press of Washington has naturally been extremely provincial; it has not represented the national interests centered in the District of Columbia, but has mostly busied itself with the local small-town gos- sip and happenings. Its intellectual level has, over a long period of time, been that of the bulk of its poorly salaried constituency. Even to get a survey of all the national news originating in Washington, one has had to buy a New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore daily. Situated at the very fountain-head of our national gov- ernment, the Washington press has thus been without a national stamp. It has not even reflected adequately the cosmopolitan character of the District’s population, which comes not‘only from every State, but, one might say, from every county in the Union. In a city full of diplomats, the editorial writers have, until recently at least, always been abysmally ignorant of foreign affairs. In the whole his- tory of the District no single editor has made his mark through a local newspaper, so there has been nothing to draw especial attention to the Washington dailies. The journalistic prizes within the District have been held by outsiders—or men originally outsiders—who were sent to Washington to represent the rich, the virile, and the influ- ential journals of the country. The Washington corre- ee

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 233 spondents, not the local newspaper men, are the journalists who have influenced the political life of the capital. They are the ones whom the politicians read eagerly, of whom they stand in awe, especially those whose duty it is to keep the folks back home informed as to what Congressman X and Senator Y are doing. The influence of the District upon its own press has been doubly and trebly unfortunate. It is bad enough that the army of office-holders is a dull and deadening clientele; the fact that there is such a preponderance of politicians or political appointees has made the papers politically timid despite the absence of local elections and candidacies. The thought has been never to offend the powers that be. Their patronage was needed and you never could tell whether an Administration would succeed itself or not, or be succeeded by one of its own kind. Sometimes one could in the past read a Washington paper for months, yes years, and not be able to guess its politics. Still another reason for the timidity of the Washington press lies in the District’s form of government. It is ruled in the last analysis by Congressional committees composed of Representatives and Senators temporarily in public life and drawn from all over the country. Their interest in the District is of the slightest, but from them come the appro- priations and upon the appropriations depends the develop- ment of the city. Now the real-estate business is the chief industry of the District. In real-estate progress, therefore, tthe newspapers have a large stake. Hence they are slow, indeed, to criticize or oppose anybody in Congress who is or may be a member of the District Committee. The papers are also likely to be quite legitimately interested in civic developments whose fate rests upon their editors being on good terms with the men upon whose favor a given enter- prise wholly depends. This is one of the most interesting examples we have of indirect control of a press, not by any open or avowed action, but by fear lest it say something which would prevent it from obtaining a perfectly legiti- mate and aboveboard revenue. If the influence of big business is far less potent in Wash- ington than elsewhere, the pressure to conform according to Main Street is just as great, if not greater, not only by reason of the overweening influence of the Federal Govern- ment, but because the bureaucrats do not like attacks upon ‘the government which furnishes them their existence, and because there is no such hide-bound conservative in all the -world as your retired civil official or retired army or navy Officer. I have often wondered if the World War was not more welcome to the long-established Washington papers than to anybody else in the profession, for they could then at last afford themselves the luxury of being partisans, of being really outspoken—about the Germans—without hurt- ing advertising or circulation, while at the same time stand- ing in more than ordinarily with the Government. What a relief it must have been to them to let loose some of the ‘pent-up feelings of decades! Again the difficulties of the Washington newspaper pub- lisher have been immensely increased by the early delivery in his territory of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York papers. There is no absolute necessity for subscribing to the Washington Post or Evening Star when one can have the admirably newsy Baltimore Sun or Evening Sun, with their far greater recognition of the fact that there is a world outside the District of Columbia, unless one is deter- mined to have the little local news items of the capital. The government clerks rightly feel that they cannot be with- out the Star because of the departmental news it contains, the obituaries of local worthies, the notices of entertain- ments and lectures. But it is not only the clerks who read it; there are many streets in which the Star is subscribed for at practically every house. It has built its great suc- cess by being the house-organ for the District. To be such a local mouthpiece is a legitimate and useful function; it is, of course, incompatible with the exercise of other than a local influence. The Star has been singularly fortunate in having as its editor Mr. Theodore W. Noyes, whose tastes and interests have happily coincided with what was the line of least re- sistance for the newspaper to follow. A fine character, a high type of gentleman, profoundly interested in all local enterprises, no one in the District is more beloved by the older set than Mr. Noyes. It is in the popular mouth that, if you can get your case before Mr. Noyes, justice will be done you. He is believed to be kindly and fair, so kindly that the editorial page suffers from it as well as from other editorial influences which make it intellectually without dis- tinction and politically worthless. If it goes into political matters it does so with a careful balancing of both sides, the familiar ‘‘on-the-one-hand” and “‘on-the-other-hand” type of editorial, which impresses the thoughtless, hurts nobody’s feelings, advances no cause an inch, and does not even add to the gaiety of nations. An issue in the beginning of April, 1923, is characteristic in its editorial page headings: “Another Judge Needed”; “The Silver Spring Tornado”; “Flowers Blooming”; “Facilitating Traffic’; “Sugar Profi- teers”; “Art Lights”; and “The Tight-Wad.” One must go far, far into the rural regions to some country weekly to find editorial writings of a more kindergarten nature than these; they lack only expression in words of one syllable to be really classic. As an example, here is the philosophy of that tornado; The tornado which struck Silver Spring is the first nearby phenomenon of this kind to happen in the Washington area in many years, and it is hoped that we may be spared another visitation for an indefinite time. The longer the time the bet- ter. That this short but severe windstorm did not do more damage is a matter to be thankful for. Some persons were in- jured, but none was killed, and reports indicate that the injured will get well. Most winds of this kind play strange pranks. In the news of nearly all cyclones we get narratives of one house blown to splinters and of another within a few yards escaping undamaged, not because one house was stronger than the other, but because the wind did not strike it. A big tree, survivor of a century, will be uprooted and a nearby tree will not have a twig disturbed. It is not uncommon to read that while a house was smashed its occupants escaped. Some details of a similar nature are to be read in the account of the Silver Spring storm. The people of the village and the closely settled neighborhood about it have much to be thankful for. Though it was thrilling enough to satisfy an exacting taste for thrills, it might have been a great disaster. Fortunately Washington survived not only the tornado but this editorial. That on the vital question of the price of sugar is a restatement of the news, winding up thus sapiently: “The public has no means of ascertaining the facts, but it believes that the government has such means. Senator Smoot says he hopes that the investigation of the increase in the price of sugar will be vigorously prosecuted by the government and the blame placed where it belongs. So say all of us.” These are not unfairly chosen nor un- I aS

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234 The Nation ‘ [ Vol. 117, No. 3035 eee characteristic examples of an editorial policy intended to arouse no antagonism, but to make much money comfortably with a minimum of trouble, exertion, and ruffling of other people’s feathers. On questions bearing on the government of the District the Star can at times become almost excited and carry on laudable campaigns by daily articles. Mr. Theodore Noyes is entitled to the highest praise for his services on behalf of the public library, of the development of fine arts, and of civic affairs generally. The colored people trust him as they do no one else in the District’s public life. In fact, the Star is really an institution, and in its care of its em- ployees is beyond praise. It not only provides the usual, or rather the unusual, sick benefit and pension funds, but also maintains a dental clinic, an Evening Star Club for its employees, and other useful associations for the advance- ment of its men and women workers. The management’s annual banquets to its employees are attended by the Presi- dent, the Cabinet members who happen to be in town, and half of the Senate and the House; yet there are no speeches and only professional entertainment, with the exception of a few jokes. It is accepted by the newspaper fraternity in Washington that a job on the Star is equivalent to a government pension, since nobody is ever dismissed from this daily. Idyllic as this seems, it does not add to the efficiency of the Star, which is reputed to carry not merely dead wood, but employees of the type who lack energy and ambition and are content merely to hold their respective jobs. This condition is intensified by the fact that there are a number of proprietors represented in the active manage- ment. Five sons of these owners have recently been intro- duced into the business, which fact not only discourages the other employees but necessarily gives rise to the charge of nepotism and of putting men in places of responsibility who cannot be held accountable in accordance with the ordi- nary rules of the game. Besides Mr. Noyes, his brother Frank B. Noyes, the president of the Associated Press, represents the Noyes family interest in the direction of the Star. No other American newspaper of which I know has so much direct proprietary control or so much hereditary management. That means, however, that the pressure upon the paper to earn money for them all is very great. For years, how- ever, extraordinary financial results have been achieved; gossip puts the annual profit at considerably more than $1,000,000—some say $2,000,000. Indeed, it is believed to stand among the ten best newspaper money-makers in the United States. It is, however, beyond direct control by its advertisers. If news is omitted, if things are over- looked, if unpopular causes are ignored, if the aspirations of the masses outside of the local governmental field are neither understood nor interpreted, the fault lies with the limitations of the owners, their conception of the function of their newspaper, and their lack of intellectual courage. They are handicapped, too, by their social surroundings. Being personally popular and attractive, they are much invited into the social life of the capital, and every news- paper man knows how difficult it is to criticize or to appear to criticize those by whom one is invited and those whom one meets in the houses of one’s friends or at the club billiard tables. ; The pressure to make money and be up-to-date now shows itself in the appearance of the Star. Long one of the most beautifully printed of American newspapers, with _ ago of the rest of the District press. dignified type, excellent make-up, fine paper, worthy and tasteful headlines, it has become a typographical hodge- podge, without its old beauty and distinction. It will spend much money for news and features and special correspond- ence—it subscribes to the excellent foreign cable service of the Chicago Daily News—and it is giving more atten- tion to national political happenings than ever before. But newspaper men are careful to turn to its last page as well as its first, for the most important political news-story of the day is quite likely to be buried in the back of the paper. The Star for all its intellectual vacuity has had dignity and worth. One could hardly have said this a couple of years The Washington Post, founded in 1877, after a long and undistinguished career has come into the hands of Edward B. McLean, son of John R. McLean, widely known as owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the most powerful Democratic daily in Ohio. The large role played by Edward McLean as a friend to the Harding Administration was one of the inexplicable things in connection with that regime. Mr. McLean, who is usu- ally credited with a past, but not so often with a future, was appointed chairman of the committee which was to have conducted the Harding inaugural ball. The ball was soon dropped, ostensibly for reasons of economy, but there is widespread belief that the choice of the chairman to guide it also had much to do with the abandonment of this function. Mr. McLean, despite his great wealth, is not and never will be popular in Washington, which cannot get over its wonder that any President could be on terms of intimacy with him. Certainly it cannot have been with any desire to propitiate the owner of the Washington Post. Just as the Enquirer owes nothing to Edward B. McLean for its long-established influence and reputation as one of the most remarkable news-gathering dailies of the country, so the Washington Post has gained nothing in moral character from its present owner. It must be admitted that a change has come over it, that it has waked up, that it did play a powerful role during the fight against the Treaty of Ver- sailles and the League of Nations, not merely by its edi- torials, but also by the tremendous propaganda carried on through its news columns. It demonstrated then that a cause ably served by.a daily could make a real impression upon the District public. Indeed, it cannot be denied, that, as already stated, the news columns—not the editorials—of the Washington Post do influence the Congressional mind. Lord Northcliffe once remarked that of all the American newspapers he would prefer to own the Washington Post because it reaches the breakfast tables of the members of the Congress. Fre- quently the better and more honest reports of some of the New York dailies do not offset the impressions conveyed by the first page of the Post. The McLean management has played upon this advantage very skilfully, placing upon its first page the signed articles of certain writers, obvi- ously propagandists, who are, some of them, without the respect or trust of the members of their own profession. Indeed, of no other newspaper have I heard the Washing- ton correspondents speak so unfavorably. They despise, dis- like and distrust it; to them it is not only a poison sheet— it is also a contemptible one and they question its moral integrity. To such occurrences as its sledge-hammer at- tacks upon the French occupation of the Ruhr they paid little attention while the public wondered whether great significance should not be attached to them, owing to the a as ee

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 235 McLean comradeship with President Harding. Incidentally, its recent publication of a long list of the prominent clients of a recently arrested Washington bootlegger has been severely criticized. In the crowd in which Edward McLean moves this is regarded as distinctly unclubable behavior. At present the Washington Post is in full cry after the general pack of newspapers, indulging in all the current newspaper fads, such as a pink sporting supplement, “humorous” pages, comic supplements, picture pages, etc. Like all the Washington papers it specializes in society news, and nowhere else is personal gossip so eagerly read, because of the official character of the city and its constant entertaining. In the advertising field the Post finds that its chief rival is the Evening Star rather than its morning competitor; on Sundays when the Star, Post, and Herald all appear the competition is very keen. After attempting to be his own managing editor for a while, Mr. McLean has now called to this place Mr. John J. Spurgeon, the able newspaper man made free by his release from the editor- ship of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. It is too early as yet to tell what he will be able to accomplish, but if certain improvements are already noticeable it is somehow impos- sible to conceive of his having a free hand or being able to accomplish anything lasting under the present erratic ownership. One point of interest remains. Unlike the Star, the Post has never sought to cultivate intensively the local field. Will it do so now, or will it try to increase its influence in the national sphere? _ There remain in the Washington field the two Hearst newspapers, the Herald in the morning and the Times in the evening. They are typical Hearst newspapers, peas out of the same pod, typographically ugly and messy, with all the usual Hearst standardized features. The Herald is too new a Hearst purchase to make it possible to judge what its flair and its influence are going to be. So far neither of this pair is exerting any political power, but the Times has shown a steady growth without affecting the circula- tion of the Star, which in its slow but steady progress reached 95,492 in March, 1923, for the daily, and 98,242 for the Sunday. The Times has climbed to 62,555 and is supposed to be showing a comfortable balance sheet. What I have already said about the Hearst papers in other cities* applies to these two of the tribe. Their influence in no wise corresponds to the noise they make nor to the readers they draw. Finally we come to the tabloid News, also an evening publication and one of the latest creations of the Scripps- McRae, or Scripps-Howard League as it is now called. It, too, has the characteristics of its group, although it has not been able to devote itself so much to labor questions as have its sisters of the Scripps family because of the absence in the District of any large group of factory workers. As usual, Mr. Scripps is stooping to conquer; his motto is that one must first have a paper before it can be toned up, so he stoops to the trivial and sometimes to the vulgar. The ap- peal of the News to the masses has been so successful that it now has a readership of some forty thousand. One may pick it up of an evening and find that it has given its whole front page to the marbles championship of the District, and then one may find on the inside extremely valuable and important information not to be obtained elsewhere. Whatever the defects of the Scripps syndicate its papers *See The Nation of March 28, 1923, William Randolph Hearst and His Moral Press. ~ are at least forward-looking; they are often on the side of the under-dog and they know what liberalism means. They are usually an oasis in a desert, and for all its defects, and its trivialities, for all its stooping for circulation, the News under the editorship of William B. Colver, chairman of the Federal Trade Board under Woodrow Wilson, is the one hopeful note in the Washington situation. Observers feel that the News is already influencing the other papers in certain directions as, for instance, when it printed its ex- posure of Attorney General Daugherty. Nothing on earth would have made the Star undertake anything like that, but it had to take notice when the News blazed the way. It is the only paper in Washington which has really a sincere and consistent understanding of what the whole fight in America is about, as contrasted with the momentary glimpses (so often dimmed by the owner’s personal ambi- tions and insincerities) which mark the Hearst press. Finally we come to the question whether it would ever be possible to have in Washington a really national news- paper. I am often asked whether a great daily giving a most careful survey of the government’s activities as well as the news of the world would not have nation-wide influ- ence. I cannot say that such an experiment would be suc- cessful. There is needed a weekly journal which could give to the large mass of officeholders throughout the country, postmasters, lighthouse-keepers, army and navy officers, members of territorial governments, consuls and ministers abroad, interesting, well-written factual accounts of the progress of the government. That weekly would neces- sarily have to be in the nature of a trade journal and would have to be fairly inexpensive because your distant Qffice- holder is not a rich man. Certainly he could not usually afford to pay the $12 required for a year’s subscription to a first-class daily newspaper. To attempt to create in Washington a great daily with complete abstracts of the doings of Congress and news of the government’s departments as well as the news of the District and the news of the world would require an enor- mous sum of money. A Rockefeller or a Ford could do it, but few if any others. There is, however, always the pos- sibility of the appearance of a genuine newspaper person- ality, a man with something to say and the ability to say it that marked Godkin and Dana and the senior Samuel Bowles. Should such a man appear, his personality and ability could, of course, lift his paper into the front ranks of American dailies, make it respected, admired, and feared by the politicians, and gradually extend its influence far beyond the confines of the District. But such a newspaper. ought to be in a position to make enemies. If it should have to consider local advertisers and District influences, it could not fulfil its task. It must be independent and it must, above all else, have something to champion. Meanwhile, a foreign visitor, coming to Washington to study the institutions of our great country, may take up the capital’s three evening papers, only to find the first page of one devoted exclusively to the championship in marbles, and that of another to the fact that a young widow has shot a wealthy man who jilted her. Turning to the third he may be regaled by reading the editorial announcement that the government has the means of getting at the sugar facts and that the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra, la, are happily at their task of beautifying the capital. What mat- ters it, at the seat of the nation, that the world is in a tur- moil and that civilization totters in Europe?

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236 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3035 These United States—X XX VII* NEBRASKA: The End of the First Cycle By WILLA SIBERT CATHER YYNHE State of Nebraska is part of the great plain which stretches west of the Missouri River, gradually rising until it reaches the Rocky Mountains. The character of all this country between the river and the mountains is essen- tially the same throughout its extent: a rolling, alluvial plain, growing gradually more sandy toward the west, until it breaks into the white sand-hills of western Nebraska and Kansas and eastern Colorado. From east to west this plain measures something over five hundred miles; in appearance it resembles the wheat lands of Russia, which fed the conti- nent of Europe for so many years. Like Little Russia it is watered by slow-flowing, muddy rivers, which run full in the spring, often cutting into the farm lands along their banks; but by midsummer they lie low and shrunken, their current split by glistening white sand-bars half overgrown with scrub willows. The climate, with its extremes of temperature, gives to this plateau the variety which, to the casual eye at least, it lacks. There we have short, bitter winters; windy, flower- laden springs; long, hot summers; triumphant autumns that last until Christmas—a season of perpetual sunlight, blazing blue skies, and frosty nights. In this newest part of the New World autumn is the season of beauty and sentiment, as spring is in the Old World. Nebraska is a newer State than Kansas. It was a State before there were people in it. Its social history falls easily within a period of sixty years, and the first stable settle- ments of white men were made within the memory of old folk now living. The earliest of these settlements—Bellevue, Omaha, Brownville, Nebraska City—were founded along the Missouri River, which was at that time a pathway for small steamers. In 1855-60 these four towns were straggling groups of log houses, hidden away along the wooded river banks. Before 1860 civilization did no more than nibble at the eastern edge of the State, along the river bluffs. Lincoln, the present capital, was open prairie; and the whole of the great plain to the westward was still a sunny wilderness, where the tall red grass and the buffalo and the Indian hunter were undisturbed. Fremont, with Kit Carson, the famous scout, had gone across Nebraska in 1842, ex- ploring the valley of the Platte. In the days of the Mormon persecution fifteen thousand Mormons camped for two years, 1845-46, six miles north of Omaha, while their exploring parties went farther west, searching for fertile land outside of government jurisdiction. In 1847 the entire Mormon sect, under the leadership of Brigham Young, went with their wagons through Nebraska and on to that desert beside the salty sea which they have made so fruitful. In forty-nine and the early fifties, gold hunters, bound for California, crossed the State in thousands, always following the old Indian trail along the Platte valley. The State was a highway for dreamers and adventurers; men who were * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1923. The Nation, Ine. All rights reserved. in quest of gold or grace, freedom or romance. With all these people the road led out, but never back again. While Nebraska was a camping-ground for seekers out- ward bound, the wooden settlements along the Missouri were growing into something permanent. The settlers broke the ground and began to plant the fine orchards which have ever since been the pride of Otoe and Nemaha counties. It was at Brownville that the first telegraph wire was brought across the Missouri River. When I was a child I heard ex- Governor Furness relate how he stood with other pioneers in the log cabin where the Morse instrument had been installed, and how, when it began to click, the men took off their hats as if they were in church. The first message flashed across the river into Nebraska was not a market report, but a line of poetry: “Westward the course of empire takes its way.” The Old West was like that. The first back-and-forth travel through the State was by way of the Overland Mail, a monthly passenger-and-mail- stage service across the plains from Independence to the newly founded colony at Salt Lake—a distance of twelve hundred miles. When silver ore was discovered in the mountains of Colo- rado near Cherry Creek—afterward Camp Denver and later the city of Denver—a picturesque form of commerce devel- oped across the great plain of Nebraska: the transporting of food and merchandise from the Missouri to the Colorado mining camps, and on to the Mormon settlement at Salt Lake. One of the largest freighting companies, operating out of Nebraska City, in the six summer months of 1860 carried nearly three million pounds of freight across Ne- braska, employing 515 wagons, 5,687 oxen, and 600 drivers. The freighting began in the early spring, usually about the middle of April, and continued all summer and through the long, warm autumns. The oxen made from ten to twenty miles a day. I have heard the old freighters say that, after embarking on their six-hundred mile trail, they lost count of the days of the week and the days of the month. While they were out in that sea of waving grass, one day was like another; and, if one can trust the memory of these old men, all the days were glorious. The buffalo trails still ran north and south then; deep, dusty paths the bison wore when, sin- gle file, they came north in the spring for the summer grass, and went south again in the autumn. Along these trails were the buffalo “wallows’”—shallow depressions where the rain water gathered when it ran off the tough prairie sod. These wallows the big beasts wore deeper and packed hard when they rolled about and bathed in the pools, so that they held water like a cement bottom. The freighters lived on game and shot the buffalo for their hides. The grass was full of quail and prairie chickens, and flocks of wild ducks swam about on the lagoons. These lagoons have long since disappeared, but they were beautiful things in their time; long stretches where the rain water gathered and lay clear on a grassy bottom without mud. From the lagoons the first settlers hauled water to their homesteads, before they had dug their wells. The freighters could recognize the lagoons from afar by the clouds of golden coreopsis which grew up

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 237 out of the water and waved delicately above its surface. Among the pioneers the coreopsis was known simply as “the lagoon flower.” As the railroads came in, the freighting business died out. Many a freight-driver settled down upon some spot he had come to like on his journeys to and fro, homesteaded it, and wandered no more. The Union Pacific, the first transcon- tinental railroad, was completed in 1869. The Burlington entered Nebraska in the same year, at Platsmouth, and began construction westward. It finally reached Denver by an indirect route, and went on extending and ramifying through the State. With the railroads came the home-seek- ing people from overseas. When the first courageous settlers came straggling out through the waste with their oxen and covered wagons, they found open range all the way from Lincoln to Denver; a continuous, undulating plateau, covered with long, red, shaggy grass. The prairie was green only where it had been burned off in the spring by the new settlers or by the Indians, and toward autumn even the new grass became a coppery brown. This sod, which had never been broken by the plow, was so tough and strong with the knotted grass roots of many years, that the home-seekers were able to peel it off the earth like peat, cut it up into bricks, and make of it warm, comfortable, durable houses. Some of these sod houses lingered on until the open range was gone and the grass was gone, and the whole face of the country had been changed. Even as late as 1885 the central part of the State, and everything to the westward, was, in the main, raw prairie. The cultivated fields and broken land seemed mere scratches in the brown, running steppe that never stopped until it broke against the foothills of the Rockies. The dugouts and sod farm-houses were three or four miles apart, and the only means of communication was the heavy farm wagon, drawn by heavy work horses. The early population of Ne- braska was largely transatlantic. The county in which I grew up, in the south-central part of the State, was typical. On Sunday we could drive to a Norwegian church and listen to a sermon in that language, or to a Danish or a Swedish church. We could go to the French Catholic settlement in the next county and hear a sermon in French, or into the Bohemian township and hear one in Czech, or we could go to church with the German Lutherans. There were, of course, American congregations also. There is a Prague in Nebraska as well as in Bohemia. Many of our Czech immigrants were people of a very su- perior type. The political emigration resulting from the revolutionary disturbances of 1848 was distinctly different from the emigration resulting from economic causes, and brought to the United States brilliant young men both from Germany and Bohemia. In Nebraska our Czech settlements were large and very prosperous. I have walked about the streets of Wilber, the county seat of Saline County, for a whole day without hearing a word of English spoken. In Wilber, in the old days, behind the big, friendly brick saloon —it was not a “saloon,” properly speaking, but a beer gar- den, where the farmers ate their lunch when they came to town—there was a pleasant little theater where the boys and girls were trained to give the masterpieces of Czech drama in the Czech language. “Americanization” has doubt- less done away with all this. Our lawmakers have a rooted conviction that a boy can be a better American if he speaks only one language than if he speaks two. I could name a dozen Bohemian towns in Nebraska where one used to be able to go into a bakery and buy better pastry than is to be had anywhere except in the best pastry shops of Prague or Vienna. The American lard pie never corrupted the Czech. Cultivated, restless young men from Europe made incon- gruous figures among the hard-handed breakers of the soil. Frederick Amiel’s nephew lived for many years and finally died among the Nebraska farmers. Amiel’s letters to his kinsman were published in the Atlantic Monthly of March, 1921, under the title “Amiel in Nebraska.” Camille Saint- Saéns’s cousin lived just over the line, in Kansas. Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for 1920, was a “hired hand” on a Dakota farm to the north of us. Colonies of European people, Slavonic, Ger- manic, Scandinavian, Latin, spread across our bronze prairies like the daubs of color on a painter’s palette. They brought with them something that this neutral new world needed even more than the immigrants needed land. Unfortunately, their American neighbors were seldom open-minded enough to understand the Europeans, or to profit by their older traditions. Our settlers from New Eng- land, cautious and convinced of their own superiority, kept themselves insulated as much as possible from foreign influ- ences. The incomers from the South—from Missouri, Ken- tucky, the two Virginias—were provincial and utterly with- out curiosity. They were kind neighbors—lent a hand to help a Swede when he was sick or in trouble. But I am quite sure that Knut Hamsun might have worked a year for any one of our Southern farmers, and his employer would never have discovered that there was anything unusual about the Norwegian. A New England settler might have noticed that his chore-boy had a kind of intelligence, but he would have distrusted and stonily disregarded it. If the daughter of a shiftless West Virginia mountaineer married the nephew of a professor at the University of Upsala, the native family felt disgraced by such an alliance, Nevertheless, the thrift and intelligence of its preponder- ant European population have been potent factors in bring- ing about the present prosperity of the State. The census of 1910 showed that there were then 228,648 foreign-born and native-born Germans living in Nebraska; 103,503 Scan- dinavians; 50,680 Czechs. The total foreign population of the State was then 900,571, while the entire population was 1,192,214. That is, in round numbers, there were about nine hundred thousand foreign Americans in the State, to three hundred thousand native stock. With such a majority of foreign stock, nine to three, it would be absurd to say that the influence of the European does not cross the boundary of his own acres, and has had nothing to do with shaping the social ideals of the commonwealth. When I stop at one of the graveyards in my own county, and see on the headstones the names of fine old men I used to know: “Eric Ericson, born Bergen, Norway ‘ died Nebraska,” “Anton Pucelik, born Prague, Bohemia died Nebraska,” I have always the hope that some- thing went into the ground with those pioneers that will one day come out again. Something that will come out not only in sturdy traits of character, but in elasticity of mind, in an honest attitude toward the realities of life, in certain quali- ties of feeling and imagination. Some years ago a professor at the University of Nebraska happened to tell me about a boy in one of his Greek classes who had a very unusual taste for the classics—intuitions and perceptions in literature. This puzzled him, he said, as the boy’s parents had no inter-

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238 est in such things. I knew what the professor did not: that, though this boy had an American name, his grandfather was a Norwegian, a musician of high attainment, a fellow- student and life-long friend of Edvard Grieg. It is in that great cosmopolitan country known as the Middle West that we may hope to see the hard molds of American provincial- ism broken up; that we may hope to find young talent which will challenge the pale proprieties, the insincere, conven- tional optimism of our art and thought. The rapid industrial development of Nebraska, which be- gan in the latter eighties, was arrested in the years 1893-97 by a succession of crop failures and by the financial depres- sion which spread over the whole country at that time—the depression which produced the People’s Party and the Free Silver agitation. These years of trial, as everyone now real- izes, had a salutary effect upon the new State. They win- nowed out the settlers with a purpose from the drifting mal- contents who are ever seeking a land where man does not live by the sweat of his brow. The slack farmer moved on. Superfluous banks failed, and money lenders who drove hard bargains with desperate men came to grief. The strongest stock survived, and within ten years those who had weath- ered the storm came into their reward. What that reward is, you can see for yourself if you motor through the State from Omaha to the Colorado line. The country has no secrets; it is as open as an honest human face. The old, isolated farms have come together. They rub shoulders. The whole State is a farm. Now it is the pas- ture lands that look little and lonely, crowded in among so much wheat and corn. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that every farmer owns an automobile. I believe the last estimate showed that there is one motor car for every six inhabitants in Nebraska. The great grain fields are plowed by tractors. The old farm houses are rapidly being re- placed by more cheerful dwellings, with bathrooms and hard- wood floors, heated by furnaces or hot-water plants. Many of them are lighted by electricity, and every farm house has its telephone. The country towns are clean and well kept. On Saturday night the main street is a long black line of parked motor cars; the farmers have brought their families to town to see the moving-picture show. When the school bell rings on Monday morning, crowds of happy looking chil- dren, well nourished—for the most part well mannered, too, —flock along the shady streets. They wear cheerful, mod- ern clothes, and the girls, like the boys, are elastic and vigor- ous in their movements. These thousands and thousands of children—in the little towns and in the country schools— these, of course, ten years from now, will be the State. In this time of prosperity any farmer boy who wishes to study at the State University can do so. A New York law- yer who went out to Lincoln to assist in training the uni- versity students for military service in war time exclaimed when he came back: ‘What splendid young men! I would not have believed that any school in the world could get to- gether so many boys physically fit, and so few unfit.” Of course, there is the other side of the medal, stamped with the ugly crest of materialism, which has set its seal upon all of our most productive commonwealths. Too much prosperity, too many moving-picture shows, too much gaudy fiction have colored the taste and manners of so many of these Nebraskans of the future. There, as elsewhere, one finds the frenzy to be showy; farmer boys who wish to be spenders before they are earners, girls who try to look like the heroines of the cinema screen; a coming generation The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8035 - which tries to cheat its aesthetic sense by buying things instead of making anything. There is even danger that that fine institution, the University of Nebraska, may be- come a gigantic trade school. The men who control its destiny, the regents and the lawmakers, wish their sons and daughters to study machines, mercantile processes, “the principles of business’; everything that has to do with the game of getting on in the world—and nothing else. The classics, the humanities, are having their dark hour. They are in eclipse. Studies that develop taste and enrich personality are not encouraged. But the “Classics” have a way of revenging themselves. One may venture to hope that the children, or the grandchildren, of a generation that goes to a university to select only the most utilitarian sub- jects in the course of study—among them, salesmanship and dressmaking—will revolt against all the heaped-up, machine-made materialism about them. They will go back to the old sources of culture and wisdom—not as a duty, but with burning desire. In Nebraska, as in so many other States, we must face the fact that the splendid story of the pioneers is finished, and that no new story worthy to take its place has yet begun. The generation that subdued the wild land and broke up the virgin prairie is passing, but it is still there, a group of rugged figures in the background which inspire respect, compel admiration. With these old men and women the attainment of material prosperity was a moral victory, be- cause it was wrung from hard conditions, was the result of a struggle that tested character. They can look out over those broad stretches of fertility and say: “We made this, with our backs and hands.” The sons, the generation now in middle life, were reared amid hardships, and it is per- haps natural that they should be very much interested in material comfort, in buying whatever is expensive and ugly. Their fathers came into a wilderness and had to make every- thing, had to be as ingenious as shipwrecked sailors. The generation now in the driver’s seat hates to make anything, wants to live and die in an automobile, scudding past those acres where the old men used to follow the long corn-rows up and down. They want to buy everything ready-made: clothes, food, education, music, pleasure. Will the third generation—the full-blooded, joyous one just coming over the hill—will it be fooled? Will it believe that to live easily is to live happily? The wave of generous idealism, of noble seriousness, which swept over the State of Nebraska in 1917 and 1918, demon- strated how fluid and flexible is any living, growing, expand- ing society. If such “conversions” do not last, they at least show of what men and women are capable. Surely the ma- terialism and showy extravagance of this hour are a passing phase! They will mean no more in half a century from now than will the “hard times” of twenty-five years ago—which are already forgotten. The population is as clean and full of vigor as the soil; there are no old grudges, no heritages of disease or hate. The belief that snug success and easy money are the real aims of human life has settled down over our prairies, but it has not yet hardened into molds and crusts. The people are warm, mercurial, impressionable, restless, over-fond of novelty and change. These are not the qualities which make the dull chapters of history. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of September 19, will be Montana: Land of the Copper Collar, by Arthur Fisher.

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 239 When the Troops Took Tulsa By McALISTER COLEMAN ROM behind a tree on quiet Boston Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, steps a steel-helmeted militiaman. His bayonet gleams in the arc light. A belated clubman, owner of many millions invested in producing oil wells, halts dis- gustedly at the soldier’s challenge. “You gotter be off the streets by eleven-thirty,” an- nounces the militiaman, “and you got just three minutes to make it.” Before he goes to bed the oil man composes a letter to the Tulsa Tribune that fairly sizzles with rage. “This clown in the governor’s office’—‘“the outrage committed on our city’—“attempts to hold Tulsa up to shame before the world’”—are some of the milder phrases. Tulsa, with her pride not yet healed from the wounds of the shameful race riots of 1921, writhes again under the affront of martial law. For the second time in two years the citizens of one of the wealthiest towns in the Southwest, “Tulsa, the oil center of the universe,” are being told by youngsters in khaki when to go to bed and when to get up. It hurts, and Tulsa cries aloud in angry pain. News that Governor Walton had ordered Adjutant Gen- eral Markham to march his troops into the city of smart residences and towering office buildings, 200 miles to the north of Oklahoma’s capital, was as much a surprise to Tulsa and the rest of the State as it was to the country at large. To be sure, the Governor had shown no hesitancy in proclaiming martial law in Okmulgee back in June when it looked as though whipping mobs were having things their own way, but you don’t mention Okmulgee and Tulsa in the same breath in the Sooner State. There are just two cities in Oklahoma that Eastern visitors hear much about. One is Oklahoma City and the other Tulsa. For years there has been the customary twin-city rivalry be- tween the two with great swapping of statistics at ban- quets of chambers of commerce and Rotarians. Today the “respectable elements” of Oklahoma City make common cause with the commercial bodies of Tulsa in denouncing the calling out of the troops as unwarranted and hurling anathemas at Governor “Jack.” There is this to be said for the Governor; he is un- expected. You see him deliberately turn his back on the Farmer-Labor groups who worked so valiantly for his election. You watch him first appoint and then, a few weeks later, discharge the farmers’ choice for the head of the State agricultural college. You hear him denounced by every progressive organ as a “Judas” and worse. You are told that the oil interests of Tulsa have bought him up, and that the price was an automobile, a new house, and an op- portunity to play golf with Oklahoma society. And then you come on him sending troops to patrol the very homes of those who are supposed to have him in their pockets. An opportunist, perhaps, this people’s Governor, the Walton of the Great Barbecue, the “hickory-shirt” Jack who now wears knickers and golf stockings; but certainly an incon- sistent opportunist judging by his present conduct. In July it was the Oklahoma Leader, the official mouthpiece of the Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League, that alone of all the papers in the State hissed Walton through every editorial column. In August the Tulsa Tribune and World outdid even the hated Leader in their deep damnation of the Governor. The suggestion runs counter to all the hero- villain psychology of newspaperdom, but isn’t it barely pos- sible that Walton has in him much the same potentialities for good and evil that are contained in the majority of the citizens of his State? The only possible political motive that would animate the sending of troops to Tulsa would be suicide. It is too late—Walton knows it is too late—for the Governor to recapture the old loyalty of the farmers and workers. He is making lasting enemies of the busi- ness interests to whom he is supposed to have sold out. Lacking any other evidence, the most skeptical observer must admit, no matter how reluctantly, that, in the case of Tulsa, the Governor has acted with laudable courage. A dastardly outrage is committed on the main streets of Tulsa, the culmination of a long series of mob outbreaks. No attempt is made to arrest any members of the mob. There is strong evidence of police connivance. The victim appeals to the Governor, and mirabile dictu! the militia are sent—not to “protect property” and arrest striking work- ers—but to take into custody the highly respectable mob- bists. Naturally the Rotarians tear their expensive shirts and the Optimists seek the wailing-wall. Walton was at Sulphur, a summer resort seventy miles from the capital, when a machine drove into Oklahoma City with a badly crippled man in the back seat. This was Nate Hantaman, a Tulsa rooming-house keeper. man limped into the office of Aldrich Blake, the Governor’s secretary, and, soon after he had told his story, troops were mobilizing to move on Tulsa, following telephonic or- ders from the Governor. According to Hantaman, he was told to report at Tulsa Police Headquarters and was there questioned concerning selling drugs in his house. He answered the questions to the apparent satisfaction of the police and was allowed to leave. A short distance away on one of Tulsa’s principal streets within plain view of headquarters Hantaman was thrown into an automobile by a number of unmasked men. He cried out to passers-by but no attention was paid to his appeals. He was gagged after persistent shouting, and taken through town and out onto a country road, where he was stripped naked, beaten, and thrown into a ditch. From his waist down Hantaman was a raw mass of welts and bruises made by the black-snake whip. Witnesses in cor- roborating his story added that a police car had followed the machine in which Hantaman was abducted and that the police could at any time have prevented the outrage. Several arrests have been made by the militia in the course of their investigation, but in all instances the ar- rested men have been freed by the civil authorities to whom they had been turned over. Mayor Newblock of Tulsa at first refused to direct the Tulsa police to take orders from the militia but changed his mind after a talk with Attorney- General Short. The scope of the military investigation was enlarged, soon after the arrival of the troops, to take in other floggings that have occurred in and about Tulsa for several years past. Ku Klux? No definite proof has yet been produced con- necting the Klan with the whipping of Hantaman. Klans- Hanta- ©

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240 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3035 men point out that the rooming-house keeper’s abductors were unmasked, and insist that the Knights of the Invisible Empire in Oklahoma have never been convicted of an illegal act. Before the Klan existed, in Oklahoma there were whip- pings and mobbings. Did not a mob take a cowering white boy from the top floor of the Tulsa jail four years ago and march him through the streets (while the police directed traffic) to the tree where he was hanged? Did not all Tulsa join in the running fight that terminated in the wiping out by rifle and torch of the negro section of the town on a tragic day in June, 1921? Have not “white” laborers re- cently driven out Mexicans brought in to work on the Spavinaw dam project near Tulsa? Why blame the Klan for another display of Tulsa’s periodic lawlessness? There is no evidence, perhaps, of actual Klan participa- tion in the Hantaman case—no evidence, at any rate, that will stand before a jury chosen from the body of a Klan- infested county. But the few—the very few—citizens of Tulsa who are not joining in the clamor over the troops, who are honestly ashamed of their city’s long record of violence, are wondering if the hatreds loosed by the forma- tion of the Klan in the Southwest might not somehow be moving in the background of all these lawless acts. Soon after the militia marched down the streets of Tulsa, fiery crosses burned on all the hills of Oklahoma. Klan spokes- men said that the demonstration was:a memorial for Presi- dent Harding. The other night in Oklahoma City I heard 30,000 persons cheer the sight of an aeroplane, with a crimson cross outlined on its wings, wheeling above a Klan initiation at the city’s amusement park. Since the occupa- tion of Tulsa the Governor has received warning letters signed K. K. K. Perhaps the men who flogged Hantaman so cruelly that he will be crippled for life were not Klansmen. Many organizations, masked and unmasked, have been formed recently in Oklahoma with the same peculiar notions of law and order as the Klan. But no one can escape the fact that as soon as the Kleagles got to work in the Southwest rioting became organized on a grand and most businesslike scale. Secretary Blake is sponsor for the statement that since the inauguration of the Governor last January at least one whipping a day has been reported at the State House. There is a sure contagion about the Klan idea of beating up a neighbor suspected of moral, economic, or religious heterodoxy. How far Governor Walton will go in isolating the germ remains to be seen. In all events it may be said of the Governor of Oklahoma that he has taken refreshingly vigorous action. In the Dnftway HE Drifter has read again a book of which he is un- commonly fond. “The Private Papers of Henry Rye- croft,” by George Gissing, he avers, contains more sound wisdom, more unpretentious and delightful learning, and a quicker eye for beauty than most books of twice its length. Henry Ryecroft is moved more than ordinary mortals with a love of England. English writers are good to him, and English faults; English landscapes he praises, and English beef. ‘The very coloring of a round, how rich it is, yet how delicate, and how oe varied! ... Hot of course with carrots, it is a dish for/a king; but cold it is nobler. Oh, the thin broad slice, with just its fringe of consistent fat!” Even the English boiled potato put into the sauce- pan with a sprig of mint—“This is genius. Not otherwise could the flavor of the vegetable be so perfectly, yet so delicately, emphasized.” * * * * * HE English country was to Ryecroft—and doubtless also to Gissing—a continual source of delight. This is the valley of the Blythe. The stream ripples and glances over its brown bed warmed with sunbeams; by its bank the green flags wave and rustle, and, all about, the meadows shine in pure gold of buttercups. The hawthorn hedges are a mass of gleaming blossom, which scents the breeze. . . . I ram- ble through a village in Gloucestershire, a village which seems forsaken in this drowsy warmth of the afternoon. The houses of gray stone are old and beautiful . . . the gardens glow with flowers. . . . At the village end, I come into a lane, which winds upward between grassy slopes to turf and bracken and woods of noble beech. Here I am upon a spur of the Cotswolds, and before me spreads the wide vale of Evesham, with its ripening crops, its fruiting orchards, watered by Sacred Avon. Beyond, softly blue, the hills of Malvern. ...I see the low church tower, with the little graveyard about it. Meanwhile, high in heaven, a lark is singing. It drops to its nest and I could dream that half the happiness of his exultant song was love of Eng- lander * * * * * ERY touching and profound are the sentences which tell of Ryecroft’s gratitude for the peace and security » brought him, after fifty years of grinding poverty, by the bequest of a modest living of 300 pounds a year. His small house, the ability to buy books and the leisure to read them, above all the quiet of a well-kept household in the country, are mentioned with delight on nearly every page. And in his solitude he could still think of others who lacked it. It is a pleasant thing enough to be able to spend a little money without fear when the desire for some indulgence is strong upon one; but how much pleasanter the ability to give money away! Greatly as I relish the comforts of my wonder- ful new life, no joy it has brought me equals that of coming in aid to another’s necessity. ... Today I sent S a check for fifty pounds; it will come as a very boon of heaven, and assuredly blesseth him that gives as much as him that takes. A poor fifty pounds, which the wealthy fool throws away upon some idle or base fantasy, and never thinks of it; yet to S it will mean life and light. And I, to whom this power of bene- faction is such a new thing, sign the check with a hand trem- bling, so glad and proud am I. * * * * * A gentle and lucid book, and not a little tragic, for the man who wrote of Ryecroft’s peace was never to have that experience. But he could write eloquently of the peace he wished to have, and for that no one is more in his debt than THE DRIFTER Contributors to This Issue WILLA CATHER was recently awarded the Pulitzer prize for the best American novel of 1922 on account of her story “One of Ours.” MAxiIM GoRKI is a Russian novelist whose writing has long been familiar to Americans in translation. McALISTER COLEMAN was close to the events of which he writes through his connection with the Oklahoma Leader, a farmer-labor daily newspaper.

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 241 Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Questions for the Woman’s Party TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Since in your issue of August 8 you publish the text of the Woman’s Party’s new proposal for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, will you not offer the Woman’s Party space in your columns to answer the following questions concerning it? 1. How are the words “Women shall have equal rights” to be interpreted? Is the Woman’s Party inviting colored women voters in New York to support this amendment which appears to mean that, upon its ratification, colored women will occupy boxes and orchestra seats in the Metropolitan Opera House as freely as white women now occupy them? And that colored women will attend the University of South Carolina, and travel in Pullman sleeping cars in Texas, Georgia, and Florida? If it does not mean this, should not the amendment read: ‘White women shall have equal rights in the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction?” 2. Do the words “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States” mean that they shall have equal rights, as heretofore, to differ? For instance, men are now compelled to support their wives and children. Failure to do so is, in many States, a valid ground for divorce and in others for various penalties. Would the completed ratification of the amendment usher in the nationwide release of husbands and fathers from this obligation? 8. Finally, would wage-earning women be compelled to wait for the short working day, established by statute, until wage- earning men achieve the same limit of hours for themselves? If so, is not this a new subjection of women wage-earners to men? Should not the amendment, then, be altered to read: ‘White men and women who are not wage-earners shall have equal rights throughout the United States and all places subject to its jurisdiction”? Will not the Woman’s Party categorically reply to these ques- tions? New York, August 21 FLORENCE KELLEY The Cause of Austria’s Fall and Rise To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: With all respect to the Chief Magistrate of my coun- try, I must protest against the reflection upon my fairness in his letter printed in The Nation for June 20. Neither Presi- dent Hainisch nor Professor Brockhausen attempts to deny any of the facts cited in my article A Country Without a States- man in your issue of March 14. I have never denied the ser- vices of the Prime Minister, Mr. Seipel. Summarizing the situa- tion in February, 1923, I naturally did not emphasize the diffi- culties overcome by Mr. Seipel in obtaining the help of the League of Nations for Austria. These difficulties, however, did not lie, as Professor Brockhausen suggests, in the League of Nations, but in Austria herself, in the propaganda carried on for the annexation of Austria to the German Empire. This propaganda was in open opposition to the fundamental Article 88 of the Treaty of St. Germain, which requires the mainte-- nance of the independence of the Austrian Republic. While the Austrians were directing their entire energy to the destruc- tion of the peace treaty, the League naturally could not obtain credits for them. Furthermore, in the hope of forcing a change in this article, all the Austrian parties were seeking to prove that Austria must collapse unless she were annexed to Germany. The International Conference naturally drew the conclusion that Austria would not be a good creditor. The situation improved as soon as the perverse theory of the imminent collapse of Austria was given up. Dr. Wilhelm Rosenberg, the financial adviser of the Schober Ministry, was responsible for this change before Mr. Seipel took office, and when, on October 4, 1922, Mr. Seipel solemnly repledged the republic to maintain Article 88 of the Treaty of St. Germain, the way was cleared for rehabilitation. With a few friends I attempted to effect this change in policy long before Dr. Rosenberg or Dr. Seipel, and among others we sought the support of President Hainisch and Pro- fessor Brockhausen. We found them, like many others, either actively or passively opposed. So I understand the difficulties which Dr. Seipel had to overcome from my own painful ex- perience and can only rejoice that they lie so far behind us that President Hainisch and his letter-writing friend seem to have forgotten them entirely. Vienna, Austria, June 30 HEINRICH KANNER A Voice from Jerusalem To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Week by week The Nation comes to me with the Ameri- can mail, as truly a personal message as the longed-for letters, and brings into a rich, full, cosmopolitan life, lived at one of the cross-roads of the world, a breath of the wider world, of the spirit of freedom that bridges the gulf between East and West. And as with all your faithful friends, I do not allow your copies to go to waste; I pass them on to the next American. Sometimes my experience here strikes a sharp note of con- trast with statements made in your paper. For example, in the trenchant article of Mr. Smertenko on What America Has Done for the Jew, I find this: “Basic in all the significant changes of Jewish character ... is the spirit of democracy which is America’s greatest contribution to modern Jewish life.” Yet I find here, in Palestine, where only an insignificant minority of the Jews have ever seen America, a spirit of democracy among the Jews which makes me feel at home, and a chance for demo- cratic expression in the forms of social life for which I longed vainly in America. This despite the fact that there is not yet self-government in the accepted political sense. The Jewish community is organized internally, and the workingmen’s party is by far the strongest, with the result that its voice is heard in all councils, even the government’s; that its organization is the largest employer of labor, taking contracts successfully for the government as well as for private individuals; that it runs a bank, a cooperative store, and a large number of cooperative labor camps and agricultural groups. To say nothing of the spirit of democracy in daily life. I am often reminded of Jus- tice Brandeis’s saying that the thing which brought him to Zionism was work with Jewish labor unions, for that convinced him that the Jew had a peculiar gift for democracy which he ought to be allowed to express in a land of his own. Jerusalem, June 3 JESSIE E. SAMPTER The ‘‘Prurient Prude’’ TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Siz: Would not the following delightful bit from Charles Reade’s “Round Table,” dated October, 1866, exactly express the sort of people responsible for some recent attacks on good literature? “There is a kind of hypocrite that has never been effectually exposed for want of an expressive name. I beg to supply that defect in our language and introduce to mankind the ‘Prurient Prude.’” In these days of slogans and apt phrases “Prurient Prude” is worth reviving. New Canaan, Connecticut, July 25 GRACE ISABEL COLBRON BURLINGAME PUBLIC oY es a ie) ae ee Te |

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242 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3035 White Terror in the West Indies To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: SIR: Give me the good old tropics, And a “shot” of Haitian booze, Down where there are no commandments, And you live and do as you choose. Give me a scrap in the jungle, Or a raid on a gambling-joint, Where you pull out the glistening bayonet, And say, “Do you see the point?” Give me the mellow moonlight, That shines on the Caribbean! If I cannot be a millionaire, Let me be a marine! Being adventurous, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1916. After training at Port Royal, 8. C., I embarked on the collier Neptune for Santo Domingo with a lot of other rookies. When I arrived at Sanchez I saw people dressed in suits of gunny-sack, and a mountain whose trees leaned back as if ready to spring at something. I had not been in Sanchez many days before an earthquake took place. It was midnight and the shock knocked more than one marine from his bunk, the water tanks were running over, the earth was opening up, swallowing houses with their occu- pants, pyramids of fire were darting from Samana Bay and the Caribbean Sea. Hardly had the tumult subsided when the call to arms was sounded. A detachment of marines at San Fran- cisco de Macoris was surrounded, outnumbered, and in danger of annihilation by General Emil King’s army. We killed and wounded 169 people at La Saba, and suffered one casualty among ourselves: a private was shot through his right arm. We pushed him along on a hand-car until we came to Barbara. There, when we secured some drinking water, we found that most of it had been poisoned; so many of us went thirsty. Then began an orgy of looting. In one house we discovered a large table with a veritable banquet laid out on it, but, when we sat down to eat, a corporal came and knocked the table over; he then proved to us that the food was poisoned. One of our officers shot an old native who was kneeling in prayer, while Captain Hughes threatened to burn the entire town on our return, if any of our supplies in one of the wrecked freight cars had been molested. Suddenly a rebel army of about 500 hove into sight on a long train of passenger cars. There were only thirty-nine of us, but we had Benet Mercier machine-guns, and mounted them upon logs. Had Captain Hughes let us pour our death-dealing missiles into the approaching locomotive, we could have blown it up and destroyed a number of the enemy but, instead, he let the enemy run into the jungles, making it possible for them to snipe at us for the rest of our long and tedious journey. There is nothing more harrowing than fighting an invisible enemy. All that day we had but one egg sandwich apiece. Dominican cavalry appeared on the track. We pumped lead into them, and many a beautiful horse plunged over a bridge or a precipice. We could see them lying far below us writhing in agony. The more merciful among us, although it was against orders to waste ammunition, took aim with our Springfields and put a few of them out of their misery. We captured a cavalry- man who was loaded down with rum, and several of us became intoxicated. The best thing to do when in battle is to chew tobacco and drink liquor so as to steady the nerves and deaden the senses. All of us who were drunk became heroes. I was always a hero while in the West Indies because I was never sober. EDWARD J. IRVINE, Ex-private, 32nd Co., 4th Reg., Sanchez, D. R. Washington, D. C., June 8 How ‘‘Wobbly’’ Originated TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your editorial (July 18) upon the stand taken by eleven of the political prisoners in Leavenworth, in refusing a commutation of sentence that would entail a life-time parole, prompts me to send an extract from a letter from Mortimer Downing, one of the Sacramento men: Probably few on the outside can estimate what a simple and earnest deed it was to choose imprisonment rather than liberty; and in one case it means the serving of a twenty-year sentence (James Rowan). The essential principle of our whole industrial movement is solidarity. The world has outgrown individualism and all its train of violence and inhumanity. We call ourselves In- ternational Workers of the World to emphasize just this basic fact of essential human brotherhood. ...We are sentries on guard; our stations are fixed until such time as we may be honorably relieved of our responsibility. We can surrender noth- ing of the principles for which we stand. ... Never before has material power been so clearly arrayed against the power of the human spirit. How can any honest soul palter with such issues as these, or cringe and compromise before their challenge? Incidentally, at the close of his letter, he gives the origin of the term “‘Wobbly,” so often applied to members of the I.W.W.: Up in Vancouver, in 1911, we had a number of Chinese members, and one restaurant keeper would trust any member for meals. He could not pronounce the letter “w,” but called it “wobble,” and would ask: “You I. Wobble Wobble?” and when the card was shown credit was unlimited. Thereafter the laughing term among us was “I. Wobbly Wobbly,” and when Herman Suhr, during the Wheatland strike, wired for all foot-loose ‘“‘Wobblies” to hurry there, of course the prosecution made a mountain of mystery out of it, and the term has stuck to us ever since. Considering its origin, I rather like the nickname. It hints of a fine, practical internationalism, a human brotherhood based on a community of interests and of understanding. New York, July 23 RICHARD W. HOGUE Einstein and the League Again To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Was it The Nation which recently quoted what Ein- stein had said about the League of Nations? If so, I hope you will quote the inclosed. Geneva, Switzerland, August 12 MANLEY O. HUDSON. [The inclosure is a clipping from a German newspaper stating that at a meeting of peace societies in Berlin on July 29, Professor Binstein stated: “You know that I myself had a disagreement with the League of Nations and turned my back upon it in disgust because of what I had seen of it. But I believe that I acted mis- takenly, for, however bad the League of Nations may be in respect to what it has accomplished, it is tremendously important in re- spect to the possibilities which lie concealed within it. Even if it had managed matters even worse than it has done we would have to admit that under present-day conditions it is the only organiza- tion which offers the possibility of establishing relations between nations. Germany should therefore not let the year pass without utilizing this means of communication. The majority of the League is today still composed of people who lack the qualities necessary to make it a valuable institution, but I have convinced myself that there are in the League many valuable elements which are really earnestly striving to improve international relations.”] More North Carolina Journalism To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Stuart Chase’s epitome of the contents of the Charlotte: (North Carolina) Observer furnished a number of laughs. You may get at least a smile when I inform you that another North Carolina paper recently spoke disparagingly in its headlines of “immigrants from Asiatic and other undesirable countries.” San Francisco, July 25 HAROLD Coy |

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 3 243 Books The American Short Story The Development of the American Short Story. By Fred Lewis Pattee. Harper and Brothers. $2.50. The Advance of the American Short Story. By Edward J. O’Brien. Dodd, Mead and Company. $2. Representative American Short Stories. Edited by Alexander Jessup. Allyn and Bacon. $4. Mone and more we succumb to the delusion of the man in + the street that, since his automobile, locomotive, and air- ship move ten times as rapidly as the chariots of ancient Greece, Judea, and Rome, he has improved proportionately all other functions of civilization. And yet it is sufficiently obvious that in things of the spirit the graph of progress does not mount in accord with the chronological table. Certainly the trend of the American short story in the century of its life has been—to borrow an analogy from another art—from colonial mansion to the two-family flat rather than from log-cabin to skyscraper. This fact Messrs. Pattee and O’Brien both recognize although their titles seem to cater to the popular fallacy, unless one interprets “development” and “advance” to mean simply move- ment, not improvement. For, in so far as Dr. Pattee has permitted himself to pro- nounce judgment, he agrees with Mr. O’Brien that the con- temporary short story has developed high mechanical efficiency at the expense of the thought, the truth to life, and the urge for self-expression which are necessary to a work of art. He, too, criticizes the handbooks and the university laboratories which teach the new trade ‘“‘with laws as arbitrary and as multitudi- nous as those governing bridge whist.” He would concur in Mr. O’Brien’s opinion that “short-story writing, which is only justified when it is an art, infrequently rises nowadays to the lower dignity of a profession, and is for the most part a clever form of trading, in which deceptive tricks are at a high pre- mium,” and that an author’s technique no longer means any- thing more than “a generic term for labor-saving devices to alleviate his own fatigue and that of his readers.” But, on the whole, Professor Pattee has sought to evade the responsibility of general criticism; he holds that “it is not the province of the literary historian to discuss or even to venture an opinion” on the value of the short-story medium or on the relative excellence of the successive stages in its evolution. When in the course of his survey of “the one literary form that America has evolved and presented to the world” he discusses individual writers, Mr. Pattee does not hesitate to condemn harshly and discriminately the idols of patriotic pedagogues. Instead of lighting another smoky incense-burner at the national shrine, he rubs our literary fetishes vigorously enough to show that some of their glitter is but tinsel. Though this book is full of trenchant and important matter, the author’s manner is tediously pedantic: “For the short story as we know it today Irving performed perhaps nine distinctive services.” Follows 1, 2, 3, 4. ... Likewise, the contributions, phases, character- istics, periods, and influences are enumerated in this classroom fashion. Mr. O’Brien, on the other hand, permits little of academic classification, or academic calm for that matter, to mar the interest of his work. Reading this book is an adventure. Its author is concerned with the American short story because he is concerned with American civilization, of which literature is the expression as well as the interpretation. And, though his criticisms of both will present nothing startling to the readers of Mr. Mencken’s jeremiads, they illumine the subject by the brillianey of his parables and analogies. Taking as his thesis this quotation from Samuel Butler: “America will have her geniuses, as every other country has. In fact she has already had one in Walt Whitman, but I do not think America is a good place in which to be a genius. A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind,” Mr. O’Brien exhibits our short-story writers as proof that pio- neer America was and is a bad place for the true artist. In Irving and Hawthorne, Melville and Poe, Henry James, Mark Twain, and the more modern authors he finds either revolt or romantic escape from the sordid reality, the engulfing tide of materialism, of these United States. The evidence seems to me a bit forced, just as the other note, disillusionment for ac- cepted literary men and suffering for the unsuccessful, is a bit strained. As for the short story, it was inevitable that this medium should suffer from the standardization of American life. With the exception of the work of Sherwood Anderson and Waldo Frank, in which Mr. O’Brien places his hopes for the future, and an occasional solitary work of art, the contemporary short story is “the product of one or more of four heresies”—type, local color, plot, and surprise ending—which, operating like a soulless machine with a clever mind, suggest more and more “that the secret of perpetual motion is being fatally discov- ered.” One might easily take issue with Mr. O’Brien, yet he is much closer to the truth than Mr. Jessup, who, though he accepts the former’s critical standards, comes to the usual textbook com- piler’s telltale conclusions, namely: “In the short story Amer- ica, ever since Poe, has led the world,” “his [Bret Harte’s] work gives a better representation of American life than either [Hawthorne or Poe].” Though shallow in its prefatory criti- cism, this book is probably the best anthology of American short stories yet published. Mr. Jessup has fortunately set himself the task of selecting “the best at all periods of development, even though the best of one decade fall far below the best of another.” This he has performed intelligently and to the in- disputable vindication of Messrs. Pattee and O’Brien. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Gandhi and India Gandhi, the Apostle. By Haridas T. Muzumdar. Universal Publishing Company. $1.50. T is plain that Haridas Muzumdar feels that “it is laid upon him” to speak, and equally plain that the power to do this has been vouchsafed to him. A burning desire to set his coun- try in its proper light before the world, combined with a grasp of the subject and unusual powers of expression, have helped to make a book worth the attention of anyone who would know the facts in connection with Mahatma Gandhi and the politico- spiritual movement which has swept over India. The book has that illusive but real thing we call charm. The second part is preceded by a panorama of Indian his- tory, notable for its content and the beauty of its English. “In sketching this panorama,” says the author, “my purpose has been, not to advocate but to record. ... India’s is a struggle for world freedom, for the world cannot indeed be free as long as one-fifth of the human race are denied freedom. . A free India will be eminently fitted to preach the gospel of universal brotherhood, peace on earth, good-will among men, and, God willing, she shall carry forward the great purpose.” The two chapters entitled Indian Society and Contribution to Civilization will be most revealing even to those who think they know India; and in India a Nation is to be found material rarely met with in the so-called information gathered for west- ern consumption. Here is shown the beginning of Indian na- tionalism, which was coincident with the disillusionment that followed Queen Victoria’s Proclamation of 1858—the expression of which, says the author, remains a “pious hope” to this day. Here too is a telling description of the bureaucratic misrule which sowed the seeds of racial antagonism, creating “an at- mosphere of inferiority . . . in which the tallest [had to] bend,”

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244 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 3035 ee area area eee rece ee eee reee ocr eee eee sere eee eee enna eee ee ere ee ee LL and stunting the race by means of “the dish of opium” prepared by the grace of the alien government. But irresponsible tyranny welded together the peoples of the far-flung provinces; the re- sulting poverty and chronic hunger impregnated the masses with discontent; and stupid and cruel autocracy on the part of men like Dalhousie, Lytton, and Curzon furnished the reason for revolt. Mr. Muzumdar pays his tribute of praise to Indians whose self-sacrificing efforts paved the way for the Mahatma, and he gives due appreciation to men of the type of Wedder- burn and Sir Henry Cotton—public-spirited leaders thoroughly imbued with the British tradition of freedom and liberty—and particularly to Mr. A. O. Hume, to whom he credits the success of the Indian National Congress. It was this organization which grew slowly but surely from an instrument of social reform to the vehicle of national revolt, and which passed under the control of Gandhi in 1920, standing unanimously, in Decem- ber of that year, for peaceful non-cooperation with the gov- ernment, to the end that the country might reconstruct its own native institutions and thereby achieve Swaraj—self-govern- ment. The life story of Gandhi is a spirited bit of writing and an absorbingly interesting narrative. “Following the Great War,” says the impressive introductory chapter, “which raised high hopes among Indians, came the disappointing Versailles Treaty ...a jumble of falsehood and idiocy; then the cruelly repressive “Black” Rowlatt Acts of 1919, which set the inchoate mass ablaze with indignation. To make their feelings articulate was needed a man, a hero—their man. ... The worst would have happened, but Gandhi, the personification of Peace, came on the scene, as if to say, ‘Behold, I give you a new gospel and a new commandment. Non-violent resistance is the true way of freedom and self-realization.’ ” The author presents his country’s “Great Soul,” Gandhi, in 2 sympathetic, picturesque, and withal restrained manner, and always with strict regard for the truth. The high spot in the picture comes after the arrest of the Mahatma, in the descrip- tion of the spontaneous act of the whole court in rising when the prisoner, a frail, serene, indomitable figure, clad in a coarse, scanty loin-cloth, entered the court-room for his trial. Then follows Gandhi’s remarkable defense, which will go into the annals with the great human documents of all time. For her deplorable situation today, Mr. Muzumdar asserts that India must blame herself as well as England. ‘‘Non-coop- eration in politics,” he says, “rests on the fundamental political maxim that sovereignty rests with the masses. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance; the price of prosperity and justice is Ahimsa—the law of Love. .. .” India, as this writer sees it, exercised neither vigilance nor Ahimsa. The only way open to her now, he believes, is to continue non-cooperation with the evil of a wrong-headed government, following wholeheartedly the program that Gandhi has laid down—a program which admits of no national antagonism and is “irretrievably har- nessed to truth.” This program, he admits, is at the present writing being “lazily” worked out. But in the short space of three years to have raised the Indian people from the abysmal depth to which submission to a foreign domination had degraded them to a sense of fearlessness and self-respect, and at the same time to have “dragged the moral prestige” of that domi- nating power “in the dust” is a deserving achievement and a prospect and promise of ultimate success. ‘Lord Chelmsford,” says the author, “may fairly be accused of treating Gravity with levity when, ... he alleged that Non-cooperation would collapse by weight of its own intrinsic inanity.” The real revo- lution, he insists, is in the new spirit which has come upon the people. “The technique of the revolutionists may change, but the revolution whose torch has been lit will never die. Not with bomb-shells but with thought-shells, not at the point of the bayonet but at the point of the spindle, not with hatred but with love, will India win her freedom and the freedom of man- kind.” BLANCHE WATSON Van Vechten’s New York The Blind Bow-Boy. By Carl Van Vechten. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. a an alien admirer of this fascinating New York whose chronicler Mr. Van Vechten is, I am somewhat troubled by the attitude of those of his compatriots who have so far com- mented upon “The Blind Bow-Boy.” Younger intellectuals have denounced what they regard as the unbecoming frivolity of his venerable years in transcribing this ultra-modern love story, but they have so disconcertingly misapprehended the par- ticular milieu described that one can hardly take such indigna- tion seriously. More baffling is the appreciation of Mr. Van Vechten’s novel in terms comparable to those employed by Charles Lamb in defense of the English Restoration dramatists. “The Blind Bow-Boy,” in a word, is praised as a charmingly irresponsible picture of an unreal and fantastic world. No wonder the subway announcements invite New Yorkers to get to know their wonderful city! To one suckled, like myself, in a creed more outworn but not perhaps less pagan, the realism of “The Blind Bow-Boy” is its outstanding quality. If the criti- cism of American fiction were my regular métier I should at once salute this book as the great realistic novel of contemporary New York life. Such praise, however, is apparently reserved for remorseless —and usually inarticulate—studies of sex awakening in the Middle West, and sordid matrimonial squabbles in Greenwich Village. The modern American novel shall have none other themes but these. Here, however, is a veracious chronicle which is as realistic in its notation of contemporary manners as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” whose monumental accuracy of detail has been overlooked by those unacquainted with the Dublin of Stephen Dedalus. Mr. Van Vechten’s canvas is as large as Joyce’s but it is not so crowded. Instead of seven hundred and thirty-two closely printed quarto pages, he gives us less than three hundred pages octavo, with ample white spaces and a sym- bolically perverse frontispiece. He has modestly refrained from undertaking that grand masterpiece for which Mr. Mencken is calling, wherein shall be preserved for posterity the gaudy and irresistible figure of this modern Babylon before the fall of a civilization which is culminating in New York. Like Joyce, he has taken a segment of life, but he portrays it with the fine, deft, bizarre strokes of a Beardsley. He does not accumulate detail like Zola, yet one turns from “The Blind Bow-Boy” with as definite an impression of New York in 1922 as one gets of Paris under the Second Empire from the endless tomes of the Rougon Macquart series. Since omission and selection there must be, I am not grieved by the absence from Mr. Van Vechten’s narrative of the ele- ments which admirers of Mr. Upton Sinclair will demand, and I rejoice that, in the handling of many highly delicate and scabreux situations, he has not relapsed into that feeble imita- tion of Joyce which now seems to be the substitute for the crudi- ties of red-blooded realism, and which merely indicates that the author’s manner is as undeveloped as his mind. “The Blind Bow-Boy” is far above mere eccentricities of syntax, yet it has frequently to cope with thoughts and gestures for whose cap- ture nothing short of an explosion of unpunctuated nouns and verbs and suspension dots would seem possible to a less alert technician. Mr. Van Vechten’s theme might be summarized as “Up from Boobery,” for the situation around which the story revolves is that of a youth whose father is determined that his son shall have none of the disadvantages of education, and all the advantages of sophistication, which he himself would like to have enjoyed. I might almost say that this is a plea for the higher education of young men in America. The author is acutely conscious of the fundamental defect which lies back of most of the phenomena that arouse the ire and despair of seri- ous students of American life. Consequently, he postulates a father whose son is intrusted to a tutor who must make of him Se eee

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 245 anne eee ee ee ee eee a eee eee ——————————————————————_———EaEEE an urbane and civilized fellow. To this end certain qualifica- tions are required of the tutor: he must be “of good character but no moral sense. Must know three languages and possess a sense of humor. Autodidact preferred, one whose experience has led him to whatever books he has read. It is absolutely essential that he should have been the central figure in some public scandal. Age, not above thirty.” Equipped with unlimited funds, a tutor answering to these requirements, and an English valet of unusual talents, even in so talented a class, Harold Prewett is launched forth upon the gently swelling seas of New York life, whose waves are so beautifully navigated by Campaspe Lorillard, Paul Moody, the essential tutor, Zimbule O’Grady, Coney Island snake-charmer, the Duke of Middlebottom, and other representative citizens of this New York world. A stray shot from the bow of the Blind Bow-Boy pierces the heart of Harold at the outset, thereby seriously interfering with the progress of his education but heightening the effect of the narrative, for Harold’s inability to respond to the various stimuli offered by this very stimulat- ing group of people is not the least charm of the story. He serves as a foil for the virtuosity of his friends, whose activi- ties provide Mr. Van Vechten with his pictures of present-day New York. What those activities are, it would be both danger- ous and unfair to divulge, unless one has the insinuating charm of the author in conveying delicate facts. As well might one attempt to outline the story of the “Satyricon.” The inhibitions which are supposed to trouble the American soul do not exist for the society to which “The Blind Bow-Boy” is a guide, and neither the Seventh Commandment nor the Eighteenth Amend- ment cast even a shadow over its pages. After so many volumes of morbid introspection or of adolescent revolt, it is a relief to be assured that there are people in this country so happily un- aware of the alleged disadvantages of being an American, who are not overpowered by a sense of their own identity. Van Vechten’s New York is as entertaining as Petronius’s Cumae, and the company that assembled at Trimalchio’s banquet was not more diverting than that which gathered about Campaspe Lorillard in Gramercy Park and furnished material for this’ modern “Satyricon.” ERNEST Boyp American State Government Government in Illinois. By Walter F. Dodd and Sue Hutchison Dodd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $3. T O the average intelligent American the government of Eng- land, if perchance he sets himself to study it, appears to be a labyrinth, while the governments of Continental countries may be likened to a forest from whose depths one emerges more by accident than by design. But what is to be said of the gov- ernment of an American State, with its entangling subdivisions and its contacts and overlappings with the Federal system? Take this book of the Dodds, for example. It is a first-rate account, detailed, comprehensive, and up to date, of the elaborate and complicated political machinery that Illinois has installed. The book is intended, apparently, for a textbook, although the authors intimate that it may also be read. We venture to think, however, that the boy or the girl, the young man or the maid, who really mastered the huge bulk of detail within these covers ought to receive a Carnegie medal for heroism. The practical state of the voter, on the other hand, is worse than that of the embryo citizen in the schools. The general ballot used by Chicago voters at the election of November 2, 1920, measured twenty-nine and one-half by thirty-six inches and contained some 345 separate names. All but four of the 345 candidates belonged to one or another of seven different par- ties, four other parties being represented by one candidate each. One knows only too well what happens to the sacred right of suffrage when offices and names, Federal, State, and local, are piled in solid columns sixty high. The average voter either votes a straight ticket from sheer ignorance or fatigue, which pleases the boss, or marks a few names here and there of per- sons he knows or has heard of, which salves his conscience, or stays away from the polls, which helps nothing. We recom- mend this book to Illinoians as a convincing picture of the po- litical quagmire from which they, in common with their fellows in many another State, need to be extricated. WILLIAM MacDoNALD The Dry Rot of Organized Charity The Neighborhood in Nation-Building. By Robert A. Woods. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company. $3. Social Work in the Light of History. By Stuart Alfred Queen. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott Company. $2. Education and Training for Social Work. By James H. Tufts. New York. Russell Sage Foundation. ROM the day when charity ceased to be the expression of personal friendliness and became organized and scientific, an incurable dry rot seems to have attacked most of its profes- sional practitioners. The whole history of modern philanthropy may be regarded, from one point of view, as an effort to escape the ravages of this fell disease, but the germ has not yet been isolated, nor has any specific been hit upon. Charity societies today are uneasily making themselves over into family welfare agencies, and the national organization has become the National Conference of Social Work. Amid much patter about preven- tion, which has long been the current cant of the craft, there is slowly emerging a conception that if the social worker (accursed term!) is to be anything more than a shuffler of “cases” (s)he must concern h(er)imself with the task of helping build a better social order. But he is a rare performer whose work does not sooner or later eventuate in dust and ashes. The settlement movement, which most of those outside it are likely to regard as already of chiefly historical interest, was an interesting and valuable revolt against laissez-faire charity. In “The Neighborhood in Nation-Building,” one of our settlement veterans gathers together sundry papers written at various times during the past thirty years, representing, on the whole, a safe and sane settlement point of view. Nothing startling and subversive, and nothing hard-boiled or reactionary, mars the placid flow of these pages. Nor have they the throb of life of “Twenty Years at Hull House” or “The House on Henry Street.” This book, like the settlement out of whose life it grew, is hospitable, rather than militant or disturbing. Mr. Woods believes that the young sap flows vigorously up the trunk of the settlement tree. Perhaps so. Professor Queen’s book is an attempt to put social work into proper historical perspective. It contains the material of the usual university course on the history of charity, but, in pre senting that material, the author first describes the existing situation, and then, resolutely facing forward, takes four suc- cessive leaps backward to the medieval manor, running for- ward a few steps after each backward jump. This concession to modern methods of writing history leaves some old-fashioned readers with a feeling as though they had been playing leap- frog blindfold. But such readers should have been dead long since. Professor Tufts’ thoughtful study of schools for the teacher of social workers is more than its name implies. It is a sober and restrained plea for a throwing off of the shackles laid on the social worker by his “charitable” origin, and for a bold con- ception of his function in terms of social engineering, not ambu- lance work. It examines the conditions that must be met if social work is to become a real and worthy profession, makes elear the difference between “training” for a routine job and “education” for genuine serviceableness in large tasks of social construction, points out the dangerous tendency of existing schools to conceive their task in the former terms, and rightly indicates that the latter should be their real aim. The work is an informing study and criticism of existing educational

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246 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3035 machinery and methods in a special field, and is full of sound and valuable suggestions, by which teachers in that field will profit; for they have not yet attained, let us hope, to that per- fection of arrogant and pedantic rigidity which characterizes most of us in everyday college and university education. HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY A Heroic Statesman Financial Policy of Czechoslovakia during the First Years of its History. By Dr. Alois Rasin. Publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Oxford University Press: American Branch. $2.50. HE characteristics of the book of Alois Rasin, former Minis- ter of Finance for Czechoslovakia, can be summarized in the paradoxical phrase, an exciting economical treatise by a financial hero. To describe an economical book as exciting is at least as strange as to call a minister of finance a hero. How- ever, if there be need for the justification of this queer conjunc- tion of words it is already furnished by the lamentable death of the great finance minister. Alois Rasin died a few months ago in consequence of a fatal wound he had received from the hand of a former employee of the Czechoslovak state whose job fell victim to the radical currency-curing campaign that Dr. Rasin had initiated and carried on until his assassination. Rasin knew that he challenged death itself with the cold fig- ures that he gives us in his book and which he had submitted to the Prague Parliament to prove that there was only one means to avoid a catastrophe similar to that which had befallen the neighboring states of Czechoslovakia and that this was the adoption of the money-deflating method advocated by him. But Alois Rasin defied the threats of death, nay, death itself, and so he gave an illuminating example that there is such a thing as “financial heroism.” Rasin saw his way clear, he had an un- bounded confidence in his figures, and he achieved what he wanted. The consequence is that today Czechoslovakia is a country—the only country in Central and Eastern Europe— which has a sound currency. The summary which the martyred finance minister of Czecho- slovakia gives us of his struggles for the economical rehabilita- tion of the Czechoslovak Republic is, when least is said, exciting. Not that Rasin wanted to be dramatical. Directly he is not con- cerned with anything else but figures, statistical data, and other cold material, which, under ordinary circumstances, are least likely to appeal to the imagination. But under these figures misery and prosperity are struggling, capital and labor are crossing their sabres. If the inflation, on an Austrian scale, wins in Czechoslovakia, general misery will follow in its trail, but if deflation has the supremacy, although intermittent crises may follow, prosperity is due to come in the long run. In most of the Central and Eastern European countries capital found a faithful servant in inflation. It is still considered the most valuable help to beat foreign competition. As Rasin explains it, in the hey-day of inflation wages cannot keep pace with the devaluation of currency, whereas the export prices are kept on the level of the world market. Deflation, on the other hand, means in Czechoslovakia that the prices decrease while the wages follow only slowly the general trend of the money mar- ket. All her neighbor countries are menaced in their existence by the onrushing waves of the devastating flood of inflation, while Czechoslovakia sits already on a safe island, still gasping, weak and uncertain about the future, but, at all events, saved. There is no sorcery in the method Rasin employed to achieve this end. He describes it with simple words which only-a man can find who is very sure of what he did. He relates how he had ordered the stamping of the paper money on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic in order to isolate it from the doomed currency of the Austro-Hungarian Bank. He emphasizes the beneficial effect of the 50 per cent forced loan levied, simultane- ously with the stamping, on the fortune of everybody residing within the boundaries of the republic, with the exception of the poorest wage earners. Then came, as auxiliaries in the work of reconstruction, an international currency loan and popular subscription to the gold reserve. By this means Czecho- slovakia succeeded, as the first and, so far, the only state among the continental ex-belligerent nations, in stopping her money printing press. This meant, at the same time, that a halt was called to the further devaluation of the Czechoslovak currency. A substantial property tax, a foreign loan, partial cessation of the state victualling, and dismissal of the superfluous state em- ployees did the rest. Emit LENGYEL The Sacred Shades The World’s Great Religious Poetry. Miles Hill. The Macmillan Co. $5.00. no may be defined as sight and service to superhuman power deemed entitled to them. There are vast extrahuman powers, which have always claimed more sight and more service: love, battle, truth, even tongue-tied Nature. These have had from the first their share of singing. Religion was a later child: animals throb to these four, before they hypothecate religious explanations. Religion had to come, as weak man’s invocation of imagined strength to aid his veritable weakness; as the fum- bling brain’s answer to the simple puzzles of what are death and the things moving in darkness, and the vaster problems of what is a bud and why is a leaf. The fog lifts slowly, the sun is too dazzling for weak eyes; hence gods were raised, like umbrellas, to shade the glare of truth. All that man knew or thought he sung: for he has a singing heart; and thus poetry opened its lips to sing of Jah and Bel, of Thor and Sin and Thoth. What would religion be without the poets? For religion is the crystallization of some poet’s vision and fantasy. Much of the Old Testament is named poetry; and what of the rest is of the superhuman grew in a poet’s brooding. There was poetry burn- ing in the carpenter of Nazareth, in Gotama, in all man-gods who have walked the way of dust. Zeus and his Olympian cabi- net were engendered, and brought to birth and a wild maturity, by Homer, Hesiod, the odists, the great tragic trio. Jah and El were altered, combined, and smoothed into a genial universal god by golden-tongued David and the thunder-throated Hebrew prophets; the Vedic bards, the singers of the Niebelungenlied, the austere chanters of sagas, great lonely men like Dante, Milton, Nietzsche, have dropped or reared man’s deities. And fearful later verse, treading the broad valley road instead of the harsh unbroken slopes toward the summit, has elaborated and diluted these early gods; has made them drag many a rickety cart and cause. All of this appears in this comprehensive and excellent an- thology. Its authority is assured through its editorship by one Ph.D., and its foreword by another. Here is the authentic song of the soul still on the valley road—The Hound of Heaven, The Falconer of God, Saul, Passage to India, The Donkey, In No Strange Land; here are sardonic side-blows at the easy lore— Caliban Upon Setebos, The Sons of Martha, To a Contemporary Bunkshooter; here is some essay at the harsher steeps. There is a comforting choir of remembered hymns, good to read again. There.is enough information about the next stages of the jour- ney to make this book a road-guide to Paradise, if only the topographers ever agreed upon a single landmark or skymark. But they do not. Babel crumbled once, and may again. Much of the material is soggy; but that was to have been expected. There is enough with wings to let the volume hover, if not soar. In its immense catholicity most things of value have managed to creep in. Here is the culm pile: pick out your own glistering dark coal. Those whose concern stops with religion may not reflect that they feed and are watered of the long crystallization of man’s ancient ideals. If they would have, not the ideals of men dead, but of man living, let them read the poetry of today. Some of Compiled by Caroline :

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 247 Eee it is here. This assumes that man’s vision has not waned with Israel and dulled with Greece; and this we hold. If the reverse is true, then religion is all sufficing. For it is the city below the clouds, wavering across the level desert; and the sight of dead eyes is all that is needed by men already dead. CLEMENT Woop The Partition of Africa The Partition and Colonization of Africa. By Charles Lucas. The Oxford University Press, American Branch. $4.20. N this age of rapidly increasing knowledge brief summaries of extensive areas of information are in great demand; and this little book of Sir Charles Lucas will be found to be a valuable compendium of useful information on the subject of the European penetration of Africa. It sketches the history of racial contacts from classical times to the present period of mandates, and presents briefly every one of the problems to which these contacts have given rise. The slave trade and its attendant horrors, and the mitigation of these by the efforts of good men in England and elsewhere; the abolition of the traffic in slaves and the rise of colonial ex- ploitation of African peoples in their homelands which immedi- ately took its place; the international scramble for choice sec- tions of African territory; the wars, diplomatic and military, which the nations of Europe waged with each other in conse- quence; the horrors of the Congo, and the various campaigns in Africa from the times of Henry the Navigator to those of General Smuts—all these are set forth in admirable compres- sion. But the story is told exclusively from one side—the side of the European who administers Africa for the African’s good. One misses the broad humanitarianism of Morel, Olivier, and De Brazza or the warm Christian kindliness of Harris and Patton. But such temperings of the spirit may well be out of place in a simple summary prepared by a British administrator to make clear to casual readers the problem of the white man’s rule in Africa. Within its limits this book is a correct and competent piece of work, easy to read and easy to remember. HUBERT HARRISON Books in Brief — Der Spiegel von der East Side. By Jacob Magidoff. Illustrated by S. Raskin. Published by the Author. An epitome of these sketches is to be found in Mr. Raskin’s accompanying portraits. They are treated intelligently and with some care but there is lacking the talent and divination for revealing emphasis or the courage and humor for caricature. The artist succeeds best with Abraham Cahan; Mr. Magidoff rises above his dull average in the study of Joseph Barondess. The Woman of the Horizon. tury Company. $2. If the author had been frank enough to let this novel stand simply as a gay narrative of light amours, smartly and cynically disclosed after the manner of Schnitzler, it could be set down as an adroit and well-modulated performance. With the moral sugar-coating and the quest-of-the-perfect-woman business dragged in, it leaves rather a bad taste. Sometimes an ounce of sincerity is worth a pound of Puritanism. By Gilbert Frankau. The Cen- } Little Tom. By V. Tille. Illustrated by O. Stafl. Prague: B. Koéi. Agents for the United States: The Writers’ Pub- lishing Company, New York. $3. You may turn a skeptical eye, when you are older, on pur- ported photographs of “little folk.” But if you are eight or thereabouts you may follow with sympathy the thrilling vicis- situdes of Little Tom, literary descendant of sixteenth-century Tom Thumb, as he is thrown first among mortals and then among the ants, rose-bugs, and lady-birds. If the reader misses in this thin volume the imaginative power and charm of Grimm and Andersen, it is doubtless because he has grown too old or because in his day fairy stories turned out “happily ever after.” Tom’s inability to cope with his environment is too distressingly like the failure of human beings today. The colored illustra- tions by Mr. Stafi are fascinating. The half dozen drawings of seed-catalog stolidity are forgotten among a successful majority that for play of imagination, sweep of line, and humor cannot fail to please children of every age. The great number of typo- graphical errors may be due to a dearth of English proof- readers in Czecho-Slovakia. The Shining Pyramid. By Arthur Machen. Starrett. Covici-McGee. This is a collection of Mr. Machen’s earlier tales and sketches and essays which appeared in miscellaneous journals some years ago and are now brought together between book covers for the first time. Being an ardent “Macheniac,” Mr. Vincent Starrett feels in duty bound to see to it that nothing Mr. Machen has ever written shall perish. Such stories as The Shining Pyramid and The Lost Club, however, could very well afford to be forgotten. The Priest and the Barber, on the other hand, is a delightful bit of delving into occult bibliography, quite as good as anything Mr. Machen has ever set hand to. Edited by Vincent The Hawkeye. By Herbert Quick. Bobbs-Merrill Company. $2. Like most excursions into the field of historical romance with an American background, Mr. Quick’s novel lacks the tang of the soil. When it is heroic, it is too heroic, and when it is commonplace, it has the unrelieved flatness of prairie. When the manly young Iowan wishes to resent the implication that his marrying impulse is nothing but “puppy love,” he strikes an attitude and exclaims: “Sir, I cannot permit even you [the girl’s father!] to use such an expression when referring to the supreme passion of my life, and to that which, in spite of my unworthiness, this lady has bestowed upon me!” To be sure, the novelist hastens to label this a “high-falutin’ speech,” but even that doesn’t take the curse off. The Celestial Omnibus. $2. If there is any antidote for the sluggish poisons of material- ism, it is to be found in such writing as this. The possessor of an alert intelligence and an unerring sense of beauty, Mr. Forster is interested in literature for its quickening values; his work has gaiety and philosophic charm—dqualities which give him a kinship with James Stephens. The stories in this volume are away from the pattern of conventional fiction; they tread the pathways of fantasy but always within hail of the high- way of truth. By E. M. Forster. Alfred A. Knopf. The Scudders. By Irving Bacheller. The Macmillan Company. $1.50. Novels which pretend to deal relentlessly with the acrobatic propensities of the modern young girl, juggling a cigarette, a cocktail, a lipstick, and a spicy story all at one and the same time, are beginning to be an opiate on the market. The thing has been done so often, and to so little purpose, that it no longer has any meaning—save possibly to the lady proprietors of cir- culating libraries at summer resorts. Doubtless they will find a niche for “The Scudders” on their competitive shelves. Whose Body? By Dorothy L. Sayers. Boni and Liveright. $2. Here is quite the maddest, jolliest crime story of recent mem- ory. Seldom has a murder been made so delightfully mysteri- ous, and rarely has the gentleman detective been cast in quite so attractive a guise as that of Lord Peter Wimsey, to whom books in first folios and bodies in bathtubs are of equal interest. An absorbing story and a well-written book.

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248 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 3035 Music Battistini DID not hear Mattia Battistini until last September. He has steadily refused engagements in the United States, and until September, 1922, I never happened to be in a city of Europe on a day when he was singing there. But, in heaven’s good time, my turn did come. One day in Munich, last August, I noticed Battistini’s name posted for a concert at the Deutsches Theater the night of the 11th of September. The audience that gathered the night of that September 11 in the big Deutsches Theater in Munich not only packed the house, but was quite the “smartest” audience that I saw in Munich. Battistini had for many years been a cherished “euest” performer at the Munich Opera in “Rigoletto,” “Pagli- acci,” “La Traviata,” and doubtless other operas of his reper- tory. There could be no doubt of the admiration in which the Miinchener held him. Almost from his first number on, insistent voices began clamoring loudly for “Rigoletto” and “Prolog.” Eventually he did sing the “Pagliacci” prologue, in the course of a concert whose “encores” drew out a generous program to triple length. He did not, however, “oblige” with either of the jester’s monologues from ‘‘Rigoletto.” Battistini is an Italian opera singer. His selection of airs and songs, though not exclusively Italian, was true to type. Now, there are people who will have naught of that sort of thing. Those who are more liberal in their musical outlook, and especially those who, in an adverse age, still harbor a taste for bel canto, are bound to be worshipers at the shrine of Battistini. The program that evening in Munich was hardly what one might have selected for the hearing of Battistini. There were two opera airs by that very dull composer Fran- chetti; then the “Nemico della patria” from “Andrea Chenier,” which is little suited to concert performance; Iago’s “Credo” ‘from “Otello,” which loses a great deal of its force when as accompaniment a piano supplants the orchestra; and the luke- warm musings of the doubting hero from “Eugene Onegin,” who is a more interesting figure on the opera stage than on the con- cert platform. The three remaining pieces served far better, for, despite their distinctly operatic texture, they bear hardily the transplanting to the concert field, being the wine song from “Zampa,” the Toreador’s song from “Carmen,” and Figaro’s “Largo al factotum” from “The Barber of Seville.” This was the official program; the “encores” (even without “Rigoletto”!) made a second program. They included the famous air of Scindia from “Le Roi de Lahore,” Figaro’s “Non piu andrai” from “Figaro’s Wedding” (the Mozart barber to cap the Rossini), the “Pagliacci” prologue (this as a sop to the shouting), the “Quand’ ero paggio al Duca di Norfolk” from “Falstaff,” the Don’s serenade from “Don Giovanni,” Rossini’s fleet, quaint tarantella, “Gia la luna,” and several minor ditties in Italian or in Spanish that I did not identify. Merely as an amateur of singing (quite apart from purely musical considera- tions), I should have preferred to hear Battistini in more of the bel canto airs of the nineteenth-century Italians and in classic airs of earlier centuries—at a concert that he gave recently in London, airs from “William Tell,” “La Forza del Destino,” and “La Favorita” were on his program, and also the “OQ, del mio dolce ardor” from Gluck’s “Paris and Helen” and Carissimi’s “Vittoria, vittoria!” But Battistini is Battistini,-and of the feast that he elected to set before me I partook with the voracity of the famished. Fortunately Battistini’s voice has been recorded, and well re- corded. Thus, for the generations that will not have heard him in the flesh he possesses an immeasurable advantage over the Linds, the Albonis, the Rubinis, whose voices and vocal man- ners we perforce must reconstruct to our minds’ ears from the pages of chroniclers like Chorley. Still, even a perfect repro- duction offers no substitute for the continual slight jeopardy that perfection itself must brook in life, imparting to the per- fect its fine and final edge. The supreme impression of Battistini’s voice is its purity. I have heard notes as pure from several voices—Caruso’s, Tet- razzini’s, Melba’s, Bonci’s. But with Battistini there are no other notes. I have heard “bigger” baritone voices (as well as burlier); the purity of the Battistini tone would carry it in power to illimitable distances: And in freshness the voice of this old man is as of a youth of twenty. Officially the Battis- tini voice is a baritone; I have heard it described as a “short tenor.” The fact is, the typical Italian baritone of the last seventy-five years is a mezzo-tenore, just as the typical Ger- man baritone is a bass singing high. The “ancienne voix de baryton” (old Jean Noté, who died the other day, had two and one-half octaves at his command!) seems to survive best in France. But Battistini’s mezzo-tenore is no stunted tenor, pos- sessed of a remarkable upper octave and nothing below that. It has a real baritone scale, every note secure and sounding. Of course the Battistini phenomenon would not be possible without the basis of an uncommon physical endowment—the same thing is axiomatic for Patti, Sembrich, Lehmann, Melba, Calvé, Tetrazzini, Caruso, Bonci, Schumann-Heink, and all the other extraordinary and enduring voices. But to that indis- pensable ground-work must be added a “correct vocal method” (as the pedagogues would say, though never do twain of them agree as to just what may be the C.V.M.!) and an habitual abstention from forcing or otherwise abusing the delicate mech- anism of the voice. Anyone who is at all an amateur of sing- ing could not but have been impressed at this Munich concert by Battistini’s absolute control of an amazingly long breath. Every note in his extensive scale was perfectly posed and firm, there was no thought of effort, no hint of throat. Every atom of his breath issued as voice; no fog to obscure tone, no jigging saw-teeth to roughen it. On this foundation of controlled breath, as on a sustaining and exactly responsive ocean, floated all the rest. His unerring, flawless attack of a note; his flow- ing, jointless legato; phrasing that was like live sculpture in its grace and fineness; an ease in the execution of florid orna- ments that a Melba or a Tetrazzini has not surpassed; an endless variety of vocal color; all were there, and in an effort- lessness that persuaded you for the time that any other manner of singing was inconceivable; that every vocalist, through the mastery of his means, must so place the listener in the unhin- dered presence of the music itself. Though the age of the living be an odious subject, it is some- times of an unavoidable pertinence. When the voices of sing- ers outlast the onslaught of the years to a degree that seems phenomenal, as with Patti, Lehmann, and Battistini, the exact date of the singer’s birth becomes of an indisputable importance to science. Now, nothing else is quite so untrustworthy as the official birth dates of musical biography. If one were to settle Battistini’s by an appeal to authority of that sort, one would have only to look him up in Baker and learn that he was born November 27, 1857. According to a man whom I met in Paris and who professed to have gone to school with Battistini, the date should be set two or three years earlier still. Another man, who comes from Rome and who knows Battistini per- sonally, told me in Munich at the time of this September con- cert that his real age was then seventy-four. The testimony of the eye that night in the Deutches Theater was not helpful. A big, imposing fellow, Battistini looked anywhere from a thor- oughly ripened fifty-five to a well-preserved seventy-five. To the evidence so far offered, and meager enough, I have only one detail to add: On the register of the Munich hotel where he put up (a Munich hotel exacts from its patrons secrets that as a rule are kept inviolable between oneself and one’s Maker), Bat- tistini wrote himself down as born on the fifth day of the eighth month of the year of grace 1874. At any rate, he pre- served the seventy-four of his Roman friend’s allegation. PITTS SANBORN

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International Relations Sectio Japan’s Untouchables By GERTRUDE HAESSLER oF HERE are no classes in Japan.” This assertion is made continually by those people whose interest it is to defend the present social and economic system of their country. And yet one may find references any day in the newspapers of Japan to the Eta Class, the Special Class, the Special Community, the Untouchables—all of which terms are used to designate the outcast class of Japan. There may be an obscure item relative to the plans of the Ministry of Home Affairs for the improvement and relief of this large group of people (estimated at 3,000,000), or perhaps a short account of a riot caused at the Y.M.C.A. by a speaker’s indiscreet and contemptuous reference to them. But during the last two weeks of March of this year the entire country was stirred by vivid front-page accounts of civil war which had broken out in various parts of the country. The outcasts, touched by the current of uni- versal unrest, had organized, and simultaneously with their growing militant solidarity there developed an equally mili- tant opposition to them. The Eta (this term is translated as “dirty” or “filthy’”’) were forbidden by law up to the time of Emperor Meiji’s liberalizing influence to mingle in any way with the rest of the Japanese people, whether in work, play, marriage, or worship. The law discriminating against them was re- pealed in 1871, but the prejudice continues. There has been little fundamental improvement in their social condition, and except for isolated charitable and missionary atten- tion they are completely shunned. Some of the more important discriminations which the former law imposed upon them are given below. Owing to prejudice, these restrictions with a few exceptions are vir- tually, though not legally, in effect at the present time. 1. Occupation. The trades to which the Eta are restricted and which are restricted to them, are as follows: Slaugh- terers, Tanners, Cobblers, Actors, Executioners. Should a restaurant employ an Eta as a cook, the place might as well close unless it intends catering to Eta people only. The Eta business man, although he may be cultured, intelli- gent, and well educated, cannot carry on operations outside his own class. Acting has become a respectable profession now, even for women, but the clowns, the acrobats, and what would correspond to the American vaudeville class generally belong to the Eta. 2. Community activities. In spite of the fact that the Eta are forced to pay taxes and to submit to conscription for military training and service, they are completely barred from taking part in any community activities. In October, 1922, plans were made in the village of Misho, Osatogun, Saitama Prefecture, to welcome the soldiers returning from service in Siberia. The village officials refused to allow two Eta soldiers to receive this welcome. 3. Residence. Although the Eta are no longer obliged to live in houses that have no windows or doors facing the street, they are still restricted to living in isolated com- munities, due to the fact that house-owners will not rent houses to them except in purely Eta villages or in special districts within large cities. The solidarity that has grown out of this community life in Tokio has come to be regarded as a “definite menace” by the police authorities, particularly since the municipal guardians of the law are afraid to enter these districts. In fact, a systematic campaign has been instituted to scatter the people and prevent them from again coming together. Fires are frequent in any large city of Japan—a fire of from forty to eighty houses is reported in the papers as a “small” fire—and whenever an Eta section, or part of it, burns in Tokio the people are not allowed to return to it when it is rebuilt. 4. Marriage. In a few isolated cases where it has oc- curred a person marrying an Eta, whether man or woman, descended to the social level of the Eta. In the spring of 1922 in a small village in western Japan an Eta expressed his desire to marry a non-Eta woman. He was stoned nearly to death by the other inhabitants, forbidden to return, and the woman was frightened into refusing to have anything more to do with him. 5. Religion. Only one of the Buddhist sects, the Shinshu, will admit the Eta for worship. 6. Freedom of Movement. The Eta are prevented from entering certain districts, especially the vicinities of royal palaces or the residences of the nobility. While the restric- tion was legally still in force, an Eta found trespassing on a forbidden area was immediately put to death. 7. Costume. Today it is impossible to distinguish an Eta from the rest of the population by any outward signs. Be- fore the law was repealed, the Eta marked their social caste on their clothing, the women were not allowed to wear the obi (sash), and the men were forced to tie their hair with two strings instead of with one. Also in the daily routine of the lives of the Eta flagrant cases of prejudice arise. In Nara Prefecture they are in- dustrially well organized and have won reasonable working hours. As a result, they are through with work before the unorganized non-Eta are and can get into the bath-houses for their daily baths before the others. In August, 1922, in a small village in Nara, the unorganized workers de- manded that they be allowed to bathe and fully vacate the bath-houses before their social inferiors be permitted to enter. Some of the bath-house owners attempted to carry out this discrimination, and it was only after the Eta insti- tuted a rigorous system of boycott against those bath- houses, resulting in financial loss to the owners, that the original system was restored. There is nothing to prevent the non-Eta from frequenting the bath-houses while the Eta are using them (in Japan all ages and sexes bathe together) except the ancient social prejudice. The Imperial Government is trying to improve the condi- tion of these people, but the Eta resent anything smacking of charity or paternalism, and insist on a fundamental change of attitude toward themselves. This hostile feeling was deepened after the stamping out of the rice riots of 1918. When the trouble died down, the Government, thor- oughly alarmed at the strength of this mass demonstration, appropriated ten thousand yen (about $5,000) for building schools among the Eta to teach them sanitation, ete. They refused to attend the classes. They had been so utterly ignored in the past that only a basic change in their status would satisfy them. Since that year, larger and larger sums have been appropriated for the relief and improvement of the Eta Class, and the 1922 budget contained a grant of over a million yen to the Department of Home Affairs for this purpose. The reason for these ever-increasing appropria-

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250 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3035 tions is the menace of the growing solidarity of these peo- ple, who have finally united themselves into a strong, nation- wide organization. As a first step in organization a national convention of the Eta was held in Kioto on March 8, 1922. At that time the declaration given below, addressed to all the Eta people, was formulated by the 2,500 delegates present: DECLARATION People of the Special Communities throughout the country, unite! Brothers and sisters, who have long been oppressed, you know that the failure of all the reformative undertakings attempted by many men for the last half century should be taken as due punishment for the defilement of humanity by us and others, and that all the philanthropic movements hitherto undertaken among us have further degraded us. Then, it is but natural that there should appear an organized movement which endeavors to eman- cipate us by our own deeds of self-respect. Brethren, our ancestors were believers in liberty and equality. They were the victims of a class rule. They were the exploited of an industrial system. They were skinned in recompense for their work of skinning animals; their hearts were ripped out as a fee for their work in the slaughter houses; and then they were spat at and were laughed at. Yet, even through this long cold night of cursed dreams, the fine human blood has kept its flow, and now we, who have been born of this blood, have come to live in an age when men may turn into gods. The time has come when the oppressor shall be vanquished, and the victim with the crown of thorns shall be blessed. The time has come when we may be proud of being the Eta! We must not, therefore, insult our forefathers or defile humanity any longer by our cowardly deeds or words; but we, who know well enough how cold the world is and how useless charity is, should now aspire for the real light and heat of life. The Suihei-sha has come to exist thus. Let there be heat and light! Translated, the name of their organization, Suihei-sha, is Water Level Association, but it is also called Leveling-Up Association or Leveling-Down Association. Historic old Kioto was made their headquarters—the place where the bourgeois revolution of 1868, which swept Meiji into power, was inaugurated. Comprehensive plans for organizing were laid, the date set for the second convention one year later, and the following program adopted: PROGRAM 1. The Special Community people shall achieve their liberation through their own acts. 2. We, the people of the Special Community, demand full liberty to choose occupations as well as complete economic freedom, and are determined to obtain them. 3. We, who now understand the laws of life, shall march to the final goal of human perfection. All during the year intervening between the two conven- tions organizers conducted a strenuous campaign for mem- bers, and the movement grew quickly and spontaneously. The leaders of the association, unable to organize the move- ment without experienced help, appealed to outsiders to assist them. It is significant that they did not go to the mis- sionary or charitable institutions which had previously at- tempted social-welfare work among them; they turned in all trust to the radicals of the country—particularly the com- munists and the anarchists—who make no distinction be- tween Eta and others. This accounts for the strong revo- lutionary trend of their appeal, which was sent out shortly before the second convention. APPEAL Comrades: Proletarians of the whole world, oppressed and exploited by the capitalists of Europe, of America, and of Japan, all the oppressed nationalities under the yoke of capitalistic imperialism, we appeal to you! We, the Eta people in the Far Eastern corner of the earth, who have been oppressed and insulted for a thousand years past, appeal to you, who are fighting valiantly the final class war with bloodthirsty capitalism! We, the Eta, are the Jews of Japan, and if there is any differ- ence in social position between the real Jew and us, ours is in all probability worse. We are the remnants of the ancient slave system in Japan. We have been totally deprived of the liberty to choose occupations, but are forced to slaughter animals, to tan skins, to mend clogs, and no more. We have had no human rights. What we have received from society in general is but mockery. Thus our forefathers lived in dark resignation with unquenchable curses. No wonder, then, that when many at- tempts to save us failed, these age-long curses and desperation crystallized into our vehement revolutionary movement of today. The rise of the Suihei-sha, through which we intend to liberate ourselves by our own efforts, is the outcome. The Suihei-sha, standing amid three millions of the so-called Special Community people, issued the following declaration and program at its first convention held March 3, 1922. [Here appeared the declaration and program given above. ] During the ten months following our first convention our movement has spread throughout the country with amazing rapidity, and everywhere men and women, young and old, of the Special Communities have been joining us with great enthu- siasm. We are determined to fight all obstacles in the way of our emancipation. Our movement depends upon the blood of the oppressed, who have survived under the heavy trampling of the ruling classes. It is a fight to take back the human rights of which we have been robbed. And we go into the thickest of the battle willingly, for we know our emancipation is near. Comrades and friends, you must know what an important part we, the Eta, played in the rice riots of 1918. With the power of organization, which we have now, we want to march on side by side with you in our common battlefront of the World Revolu- tion. We want to hear from you in time for our second national convention, which will take place on the coming 3d of March. A word from you will certainly add fire and force to our move- ment. Remember, comrades, that there are three million of us in Japan who are fighting today the same battle that you are, and who are wishing you with true comradely feeling a glorious victory! CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SUIHEI-SHA LEAGUE CHAIRMAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE The second convention was held March 2 and 8, 1923, at Kioto, the attendance being variously estimated between 4,000 and 10,000. The following fifteen demands are typical and of most importance: 1. Non-discrimination in schools. 2. Non-discrimination in the army. 8. Non-acceptance of charity funds, including government funds. 4, Direct action until laws are made and enforced to prevent discrimination. 5. Training fighters for direct action. 6. Organization of unions in industry. 7. Organization of farmers’ unions. 8. Complete freedom within Honganji, the temple of the Shinshu. 9. Refusal to support the Honganji.

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Sept. 5, 1923] The Nation 251 Za Ol ———v—v—_v—v_V—_ 10. Kokui-domei (Black Robe Union), a movement to democra- tize Honganji. (The color of a priest’s robe denotes his rank, the black representing the lowest. The Eta want only the black.) 11. Provisions for propaganda and organizing of the Suihei-sha. 12. Organization of a national woman’s section of the Suihei- ’ sha. 18. Organization of a national youth’s section of the Suihei-sha. 14. Establishment of a library—Kioto as headquarters. 15. Weekly and monthly organs. (At the time of writing a monthly was already in existence.) | The situation arising from the new power of the Eta and their use of direct action have brought the issue continually before the public. High officials have declared that discrimi- nation against them must cease. Heads of departments, who up to this time have ignored appeals and petitions from the Eta, have issued similar orders. One Prefectural Governor has even gone so far as to announce that the civil service in his territory is to be thrown open to the Eta. The Diet has discussed the problem, not from the angle of relief and im- provement, but of non-discrimination and justice. Within the past year the Eta movement has rapidly changed from a blind, unorganized, negative struggle against all the other Japanese people to a well-directed, positive, constructive movement for equality of opportunity, justice, and freedom. It is significant to note that this change in the fundamental character of the struggle resulted in the with- drawal of the support of most of the rich and socially power- ful among the Eta, and new leaders, more in accord with modern economic thought and practice, are now shaping the policies. ‘Dangerous Thoughts’’ in Japan HE plot which was at first reported in some papers, and possibly suspected by the police, to include in its pro- gram nothing less than the assassination of the ministers of state and other leading officials and the establishment of a (presumably communist) government on a certain important occasion in the coming autumn (the only impor- tant occasions known being the Imperial wedding and the army maneuvers), seems to have resolved itself into a sus- picion of the existence of a secret society on communist lines, according to the Japan Weekly Chronicle of June 14. It is said that the police authorities have to thank the Juo Club, a reactionary society of Waseda students, for a clue to the “crime.” In the course of the recent trouble between the militarist and anti-militarist groups of students in Waseda University [described in The Nation in its issue of July 11] the members of the said club dragged into the club building the anti-militarist leaders, from whom they extorted, by what means we do not know, a confession as to the particulars of the (anti-militarist) Culture League, their opponents, and also the doings of Professor Sano and three other Waseda professors. A noteworthy feature in the present scare is that the press, far from taking sides with the police, rather depre- cates the action taken by the authorities. And instead of regarding persons accused as convicted criminals and men- tioning their names with “Mr’s,” as usual, their names are mentioned—in some papers at least—with Kun (which is a more friendly prefix than ‘“‘Mr.’). Commenting on the affair, the Yomiuri (a liberal organ) says: It is not yet known on what data and from what motives the extensive arrest of socialists of the 5th instant was under- taken. It is supposed in some quarters that the action was taken by way of a diversion against the intended Russo-Japan- ese negotiations, while in other quarters it is believed to indi- cate preparations for resuscitating the Dangerous Thoughts Control Bill. Another guess will have it that it is an act of revenge on the part of the military clique for the failure of the Military Affairs Study Corps in Waseda University. Be that as it may, it is certain that, despite the great fuss made by the Metropolitan Police and the Procurators’ Office, the affair is a case of a mouse being born of the mountain in travail. It is one of those comedies which are often played by cowards who are apt to take a miscarthus for a ghost and to be frightened by the noise made by waterfowl taking wing as if it was the sound of a large army of men and horse advancing to attack. It would be rather amusing in its way if it were not for the trouble in which their victims are involved. There is nothing to prevent those responsible for criminal searches and prosecu- tion from summoning or proceeding to search the dwellings of persons suspected, even though there is no indisputable proof of guilt against them. But there ought to be some remedy for the damage sustained by them when on investigation it is ascer- tained that the suspicions are entirely unfounded. Otherwise the authorities will be easily tempted to arrest persons and retain them in confinement on suspicion, but really in the inter- est of so-called high politics. POLICE AFRAID OF BULLIES ‘The Kokumin (a liberal-imperialist organ) thinks that the arrest of socialists on the present occasion is an after- math of the recent fracas concerning the Military Affairs Study Corps at Waseda University. They seem to have inquisitioned, it says, those who disturbed the inauguration ceremony of the corps and discovered some fact that is cal- culated to incriminate them (and their friends) in some way or other. In connection with the same trouble in Waseda, however, violence was committed by some people. There are also other people who trade in violence at large. But none of them has been arrested. The fact is that the police cannot touch those who possess brute force. It is only those whose only resource is speech that they arrest. They presumably believe that brute force is not dangerous but speech is. The [Japanese] army attempted to crush socialist Russia, but in vain. Does the Government mean to press down upon the socialists at home to console itself for its failure in Russia, now that it is going to enter into negotiations with Russia? Whatever may be said against socialism, which is of many kinds, it is certain that it is worth studying. But at present, socialism seems to be tabooed, even in its study. There is no longer anything like freedom of speech. It is safer to shut one’s mouth and join the gangs of bullies. ALARMING CHANGES The Tokio Asahi (an independent organ) says: That social unrest is much pronounced in modern Japan is a fact that must be admitted even by persons who boast of the peculiar beauties of the national constitution and those who lay much stress on the good manners and customs by which the people are characterized and on the paternal benevolence of Japanese capitalists. It is undeniable that, thanks to the arti- fices of the bureaucratic Maiji Government, the young students have lost their interest in politics, so that social problems rather than politics have become the center of their discussions. It is further a fact that in the army there has been a considerable change in morale since the expedition to Siberia. It is also a fact that the labor associations are now represented by people inclined to the Left so that the majority of industrial workers

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202 cannot go with them owing to the pressure imposed by the authorities, and the organized labor movement is superficially on the decline. Agricultural labor has been awakened to fight- ing, in consequence of a series of tenant farmers’ troubles. The “water-level movement” has grown in the course of one short year to be the most determined of Japan’s social move- ments. In Formosa and Korea, there are apparent and hidden movements going on. The country has stirring times ahead. Now, the students, the army, and labor are too numerous a body for police control. According to the present method of control, it would be necessary to shut up the whole of society in a metal cage under police surveillance, but such a method is not preventive but must produce results opposite to those which it is intended to bring about. PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO VOICE Nor should it be forgotten that in this country there are many people who cannot lawfully give expression to their politi- cal views. The Business Men’s Association is canvassing to have representatives elected who are to represent commercial and industrial interests. The landowners under the usurped name of “farmers” are also trying to have representatives of their own. While the existing parties claim that they represent the interests of farmers, merchants, and manufacturers, they really do not represent more than the capitalist classes. And while the suffrage is limited to people who pay a certain amount of direct national tax, a large number of citizens are denied the right to have themselves represented, though they bear a considerable burden of indirect national taxes, and shed blood and sweat in the military service and industry. They have, in short, no political voice, and if they set forth their views in writing lest measures of government should be decided by the bargainings among sections of the propertied class, there are the Publication Law and Press Law to check them, while there is the Peace Police Law to control them if they want to discuss the matter verbally in meetings and associations. In these cir- cumstances, mere police control will be of little effect in re- lieving the dangerous tension of the public mind. The sub- jugation of the socialists may be necessary, but it should be set about on rational lines. But what is more important still is to extend the suffrage and adopt urgent measures without further delay in order to sweep away the popular impression that the government is being run in the interests of a limited group. MONTE CARLO STATIONERY 200 Sheets $a oo 100 Envelopes Tes Name and address or monogram. Relief engraving, any color. Sheet 5% x 8, white, grey, cafe, blue. 100 double sheets or 200 single sheets (100 marked—100 plain). For marking entire 200 single sheets add 50c. PRINT plainly. Enclose check or money order. West of Mississippi add 20c. Comparison urged. Samples submitted. DE LUXE STATIONERY CO, 505 Fifth Ave., New York The Nation What other books of the year will be read as long as these THE DANCE OF LIFE Havelock Ellis “One of the few great books of the century.”— Benjamin De Casseres. “A prose poem wherein what is to me the most inter- esting mind in England distills the essence of his vast and studious speculations on life.”— Burton Rascoe (New York Tribune.) _ “One of the great books of our time. I place the read- ing of ‘The Dance of Life’ in the first rank of intellectual and aesthetic experiences.”—Ben Kay Redman. (The Spur). $4.00 DAMAGED SOULS Gamaliel Bradford “Extraordinarily vivid psychological portraits.’"—H. L. Mencken (New York Post). “A tremendous and arresting book. ... Nothing short of a triumph.”— Frederick Van de Water (New York Tribune). $3.50 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. the JEFFERSON SCHOOL 23 West 87th Street, At Central Park West For Boys and Girls, 3 to 12 Years The School will open Sept. 27th in a new building equipped with every modern facility for the best Elementary and Kindergarten Education. wmbie course of study provides the child with experiences which result in definite values—health, skill, knowledge, habits and attitudes. The methods employed are approved by the foremost educators. The teaching staff is carefully chosen for experience and training in these methods. All day ac- tivities ; hot lunches served. French, Industrial Arts, Nature Study, Music and Rhythms are featured. Pupils now being enrolled. For catalog and appointments, address SYLVIA J. MARKS, Director Until Sept. 1st, at 1 West 92d St. Telephone Riverside 2501. eT a onion, A SCHOOL of OPINION, *!4scoxser AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY SEPTEMBER Ist to 25th PH. D. STUDENT in the social sciences desires part time work, preferably with a liberal organization or tutoring. BOX II, care Nation. THE RUSSIAN INN 3% West 37th St., nr. 5th Ave., New Yor+ Table d’Hote Luncheon and Dinner also A la Carte. Open till 1 A. mK Music by the Russian Inn Trio AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES \\\ One Policy, One System, Universal Service, 2 and ail directed toward Better Service i “Civilization, or Man and Man’s World” OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER | A BEAUTIFUL PLACE +. BERKSHIRE HILLS FOR a WEEK-END or an EXTENDED VISIT Among our guests such persons as Mr. Louis Untermeyer, E. E. Robinson, F. Luis Mora, Dr. Ludwig» Lewisohn, Mme. Helen Teschner Tas, Sara Teasdale, Jessie B. Rittenhouse, B. W. Huebsch, C. Bertram Hartman, Suzanne La Follette, William and Marguerite Zorach and Mary Ellis have found this mountain farm an ideal spot for a week-end or an extended visit. Rates $7 a day and $35 a week. Ad- Lecturers: Harlow Shapley, Harvard; E. G. 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The Nation FOUNDED 1865. Vol. CXVII Contents BDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS. 2... .cccccccccscincndecrccccsccccscncceccces 253 EDITORIALS: The League of Nations Faces the Test.......e-eseeee eee re ee enrnees 256 Mussolini and Hughes .......ecccescccnccncccrrercccrcreseeeesesees 257 On Rereading 2s. .iivccc sacs ccc csinss cieenianiee eee aai saosin ticle al pioFesersia/s/.«! aye 257 Labor’s Newspapers ...ccccceccceccccesesecssecsserscesesaseereeene 258 THE GREATEST JEWISH CITY IN THE WORLD. By Konrad MEE OVC Tine as clic) sie aimeiale ejelelsfe atapaiarsla'useile|sieieies) skeiaiace/ea)s\e.evegeiaiey 6 ne ie6e/0 00.6 © THE WOMAN. By Henri Barbusse..........+eeeeeeee ee eecererccees see 262 THE NEW EMANCIPATION OF THE NEGRO. By Bertha Wallerstein. 263 LONDON’S DOCKLAND. By An Onlooker.......++++eeeeereeeererrcers 265 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter.......... cece e cece ee reece eneeees 266 CORRESPONDENCE. ...cccccscncncccwenccnccnmeccscccersseecessrcece 267 BOOKS: j : The Press and Its Problems. By Oswald Garrison Villard........... 269 The Dance of Life. By L. Li...... cece ee cece ee ce cece ee eee eee eeees 270 Faust Again. By Mark Van Doren We EE ees eRe MM tartan: cl avetateriiale eisveneta: one 271 Shakespeare. By William Allan Neilson CPN ate ia or at s\cretatal se,0j0\8'%0,0, a0 271 American Government. By Phillips Bradley........-.-+ss+eeeseeeeee 272 Orphans. By Florence Kelley........+++ssseeeeeeseeeresesersercees 272 HiGOkaan: Briel seca ic «canis cledinle actenie a ccilcwiiclasielenicieosacaccerveeesse 273 DRAMA: : Outburst. By Ludwig Lewisohn..........-sesees cece rece rece eneeees 273 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: The New Constitution of Rumania.......-..ceseeeee cere cree receee 274 South Africa of Tomorrow.......-..cee cee r seer eee reer ee ener recenes 279 ce OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Epiror ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LirerARY EpIToR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApverTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS Sugscrretion RatES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HE apparently unparalleled calamity to Japan must move every American heart and should open every American purse. Emotionally exhausted as we are by all the horrors this unhappy world has passed through since 1914, the magnitude of the Japanese disaster and the fright- ful combination of fire, tidal-wave, flood, and earthquake, must nevertheless stir and shock everyone who has a spark of love for humanity within him or the slightest feeling of compassion. In Tokio and Yokohama has happened what the first dispatches from San Francisco portrayed as the fate of that unhappy city. Even if early reports should again prove exaggerations, the catastrophe remains ap- palling. But it affords an opportunity which cannot be overestimated to cement the friendly relations between Japan and America. This frightful disaster may easily be turned into an occasion for the display of such good-will and generosity as to allay all the suspicion and distrust which exists between certain jingo groups in the two coun- tries. We have recently built several battleships to protect us from a possible Japanese war. They cost now about $27,000,000 apiece. If Congress were in session we should urge it to vote the price of two such monsters of destruction in aid of Japan. Since it does not meet for three months the American public must act. We have no doubt that it will, for it is the true glory of America that it never fails to respond to such appeals and that it is justly called the most generous of countries. Surely it will live up to its reputation. NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1923 HETHER Governor Pinchot will in the end be able to bring the anthracite miners and operators into agreement is uncertain as The Nation goes to press, but of one thing there is no doubt: no terms of the sort proposed can bring anything but a temporary halt in the struggle. The public, always opportunist in such matters, would doubtless be satisfied with such a truce. It has been satis- fied that way in the past. But isn’t the public getting a little weary of these recurring crises? Isn’t it about time that we went deeper? So long as the miners are appeased with slightly higher wages and the operators with advanced prices—all passed on to the consumer—just so long is the public going to suffer from strikes and lack of coal. The vital point is that coal is a natural monopoly and the mining industry is overgrown with privilege and medievalism. There is, and can be, no true competition in production. So long as the struggle is allowed to continue as one of wages and hours the public can hope for no relief. The solution lies in frankly recognizing that the nation must take over the coal mines and arrange for fuel production upon a just and efficient basis. This is the problem, airily dismissed by our latest Coal Commission, which ought to have received the major part of its attention. Instead the commission asserted that in case of a strike the govern- ment should seize the mines—a step likely to be futile because of lack of any prearranged labor policy satisfactory to the miners. OST of the dispatches from abroad, as also the edi- torial comment in this country, treat the Irish elec- tion as a victory for the Free State. In a sense it is that, but it is much less conclusive than such a verdict should be and would have meant more if the Government had not silenced the voices of many Republicans by duress and im- prisonment, Of 153 seats in the Dail Eireann the Govern- ment has won 638, while 44 have gone to the Republicans, 16 to the Independents, 15 to the Farmers, and 15 to Labor. This gives the Government a plurality but not a majority. However, all the groups except the Republicans are in favor of the existence of the Free State, giving the Government 73 per cent of the Parliament on that issue; and the Dublin correspondent of the New York Herald says that, although the Republicans made a gain, they did it at the expense of Labor, not of the Government. With a three-fourths ma- jority behind the Free State, the New York World observes that the Government cannot regard its existence as in seri- ous danger and should now liberate the numerous political prisoners whose continuance in jail “will be a constant source of danger and a fresh point for radical indignation.” All the more so as the prison conditions are so shocking as to impugn the humanity and decency of the Free State Government. ITH assurances of good-will on both sides and the announcement that neither party was forced to sacri- fice its principles, the full recognition of Mexico by the United States has been accorded and proclaimed. The Na- tion is thankful that an end has been made to the long pe- riod of suspicion which has kept two neighboring nations -

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254 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 in a state of wary tension. But we cannot accept without some misgivings an agreement which so patently satisfies the State Department regarding the sanctity of private oil wells. The Mexican Government has saved its face—and perhaps its life—by securing recognition before making any formal concessions or sacrifices. But it is likely that in the end the economic results will be the same. We did not recognize Mexico for nothing. Two decrees by President Obregon published at the time of the announcement of recognition indicate that the Mexican Government is loosen- ing its hold over the subsoil wealth of the country by allow- ing interests to develop properties owned or leased by them without renouncing their rights of ownership to the oil underneath and securing a special concession from the Gov- ernment. Every step away from the social control of its natural resources is a step backward for Mexico and for the world at large; and even harmony and prosperity are dear at the price. “WT HAVE said to my relative, the king, that I cannot see why this murderous war in Africa should go on. We did so well during the World War and profited so legiti- mately by it and now we are losing all we gained and our boys are going to their deaths. The king replied that our national honor compelled it. There is probably something wrong with me, but I cannot understand just what kind of honor that is.” ‘These striking words, uttered by a member of the Spanish royal family last summer, are recalled to us by the news from Spanish Africa—news that is new yet utterly stale, for exactly the same dispatches have come out of Africa about every third or fourth year for a generation. The Spanish hold a series of outposts in a most difficult country; they communicate with each other only with dan- ger, are often cut off for weeks, and are then relieved with a heavy loss of life. Not unnaturally some Spanish regi- ments mutinied at Malaga when about to embark for Melilla; why should they go to be half-starved, under the leadership of political generals, and then slaughtered by men fighting for their country against whom the Spanish boy has no grudge whatsoever? We are glad that these poor victims of a senseless and stupid militarism, hiding behind a false conception of national honor, revolted. We wish the whole army had risen and declined to fight, and that if men must die in this horrible imbroglio all the generals could be the ones to perish instead of the innocent sons of pitiful peasant mothers. Sooner or later Spain will have to surrender her African possessions as she did her American and Asiatic. She should do it gracefully while she may. N England, a house that cost £1,000 to build two and a half years ago can now be put up for £400. In other words, you can today build two and a half houses for the previous cost of one. More than that; these two and a half are now being built in the same time that it formerly took for one. This cheerful comparison was recently made by Sir Charles Ruthin, the Director-General of Housing, who explained the improvement as due partly to an enormous in- crease in the output of the operatives in the building indus- try and partly to a fall in the cost of materials. He an- nounced further that, since September of last year, 32,000 houses have been built or begun by private enterprise, which has recovered “to an amazing extent.” But Sir Charles’s figures have produced no sense of exhilaration in the public mind. In the first place, they are challenged by the build- - ing trade itself. Experts, in Manchester and elsewhere, pronounce the £400 house a flat impossibility. And 32,000 new houses a year—practically all of them built to sell, not to rent, and therefore not available for the average worker —will not go very far to meet the deficit of 870,000 that was officially estimated two years ago. At the Liberal Summer School at Cambridge last month an authority on the subject declared that 80,000 houses were required annually to meet the increase of population and to replace houses that became unfit to live in. So it looks as though most of the “homes for heroes” so confidently promised by Mr. Lloyd George would long remain castles in the air. HERMAN’S march to the sea cost Georgia no more than the loss she is suffering from the migration of her Negro population, according to the Georgia Bankers’ Asso- ciation, which is worried over a threatened reduction of State wealth by $27,000,000 this year, with 46,674 farm- houses left vacant, $55,524 idle plows, and a labor shortage already of 70,843 persons. If the present rate of exodus keeps up, the number of persons lost this year will equal the population of ten average mid-Georgia counties. Land that brought from $40 to $75 an acre in 1919 now meets no de- mand at all and weeds are the only crop. President Wil- liam A. Winburn, of the Central of Georgia Railway, wants more cheap labor from Europe and is bombarding members of Congress to let down the bars to immigration. While the Georgia Legislature dallies with a proposal to make it “a felony for any person or concern to solicit labor in Georgia for other States” and amends the general tax so that each labor agent in the State must, in addition to pay- ing a $1,000 tax, give a bond to protect creditors of each person sent out of the State, the Negroes have held a State- wide conference. These Negroes, who represent 45 per cent of Georgia’s population, point to discrimination in the dis- tribution of agricultural relief, to the crowded tenements and farm shanties, to the unspeakable Jim-Crow cars, to the absentee landlord system with its indecent overseers, and to the $15,000 spent on Negro schools while $735,000 goes to white schools. And, they add, the Negro’s life is too cheap; in the midst of mob violence no colored person, however honest, industrious, humble, and law-abiding, can possibly feel himself safe overnight. Too often he is made to feel that the law was designed solely for his punishment, but not for his protection. HE fundamental error has been, the Negroes say, in attempting to run a democracy without all the people: The whole truth is, and you ought to know it, that a very large percentage of us have lost faith in either your willing- ness now or your intention ever to treat the colored people justly and to allow them to become a basic part of our civiliza- tion. This faith restored by unmistakable evidences to the contrary would infinitely improve the unsettled conditions among us.... We lay the blame for this most unfortunate condition at the door of the cheap political demagogue, who, to satisfy a purely selfish ambition, and for personal motives, from platform and through an unfair press, has maligned us, misrep- resented us, and prejudiced many good white people against us who otherwise would today be our substantial friends, by their self-made scarecrow of “social equality” and “Negro domina- tion.” ... We confess that we covet that life which bread alone cannot give. . . . We challenge you to join us as Christian people in the task of working out a program of justice, equity, and Christian brotherhood, which shall include both groups, : {

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation each separate in his sphere, that shall guarantee to both the fullest opportunity ...so absolutely essential to a _ well- rounded humanity. On August 17 a mob battered down the doors of the jail at Cochran, Georgia, seized Aaron Harris, colored, hanged him on a tree where others have been lynched, and riddled his body with bullets. The same day officers taking Lee Green, colored, to the jail at Perry, Georgia, were forcibly stopped, and Green, a rope tied around his neck, was forced to climb a tree and then told to jump. When he refused, 300 shots were fired into his body and he fell lifeless from the limb. Is this to be Georgia’s only reply to the Negroes? HE Institute of Politics at Williamstown has just ended a session, less brilliant by far than the preceding ones, of which the hero was the German representative, Count Harry Kessler. Here is what Andrew Ten Eyck says about him in the current Outlook: The greatest force on the lecture platform has been Kessler. Cold, logical, thorough, oblivious of the approval or disap- proval of his audiences, which have been consistently large, and steering to his objective with the precision of a skilful pilot, he has had the hardest task and won the greatest vic- tory.... But the sum total of the impression that Kessler made is, in my judgment, that the war psychology is gone, and that there is a real German case, attribute German default to what you will—inefficiency or dishonesty. This is almost the universal testimony. It was given to Kessler, partly because of his perfect command of English, to demonstrate that Germans abroad may, after all, display tact and understanding of their audiences, and ability to appreciate the psychology of others—which latter we had come to doubt. Certainly no German since 1914 has served his country so well in America. As for the other speakers, the selections were far from the best. France was by no means as forcefully represented as she should have been, and we might have been spared the appearance of Lord Birkenhead. None the less the Institute is well worth while, because it helps to concentrate public attention in midsum- mer upon foreign affairs, and affords a public debating ground. We are sorry to hear rumors that there is danger that it may not be maintained. Its abandonment would be a misfortune. AVING decided to go after the French in the field of aircraft, the English are going at it with their accus- tomed thoroughness. Thus, the Air Minister, the Commit- tee of Imperial Defense, and the Imperial Shipping Com- mittee have decided to accept the proposal of the Burney Airship Company to start a bi-weekly service of six large airships to India, subject to the approval of the House of Commons. The company is to build one airship of 150 tons and five million cubic feet capacity, capable of carrying from 130 to 150 passengers, together with ten tons of mail. The government will provide $2,000,000 as a loan toward the construction of this ship, and after it has successfully flown to India within a hundred hours the government will ad- vance $2,000,000 a year for the following three years—all as a loan. After the company has maintained a weekly service to India for three months, the government will con- tribute $1,250,000 a year as an outright subsidy, for which it will be entitled to send officers and men to India without charge. The first airship, which is of the rigid Zeppelin type, will have a speed of eighty miles an hour with engines using kerosene and hydrogen combined, and will be built in eighteen months, after which one ship will be turned out every four months until six are complete. Of course, the construction will at first be directed by the Germans, just as the Germans are building the airships for the New York- Chicago Zeppelin line to be started in 1924. We are on the threshold of marvelous airship developments. IVE thousand men and women milled through the streets of Harlem when “Kid Dropper,” chief of the Essex Street gang, was buried, and his enemies hired a jazz band and put in a false fire alarm in their post-mortem hate. The newspapers dug out of their “morgues” columns of stories of earlier gangsters, of “Chuck” Connors, whose engraved cards gave the address “Chinatown, New York,” of “Gyp the Blood,” of “Monk” Eastman, who went straight during the war only to be shot by an unruly prohibition agent two years after. The Dropper’s record was blazoned on the front page—including his last achievement, the death of the boy for whose love sixteen-year-old Yotchki Churgin, East-Side “vamp,” had left the “Dropper’s” brother Izzie. Dime novels, Nick Carter romances, tales of Deadwood Dick can hardly rival for romance these revelations of the under- world in 1923 New York. Is the old frontier replaced by a new frontier within our million-manned cities? The new frontier has a sinister side—these gangsters fight not only their own murderous battles of personal love and hate; they write in their lives and crimes the worst pages in the indus- trial history of America. But after all, was the old frontier so much purer, or is it merely more distant? OMMEND us for adequate self-appreciation to the Russian pianist Vladimir de Pachmann—whom James Huneker called ‘‘the Chopinzee.” He was always self-satis- fied; years ago he would say to his audiences in the middle of a piece: “Didn’t I play that well?” ‘“Isn’t that rendering charming?” Sometimes he indulged in scurrilous remarks about people in the audience whose bearing he did not like. Now he is able to declare that he is the “only real genius” of the piano, though he admits that it was but five years ago that he reached that rank—at the age of seventy. Then he discovered the one and only method of piano playing, showing, if he could demonstrate anything so trite and con- ventional, that it is never too late to learn anew. Perhaps the greatest charm of De Pachmann, aside from his origi- nality, is his frankness in dealing with his rivals. Other artists are always loud in their praises of their contempo- raries in their own field and pretend a great enthusiasm, while in their hearts they often burn with envy and hate. Not so De Pachmann. With him the truth prevails at all times. Paderewski, he assured the reporters on his arrival in New York last week, is not a great pianist, but “a good one.” Busoni and Rosenthal and Godowsky are good tech- nicians, and the latter is the greatest of all living com- posers (!). Hofmann’s playing, his great audiences will be glad to learn, has grown “steadily worse” ever since he was nine years old. As for Rachmaninoff: “My God, no such people exist for me, he is second-class, no, he is third-class.” When it comes to De Pachmann himself, why: “Nothing could be finer or more superb than what I play; it is mar- velous. When I hear what I play I say ‘it is finished, a perfect thing, thank God.’” There is only one thing lack- ing: his contemporaries’ similarly frank opinions of De Pachmann.

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256 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 The League of Nations Faces the Test Y the act of a tyrant the League of Nations has been brought to book. It must now demonstrate that it has courage and capacity or go to the wall. If it cannot deal with Mussolini it ought to be painlessly chloroformed. If it permits Italy, a signatory to the Covenant and a mem- ber of the League, to declare that its unproved grievance against Greece is one affecting its national honor and that, therefore, it is not bound to let the League arbitrate, then is the Covenant but a scrap of paper. If it refuses to act vigorously on the just appeal of Greece, then will it stultify itself. And if for a moment it should entertain Mussolini’s reported proposal that the World Court should arbitrate the question whether the League of Nations is competent to deal with this situation, it would become a byword—no, the laughing-stock of the world. A reference to the World Court is unthinkable. So this impudent swashbuckler has brought up with a round turn the Robert Cecils, the Smutses, the Nansens, and all the good and true Americans who have been insist- ing that a League of Nations concefved and constituted like this one was going to exercise its powers to pacify the world. Now they and their League must face the music. The procedure it ought to take is clearly specified and known of all men. The question is whether it has the courage and the nerve to grapple with the man who has flouted it and declares that his country will withdraw from the League if it does not take his point of view exactly. It has shown no courage whatever in dealing with the Poles at Vilna, the misgovernment in the Saar which is such direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles; it has pussy- footed as to the opium trade and above all it has been shamefully silent as to the monstrous wickedness of the Ruhr occupation. No wonder Mussolini has felt that he can thumb his nose at the Council in Geneva. He knows, and everybody else knows who looks beneath the surface, that the only reason the League has not acted as to the Ruhr is that it is too cowardly to grapple with France. Some of its chief spokesmen say that in letters to and in pri- vate conversations with the editors of The Nation, and they beg that the League be given a little more time to get on its feet before it is called upon to tackle “fone of the big fellows.” Very well, here is a littler fellow who is begin- ning to shoot up Europe in the finest manner of a drunken cowboy in a Western mining-camp. How about his case? Mussolini ought not to be so difficult for the League to handle because he is so vulnerable economically. If he is to have an economic boycott declared against him, as is pro- vided in Article XVI of the Covenant, it should be very easy to reduce him to terms, for Italy does not produce a ton of coal, and since the Ruhr invasion took place has ob- tained practically all of its coal from England. And Eng- land is, after Greece, the very country which is the most deeply aggrieved and affronted. Mussolini has, moreover, put Great Britain in a dreadful hole. It went to war over Belgium because of secret obligations, never made public and persistently lied about in the Commons, which bound it, so its Edward Greys declared,. to defend the violated neutrality of Belgium. Now here is a violation of an agree- ment of neutrality made as to Corfu by Great Britain, France, and Russia in 1863 and publicly recorded since that time. Is the same country which rightfully denounced Ger- many for its brutal violation of its treaty with Belgium to sit by and let Mussolini have his way with Corfu? Then shall it once more not escape the charge that its statesmen are hypocrites; that its spasms of virtue in foreign affairs are invariably synchronous with pecuniary gain or the opportunity to destroy a trade rival. No, England must move now or confess the utter hollowness of her pretexts in 1914. We are aware, of course, that Mussolini has excellent precedents for his excuse that this is not war but merely the seizing of a guaranty. The self-righteous Woodrow Wilson gave him one when he took and held Vera Cruz, his fleet murdering about 400 men, women, and children as he did so. The English have given him plenty, notably when they seized a Venezuelan harbor to enforce the payment of debts. But best of exemplars is Poincaré. Is that gen- tleman not morally bound to uphold Mussolini? Isn’t he merely holding the Ruhr as a guaranty of reparations for colossal wrongs? Isn’t he, too, certain that his invasion is not an act of war? The truth is that all the great nations are tarred with the same brush. ‘They are hypocritical imperialists and all on the make at the dictation of their capitalist society. All the more reason that England, for one, should begin to repair its record by calling a halt on Mussolini. If he is justified in Corfu, then is any highbinder or footpad within the pale. But quite aside from anything else is the fact that Europe is a powder magazine and no such running amuck with a flaring torch can be tolerated. As we go to press the indications are favorable. But who can prophesy? Nobody dreamed that the murder at Sarajevo would set the whole world ablaze and cost ten million human lives. The barbarous murder of the Italian delegation in Albania is so nearly a repetition of that incident as to make one shudder. Again the scene is in the Balkans, and this time instead of a feeble old Kaiser like Franz Josef to deal with we must reckon with an utterly irresponsible tyrant, who has been raised to dictatorial power by naked force, by preaching the doctrine of might above right, one who has long been an advocate of Italianizing the entire Mediter- ranean. If the League of Nations can head him off it will be entitled to the highest praise, which we, for our part, shall not be backward in giving to it. If it fails to act, then the enlightened governments and the public opinion of the world must none the less be brought into play. In the latter, the Italians resident in this and other countries than Italy should aid. They must know of the danger of Jugo- slavia’s breaking loose if Italy really becomes involved in war with Greece. And with Jugoslavia in, who can say what bounds could be set to the new war to end war and make the world safe for democracy? In the effort to save us from this, our own country should also act and at once. Enlightened statesmanship at Washington should, without waiting for anybody or anything else, voice its protest at the incredible folly, to give them no other name, of Musso- lini’s acts. It would be a heaven-sent opportunity for a brave and far-seeing President, but—at least the country itself may speak.

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 257 Mussolini and Hughes HILE Mussolini was landing troops at Tangier in Morocco, and delivering an ultimatum (reminiscent of the Austrian missive of 1914) to Greece, our own Mr. Hughes was expressing, to the members of the American Bar Association, his very Mussolini-like philosophy of inter- national relations. Both gentlemen proclaim the good old Machiavellian principle of sacro egoismo. Indeed, it may be an injustice to Machiavelli to trace the Mussolini- Hughes doctrine to him; its real father is the cave-man or the extinct dinosaur. It is a doctrine which is becoming increasingly open in the world (it has always been popular) and it seems to achieve a certain immediate success. It is the doctrine that individuals and nations have a right to anything they want—if they have the power to take it and keep it. It is the doctrine which the League of Nations consecrated when the Poles took Vilna and allowed when the Lithuanians took Memel. It is the doctrine by which the Germans justified their seizure of Belgium in 1914, by which the French ex- cuse their action in the Ruhr today, and by which Mr. Hughes is ready to explain anything which the United States has done or may care to do in this hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine, he says, “remains an assertion of the principle of national security” (!), and “the Government of the United States reserves to itself its definition, inter- pretation, and application.” In the language commonly used by individuals applying Mr. Hughes’s code, we will do as we blooming well please. It is all very much in the manner of the dictator of Italy—and after all, since Mr. C. W. Barron has announced that the two greatest economic minds of the world “are those of Mussolini and Coolidge,” why should not Mr. Coolidge’s chief secretary seek to claim fame as one of the two greatest political philosophers of the day? (We expect some learned lawyer soon to proclaim Mussolini as such.) Mussolini’s ultimatum to Greece was inexcusable swash- buckling. Moreover, there is no proof as yet that they were Greek bandits who murdered the Italian commission- ers three miles from the Albanian frontier—but Mussolini says they were, and, like Mr. Hughes, he reserves to him- self all questions of ‘definition, interpretation, and applica- tion.” One may even suspect that he would like to pick a quar- rel. Italy still holds the Greek islands which she took from Turkey in 1912 and half-promised to return to Greece, and a good excuse for retaining them would be convenient. Furthermore, Albania has become almost a province of the Italian empire, and the Greek-Albanian frontier naturally interests Italian statesmen. Tangier is another question. Italy was not a great Medi- terranean Power when Tangier went under a sort of inter- national directorate. Joint control did not work well, and since the war France has established herself as virtual ruler of Tangier. England, fearful of a strong Power established opposite Gibraltar, has sought to restore inter- national control, but both England and France have refused to admit that Italy’s claim to an “interest,” as a Mediter- ranean Power, in the fate of Tangier had any basis. So Mussolini has taken the short and eloquent step of landing troops there “to protect Italian interests.” It’s the old, old story of empire-building; Mr. Hughes uses as pretty words to explain the maintenance of our troops in Haiti and Santo Domingo and to justify his intrusion into Cuba’s domestic policies. We are, as Americans, particularly aggrieved at Mr. Hughes’s address on the Monroe Doctrine. The whole moral basis of America’s attitude to Europe is undermined by his persistent refusal to face the fact that we are playing the bully to Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine may, at its inception, have been a measure of defense—though even then the idea of a great hemispheric American empire was not undreamed; it has become a cloak for aggression. For Mr. Hughes to say that it ‘does not infringe upon the inde- pendence and sovereignty of other American states” and to insist that it “does not stand in the way of Pan-American cooperation” is simply preposterous. All Latin America is seething with protest at the dictatorial attitude of the United States delegates to the recent Pan-American con- ference. These are the facts: our marines hold Haiti, Santo Do- mingo, and Nicaragua; we are telling Cuba what to do with her lottery and her railroads; we have just brought Mexico to adjust her oil and land laws to please American inves- tors; all Central America is under our financial thumb; an American financial mission has been instructing Colombia how to run her finances; American bankers control Bolivian policy, and Peru is virtually in American hands; an Ameri- can naval mission to Brazil has almost precipitated war between that country and Argentina. Could any one guess these things from Mr. Hughes’s talk to his fellow-members of the legal profession? “Principle of national security?” Not for anyone but ourselves, surely—and will we claim that Cuba’s lottery threatens our safety? “Cooperation?” In no truer sense than Germany cooperated with Belgium during the war. It is sacro egoismo, divine selfishness, ‘‘do-anything-you- can-get-away-with.” Mr. Hughes leaves Americans scant right to read moral lessons to Mussolini, and yet it is still our duty to protest. But, we fear, Mr. Hughes is far too much of a blood brother to Mussolini to hope for much. On Rereading HE advice of Hazlitt to reread an old book whenever one is tempted to read a new one is good advice. But like even the best advice it should be acted on not only not too literally but with moderation. The reading of many years leaves many memories—beautiful and somber, gay and moving. In hours of reverie these memories are part of the mind’s best possessions. For reading is deeply rooted in life. It marks high moments, profound consolations, periods of splendor and decline. To have read George Moore’s “Con- fessions of a Young Man” at twenty is something more than reading. It is akin to religion and to love. But shall we reread that book? Heaven forbid! For we can well imagine how cold those palpitating pages would seem today, how drained of what we once brought to them, how much of their wisdom would seem knowingness, how much of their beauty to be touched by decay. Not to reread the book— that is the only way of possessing it forever and of posses- sing untarnished that hour of youth when first it swam into our ken. This, then, is the true philosophy of the matter. All but the authentic classics, new or old, had better be left alone if we would keep the gifts that they once had to give us. Various temperaments will react toward past reading in

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258 various ways. The principle remains. In an idle hour, not long ago, we took up “Lavengro.” Once we had almost belonged to what Andrew Lang called the true Borrovians. Alas, we found Borrow amazingly dull, pompous, and wooden. What had once seemed rude manliness now seemed mere ignorant pig-headedness. Did ever mortal know so much with so little result? The experience was a little disconcerting. We had planned to reread some of Dickens, not a little Stevenson, even Trollope. We shall not do so. We shall leave Mr. Micawber alive forever in the chambers of the mind; we shall keep untouched by the morose criti- cism of the later years the inimitable Alan Breck Stuart; we shall not lose our cathedral closes and towers of Bar- chester by rashly opening the books that gave them to us once. On a lower plane the counsel to reread is imperative. Long ago we had hours of keen absorption in Walter Besant and in Wilkie Collins; not only in “All Sorts and Conditions of Men” but even in ‘The Woman in White.” We must flee from such books or they are ruined forever. We once tried, for ten horrible minutes, to reread “The History of David Grieve.” The minor Elizabethans share this fate with the minor Victorians. It is no empty observation to make that all the unromantic part of the eighteenth century stands the test of rereading magnificently. As experience and reason ripen one is drawn more and more to the sovereign sanity and simplicity of the books of that age. If Stevenson seems a little thin and tormented, read Defoe’s “Captain Single- ton,” if all the words of the moderns seem either over-used or over-luscious, read Swift; if poetry seems, in certain moods, to have lost both the ground under its feet and the rhythm of its eternal tread, it is no bad plan to reread the “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” or certain incomparable lines in the “Epistle to Jervas.” Addison, to be sure, seems ever more anemic and meanly proper as the years go on. Itisa superstition, however, that Johnson is important only as the sitter for a memorable portrait. With: all its faults and prejudiced judgments and failures of vision, the “Lives of the Poets” remains one of the sanest, most fascinating, most human books in the language. Nor is this all. It was in the despised Rambler that Johnson said he “would not wil- lingly interrupt the dream of harmless stupidity or destroy the jest which makes its author laugh”; it was there, too, that he declared: “It ought to be the first endeavor of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essen- tial principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had author- ity to enact.” We may be very mordant wits and very philosophical critics today. We shall not easily beat that. Yes, the books that bear rereading are the books that have essential sanity and freedom. They may be as lofty as “Faust,” or as kneaded of the common clay as the tales of Smollett. It is the overbright that fades, the strained that snaps. An unnatural polish will soon tarnish, and in- tricate forms not stuffed with substance will crumple, wither, and decay. Johnson’s prose is fresher today than Oscar Wilde’s, Pope’s verses than those of Arthur O’Shaugh- nessy. Here is a counsel for writers as well as readers. The books that can be reread are the books that are models. The others partake of the nature of dreams, pleasurable but transitory. The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 Labor’s Newspapers S the commercialization of journalism increases, as the big newspapers swallow the little ones and editorial independence becomes less and less valued, the newspapers tend more and more to express the point of view of the pos- sessing classes. No wonder labor turns eagerly to the hope of establishing a press of its own. When big dailies are sold for millions of dollars their editors inevitably are men of the big-financier type, and the chance that they will have broad liberal sympathies or employ men of democratic con- tacts to write editorials for them is slight. Newspapers have become not merely slaves of “big business” but a part of “big business.” It is a mere accident of fortune when papers like the Baltimore Suns are given a free rein, or when the sons of a fortune-maker, like the younger genera- tion of Pulitzers, keep their papers as liberal as the New York World or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Labor, of course, is twice handicapped in any effort to establish journals of its own. It lacks the enormous funds requisite, and it lacks experience in journalism. Labor lead- ers are all too likely to care more for partisanship than for fair play; in their resentment of capitalist distortions they often lose the faculty of self-criticism. They are prone to want a trade journal, carrying too exclusively news of the labor organizations, and to realize too little that it is their own members who support the papers which carry least labor news. (It is a curious fact that the Times at present prints the best labor news of any large daily in New York.) The recent reorganization of the New York Call gives hope of a labor newspaper which will be at once a labor paper and a newspaper. The ownership passes from party Socialists to a group of labor unions led by the powerful Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Norman Thomas, a contributing editor of The Nation, becomes editor-in-chief of the Call, and Heber Blankenhorn, whose long experience on a New York afternoon paper has been complemented by intimate association with labor organizations in the Bureau of In- dustrial Research, becomes the managing editor. Evans Clark, of the Labor Bureau, assumes the business man- agership. The names of these men are guaranties of the independence and editorial quality of the new paper. These qualities the old paper has too often lacked. Its clear-headed war-time policy has lately faded into a rather gloomy parti- sanship, wholly uninteresting to the average reader, and its style has suffered the inevitable effect of such a lapse. For all that, its history is one of courage and sacrifice on the part of its editors and its supporters, and the new. manage- ment should be able to build a far greater paper on the sturdy foundation of the loyalty that has kept the Call alive. Whether such a paper can be a financial success remains a question. The only English-language labor paper in the United States with a clear balance-sheet is Victor Berger’s Milwaukee Leader. The Butte Bulletin and the Oklahoma Leader have become weeklies; the Seattle Union-Record and the Minnesota Star struggle with deficits. Chicago and Boston have almost forgotten that they ever had labor dailies. Even in England the Daily Herald is in one of its periodic crises, from which it will emerge only if the Trade Union Congress comes to its rescue. Can the new Call do better? Time alone will tell. But if labor can manage its own banks, why not its own newspapers?

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 259 The Greatest Jewish City in the World By KONRAD BERCOVICI PYXNHERE is an old European saying that every country deserves the kind of Jews it has. If so, New York does not know what it deserves, for it has every kind—gangsters, social workers, philanthropists, corrupt politicians, patriotic capitalists, preaching social- ists, anarchists, bigots, atheists, ignorant illiterates, highly educated men. Every kind of Jew, from the lowest strata of humanity to the peak of culture, is represented here— a complete nation. The only way to purify water is to sterilize it. The only way to purify a nation is to kill it. You can kill a Jew but you can’t kill the Jews. Spain has learned that. Russia has had her lesson. Poland has tried to solve her Jewish problem in a river. Hungary has imi- tated Poland. Rumania has tried to imitate them. Ger- many is doing it now. But it all comes down to one and the same thing. You can kill a Jew, ten, a hundred, a thousand, but you can’t kill the Jews. They cannot even be absorbed. No sooner has the inevitable process of ab- sorption begun in a country after two generations of toler- ance have put their national or racial consciousness to sleep, than an anti-Semitic outbreak in that country or in another awakens the consciousness in the Jews and the reluctance to absorb them in the non-Jews. And the would-be alloy separates like non-mixable chemical matter, a little tar- nished but not welded. During my long residence in New York I have observed the following changes in one man: He arrived a bearded talmudical scholar in 1910. Rabbi Glockman was then less than thirty years old. He had a wife and four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest was twelve years old, which meant that the father had married at eighteen. A year later Rabbi Glockman was still teaching Hebrew in a little after-school ‘‘Cheder’” where the Jewish children were sent by their parents so as not to forget they were Jews. The school was on Division Street, way down on the East Side. Two years later, with the beard a little trimmed, Mr. Glockman owned a “Kosher” delicatessen store, on Second Avenue near Tenth Street. The place closed on Friday evening and remained closed till Saturday after prayers. Mr. Glockman was the president of a congrega- tion. Four years later Mr. Glockman was partner in a shirt-waist factory where they worked on the Sabbath. The beard was completely gone. They lived in the Bronx. Six years later Mr. Glockman smoked on the Sabbath, ate “un- clean” food, and was denounced in a strike as the worst exploiter. He employed only Italian labor and had changed his name to Bell, George Bell, and had moved from the Bronx to Morristown; because there were no Jews there. Eight years later his daughter had married a Gentile. But then the railroad strike broke out. The great Morristown plan, by which the wealthiest commuters manned the trains, entered into vogue. Mr. Bell came to the station every morning with his overalls under his arms ready to take his place as a scab—to help the country. But Mr. T. and Mr. D. and Mr. F. who were at the head would not have the Jew with them in the cab. He had to ride as a passenger. They would not even give him the privilege of acting as conductor. Today Mr. Bell is again Solome Glockman. He lives in Harlem, in the heart of the Jewish district. Is a member of the congregation and a fanatical Zionist. Even the beard was allowed to grow back, a little trimmed, to its full length. Until the daughter divorced her husband and married a Jew she was not allowed to cross her parents’ door. An exception? No. It is typical. When the first Jews came to live in New York, then New Amsterdam, in 1630 or thereabouts, Peter Stuyvesant was governor. They were known as Portuguese Jews. In reality they were Spanish Jews, escaped from Spanish persecu- tion, who had acquired Portuguese citizenship in Brazil, then ruled by Portugal. Peter Stuyvesant unscrewed his wooden leg and beating the governmental desk with it asked their extermination. They were unworthy to tread the earth, he argued. He hated Jews. But that Mayflower Jewry dealt in gorgeous silks and beautiful jewelry which they received from compatriots the world over, and they had many supporters. There are several cemeteries full of these Jews in New York. One is a small triangle lot on the southeastern corner of Eleventh Street and Sixth Avenue. Another one is on the Bowery below Canal Street. There are washlines strung between the red-brick houses on both sides of this cemetery. The houses are inhabited by Greeks and Italians. At night the shadows of the fluttering white bed sheets give a ghastly animation to the weather-beaten crookedly-leaning grey tombstones. There is another ceme- tery in a back yard of a Jewish theater on Second Avenue. If Peter Stuyvesant could only see what has happened! On his Bouwerie, his farm, close to the church his widow had erected to his memory, from one end to the other of his estate: Jews, nothing but Jews—synagogues and thea- ters—temples, Jewish institutions. His district sends Jew- ish representatives to the Assembly, to Congress, makes Jewish judges, and on the square, within earshot of his grave in the wall of the church, Jewish boys and women talk politics and religion and make love. And were it not for Jews who come to hear lectures on music and poetry his church would be empty on Sundays and holidays. There are more Jews in New York than in Palestine, more than Palestine can ever hope to have. (For that matter there are more Italians in New York than in Rome, and more Greeks than in Athens.) Down on Allen Street, under the elevated railway, where the sun never penetrates, where the night is only a little darker than the day, live the Syrian and Moroccan Jews. You may see them on the street in civilized garb, but in their stores and houses, hammering out brass for lanterns and working at curiously patterned jewelry as they sit on their heels, Turkish fashion, they wear their own garments—the wide, large, folded pantaloons that come down to a narrow cuff at the ankles of the bare feet in red slippers. They wear long beards covering their chests. They wear heavy brocaded burnouses and on their heads rest small cone-like brown fezes. And their heavy, dark-eyed, olive-skinned women wear tasseled skirts, and white shawls over their black hair. Those who have arrived but recently still wear the yellow patch, the Jew sign of the Moroccan Ghetto. Try to speak Yiddish to them! Nota word do they understand. They speak Hebrew and Spanish —the old Castilian, to be exact. For they too are descend-

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260 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3036 eee ea eres errr ee eee ee ee erence eee enn ee nn nn nnn nn ants of the Spanish Jews. Their ancestors fled Spain cen- turies ago but they took the language with them; the lan- guage which Ibn Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, and Ben Halevy, the three great Jewish poetic stars of the Middle Ages, have immortalized in their beautiful verses. Today if a Spanish scholar desires to study the Castilian tongue he has to come to New York to study it from the Jews. They have their own synagogue, their own congregation, and even their own paper, printed in Spanish. They stand aside from the other Jews. They consider themselves superior; for their ances- tors have been tortured on the rack in Spain. The early comers of the same race of Jews have enriched themselves, become multi-millionaires, in the tobacco and cigarette busi- ness, in the traffic in lace, jewelry, and silks. Only a great calamity, like the late war or the pogroms in Russia, awakens in them Jewish consciousness. Below Allen Street, on Division Street, is Jewish News- paper Row. There have long been four large Jewish daily papers. A fifth one under the editorship of L. E. Miller, the father of Jewish journalism in America, has just been revived. There are several weeklies—a reactionary one and one of anarchistic tendencies. The combined circulation of these papers is over a million a day. Probably half of that is subscribed by out-of-town readers. There are several periodicals in the old Hebrew of the prophets. On East Broadway and on Grand Street, back of the pushcarts, lit by smoking acetylene torches at night, behind rickety toys and second-hand new clothes, are several publishing-houses. They publish books written in Yiddish—modern books on philosophy and sociology, translations of Nietzsche, Berg- son, Freud, James, Marx, Tolstoi, Balzac, Dostoievski, and Jack London; also new editions of the Talmud with its com- mentaries, and treatises on the Cabala. Every other day there arises a new great poet or prosa- teur on the East Side. One day it was Moritz Rosenfeld. His fame spread to the outer world, thanks to the interest of a Columbia professor of literature. His poems were translated into all the languages and praised in all of them. You can read about him that he was a tailor. A miracle had come to pass; a tailor became a great poet. What they forgot to say was that a great Hebrew scholar had become a tailor in America. Leon Dolitzky’s fame rose. A six- foot-two giant, he was a legendary figure in Jewish life before he was twenty. You can still meet him at the Divi- sion Street cafe, as straight as an arrow at seventy. And if he likes you well enough he will read you his latest love poem. Then came Abraham Raisin, that sweetest of all singers. Sholom Asch, unsuccessful with three books trans- lated into English, suddenly attracted attention with his play, “The God of Vengeance.” And Pinski, Cahan, Moishe Nadir, Libin, Jehoash, Peretz Hirshbein, in whose plays Ben Ami starred, and a host.of others too numerous to men- tion. The best of Jewish talent and intelligence crowds on an afternoon in the Division Street cafe and at the Royal on Second Avenue at night—painters, sculptors, musicians, poets, actors. There are a dozen Jewish theaters in Greater New York with some three hundred plays in their repertoire. This repertoire includes Ibsen, Tolstoi, Andreiev, Pshibishevski, Sudermann, Schnitzler, Shaw, Shakespeare, and also includes such trash as one is ashamed to stumble upon. The Yiddish Broadway, Second Avenue, is an exact duplicate of the real Broadway. Actors and managers the world over are of the same ilk. The acting fraternity is a race apart. Language is but a superficial distinction. But the Jewish acting pro- fession in New York has given to the American stage some of its best—the Schildkrauts, father and son, Ben Ami, the Adlers, the Larrimores, Warfield, and a host of others. They may play on the English stage but when at leisure they come down to the East Side to meet friends. For it is the peculiarity of the Jew to return to his erstwhile haunts when successful. He returns there in cutaway and silk hat, bediamonded and with a condescending air. But he returns. There is a cafe.on Second Avenue where gather the par- ents and relatives of the celebrities. They are pointed out to strangers as the father of Elman, the brother of Levitzky, the sister of Alma Gluck, etc. One evening after a long absence Mischa Elman’s father, a scholarly gentleman who would have won his spurs as a writer if his son had not become a great virtuoso, explained that he had visited nightly another coffee-house, frequented by talmudic schol- ars, where he was not known. Four weeks his happiness lasted. He gathered laurels of his own. Then some one who knew him came in, and the happiness was gone. It was his fate to be known only as Mischa’s father. When Mme. Gluck’s sister discourses on music no one dares say a word. But the father of the son who had just graduated from the talmudic school on East Broadway is. just as proud of his offspring as the father of the great lawyer or virtuoso or millionaire. It’s the coffee-house of fathers and relatives. Slowly the Jews have been pushed northward by the Ital- ians, who have invaded their territory after being dislodged from theirs by the Syrians. Signs in Hebrew letters on the windows have been scratched out and Italian words painted there instead. You can still see the traces of the old signs. Many a synagogue became a Chiesa Cattolica. And in the move upward many a church was transformed into a syna- gogue. The Jews and Italians are always close neighbors in New York—heartily disliking one another, nevertheless. Two things make them so neighborly. The pushcarts first— the old oriental bazaar, with merchandise on the street, where one bargains for every article, where the buyer and the seller try to outwit one another, appeals to both peoples strongly. The pushcart trade exists only in Jewish and Italian settlements. Musical instruments side by side with onions, apples, garlic, praying shawls, phylacteries, holy images; a trick picture of Moses and Washington in one, and of the holy Virgin and Garibaldi next to it; plaster casts, cut glass, jewelry, furs, pistols, knives, fishing tackle, oysters, clams—the bazaar. Crowds. Noises. Quarrels. The Jew trying to speak Italian; the Italian offering his wares in a broken Yiddish. Curses in both languages. The children play. A hand organ with a chained black bird that “pulls out your luck” from the stack of yellow cards near its beak; a monkey climbing up the window to collect a penny; a phonograph hoarsely bellowing out the latest of Cantor Rosenblatt or Caruso. And from an open window in Hester Street come the strains of a perfectly played Beethoven Sonata. It’s Hershman, the pushcart peddler’s daughter, playing. He calls out “Apples, apples,” and lis- tens to her playing. On Mulberry Street the son of the tailor is getting ready for grand opera. On Delancey Street my barber used to leave me in the chair half shaved to go to the back of the store and remonstrate with his son for not practicing faithfully. That son was Max Rosen, the celebrated violinist. Once I had a sign painted by a young- ster who is now a famous painter. The pushcart, the bazaar,

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Sept. 12, 1923] is the bond between the Italians and the Jews. I mean one of the bonds; the second is: Italians like fresh-killed meat and they can get it in Jewish butcher stores. Crowded northward, the Jews discovered the wilds of the Bronx. The doctors advised them to go and live there when they had a “touch of consumption.” It was “the country.” What they did with these wilds is history. They destroyed beautiful forest estates and built ugly tenement houses, cre- ated a new Hester Street where there was a park. But they also created a town where there were only rocks and marshes. Theaters, synagogues, institutions, hospitals, fac- tories, gambling houses, other houses. There is now a gen- eration of Bronx Jews, quite distinct from the East Side Jew. It’s the second generation Jew, with all the outward characteristics minus beard and mustache, playing baseball, great fight fans, commercial travelers, clean-shirted, white- collared, derby-hatted, crease-trousered. The women are stylish and stout, white-skinned, long-nosed, bediamonded ; social workers, actresses, stump speakers, jazz dancers, with none of the color and the virtues of their erstwhile bearded, bewigged parents, and a few vices of their own acquisition. But they bathe frequently. A third generation is now being housed on Riverside Drive. The Bronx having become “too Jewish” for them, they went to the “Drive.” And as the Drive then still har- bored the feeling voiced by many a to-let sign in Harlem and some parts above Gramercy Park, “No Jews,” they did what they had done to Lakewood, New Jersey. Many years ago, Nathan Straus went to a Lakewood Hotel to pass a few weeks at that rather exclusive winter resort. The manager told him, “No Jews here.” So he built a hotel next to it for Jews only. The result was that in a few years hundreds of little and big “kosher” hotels swamped the place. What happened to the “No Jew” place is history. The natives have not yet regretted the change. Last Christmas there was a Jewish flag on top of the community’s Christmas tree on Main Street. Yes. It’s what has happened to the Drive; they built tenement houses. It’s no longer Riverside Drive; it’s Jewish Drive. In another few years the Drive genera- tion, a very much Americanized one, Glockmans in the last stage of “Bells,” will leave the Drive to go elsewhere— because the Drive is too Jewish. Already many prefer to refer to their residences as Morningside. The East Side and part of the Bronx go to synagogues where the prayers are made in Hebrew. Harlem goes to Reform Synagogues where they have women in the choirs and organ music. The Drive goes to temples where the beardless Rabbis are doc- tors from American theological seminaries. Yet so far the only cultural values have come from the East Side. The men and women contributing to American thought, American letters, American revolt, American art, American music, have come from the East Side—immi- grants pregnant yet with their idealism, and the first gen- eration. I don’t mean to say one has to elbow his way through swarming geniuses on the dirty East Side streets. On an evening, at the close of the factories and sweatshops, west of Third Avenue from Canal Street to Thirty-second Street, when the thousands and thousands are let loose from the chains of the needle-factory wheels, it looks as if it was the | mission of Israel in America to trouser, coat and gown the rest of the population of this continent. Yet if it were not for the Jews the Metropolitan Opera House would only have its tier boxes and the upper gallery filled. The boxes The Nation 261 by the gentry and the gallery by the Italians on Italian nights. Go to Carnegie Hall or to Aeolian Hall at a worth- while concert and perhaps you will change your opinion about Jews caring for nothing but dollars. You will see many a boy and girl who, you will think, could have used dollars in a more practical way. As a matter of fact one does not exclude the other. Has not Jehuda Ben Halevy been a very practical man, and a great poet? Moses Mendelssohn, Moishe Dessauer, had been a banker, a bookkeeper, and a philosopher, whose book “Immortality of the Soul’ will live longer than the glory of his son Felix. And many a great poet of today combines business ability with art. Another fallacy is the great feeling of unity among all the Jews. As a matter of fact the Jews, the immigrants especially, live in national groups—the Rumanian Jews in one district, the Russians in another, the Polish and Galician elsewhere, and so on. The German Jews put a great dis- tance between themselves and the others. One dislikes the other’s peculiarities and all dislike the German Jews, espe- cially because they rule the institutions, orphanages, hos- pitals, charity dispensaries, and the Educational Alliance, and because they treat the others with condescension. Be- fore we entered the European war each Jew took sides with the country he migrated from. The German Jew could not forgive the Russian Jew for his successful invasion of the needle and real-estate trade. Now they frown on them because of their political activities. The argument is that they spoil the “good name” of the Jews by being Socialists and Bolshevists. In politics the German Jew has always sided with the stronger one. How clannish the different Jewish nationalities are can be illustrated by the fact that only one Rumanian Jew is employed in all of the Yiddish newspapers. They are all in the hands of Russian Jews, with here and there a Polish or a Galician thrown in. A million and a half of Jews from the world over in one city! Glockmans at different stages; tadpoles becoming frogs—and vice versa. In all walks of life, wedded to the -country for good or worse, molding and being molded, shedding their colors (which do not always fall on barren soil), sing-songing the tongue they have acquired in the manner of the one they have forgotten, trying hard to fit old traditions in a new life—fathers looking upon sons as strangers, only half understanding them, never agreeing, desiring their children to Americanize, yet fearing the new will never be worth the old, subconsciously hoping that a wave of anti-Semitism will rescue the race from assimila- tion. Contributors to This Issue KONRAD BERCOVICI, a Rumanian by origin, is the author of a book of short stories, “Dust of New York,” “Ghitza and Other Romances,” and recently of a novel, “Murdo.” HENRI BARBUSSE first became generally known in America through his story of the war, “Le Feu.” The Nation printed a debate between him and Romain Rolland on February 8, 1922, entitled The Tower of Ivory. BERTHA WALLERSTEIN has been an organizer for the Amal- gamated Clothing Workers. She contributed The Working-Woman’s Idea to The Nation of May 30, last.

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262 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 The Woman By HENRI BARBUSSE AYLIGHT, when it entered the low, black hovel was changed into the dusk of evening, and nothing but projecting angles was ever visible in the room. The floor of mud and stones might have been a piece of poor roadway. The dying woman raised herself up on her pallet. A broken shaft of light coming through the bars of the win- dow, set in the slant of the roof, fell upon her thin figure. “When I am dead,” she said to her daughter Mary, “go find your brother. He has been working in the mines ever since your father and I parted. You will both be orphans, so stay together. You should. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s natural for brother and sister to live with each other. You'll recognize him. If you don’t, you’ll know him by his name. You'll be a help to him. And he’ll be a help to you, too. He’s not a bad one, you know.” This was all the dying woman could say. During the night her lips closed forever. After the funeral Mary, who wore a gray dress and had removed the flower from her hat in sign of mourning, took the train, got off at the station for the mines, and walked across the blackened countryside to find her brother John. Blacker and blacker grew the roads, the nearer the coal- mines. A vast storm-cloud seemed to have spread over the neighborhood and faded off on the earth. Mary took a room in one of the hotels on the main street, where the houses had turned the color of a smokened lamp-chimney from the drifts of grit and coal-dust. In the evening she went to the exit of the pits and stood among the housewives who were waiting for the men to come out, The shriek of the sirens stunned her. Then she was jostled by the mass of workers—that dull, livid mass of men, who emerged from the opening and moved off in the same direction, like a funeral cortége. Though she and her brother had not seen each other since he was fifteen, she recognized him. Yes, that was John, with his small, pale face—too small, too pale—and his big body—his too-big body. His manner was different from the others; he seemed to be worn out and lonely—pro- foundly lonely. Good heavens! Mary saw John’s companions push him and titter. were making fun of him. He struggled, broke away, and fled. She followed him. He entered a lodging-house. But first he lifted his head and looked at the house, as if to make sure of it; which is a way shy people have. Soon he came out and went to the inn for dinner. Here he hesitated a moment on the threshold as though frightened by the clatter inside. Then he walked mechanically over to the remotest corner, where he tucked himself as far out of sight as possible. No woman, no sweetheart then? Odd. Well, one thing was certain: she, Mary, could sit down near him without making a nuisance of herself. That was fine! But the ease with which matters had been proceeding since her risky coming to the mines made her heart con- tract. They She entered the restaurant and seated herself opposite her brother two tables away wedged in between gabbling diners. He looked bored and sad, though he couldn’t have known of his mother’s death. An unshaded gas-jet threw black lines and white splotches on his bony face. Ah, a good-looking fellow! Some would-be comedians stopped in front of John and asked him joking questions. Among them was an airy, beribboned hussy with the light of wine in her eyes. John stammered something and stuck his nose in his plate. His ridiculers left, but the women at the tables all around burst out laughing. Oh, the brother Mary had found was a butt for ridicule, a thing to be flouted. Nobody wanted him. It was to get away from people as much as possible that he came rushing home from work and ate as though driven to bay in the remotest corner of the inn. Tears came to Mary’s eyes. How sorry she was for him! Well, now she had come. She would sweeten his life. She would be his family. She and he would take rooms together and his mantel would be brightened by flowers. Before slipping from her place, where she was almost be- ing crushed between her mobile neighbors, she gave him a long look. He happened to raise his head, caught the look, and stared at her. She smiled at him. A woman smiled at him! movement. Mary blushed. Of course he couldn’t recognize her. So he must imagine that. . . . Instinctively, she lowered her eyes. But instinctively she raised them again. He kept looking at her with wide-open eyes. In the pallor of his face his eyes shone like tears. And his face wore a look of surprise so poignant that Mary trembled all over and— smiled again. The scene had not escaped the noisy crowd of diners seated at the other tables—John Cadiot and the pretty stranger were exchanging glances! The workmen nudged each other and watched the by-play in amazement. “What do you know about that?” they murmured. Mary was abashed. She sat still and finished her dinner, without risking another glance in John’s direction, though she felt that he was looking at her steadily. And so were the others. After coffee was served, half the people went out. Mary got up and started toward her brother. He, seeing she really meant to come to him, rose to his feet and said, so as to clear up her mistake and forestall misunderstand- ing: “I am John Cadiot.” She opened her mouth to say: “Yes and I’m Mary, you know—Mary?” But he was looking at her fresh mouth with a sort of hope so extraordinary that, unconsciously, she said nothing, but merely smiled again and remained standing there. John finally decided to murmur: “Shall we leave this place?” They quietly and awkwardly made their way out. He gaped and sat in arrested

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 263 At their passage complete silence fell among the people in the workmen’s restaurant. The moment they were out of doors John touched her, then took her arm. She let him do it. Why did she not promptly dispel this painful, this grievous mistake? Why? She only said: “You live all by yourself?” “Of course,” he replied. Then he made an effort and stammered: “Why do you ask? It’s so strange for anyone to care about me. I’m not rich, you know? Everybody thinks it funny.” He pointed with his thumb. Glued to the windows of the cabarets lining the street were dark spying faces. “You haven’t any friends?” “Ig any one likely to care for me? that is I mean—” It was hard for him to talk of such things, as if he weren’t used to the phraseology. Mary still withheld the revelation, and said in a low voice: “You seem to be very nice. There are lots of women who would be happy with you.” “No one has ever told me so,” muttered the young man. “I am saying so, you see.” “You—you!” John threw his long arms around Mary’s shoulders and I understand why— drew her to him to kiss her. girl’s cheeks. “No, no!” His arms fell to his side. He stood like a staid slave. “Listen,” Mary said, “you mustn’t fall in love with me. I should be very unhappy if you did. I am not free. I’m not, really. If you only knew! And I’m going away from here. But other women beside me will find you very differ- ent from the rest of the men.” “Ah!” he said, “in what way, in what way?” He planted himself in front of her, in ecstasy. “They’ll love me, me? Really? Tell me, would you love me if you were free?” “Yes,” she said. ‘“Good-by. She disappeared. He stood there, straight, pale, lighted like a candle. His eyes, his face, his whole being shone with the magnificent reflection of the woman. Thenceforth he would be adorned as with an incalculable treasure, as with a talisman which would give him courage and the strength to meet life and happiness. Mary had slipped through the corridor of her hotel and buried herself in the little room which she had hired for the day. In the morning she would go far, far away. She must never see her brother again. For his sake she had preferred to be, not a real sister, but the phantom of a real woman. And she wept tears of mingled joy and sadness. His lips brushed the young She pushed him away. aS saree The New Emancipation of the Negro By BERTHA WALLERSTEIN IME was when the Negro question in the United States was purely a matter of justice and humanity. Yet that plea has done little for the Negro. Even the Great Emanci- pator freed the slaves as a war measure—not out of abstract justice, however keenly he himself may have felt its force. History is repeating itself. In 1923, as in 1863, there is hope of a second emancipation of the black race, not be- cause the white race has suddenly become converted to the doctrines set forth in the Sermon on the Mount or the Declaration of Independence, but because it is again a mat- ter of expediency. For the Negro question is now an indus- trial question. It concerns the white man just as much as the black. The colored people are entering industry. They are leaving the agricultural South for the industrial North. The process was described by W. E. B. DuBois in The Nation of May 9, 1923. From 1910 to 1920 the Negro population of New York doubled. That of Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Pittsburgh more than doubled. Employment bureaus report that thousands of Negroes have been placed in industry in Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, and the steel towns of Ohio. Needle trades unions report an enormous increase in Negro workers in their trades since the beginning of the war. The Department of Labor states that Negroes are being drawn North into the iron and steel, meat-packing, glass, food, and transportation industries. Its study of 273 manufacturing firms employing Negro labor shows an increase of 42.6 per cent in the num- ber of Negroes on the payrolls in a single year (April, 1922, to April, 1923). The increase is greatest in the North, yet it is considerable even in border States like Kentucky and Maryland. More than one-third of the Negroes in Ohio plants studied, and more than one-fifth in the Pennsylvania plants, had come North during the previous year. As these are the great steel States, we may conclude that Mr. Gary has found in Negro labor a substitute for the immigrant labor whose lack he deplores. When a new group of workers enters industry in large numbers, it is up to employers on the one hand and to organized labor on the other, to win the loyalty of the new workers. Is colored labor going to swell the ranks of union membership and increase union strength? Or is it going to help open-shop employers to defeat organized labor? If the white workers are to enlist the new body of Negro workers, there must be no more prejudice and discrimina- tion. White workers must see their common interest with black, and must make it their business to convince the latter of that common interest. In this way equality for the Negro is a necessary war measure for white labor. On the other hand, if the employer is to win over the Negro worker, his problem is far simpler. He has only to treat him with the courtesy and consideration of one human being for another. The Negro immigrant from the South, accustomed to make way on the street for the white man, to ride in Jim Crow cars, and to suffer a thousand other daily reminders of inferiority, is easily flattered by an ap- pearance of equality. It has worked with white labor: it will work even better with the Negro. It is probable that nothing has done so much to prevent organization of American labor as the democratic doctrine that the worker is just as good as the boss—that he has the same chance to climb to the top. If this is true of the white workers, how much is it truer of the colored workers, to whom equality with any white man is a new sensation. How much easier to win the Negro’s loyalty by giving him an

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264 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3086 EEE equal chance in industry, by organizing a little welfare work for him, by convincing him that his boss is his friend. The colored worker often finds that his boss is the first white man who has ever treated him as an equal. He is loyal to his employer. In a recent strike in a plant employ- ing colored and white workers, the colored workers elected a committee to inform the employer that they would stand by him because he had been so square to them, and that they could give him useful information about applicants for the strikers’ jobs, telling which of them were likely to “make trouble,” and which were loyal workers. Yes, it pays the employer to be “square” to the colored worker. Just now it is especially to the interest of both sides to give the Negro worker equality. For we are on the crest of an industrial boom. Labor is in demand. Organized labor has an excellent chance to make favorable agreements, and to win new members to its ranks. The union is in a position to convince the timid worker that it can do some- thing to further his interest. And the worker need not fear to lose his job by joining the union. At the same time, employers are trying to maintain the open shop in spite of their need of labor. They are clamoring for a revision of the immigration laws, that they may have a large supply of unorganized labor. The Negro migration into Northern industries promises to supply their needs. In many indus- tries it has already done so. The steel industry, for in- stance, which has wailed the loudest about labor shortage, is absorbing a larger supply of Negro labor than any other. The Negro worker is the strategic trench in the struggle between employer and worker. Which will capture him? It seems safe to predict that it will be the one which first sheds prejudice and discrimination. This fact is perhaps more obvious to the employer than to the unions. Rut even though he realizes his need and sends agents to the South, to represent to dissatisfied Negro farmers the advantages of working in Northern mills and factories, he has not entirely abolished industrial discrimination. The Negro has. not been employed on skilled work in large num- bers, except in the foundries. But in that industry, as elsewhere, he has proved his ability to do the skilled job as well as a white man. One of the first shipyard gangs dur- ing the war to win a prize for rapid work at pile driving was a colored gang. In general, the opinion of employers is that colored workers have made good and there is every reason to expect that in time they will have an equal chance with white men to do skilled work. Discrimination in wages is hard to determine. Negro leaders and Negro organizations hold that members of their race get lower wages than white workers for the same work. The most extensive study of Negroes in industry, made by the Department of Labor, indicates that wages of white and colored workers vary more or less equally, if all indus- tries are averaged. On the other hand, studies of colored women workers show that they are earning less than white women, although it is hard to say how far this is due to a lower grade of skill and speed on the part of the colored women. It is much easier to determine how far the unions. give an equal chance to colored workers in their respective trades. Certainly there is a great deal of discrimination. The ordi- nary union worker has not learned that he must win the colored man, if only to safeguard his own union and his own pay envelope. It is reported that in 1919 two thousand white workers in Richmond, Virginia, withdrew from the State Federation of Labor because its convention seated a Negro delegate. But besides the general prejudice, the white worker has a special conviction that colored men are strike-breakers. Negroes helped to break the steel strike of 1919-1920—due perhaps to a failure on the part of the organized workers to win them over. They broke the Chi- cago stockyard strike of 1904. They were accused of break- ing that of 1919, and the belief that they did so led to race riots, but the charge was probably unjust, for there were many Negro strikers and union members. They “scabbed” on the workers of East St. Louis in 1917, and the result was a horrible race riot. But there have also been in- stances when Negroes have fought side by side with white men. They have even come out in support of white strikers when the union excluded Negroes. It is certainly unfair to label colored workers, as a class, as strike-breakers. As the Messenger, a Negro journal, puts it: “White workers can- not lynch Negro workers, debar them from joining their unions, and expect them to show the spirit of cooperation when white workers are sore pressed by the brutal hand of capital.” Labor is waking up to the fact that, when the Negro is a strike-breaker, it is usually the white man’s fault. The issue came up at the 1919 convention of the American Fed- eration of Labor, and was met with a resolution to give full and equal membership rights to colored workers. There was only one vote against the resolution, cast by the Rail- way Postal Clerks. But the Negroes have learned how little avail mere reso- lutions. Each international union of the American Federa- tion of Labor has complete self-government, and the Federa- tion itself can impose no restriction upon individual unions in regard to membership or regulations. A number of unions still exclude Negroes, and a dozen A. F. of L. reso- lutions will not change their policy. But the Federation may issue a separate charter to colored workers who are excluded by the white union, with the consent of that union. There are 488 colored locals in the A. F. of L. under sepa- rate charters. On the other hand, there have been cases where the white union has refused to allow the Federation to issue a separate charter, and has then turned round and blamed Negro workers, excluded from the union, for under- cutting union rates! A number of powerful international unions have nothing in their constitutions to exclude col- ored workers, but nevertheless do so as a matter of un- written law. Still others leave it to the jurisdiction of the locals, which often means that they are admitted in the North, but excluded in the South. The Brotherhood of Railway Carmen admits colored members to separate locals under the jurisdiction of the nearest white local, but they must be represented at conventions by white men. There are numerous unions in the American Federation of Labor which admit colored workers on absolutely equal terms, and which make a special effort to organize them. These include some of the largest and most powerful unions. The United Mine Workers has thousands of colored mem- bers. The International Longshoremen’s Association counted eighty colored delegates at its 1921 convention. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union has been successful in organizing colored women, and sometimes a colored girl is shop chairman in this union in a shop where whites are in the majority. The New York Waist and Dress Makers first encountered the colored problem in the big 1919 strike, when the strikers’ places were filled by Negro

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Sept. 12, 1923] girls. Instead of denouncing them as “scabs” and letting it end there, the union went to work to organize them, until nearly all came out with the white workers and helped to win the strike and share the fruits of victory. They have been faithful members ever since. Outside the Federation of Labor as within, the policy varies among the different unions. The four Railroad Brotherhoods exclude Negroes openly. On the other hand, both the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Industrial Workers of the World have made an effort to organize them. I recently wrote to various unions asking them about their Negro policy, and whether they found Negroes. diffi- cult to organize. Sixteen replies to the second question were from unions in trades which have an appreciable num- ber of Negro workers and in which Negroes are admitted to the union. Of these, nine found Negroes quite as respon- sive to unionism as white workers, including the Inter- national Ladies Garment Workers and the United Mine Workers. Both of these industries have large numbers of Negro workers. Of the remaining seven, only two state without qualification that the Negro is difficult to organize. The other five give reasons for the situation. Some say that the Negro is employed for the most part in unskilled trades. Others say that he is difficult to organize but makes a good member once he has joined. One blames the diffi- culty on the prejudice of the white workers. The reply of the Molders’ Union is especially interesting because the foundries are among the industries most affected by the northward migration of Negroes, and this is the only indus- try in which they are employed to a great extent on skilled jobs. Apparently the molders have found Southern Ne- groes difficult to organize, and have met the same problem in the North in recent years when Southern Negroes have been flocking to Northern foundries. The union reports that the Negroes are good members in thoroughly organized foundries, but drop out quickly in the “open shops.” An- other difficulty is the lack of Negro leadership—other unions, too, have complained of this—but the molders be- lieve time will cure that difficulty, “for many of them pos- sess the necessary intelligence, and the shortcomings which I have mentioned are probably due to lack of experience more than to anything else.” Generally speaking, the difficulty of organizing Negroes appears to be temporary. With the gradual disappearance of race prejudice and the further education of the Negro through equal opportunities with white men, these diffi- culties ought to disappear. Unions may expect to suffer from Negro “scabbing” and undercutting just so long as they maintain prejudice and discrimination. And this means prejudice and discrimination of the individual work- ers in their everyday contact with Negroes just as much as exclusion in union policy. A mere negative equality, a mere razing of the barriers of exclusion, will not do the work. There must be a definite bond, woven of the strands of the common interests of black and white workers. “Our International Union realizes,” writes one union secretary, “that if men of different color can work together in the shop, and be jointly exploited by the employer, they also ought to have sense enough to jointly act together in resisting these attempts of exploitation on the part of the employer.” This is the spirit of the second emancipation proclamation for the Negro, which the rank and file of white workers must issue as a war measure in their struggle to maintain wages and the power of their unions. The Nation 265 London’s Dockland By AN ONLOOKER Since this was written the strikers have returned to work at the lower wages which caused their protest. HE other day I took one of our leading women artists to see a corner of old London that I thought would interest her. We stood at the entrance to a lane flanked on either side by huge walls of dull brick sixty feet high and looked up at the immense windowless warehouses rising behind and above the walls. “It is like the gateway into some part of Dante’s Inferno,” she said after a pause. There is something peculiarly sinister in these monster buildings, something terribly impersonal, something typi- cal of our hard industrial age. It would not surprise me to see written over the gates that give admission to the docks within “Abandon hope all you that enter here.” Nor is the interest lessened by the fact that, close at hand, stands that huddle of fortress, barrack, and prison, with their inclosing moat and unclimbable granite wall, known as the Tower of London. Here princes have lan- guished and died, and many a noble heart has pined away. The grimness of the Middle Ages here faces the grimness of the twentieth century. This is the battleground of the conflict now going on between the Port of London Authority and the dockers. On the one hand the men are said to have broken the agree- ment binding them to accept reductions in wages in accord- ance with the fall in the cost of living. On the other hand, the men assert that no such fall has taken place and that further reduction means starvation. Tower Hill has been a battleground for such conflicts for many a year, An old man with snow white goatee and wrinkled face—a typical waterman whose father and father’s father had been Thames watermen before him— told me of the strike of 1885, his bed-ridden wife nodding approval. In that strike he was obliged to sell most of his furniture to buy food. ‘We’ve never been the same since,” he says, “we’ve never picked up.” Those were the times when processions of starving men marched through Lon- don and were batoned into silence in Trafalgar Square, John Burns and others being imprisoned for disorderly conduct. It was then, I think, that labor questions first: took hold of the imagination of the middle class and the complacency of the Victorian age was first seriously chal- lenged by the workers. It will be remembered that it was at that time that Cardinal Manning earned the undying gratitude of the dockers by offering to arbitrate and suc- ceeding in securing a substantial rise for the men. Of more recent date—1912 to be exact—was the fight against Lord Devonport, chairman of the Port of London Authority, when the dockers, under Ben Tillett, fought with a determination and ferocity I have never seen equaled. There was something epic in that terrible strug- gle. Passion, on the men’s side, reached murderous limits. I remember hearing Ben Tillett, the eagle-faced man with a voice vibrant with lava-like feeling, speak from the wall overlooking Tower Hill. “May God Almighty strike Lord Devonport dead! Amen!’ A thousand dockers echoed that Amen. But Lord Devonport lives to carry on the fight, and Ben, today, is supporting him. The work of the London docker is not only badly paid;

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266 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8036 from the nature of the case it is casual labor. Formerly one could watch in early morning long queues of men wait- ing to be picked at the dock gates. The sight was one of the most pathetic I have seen as the rejected turned away. Today that feature of the industrial struggle is minimized. The men have been placed in different categories. A sec- tion are permanently employed. Then comes a second class which may look for work somewhat less frequently. Last of all are the casuals who, though in possession of the ticket enabling them to accept employment, are only em- ployed when there is an abundance of work. The men are standing about today in groups, hands in pockets, resolute, grim like the buildings they work amongst. “They seems to think we can get fat by looking at other people’s food,’’ said one—these men handle thou- sands of tons of foodstuffs from overseas—“but they’re mistaken. We’ve got our backs to the wall this time, for it’s victory or starvation.” A large number of these work- ers are ex-service men, as you realize when you see them march in procession, and they know what hardship is. ‘We fought for the Empire,” said one of the leaders today, “and now by we'll fight for ourselves.” This is a sol- diers’ battle. The trade union officials are with the bosses this time. On the other side there is determination too. Look at that big building, mounting up, pyramid-like—block upon block of sheer masonry—just weight and strength and firm clear outline! That is the new Port of London Au- thority’s building, opened by Mr. Lloyd George a few days after his resignation. It dominates the scene, overlooking the little plot of grass where the headsman’s block stood in former days. Well-dressed city men come and go through that marble vestibule. The men who sit in conclave there say that the dockers are breaking their agreement, ignor- ing their own trade union officials, holding up the shipping and food supply of London for the sake of a quibble. They are not sentimental gentlemen, these. They look at facts. They quote prices and terms of agreement. They are firm, precise, lawyer-like. They know their business. Senti- mentalists do not build a pyramidal colossus like that. The real battle lies back from the Tower and warehouses in the tenement buildings whose square outlines cut deep into the dingy London sky. It is there that the women and children swarm and chatter while the men are out in the streets. That is where the “public opinion” is fashioned which tells most with the strikers. And it is there, too, that the actualities of the struggle are felt. “I was up at five this morning,” said one of these women to me, “wash- ing clothes for the children to go to school in.” She was nursing a three-weeks-old baby as she spoke. Some of these women tell the men that they are fools. These rooms with their little bits of broken furniture are dear to them, and a strike always brings the fear that they may lose them. They will make almost any sacrifice to prevent that. The bosses’ great asset is the Englishman’s love of his home. It is probable that in the end the men will be beaten and will go back to work at the reduced terms offered by the bosses. The cries of the women and children will be their undoing. Progress? Look at that Tower with its embattlements, the slits in its prison walls! Recall its bloody records. And then look at the dock walls guarding the treasures of London’s commerce and those prison-like tenements where, these hot summer days, the children play on the hot asphalt! Progress? Yes, perhaps! In the Driftway HE Drifter is not one to purchase clothing in large quantities or at frequent intervals. Yet at some time or other he must have been guilty of buying a new suit, or perhaps his old one has become more conspicuous than he realized, for he has just received a tailor’s announcement that for a while threatened to change the course of his life. Beginning with Shakespeare’s celebrated remark about the apparel oft proclaiming the man, this little book shows by simple pictures that any child could understand just what advantages accrue to the man far-seeing enough to buy X Tailored Clothes. On page after page appears first the ill-dressed, shabby, sour-looking individual who is not wearing X Tailored Clothes, and then the unwrinkled, bland, composed creature with the perfectly fitting X Tailored Suit worn over his Grecian form. Bell-boys in hotels rush up to him, stenographers stop chewing their gum and hasten to take his dictation, young lady ushers in the theater light his way with a deferential torch when he comes in late—as so important a man inevitably must— and in the shoe store where he is a clerk the most beautiful and delectable customers flock to him for their size three- and-a-half dancing slippers. * * * * * T is hardly necessary for the Drifter to add that the pic- ture on the opposite page shows a sadder story. Almost with tears did he view the poor, ill-fitted young man finding his own seat, carrying his own luggage, unable to gain the waiter’s attention at table, unable to convince the jury or to keep the judge from yawning while he pleads a case. And nothing in the world but X Tailored Clothes be- tween him and success! At first the Drifter determined that his life-work from now on should be to go out and preach this simple doctrine of greatness. Surely here was an unprecedented chance to do some good in the world, for one who up to now had not been too conspicuous in that line. His first misgiving smote the Drifter when it occurred to him that possibly none of the unsuccessful could be saved by him in his present attire. Was it not unlikely that he could command attention wearing the same suit he had worn for the last five years, which had not been pressed for longer than he cared to remember? Was it possible that he would have to begin his campaign of education with. himself? At that thought his ardor began to cool. After all, why should a stenographer stop chewing gum and listen to stupid letters beginning “Yours of the fifth inst. re- ceived, etc.”? Why should ushers be allowed to poke torches in the eyes of persons who had had the courtesy to come early to the theater, for the sake of someone who had not? Why should not even a judge be allowed to yawn if he was bored ?. %* * * * * S soon as he had begun to reason in this wise the Drifter’s zeal disappeared entirely. For his part he will not only never buy X Tailored Clothes, but he will not buy any clothes as long as his present ill-fitting, wrin- kled, sagging, worn garments hold together. He does not care if beautiful young ladies on the sidewalk ignore him; if he ever became clerk in a shoe store he would not care if only wriggling little boys came to be fitted for shoes. A man must show some spirit in these matters. From now a o-4) Coat ee ee cae

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 267 ees e seer eeee eee eeee ee eee eee eee eee eee ee NN _ — on, with such reservations as his age and sex demand, his motto will be that of the young persons in Somerset, Penn- sylvania, who, when their parents objected to the dress and decorum of the modern flapper, replied in the follow- ing immortal verse: I can show my shoulders, I can show my knees; I’m a free-born American And can wear what I please. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. Who Would Not Take a Chance? TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: When I think of Coolidge I begin dimly to realize why grown-up men buy oil stock, women consult clairvoyants, and girls get married. Who would not take a chance? The God- dess of Fortune is evidently deaf, dumb, and blind, and should be made a ward of a chancery court for her latest outbreak. San Diego, California, August 13 R. W. M. Sinclair Lewis Also Nods To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: Sinclair Lewis’s story The Hack Driver in this week’s Nation is very entertaining and edifying. As a member of the legal profession I especially appreciate the realistic description of the narrator’s aspirations and ambitions as he was graduated from law school and the severe shock he received upon his first employment in a law office. The author shows an intimate knowledge of the workings of law offices and the psychology of lawyers and their clerks. But it is no surprise that the Supreme Court justice, when he was only a law clerk, was so easily hoodwinked by Oliver Lutkins. The learned judge does not, even today, know that a witness is not brought into court by the service of a summons upon him. He says: “I rejoiced one day when they sent me . . . to serve a summons on one Oliver Lutkins . . . we needed him as a witness.” Now, “the magnificent law firm of Hodgins, Hodgins, Berkman and Taupe” never gave our hero a summons on this occasion. His Honor ought to know that it is our practice, as lawyers, to bring a witness into court by service upon him of a subpoena and not a summons. This is elementary and any clerk that did not know it would and should be fired. Small wonder that Mr. Lewis does not disclose this Supreme Court justice’s name. New York, August 27 ELI KRIGER A Deportation Scandal TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The Rev. R. G. Barrow is a Negro minister of the A. M. E. Church who was born in the Island of Barbados but had been resident in St. Croix (Virgin Islands) long enough to have built up a large and flourishing church. He associated himself with the labor movement which had developed under the leadership of D. Hamilton Jackson, and helped in the heroic struggle of the black working people for manhood rights and better economic conditions. His work on their behalf drew the ire of former Governor Kittelle and George Washington Wil- liams, who, unlike his historic namesake, delights in a plurality of offices, being at the same time Government’s attorney, magis- trate, a member of the Board of Pardons and Parole, and holder of other offices too numerous to mention. Precisely what viola- tion of law Mr. Barrow was guilty of has never been indicated by the naval autocrats. He was persona non grata to them, and that was sufficient. No attempt was made on the part of officialdom to invoke the civil courts. Deportation was planned, to go into effect on September 9, last. But for some reason it was not attempted until the 14th, when Jackson, the union leader and an able lawyer, was on the high seas on his way to the United States. There was some bungling of plans, however, and on the 16th it was necessary to telegraph the Navy Department in Washing- ton to “speed it up” by way of the Provost Marshal’s Court, notwithstanding the fact that this recourse is only justified in cases of military occupation. No charges had been filed in Washington, and up to the time of Mr. Barrow’s deportation there was no record of the case in the files of the Navy Depart- ment. Just the same he was torn (without even the formality of a trial) from his wife and children and congregation and hustled aboard a ship. Seeing there was no justice to be had in the island, he eventually came to the United States, where he was followed by the kind ministrations of the naval autocrats, who sought to get him deported from the mainland also. But in the meanwhile the Virgin Islands’ Congressional Council was able through legal channels to present the facts to James Davis, Secretary of Labor, who has jurisdiction over deportation cases in the United States. The Secretary decided that Mr. Barrow might remain in the United States pending further develop- ments. Secretary Davis, as revealed by this act, represents the highest type of American official life. This Barrow case goes far to explain why the people of the Virgin Islands are clamoring for the abolition of government by the Navy Department—a thing hitherto unheard of in American colonial practice—and the speedy substitution by Congress of a civil government in which due process of the law will be available for everyone. CASPER HOLSTEIN, President, Virgin Islands Congressional Council New York, July 20 Josephus Visits Boulder To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sr: I just thought I’d write and tell you that Josephus Daniels, who used to be Secretary of the Navy, was here last night—here in Boulder, Colorado, I mean. He spoke at our Chautauqua night before last, and last night our Democratic League had a dinner for him at our Country Club—two miles out. We had a lovely dinner and lots of singing. Our song leader used to be a Y. M. C. A. secretary and he is as witty as can be. He always says: “Come on with the agony, every- body,” and we all laugh. We sang a song about Josephus, too. Our song leader wrote it and I am going to send it to Mr. Denby to be used in the Singing classes in the navy. It goes like this: What’s the matter with Daniels? He’s all right. What’s the matter with Daniels? He’s all right. A sterling Democrat through and through; We vote him true and Navy Blue. What’s the matter with Daniels? He’s all right. Then Mr. Daniels spoke to us. He spoke to us about the Democratic Party. I don’t remember all of the speech—I wish I did—but it went like this: “The party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Wilson ... party of the thinking and the suffering... Republican party spoiled the peace ... there is no peace... the party of special privilege and plutocracy ...in 1924... people will rise up in wrath . .. they demand we take.

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forward looking... progress... crying for us... God helping ... will not fail.” That’s the way it goes. It was fine. The county sheriff was there and he led the applause and looked around and every- body clapped as loud as they could. Two glasses were broken. Then we all shook hands with Mr. Daniels. He’s very demo- cratic. I was in the army and I kind of thought he’d say something about the peace of Versailles, but I guess he forgot. But a lovely time was had by all of us. I think he will leave here tomorrow. I just thought you’d like this for your paper. Boulder, Colorado, July 10 AN EX-PRIVATE P.S. I forgot to say that some nice girls called the Sorority Singers are on the same program with Mr. Daniels. I asked the manager about the Swiss Bell Ringers and the Educated Horse, and he said that they would be here later and for me to be sure and come, and I sure will. North Dakota TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Some time since I dropped The Nation with deep regret, but your article on North Dakota reconciles me to its loss. The “Industrial Program” of the Nonpartisan League, while no panacea, was the assemblage of well-tried and helpful eco- nomic and political measures that had proved their worth. The trouble was that they trod on too many financial toes and inter- fered with transmission of state funds into the pockets of the ramifications of “Big Business.” Minnesota was only the “little boy” of the consolidated interests of Wall Street. The economic prairie fire started in North Dakota had the possibilities of a conflagration, while the little sparklets from Maine to California had been wet-blanketed and ignored. The lying propaganda of “disloyalty” was worked for all it was worth and the leader of the movement was jailed in Minnesota. Minnesota now comes back with an indorsement of the prin- ciples to the tune of 100,000 majority, while South Dakota in- vests in a state-owned coal mine in North Dakota and now chal- lenges the Standard Oil Trust on prices of gasoline, even as Governor Frazier stopped at once the coal strike by taking over the mines and placing them in the hands of the miners to run and found the confidence not misplaced. The article on North Dakota in The Nation can go down in history by the side of The North Dakota Idea in the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago that placed the bustling little city of Fargo some little dis- tance back from the Red River. The article will further dis- credit the capability of those who have since the beginnings of time assumed they are the only ones capable of ruling the earth. St. Paul, Minnesota, August 14 JOEL HENRY GREENE TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Among other remarkable items of information (7?) given to the world by Robert George Paterson in The Nation for August 8I find the following: “Later, in the effort to rid itself of Nonpartisan rule, it established another disconcerting prece- dent as the first State to recall its governor—the inoffensive Nonpartisan figurehead, Frazier—whom it subsequently elected to the Senate in place of the veteran conservative, McCumber.” The idea of the Senator’s character that is sought to be conveyed is absolutely false, as his enemies, open or otherwise, who have dealt with him on that basis have good cause to know. A fairer-minded or more just man never lived, yet he can be iron through and through when the occasion demands it. It is these qualities and his inherent honesty, his strength as a man, that have made the farmers and workers stick by him when all the combined power of the National Republican and National Democratic machines were thrown against him under orders of what we Southerners and Westerners call “Wall Street,” which we are well aware does not inhabit New York City only. New Orleans, August 7 COVINGTON HALL 268 The Nation | [ Vol. 117, No. 8086 The German Dye Patents TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: It is not surprising to me that your keen sense of justice should have led you to condemn the seizure of the Ger- man chemical patents by the Wilson Administration. As a dyestuffs chemist who has been helping to nurse our infant industry these last seven or eight years I sympathize thor- oughly with your point of view-as expressed in your editorial Are We Americans Thieves? Yet, for the sake of truth, you should correct certain erroneous statements which you made in that article; there are enough facts to support your case— why resort to misstatements? You say that the German dye patents have become quickly Americanized and point to the bulk of dyestuff business done in this country last year to prove your assertion. Permit me to inform you that very little of that business depended on the seizure of the German patents, which affect only the manufacture of newer products made in Germany only just before the war. The greater part of the dyes manufactured in this country today have been known for a comparatively long time, and the “secret” of their manufacture has long since passed into our general chemical knowledge. In fact, one of the chief rea- sons for the inferiority of our dyestuffs—as manifest in one’s daily experience with dyed goods—lies in the fact that, while in Germany they have been superseded by others of later origin, we have our hands full with perfecting the process of manu- facture of the older ones. S.\B. J. Boston, August 11 Pessimistic Journalism To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: What am I to make of this? Here I have been told for years that The Nation had a monopoly on pessimism in Ameri- can journalism (though I have never been able to see it my- self) ; and this is what I find on the cover of Current History for August: THE DECADENT TENDENCY IN FICTION WoOMAN’S NEW PLACE IN THE WORLD OuR NATION IMPERILED BY THE WETS DIVORCE THREATENING OUR FAMILY LIFE WORLD CIVILIZATION ON THE DECLINE New York, August 28 B. L. Old Magazines in Demand To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Several weeks ago you printed my letter regarding magazines. May I now ask more of your space to thank you for a very interesting experience and to say a word to those who have written me in connection with my offer. Before the copy of The Nation in question reached me I re- ceived a number of letters, and up to this time have received probably two or three hundred from all parts of the United States, and from Mexico, Germany, Ireland, and other countries. It was stimulating to note that the preference for solid and worth-while reading matter was practically unanimous. This, however, had the effect of exhausting my supply of that class of reading matter rather quickly, much to my regret. I have the letters before me and shall forward what I can as fast as. I get them. In the meantime, I have been wondering whether there are others who have reading matter they would care to dispose of along similar lines. If so, and they will let me know, I shall be glad to send them a list of those from whom I have received: letters, stating preferences mentioned. Many of the requests: were for reading matter to be sent to Germany, where, ap-- parently, conditions are distressing and becoming worse. Shiner, Texas, August 14 HARTLEY H. HEPLER ee or

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Sept. 12, 1923] Books The Press and Its Problems The Newspaper and The Historian. By Lucy Maynard Salmon. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $7.50. The Young Man and Journalism. By Chester 8S. Lord. Mac- millan Company. $2. The Community Newspaper. By Emerson P. Harris and Flor- rence Harris Hooke. D. Appleton and Company. $2.50. The Country Newspaper. By Millard Van Marter Atwood. A. C. McClurg and Company. $1. oo in the daily press does not decrease commensur- ably with the public loss of faith in the daily because of its rapid decadence under the stress of modern competition and its debasement by officialdom during the World War. On the contrary, there is a rising flood of books about what those who are part of it believe to be the most fascinating and, in its possibilities, the noblest of professions. This is as it should be. We need not only prescriptions for this grievously ill patient, but analyses of the symptoms and studies of the sufferer’s pre-clinical history. The quicker we can concentrate public attention upon press evils the sooner may we expect to find the way out. Hence the appearance of new books dealing with various phases of the problem of the press is welcome. Particularly is this true of Professor Salmon’s remarkable book with its somewhat misleading title, “The Newspaper and The Historian.” That designation will, it is to be feared, frighten off not only lay readers, but members of the profession itself, suggesting as it does a dry-as-dust philosophical dis- course. On the contrary, Professor Salmon has brought to- gether an amazing mass of information, obviously the result of years of research, which, despite the fact that the press has been handled from its esoteric side, makes of the volume an encyclo- pedia indispensable to every student of the subject. Here are chapters on the use of the periodical as a historical source, but also others on the development of the newspaper, the daily journal as a personality, the press in its relation to other social activities, the news collecting and news distributing organiza- tions, the special correspondent, the war correspondent, the general correspondent, the interview, the editor and the edi- torial, etc., etc. Under these and other heads Professor Sal- mon’s industry has compiled facts, opinions, judgments, and experiences of immense value, and this is to be followed by a companion volume “The Newspaper and Authority”—a subject never so tempting as today. Where so much matter is thrown together as the result of laborious research there are inevitably certain dangers to be overcome in the presentation thereof, and these Professor Sal- mon has not altogether escaped. One regrets the continual sub- ordination of the author’s own views; one loses at times a realization of the author’s purpose because of the mass of material. Indeed, one wonders occasionally whether the author has at all times been clear as to the exact field that she meant to cover, and there is also a certain lack of continuity, a jump- ing from the present to the past and back again, which is some- what disconcerting, but that diminishes but little the value of the whole. Nor does it tarnish the admirably judicial tone of the work. It is noteworthy that this detached observer takes a much more favorable view of the press as an historical source than would some of us in the profession. Her conclusions are sum- marized thus: With all its limitations, its inaccuracies, its unworthy repre- sentatives, its lack of proportion, its many temptations—not al- ways resisted—to throw prismatic colors inside of a white light of truth on its accounts of the day, the periodical press still remains the most important single source the historian has at his command for the reconstruction of the life of the past three centuries. The Nation 269 This makes us regret that Professor Salmon has not given us as clear-cut a contrast of the value to the historian of the press of 1923 with that of 1858. To our mind there is little comparison, so superior was the reporting of the earlier jour- nalists to that of today, so free from news coloring and parti- san bias. Finally, it is but just to point out that Professor Salmon’s studies of the news-gathering agencies is by no means complete or exhaustive. That was not her purpose, since her object has been to illustrate her thesis as to the value of the press to the historian. None the less, as has been stated, she has created a reference book of permanent value replete with facts and opinions. Chester S. Lord’s book, “The Young Man in Journalism,” comes from one of the best beloved of New York’s newspaper men, who was for decades the brilliant managing editor of the Sun of Charles A. Dana. As such he profoundly influenced the lives of many young men who came under his control and began their newspaper careers under his guidance. In those days the Sun was the best school for reporters in the country; no school of journalism had more to offer in the technique of journalism, though the ethical tone of the office under Mr. Dana’s leader- ship was often far from what it should have been. Out of his vast experience, Mr. Lord has written a useful little book, full of interesting anecdotes and intended to be a vade mecum for the would-be reporter and also for whoever may be interested in the mechanics of journalism. Beyond that Mr. Lord touches upon the opportunity of the village newspaper, the daily news- paper in the small city, the rewards of journalism, and similar topics. One chapter adds no luster to the book or to the profession. In speaking of the influence of newspapers he declares that “newspaper influence had perhaps its finest recognition in the various propaganda of the war. All governments used the press lavishly with intent to guide, to conceal, to accomplish. They ‘felt the pulse of the people’ constantly and subtly. Pro- posed policies were tested. Often they were suggested to divert attack from the real policy or to take the sting from it.” Mr. Lord either fails to appreciate what this degradation meant to the press of the world, or he glories in its shame. That the free press of the world should have been so prostituted ought to cause every newspaper man to hang his head, for never in the history of journalism has it been so debased. At no other period has it printed such a mass of lies as during and since the war, with the result that it has lost prestige and standing with the masses, who no longer have any faith whatever in the statements of the conventional daily. Let us contrast two recent statements with those of Mr. Lord. Here is David Lawrence, the widely-read Washington corre- spondent who has just returned from Europe, declaring of the foreign papers that “in all countries they have ceased to in- fluence public opinion. The power which they formerly pos- sessed has gone, as a result of having been influenced by gov- ernment pressure, by industrial and financial interests, or by proprietors who are themselves part and parcel of those inter- ests.” And here is C. E. Montague, the brilliant English writer who served so long at the front, giving a whole chapter in his book “Disenchantment” to the utter loss of faith in the press of the millions of men in the British Army: They felt they had found the press out. The most bloody defeat in the history of Britain, a very world’s wonder of valour frus- trated by reckless misuse, of regimental glory and staff shame, might occur on the Ancre on July 1, 1916, and our press come out bland and copious and graphic, with nothing to show that we had not quite a good day—a victory really. Men who had lived through the massacre read the stuff open-mouthed. Anything, then, could figure as anything else in the press—as its own opposite even. Black was only an aspect of white. With a grin at the way he must have been taken in up to now, the fighting soldier gave the press up. So it comes that each of several million ex-soldiers now reads every solemn appeal of a government, each beautiful speech of a premier, or earnest assurance of a body of employers with

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270 The Nation .- Pe [ Vol. 117, No. 8036 that maxim on guard in his mind: “You can’t believe a word you read.” As one lays down this interesting book with complete disap- pointment at the lack of any reference to ethical responsibili- ties and the moral duties of the press, so “The Community Newspaper,” by Emerson P. Harris and his daughter, leaves one with a feeling that it has been constructed to aid, inform, and instruct newspaper Babbitts. It is merely a guide book for the country or small city publisher, as to how he can work the community successfully for more advertising and play upon the community spirit for all that there is in it, for himself and his paper. There are several dissertations, for instance, as to how to develop church advertising. The local editor is told that he must stand ready “to further the interest of local government, churches, schools, hospitals, libraries, art museums, lodges, clubs, and all sorts of organizations and activities which make for the fullest life of the town.’”’ We are told also what the attitude of the paper should be towards local indus- tries and employers, and that nothing is so necessary as “a constant stream of trustworthy intelligence.’”’ But nowhere do we find any intimation that the press might and should be a reforming agency; that it has an ethical duty to the community; that its chief function is to lead, and to lead toward the new and progressive and the better. A newspaper may print reams of trustworthy news about the chamber of commerce and the First Presbyterian Church and the Elks club, and yet have almost no justification for existence. Any conception of a newspaper which makes of it merely a local organ for the booming of local interest is neither stimulating nor elevating. More attractive is Professor Atwood’s little volume on “The Country Newspaper.” This is an attempt to assay the value of the country newspaper, and it has many valuable sugges- tions and facts, but very little criticism—nothing to inform the student, for instance, how largely the rural press has depended upon government pap, upon crooked party favors, and election advertising, which in New York State has done more to degrade the rural press than any other agency. Professor Atwood brings out the fact that the number of real country weeklies in New York dropped 11.2 per cent between 1905 and 1920. From 1915 to 1920 the number of villages having two weeklies was reduced by 8 per cent and the number with three weeklies by 57 per cent. But, on the whole, the note is an encouraging one, though Professor Atwood finds that young men are not being attracted to the country weekly field. Still he feels that if editor and community would work together the future of the local paper would be bright. The rural editor must, however, realize that the old type of paper is outworn, that there must be greater service to the community in the best sense and a much wider range of interest, and far greater intelligence dis- played in the editing. The rural public is eager for good papers and there are plenty of examples where they have responded to an intellectual stimulus. But there must be real leadership and not merely “his master’s voice,” the editor’s master being far too often the dispenser of political office or of printing patronage. OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD The Dance of Life The Nuptial Flight. By Edgar Lee Masters. right. $2. eas book is Mr. Masters’s most considerable performance since the “Spoon River Anthology” and places him, in that shabby but useful phrase, in the front rank of American novel- ists. It is a work as deep, as rich, as concrete as that Illinois soil which Mr. Masters’s pioneers went forth to till; it is in- formed throughout by a philosophical vision wrought out by experience rather than by thought; it is not felicitously written in detail—style, in the narrower sense, does not mark our fiction —but the narrative has a rude, quiet vigor, a patriarchal Boni and Live- breadth and solidity that bring home both the tale and its inher- ent moral to heart and mind. Mr. Masters tells the story of three generations. Through these he presents a continuous picture of the varying phases of American civilization. But that is by the way. He does not seek to explain the fates of his characters by their historical or sociological background. He is satisfied, where all explanations are doubtful, with the fact of simultaneousness. His chief busi- ness is with the personal problems of his people and with a vision which comes to him from the recurrence of these problems and struggles in each generation. What his vision sees is love as an expression of the total human personality, no isolated instinct amid others that can flourish while it is unsatisfied or warped. When man has satis- fied hunger and sheltered his body from the winds, love remains —love that is not only procreation but creation, that is the source of contentment, beauty, aspiration, art. But love does not, unhappily, like the satisfaction of hunger, come to all. A universal need, it is as rare in its full and harmonious fruition as beauty or genius. All are inevitably called to its service, pitifully few are chosen. That and that alone is the pervasive tragedy of human life. Unjust law and intolerant custom sharpen this tragedy and vex souls that might recover and re- trieve. But the tragic fact itself is inherent and unalterable. Such is the inner meaning and trend of Mr. Masters’s story. But he is very chary of comment and explanation. He lets his characters and their relations to each other unfold both the tale and its meaning. He centers attention upon three couples of three generations—William and Nancy Houghton, Walter Scott Houghton and Fanny, Alfred Houghton and Ida. Very touching and beautiful is his picture of the first couple. Perhaps it was the pioneering life lived against the sky that made for so much sanity and harmony despite its material hardships. The dis- harmonies inseparable from a more complex civilization enter with the children of the pioneers. Walter Scott is a thoroughly problematic nature and the terrible Fanny Prentice escapes from the psychical cruelties of a Princeton parsonage to wreak upon Walter and herself the fury of her dissatisfactions, her stifled impulses, her wounded sensibilities in a blind and relentless dance of death. She is a superb portrait, felt by Mr. Masters beyond the point of analysis, apprehended and created with a knowledge of her that has become instinct. She wrings from him one of his rare moments of high verbal expressiveness in that description of her as “locked and glazed in great intensities, hatreds, passions of her own, in vast egoisms which prevented her knowing another soul.” In the third generation, no uncommon thing, an artist is born to the tribe. But Alfred the violinist and idealist derives his early experiences from Whitehall, Illinois. Repelled by the fur- tive animalisms and outer austerities that he sees he loses him- self in a false and misinterpreted vision and lets the terrible Ida—old enough to be his mother—marry him. He is “betrayed by what is false within.” Ida, whom Mr. Masters hates a little too bitterly, strips Alfred of life, means, freedom, health. Tten she takes her stand on morality and legality, sets church, tribe, and police on his track, murders his love-life and almost himself. There is a concentrated power in Mr. Masters’s treatment of this episode, a towering indignation thoroughly controlled that are truly memorable. Other figures people the story. There is the beautiful and pathetic Elaine, seeking and wandering after love and beauty, the wise Evangeline, the amiable and womanly Sybil, Max Juul, the parasite and bounder, not quite so credible as the others, and the moral scavenger Scull. All these characters, major and minor, interact upon each other in a coherent and intelligible world which is, as every world created by art should be, an interpretative representation that clarifies and explains the welter of things seen by the common eye and thus liberates us from the obscurities and confusions of our mortal lot. Mr. Masters is a fine poet. But I, for one, hope that he will here- after make the writing of novels his chief occupation. L. L. PRT —

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 271 Faust Again The Pilgrimage of Festus. By Conrad Aiken. Alfred A. Knopf. $1.75. N this most ambitious of all Mr. Aiken’s poems music is still the medium through which the poet speaks and sees. Music, here as before, is more than an inspiration for his rhythm; it is the creator of his diction, the very source of his thought. Mr. Aiken has rendered “Faust” in terms of abstract harmony. For his Festus is a kind of Faust. “His pilgrimage is not real: it is imaginary. It is a cerebral adventure, of which the motive is a desire for knowledge.” The search goes on through the familiar avenues of temporal power, philosophy, religion, self, and beauty, only to reach the conclusion that search is futile though good. So much for the theme. What sort of poem has Mr. Aiken made of it? Merely as music it is superb. In his time Mr. Aiken has manipulated as many charming rhythms as any of his con- temporaries, and he is at his best here. The harmonies that sweep from page to page are in themselves always fascinating, irrelevant though some of them may be to the idea in hand. Mr. Aiken’s unit is an irregular paragraph, and upon this he has lavished his finest resources of cadence and rhyme. Festus in starlight watched how the three great rivers, Bearing perpetual stars on their breasts, roared down To gorges and chasms and desolate plains And jungles of death, and labyrinthine cities Swept to pale harmonies by suns and rains; And thought of the thousands of nights and days like music Woven by him, and the roses of love and death Fallen in petals in the darkness of his heart; And he sent among them a breath And set them blowing and trembling again, on graves, On the stones of streets, by door and path and wall, Whirled in the air from the boughs of swinging trees To stream like stars on the wind and slowly fall For the hands of children, the hair of women, the hearts of lovers, The coffins waiting beneath the swinging trees, And the myriad eyes that in his veins went to and fro Seeking a dream forever and finding no ease. If words meant nothing at all, Mr. Aiken would still seem to have said a good deal. But words mean much, and poetry deals first and last with words. Mr. Aiken, perhaps because he is primarily a musician, often fails to make his words mean enough. They serve an alien master well, but they should serve no master. Occa- sionally a long passage is little more than a snowfall of lovely phrases that descend most beautifully yet never cover the ground. And Mr. Aiken is equally reckless, or equally vague, when it comes to images. One of the marks of a poet is that he examines his facts (or his images) very directly, and quite for their own sakes. Mr. Aiken flings about his rose leaves and his colored stars as if they were painted properties that he felt could take on significance only if swiftly whirled and breathed through with music. As philosophy also the poem loses whenever it begins to be pure melody. There are too many ellipses, too many points unfixed—as if the poet had satisfied himself in paths beyond our following, had completed his idea in a musical sense and left mere readers of words to find their way by the prose “Argu- ment” at the beginning of the book. That “Argument” is too necessary; the poem is not clear. Nor is it convincing. We do not feel that this Faust gives up anything, goes anywhere, or learns much. To be sure, all that we are asked to do is dream a dream. Festus by design is a minor Faust. Yet there is no earth under us to fall on when the dream is over. At the same time with all this, Mr. Aiken has stated some things perfectly. Certain lines near the end of his poem—and by no coincidence they are the least musical of all, though they are not the least poetical—contain a subtle and accurate ex- pression of disillusion. The Alter Ego of Festus argues: And why should we trouble ourselves with a god whom we know not— A god whom, god willing, we never shall know? The world is the mirror of god; and we are but fragments. And how shall a mirror look into its own depths, Festus? And say that it did—what truly, save mirror, would show? ... Ah, Festus, think how foolish would be that mirror Which, gazing into itself—if it could do so— And seeing a cloud, and blue sky, imaged there, Cried out: “Behold how nobler than other mirrors Am I, who have here conceived a sky, a cloud, And small birds flying in a blue depth of air!” ... Ah miserable destiny, Festus, miserable destiny, To be, in the blue universe of the sea-pool, A crab! ...a crab for the most part silent, That, softly sidling from coign of rock to coign, Delicately touching, under the limpid water, The hard edges of rocks with the tips of his claws, Yet shakes the pool, or pierces with his back The azure ... and routs the star. Or sadder still To be a pool inhabited by a crab; And nightly to lose the image of one’s desire In one’s own agitation, like the sea. It is of such sturdy and lasting mortar that the classics have been made. Mark VAN DOREN Shakespeare A Life of William Shakespeare. By Joseph Quincy Adams. Houghton Mifflin Company. $7.50. jn progress of Shakespearean research is neither constant nor uniform along its various lines. The emendation of the text began in the eighteenth century and went on for a century and a half, but for the last generation there has been little but the gleaning of a few stray ears. Profitable labor upon the sources and chronology of the plays has all but ceased for about the same length of time. Of critical interpreters of first-rate importance in the twentieth century it is hard to name any besides Bradley. On the other hand, the last twenty- five years have thrown much light upon the theaters, theatrical companies, and stage practices of the times of Elizabeth and James, Shakespeare’s achievement has been made much clearer through knowledge of his relation to his contemporaries and the dramatic fashions of his day, exhaustive search in the archives has added some new facts to his biography, and much progress has been made in the understanding of the con- ditions affecting the publication of his plays. It is such ad- vances as these that justify the attempt to rewrite the biog- raphy which has been made by Professor J. Q. Adams in his new “Life.” The volume contains a well-digested and well-arranged com- pendium of what is known about Shakespeare from his ancestry to the publication of the first folio, and the more personal facts are presented against an adequate background of contemporary activities and personalities. With a precision as commendable as it is rare the author has indicated what is ascertained fact in the life of the dramatist, what is plausible inference, what is legend, and what is mere conjecture. The confusion of these different factors has been for long the main defect of Shake- Sspearean biography, even when written by distinguished schol- ars. It is a great satisfaction that, in a book which ought to be for a considerable time the standard life, this confusion is avoided. The only instances of a failure in this direction are due rather to a slight occasional yielding to sentiment than to

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272 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 Le the desire of the author to dogmatize. For example: “ ‘Mary Arden! the name breathes of poetry!’ exclaims Knight. May we not safely add that his son’s poetry breathes of her? For surely it was at his mother’s knee that he acquired his concep- tion of those gentle and noble elements of woman’s character which he so effectively embodied in his plays.” Now for all we know Mary Arden may have been a shrew and a termagant— so why ask rhetorical questions about her influence on her son’s creations? But in the strictly biographical chapters this kind of thing is rare; it is rather in dealing with the more re- cent results of Pollard, Greg, and J. Dover Wilson on the print- ing and publishing of the Quartos that he is tempted to present their conclusions with somewhat more assurance than the state of the question warrants. The most striking feature of the work, however, is that, without the use of surmise and conjecture, the orderly presen- tation of what we now know of Shakespeare and his environ- ment begins to convey the impression of a living person. compilations and researches of Halliwell-Phillips and Sir Sid- ney Lee produced no visualization of a real man—perhaps did not aim to do so; the many imaginative attempts, of which that of Brandes is the most brilliant, mixed fact and fiction so un- scrupulously that the result was at best a novelist’s triumph, not a scholar’s. Professor Adams, I believe, has come nearest to a legitimate and authentic portrait. He makes ample ac- knowledgment to his colleagues for what they have done to provide him with material, but the effectiveness of the book is due to his own judgment and skill. As later editions are likely to be called for, it may not be presumptuous to suggest that there be added a fuller critical account of the likenesses of Shakespeare. WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON American Government Introduction to American Government. By Frederic A. Ogg and P. Orman Ray. The Century Company. $3.75. State Government. By Walter F. Dodd. The Century Com- pany. $8.75. HESE two volumes in the Century Political Science Series are outstanding contributions to the literature of govern- ment. The larger, dealing with all aspects of American govern- ment, national, State, and local, runs to over 800 pages, Pro- fessor Dodd’s book to nearly 600 pages. In books which per- force deal with a mass of detailed fact, minute distinctions, and contemporary changes, there is an unusual and gratifying amount of able, thoughtful criticism of the processes—or phe- nomena—of national and local government. Designed primarily as texts for class study, with copious foot- note references and selected bibliographies, there is a readable- ness about both books which will make them the more welcome to the non-professional student of our political institutions. Professors Ogg and Ray have prefaced their volume with seven chapters on The Nature and Problems of Government. They consider the nature and origins of the state, the basis and kinds of government, the position of the individual, and other problems of the philosophy rather than the mechanics of gov- ernment. The absence of such material has long been con- spicuous in our standard texts, an absence which has been in- creasingly felt as the basis of the teaching of politics has broadened. To the layman, so concise a guide to political theory and its application will be a real boon. For the rest, the book contains information as to govern- mental changes of within a year and brings the picture of our political structure down to date. Particularly interesting are the chapters on the Cabinet and the Civil Service, in which the authors develop the chief problems in personnel administration and depict the work of the departments in Washington. The chapter on the reform of county government is an excellent bit of exploration in that “dark continent” of our politics. The ¢ Professor Dodd’s analysis of State Government is the most significant since Holcombe’s pioneer volume, published seven years ago. He covers the whole field of State government, and reaches out into the byways of contemporary problems in politi- cal structure and State relations to units of local government, as well as the more immediate questions of the reform of admin- istrative machinery, the organization of State legislatures, and the effect of the judicial process upon legislation and adminis- tration. It would be hard to find two books better constructed to serve as guides to the practice of our government. And there is ample ammunition for the armory of reform tucked away in the obser- vations of these quite practical “theorists.” PHILLIPS BRADLEY Orphans Children Astray. By Saul Drucker and Maurice Beck Hexter. Introduction by Richard Cabot. Harvard University Press. $3.50. "Pee delightful volume fulfils to an unusual degree the aims set forth by its authors in the preface. These aims are: “The gradual creation of a teaching literature for social work,” and “to demonstrate the use of orphanages for special cases rather than utilizing such institutions only for the easy and ‘normal’ problem of child dependency.” In a field occupied for a generation by controversy, propa- ganda, and dogma, this volume is, indeed, a promising begin- ning of “a teaching literature.” Every aid to mind and eye is supplied by the excellent editing. This includes, after the choice and grouping of the twenty-four children presented, an abun- dance of significant scheduled facts illustrating the origin, his- tory, setting, and also the previous sorrowful experience which led to the entrance of each boy and girl. Following each of these preliminary condensations comes a brilliant narrative of the treatment intended to build up body, mind, and character, to give to each newcomer everything that ingenuity can con- trive of the social heritage into which the little soul had not yet entered. The value of such a volume obviously depends primarily upon the candor of the writers and the literary quality of the nar- rative. Both are here in a degree new to the experience of this reviewer. This book offers a challenge. It compels the reader to ask “What scale is requisite for the most valuable achievement pos- sible for orphanages? Especially for those which intrepidly essay this inversion of the usual proceeding?” If the rule is to be placing out of normal children and, if, during their sojourn within the orphanage, there are intro- duced, as a matter of principle, difficult boys and girls to be made fit for placing out (some who have failed in a series of homes after failing in their own), how large must the orphan- age be? Clearly it must enlist the funds necessary for retaining per- manently a superintendent and staff of the quality revealed by this narrative. There must also be at all times a body of sound children fairly responsive to wise guidance. During the six years covered by this work, one hundred and twenty-five difficult children were received. The average total number of all children is not stated. It was, however, large enough to afford steady pressure of wholesome public opinion among the contemporaries of each “problem,” down to the little six-year-old girls who appeared together in the superinten- dent’s office, angry and eager because they had failed in their attempt to eject from their ring game a new boy who feared other boys and insisted upon joining in the little girls’ play. The answer to the query as to scale is doubtless the general one that no community can afford less than the wisest and most skilful care of all its orphans; and that communities can, by cooperation, muster whatever may prove needful, once the prin- a I i ie q { ; ;

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Sept. 12, 1923] ciple is recognized that institutional care and placing out are permanently necessary in our defective civilization. Certainly no one can be counted a competent critic of either method, henceforth, who is unacquainted with this masterly work. FLORENCE KELLEY Books in Brief French Literature During the Last Half-Century. By J. W. Cunliffe and Pierre de Bacourt. The Macmillan Company, $2.50. This textbook approaches the great figures of modern French literature with a good deal of tolerance even though it is occasionally lacking in understanding. The biographies are comprehensive, if primary, and the criticism intelligent, if stodgy. The authors lean unmistakably to the safe and sane and academic. Their sympathies lie with such writers as Daudet, Maurice Barrés, and Eugéne Brieux rather than with Zola, Maupassant, Anatole France, and Romain Rolland. There are solid, informative chapters on the Symbolist Movement and on contemporary work. Politics and Progress. By Ramsay Muir. Alfred A. Knopf. $1.75. Does British Liberalism represent a distinctive attitude, dif- fering equally from that of Conservatism and from that of the Labor Party, or is it merely a “middle party” of “moderate men” with no characteristic standpoint of its own? Mr. Muir, who recently resigned the Professorship of Modern History at Manchester University to take up active political work, holds to the former alternative, and in this clear-sighted and well-written handbook he sets forth his own creed. The doubtful question is how far the rank and file of the party would be willing to indorse this unofficial program, especially in its proposals for social reform. A Friend at Court. By Leon Stern and Elizabeth Stern. The Macmillan Company. $2. On the theory that “probation is a flowering of justice,” doubtless it may be argued that the probation courts are a hot- house of fiction. At any rate, the short and simple annals of the delinquent here provide the basis for a rather solid novel about social injustice and what is being done about it. A book for those who do not care for their sociology straight. Drama Outburst Pee wisest dramatic reviewers shun Broadway until Sep- tember. To do so is to approach the season in a less cor- rupted and a serener state of mind. The early summer is bet- ter than the late. The “Follies” have their own kind of beauty, so has the annual show at the Winter Garden, so had, quite notably this year, the “Vanities” at the Earl Carrol Theater. These entertainments, to be sure, are only endless patterns woven of the same strands—lovely fabrics and lovely bodies. But to such a being as man with his inevitable appetences there is about these patterns something native, permanent, and so, in the truest sense, respectable. August brings plays. In these plays you come upon a far meaner kind of artifice. The chandeliers of girls in the “Vani- ties” appeal, in however sophisticated a way, to an instinct deep and healthy in itself. The shoddy plays assume the prejudices, tastes, knowingness and psychical greed of an essential corruptness of the mind. The beautiful bodies in the “Follies” and the “Vanities” leave the audiences grave. At “The Mad Honeymoon” (The Playhouse), at “Little Miss Bluebeard” (Lyceum Theater), they snicker. Here there are The Nation 273 bedrooms and doors and endless innuendos. The mental age of these audiences is evidently not above sixteen. Here is per- manent adolescence in its ungainliest stage. In catering too long to this taste, by the way, Mr. Avery Hopwood has quite lost the suavity and glitter that once marked his farces. “Lit- tle Miss Bluebeard” is hard, mechanical, and dull. The one point of interest of the season so far is a discovery made by Mr. Booth Tarkington. It is the discovery that ideas count in the theater. Mr. Tarkington is still a little fright- ened at his discovery; he still‘plays hide and seek with it. He is so in dread of not being commonplace and “folksy” that he will not let himself go. But one observes a distinct gain in clearness and courage that must have been made by him be- tween the composition of ‘“Tweedles” (Frazee Theater), and “Magnolia” (Liberty Theater). In “Tweedles,” which was written in collaboration with Mr. Harry Leon Wilson, the idea is a rather feeble one and the execution is both anemic and meretricious. But the idea is there. Snobs are snobs, Mr. Tarkington declares, on whatever social plane you find them, and family pride is both ethically and even biologically nine- tenths pure self-deception. The little play is charmingly acted, especially by Ruth Gordon and Gregory Kelly. But it is so thin and tentative that it threatens momently to go to pieces. “Magnolia,” which Mr. Tarkington wrote alone, has far more courage, pertinence, and power. I am tempted—this is not high praise—to call it Mr. Tarkington’s soundest dramatic venture. He chooses as his scene the bank of the Mississippi in the early forties—the land of “honor,” duels, feuds, pro- found illiteracy, and elaborate social forms. In this final cor- ruption of the chivalric tradition he shows, with good sense, good humor, some conviction, and some power, the bully and the brute as lord. A really brave and gentle soul is driven to assume the aspect of brute and bully in self-defense. But in the interesting and even at moments subtle last act one is con- vineced that Tom Rumford has never really changed within and that his impulse toward a saner and a freer life is genuine and practical. Mr. Martin Flavin’s “Children of the Moon” (Comedy Thea- ter), alone of the plays of the early season has a literary touch. The late Louis Calvert directed the play together with Mr. Iden Payne and Miss Florence Johns. Miss Beatrice Terry and Mr. Whitford Kane give performances that bring out beautifully the mood and atmosphere which Mr. Flavin wanted to project. He had, unfortunately, nothing but that mood and atmosphere. I am not convinced by these moon- struck people; I am forced to disbelieve on grounds of reason and experience. Is it a crude criticism to say that, as a matter of fact, such things don’t happen and tested experience knows nothing of such lunar influences? Then I must be content to be crude. The rest, alas, is not silence but rather wretched noise. “In Love with Love” (Ritz Theater), is a slight and silly comedy, the plot of which has totally escaped me in the few days since I saw it. The staging by Robert Milton is good; Miss Lynne Fontanne had pleasant moments reminiscent of her “Dulcy.” “The Good Old Days,’ by Aaron Hoffman (Broadhurst Thea- ter), is an anti-Prohibition play very badly and crudely done on its own sentimental melodramatic plane. Once Mr. Hof- man did good jobs of this sort. “The Good Old Days’ is not even a good job. “The Woman on the Jury” (Eltinge Thea- ter), and Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “The Breaking Point’ (Klaw Theater), are both melodramas of competent manufac- ture, raw force, and great astuteness in the use of the lower emotional appeal. “Little Jessie James” (Longacre Theater), is an agreeable little musical comedy with one good melody, eight uncommonly vivacious chorus girls, and a so-called “Paul Whiteman Band” to whose uncanny skill and aesthetic dread- fulness only a treatise could do justice. In “Artists and Models” (Shubert Theater), the public unswathing of the hu- man body goes one step further. LUDWIG LEWISOHN

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International Relations Section The New Constitution of Rumania Ppae NATION presents herewith what is probably the first publication in English of the Rumanian consti- tution of March 28, 1923. This latest of the new constitu- tions of Europe shows some reaction from the radicalism of most of the earlier post-war documents. Of course, the monarchical form is retained. The second chamber, which is by no means a “secondary” chamber, is generously diluted against democracy by members indirectly elected and by ex-officio life members—to the great advantage of the Lib- eral Party over against the agrarians and the people of the new provinces of Transylvania and Bessarabia. Rumanian is made the official language of the state, although the Tran- sylvanian pact of 1918, which was formally accepted by the king at the time of union, declared that “each people shall be taught and administered and tried in its own language.” “Liberty of conscience is absolute,” but the Orthodox Rumanian Church is the “dominant” state church, while the Greek Catholic is a second church “taking precedence” over other religions. Self-determination for provinces of widely varying conditions and customs is not sought by the avenue of federalism. Proportional representation, now well understood in Europe and so important to racial minorities, is abolished in favor of something vaguely re- ferred to as “representation of minorities.” The clauses providing for the nationalization of minerals and other sub- soil resources are no doubt as far-reaching as the provisions for nationalization in other constitutions, except the Rus- sian. This constitution, framed and adopted by a turbulent assembly (from which it was found necessary from day to day to exclude the members of the Opposition in groups of from eight to ten), is primarily the work of Bratiana and his Cabinet. The following text was translated under the direction of Professor H. L. McBain and Professor Lindsay Rogers of Columbia University. TITLE I. ARTICLE 1. visible state. ArT. 2. The territory of Rumania is inalienable. The fron- tiers of the state may be changed or rectified only by virtue of a law. ArT. 8. The territory of Rumania may not be colonized by populations of a foreign race. ART. 4. The territory of Rumania for administrative pur- poses is divided into districts, and the districts into communes. Their number, extent, and territorial subdivisions shall be determined in accordance with the forms prescribed by the laws for administrative organization. THE TERRITORY OF RUMANIA The Kingdom of Rumania is a single and indi- TITLE II. THE RIGHTS OF RUMANIANS Art. 5. Rumanians, irrespective of ethnic origin, language, or religion, shall enjoy freedom of conscience, of instruction, of the press, of assembly, of association, as well as all liberties and rights provided for by law. ArT. 6. The present constitution and other laws relative to political rights shall determine what are, without the Rumanian qualification, the conditions necessary for the exercise of these rights. The conditions under which women may exercise politi- cal rights shall be laid down in special laws, enacted by a two- thirds majority. The civil rights of women shall be established on the basis of the complete equality of the sexes. ArT. 7. Differences of religious belief and confession, of ethnic origin, and of language shall not constitute, in Rumania, a bar to the acquisition and exercise of civil and political rights. Only by naturalization may the alien be placed upon equality with the Rumanian in the enjoyment of political rights. Natu- ralization shall be granted individually by the Council of Min- isters upon a certification by a Commission composed of the Premier-President and the Presidents of the Court of Appeals of the capital of the country that the applicant has fulfilled the legal requirements. The requirements and the procedure by which aliens may obtain naturalization shall be prescribed by a special law. Naturalization shall not have retroactive effect. The wife and minor children may avail themselves, under con- ditions to be prescribed by law, of the naturalization of the husband or father. ArT. 8. No distinction on account of birth or social class shall be permitted in the state. All Rumanians, without dis- tinction on account of ethnic origin, language, or religion are equal before the law and are under an obligation to contribute without discrimination to the imposts and public charges. They alone are eligible for public services and dignities, both civil and military. Regulations for the public functionaries shall be laid down in special laws. Aliens may be eligible for public services only in exceptional cases, specially determined by law. ArT. 9. All aliens who are within the territory of Rumania shall enjoy the protection granted by law to persons and prop- erty in general. ArT. 10. All special franchises, of whatever nature, and all class exemptions and monopolies, are forever prohibited in the Rumanian state. Titles of nobility are and shall continue to be unrecognized by the Rumanian state. Foreign decorations shall not be worn by Rumanians except with the authorization of the king. ArT. 11. Individual liberty is guaranteed. No one may be prosecuted or subjected to search except in the cases and accord- ing to the forms prescribed by law. No one may be detained or arrested except by virtue of a legal warrant, showing probable cause, which must be shown at the moment of the arrest or not later than twenty-four hours following the detention or arrest. In case of obvious guilt, the detention or arrest may take place immediately, but the warrant shall be issued within twenty-four hours and shall be shown in accordance with the preceding clause. ArT. 12. No one may be withdrawn, against his will, from the judges provided for him by law. ArT. 18. The domicile is inviolable. No domicilary visit may be made except by the competent authorities, in cases specially provided for, and in accordance with the forms pre- scribed by law. ArT. 14. No punishment may be fixed or imposed except by virtue of a law. ArT. 15. No law may impose the penalty of confiscation of property. Art. 16. The death penalty may not be reestablished except in cases provided for by the military penal code in time of war. Art. 17. Property of whatever nature, as well as debts of the state, are guaranteed. For public uses the public authority, by virtue of a law, shall have the right to use the subsoil of all kinds of real property, subject to the obligation of paying in- demnity for damage caused to the surface, or to existing build- ings or works. In the absence of friendly agreement, the amount of indemnity shall be fixed by the courts. No one may be dispossessed of his property except for public uses and upon condition of being paid just compensation previously deter- mined by the courts. What constitutes a public use and the procedure and method of expropriation shall be determined by

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Sept. 12, 1923] The Nation 275 eee eee a special law. Apart from the instances of expropriation for the establishment or maintenance of public highways, the pub- lic health, national defense and works of military interest, pub- lic instruction, and of expropriation for the direct general in- terests of the state and the public administrations, the other eases of public use shall be determined by laws enacted by a two-thirds majority. Existing laws relating to the laying out and widening of the streets in communes as well as to the banks of waterways which cross or flow alongside them shall remain in effect throughout the entire extent of the kingdom. ArT. 18. Only natural born or naturalized Rumanians may acquire any kind of title to or own rural real property in Rumania. Aliens shall have the right only to lease such property. ) Art. 19. Mineral deposits as well as all other valuable re- sources of the subsoil are the property of the state. Masses of common rock, quarries of construction materials, and deposits of peat are excepted, without prejudice to rights acquired by the state under previous laws. A special mining law shall deter- mine the general rules and conditions for the valuation of these properties, shall fix the royalty due the surface proprietor, and shall determine at the same time the conditions under which and the extent to which he shall participate in the exploitation of these resources. Account shall be taken of acquired rights in so far as they correspond to a valuation of the subsoil and according to the distinctions to be made by a special law. Con- cessions for the operation of mines, instituted or granted in accordance with laws now in force, shall be respected during the period for which they were allowed, and existing mining operations carried on by proprietors shall be respected only for the time during which they actually operate the mines. Con- cessions in perpetuity shall not be allowed. All concessions and operations provided for in the preceding clause must neverthe- less conform to the rules to be established by the law, which will fix a maximum period for concessions and operations not to exceed fifty years from the date of the promulgation of this constitution. ArT. 20. Public highways, the air, and rivers navigable for boats or rafts are parts of the public domain. Waters which can produce motive power and those which can be used in the public interest are public property. Rights already acquired shall be respected or shall be extinguished by expropriation for public use, upon the payment of just and previously determined compensation. Special laws shall determine the extent to which the enjoyment of all the above rights may be permitted to the proprietors, the conditions of operation, as well as the compen- sation to be paid for use of the surface and for existing instal- lations. ArT. 21. All agents of production shall enjoy equal protec- tion. The state may intervene, by law, in the relations between these agents in order to prevent social or economic conflicts. Freedom of labor shall be protected. Social insurance for work- ers in case of illness, accidents, etc., shall be regulated by law. ART. 22. Liberty of conscience is absolute. The state guar- antees to all religions equal liberty and protection in so far as their practices do not affect the public order, good morals, and the organic laws of the state. The Orthodox Christian Church and the Greek Catholic Church are the Rumanian churches. The Orthodox Rumanian Church representing the religion of the great majority of Rumanians is the dominant church of the Rumanian state; the Greek Catholic Church takes precedence over the other religions. The Orthodox Rumanian church is and shall remain independent of all foreign ecclesiastical au- thority, but retains its unity with the Oriental Ecumenical Church in respect to dogmas. Throughout the entire kingdom of Rumania the Orthodox Christian Church shall have a uni- tary organization with the participation of all the constituent elements, clerical and lay. A special law shall determine the fundamental principles of this unitary organization, as well as the conditions under which the church shall regulate, conduct, and administer, through its own organs and under the control of the state, its religious and educational affairs, and matters concerning its endowments and the management of its prop- erty. Spiritual and canonical questions of the Orthodox Rumanian Church shall be regulated by a single central synodal authority. The archbishops and bishops of the Orthodox Rumanian Church shall be elected in accordance with a single special law. Relations between the different religions and the state shall be determined by law. ArT. 23. The acts of the civil state are within the province of the civil law. The completion of these acts must always pre- cede the religious benediction. ArT. 24. Education is free under conditions established by the special laws and in so far as it will not be contrary to good morals or public order. Primary education is compulsory. In state schools this instruction will be given gratuitously. The state, the districts, and the communes shall give aid and assist- ance to indigent pupils in all the stages of education to the extent and under the conditions provided for by law. ArT. 25. The constitution guarantees to every person liberty to communicate and publish his ideas, his opinions orally, in writing, and through the press, each person being responsible for the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by the penal code, which, however, may in no case restrict the right itself. No special law may be enacted to deal with this matter. Neither a censorship nor any other measure to prevent the ap- pearance, sale, or distribution of any kind of publication may be instituted. No previous authorization from any authority is required for the printing of any publication whatsoever. No surety shall be demanded of journalists, writers, publishers, printers, or lithographers. The press shall never be subjected to the system of control by admonitions. No journal or pub- lication may be suspended or suppressed. Every periodical pub- lication, whatever may be its character, must have a responsible director and in his absence a responsible editor. The director or editor must enjoy civil and political rights. The name of the director and the name of the editor shall appear plainly and in a permanent manner at the head of the publication. Before the appearance of a periodical publication its proprietor is obliged to state and register his name with the Court of Commerce. Sanctions for the enforcement of these provisions shall be determined by a special law. ArT. 26. So far as non-periodical publications are con- cerned, the author is responsible for his writings and in default of the author the publisher is responsible; the printer is liable when the author and publisher have not been revealed. For periodical publications the responsibility shall fall on the au- thor, the director, or the editor in the order of enumeration. The proprietor is in all cases conjointly responsible for the payment of civil damages. Crimes of the press shall be tried by jury with the exception of cases hereafter mentioned which will be tried by the ordinary courts according to the usual law. (a) Crimes committed against the sovereigns of the country, the crown prince, the members of the royal family and of the dynasty, and the heads of foreign states and their representa- tives. (b) Direct incitements to murder and rebellion in the cases in which they have not resulted in execution. (c) Slander, abuse, and defamation directed against individ- uals or public functionaries, whoever they may be, who are injured in respect to their private lives in their personal honor. Preventive arrest in the matter of the press is forbidden. Art. 27. The secrecy of letters, telegrams, and telephonic conversations is inviolable. A special law shall determine the cases in which the courts, in the interest of criminal inquiries, may make exceptions to this provision. The same law shall determine the responsibility of state agents and of individuals for violation of the secrecy of letters, telegrams, and telephonic conversations. Art. 28. Rumanians, without discrimination on account of

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The Nation .| [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 ethnic origin, of language, or of religion, have the right to assemble, peaceably and without arms, in accordance with the laws regulating the exercise of this right, to consider all kinds of questions; for this no previous authorization shall be re- quired. Meetings in the open air are permitted except on pub- lic highways and squares. Meetings, parades, and demonstra- tions on the public highways and squares are subject to the laws of the police. Art. 29. Rumanians, without discrimination on account of ethnic origin, language, or religion, have the right of associa- tion in accordance with the laws regulating the exercise of this right. The right of free association does not in itself imply the right of creating corporate personality. The conditions un- der which corporate personality may be granted shall be deter- mined by a special law. Art. 30. Every person has the right to address the public authorities by petitions signed by one or more persons, without power, however, to petition otherwise than in the name of the signatories. Only constituted authorities have the right to address petitions in a collective name. Art. 31. No previous authorization is required for injured parties to sue public functionaries on account of their official acts, provided, however, that the special rules established con- cerning the ministers shall not be injuriously affected. The conditions for and method of these suits shall be determined by a special law. Special provisions in the penal code shall deter- mine the penalties for the abuse of the right to sue. Art. 32. No Rumanian without authorization from the gov- ernment may enter the service of a foreign state without thereby losing his citizenship. Extradition of political refugees is forbidden. TITLE III. THE POWERS OF THE STATE ArT. 33. All the powers of the state emanate from the nation which may exercise them only by delegation and accord- ing to the principles and the rules set forth in the present con- stitution. Art. 34. The legislative power is collectively exercised by the king and the national representative body. The national representative body is divided into two houses: the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Every law requires the approval of the three branches of the legislative power. No law may be submitted for royal approval until after it has been discussed and voted freely by a majority of the two houses. ArT. 35. Legislative initiative is given to each of the three branches of the legislative power. Nevertheless, every law relating to the revenues and expen- ditures of the state or to the army contingent must first be voted by the Chamber of Deputies. ArT. 36. Authoritative interpretation of the laws may be made solely by the legislative power. ArT. 37. Promulgation of laws voted by the two houses shall be the duty of the Minister of Justice, who shall retain one of the original copies of the laws voted and shall deposit the sec- ond original copy in the archives of the state. The Minister of Justice is the custodian of the Great Seal of the State. Each year the Minister of Justice shall publish the collection of laws and regulations, in which the laws shall be arranged in numerical order according to the date of promulgation. ArT. 38. No law, and no general administrative, district, or communal regulation shall be binding until it shall have been published in the form prescribed by law. ArT. 39. The executive power is vested in the king who shall exercise it in the manner prescribed by the constitution. ArT. 40. The judicial power shall be exercised by its appro- priate organs. Judgments shall be pronounced according to law and shall be executed in the name of the king. Art. 41. Matters exclusively of district or communal inter- est shall be regulated by district and communal councils aceord- ing to the principles established by the constitution and by special laws. CHAPTER I. NATIONAL REPRESENTATION Arts. 42-63.. (Dealing with open sessions, qualifications of members and election of officers of the two houses, manner of voting, rights of interpellation and of petition, freedom of mem- bers from prosecution and arrest, rules of procedure, four year term, and compensation.) Section I. The Chamber of Deputies ArT. 64. The Chamber of Deputies shall be composed of deputies elected by adult Rumanian citizens by universal, equal, direct, compulsory, and secret suffrage, on the basis of the rep- resentation of minorities. ArT. 65. The election of deputies shall take place by elec- toral circonscriptions. The electoral circonscription may not be larger than a district. The number of deputies to be elected in each circonscription, in proportion to the population, shall be determined by the electoral law. ArT. 66. To be eligible to election to the Chamber of Depu- ties, it is necessary (a) to be a Rumanian citizen, (b) to possess civil and political rights, (c) to have reached the age of twenty- five years, (d) to be domiciled in Rumania. Incapacities shall be determined by the electoral law. Section II. The Senate ArT. 67. The Senate shall be composed of elected and ex- officio senators. ArT. 68. All Rumanian citizens who have reached the age of forty years shall elect, by electoral circonscriptions which may not be larger than a district, a number of senators by com- pulsory, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. The number of senators to be elected in each circonscription, which may not be larger than a district, shall be determined by the electoral law proportionately to the population. ArT. 69. Members chosen by the district councils and mem- bers chosen by the communal councils, urban and rural, meet- ing in a single body, shall choose one senator for the district by compulsory, equal, direct, and secret ballot. ArT. 70. Members of the chambers of commerce, of indus- try, and labor, and of agriculture, meeting in separate bodies, shall choose from their own numbers one senator of each cate- gory for each electoral circonscription. These special electoral circonscriptions shall be fixed by the electoral law, provided that their number may not exceed six. ArT. 71. Each university, by vote of the professors, shall choose one senator from its members. Art. 72. Ex-officio members of the Senate, by virtue of their high place in the state and in the church shall be: (a) The heir to the throne when he has reached the age of eighteen years, provided that until he has reached the age of twenty- five years he may have only a deliberative voice; (b) the arch- bishops of the country; (c) the diocesan bishops of the Ortho- dox Rumanian and Greek Catholic churches, in so far as they have been elected in accordance with the laws of the country; (d) heads of confessions recognized by the state, one for each confession, in so far as they have been elected in accordance with the laws of the country and represent more than 200,000 believers, as well as the chief religious representative of the Moslems of the kingdom; (e) the president of the Rumanian Academy. The mandate of these senators shall cease at the same time as the dignity or status which qualifies them. Art. 73. The following shall become ex-officio members of the Senate: (a) Former presidents of the Council of Ministers who have served at least four years as titular presidents, and former ministers who have served at least six years in one or more governments; (b) former presidents of the legislative bodies who have had this dignity in the course of at least eight regular sessions; (c) former senators and deputies elected to at least ten legislatures, regardless of their duration; (d) for- mer first-presidents of the High Court of Cassation and of Justice who have occupied this office or that of president of

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Sept. 12, 1923] Cassation for at least five years; (e) generals on the reserve list or retired, who have had titular command of an army facing the enemy for at least three months, or who have exer- cised the functions of Chief of the General Staff or Inspector General of the Army (Commander of the Army) in time of peace for at least four years. (The number of those of the second category shall not exceed four in order of seniority as vacancies occur.) (f) Former presidents of the national assem- blies of Chisinau, Cernautz, and Alba Iulia which have declared for union. Art. 74. The verification of the qualifications of senators ex-officio shall be made by a commission composed of the presi- dents of the sections of the High Court of Cassation and Jus- tice under the presidency of the First-President of this High Court. The authentication shall be made officially on the de- mand of the President of the Senate or of those who have the right. The President of the Senate shall enrol the senators ex-officio on the basis of the conclusions of the commission. The President of the Senate may inquire into and point out to the commission for correction errors certified in the determination of these rights to office. Art. 75. To be eligible to the Senate it is necessary: (a) To be a Rumanian citizen, (b) to possess civil and political rights, (c) to have reached the age of forty years, (d) to be domiciled in Rumania. These qualifications, except in respect to age, are required equally of ex-officio senators. Section III. The Legislative Council Art. 76. A legislative council shall be created for the pur- pose of giving advice in the drafting and arrangement of the laws whether they are initiated by the executive or by Par- liament, as well as in the drafting of general ordinances for the execution of the laws. The advice of the legislative council is required for all bills, except those relating to budgetary credits; provided, however, that if, within a period to be fixed by law, the legislative council does not render its opinion the houses may proceed to the discussion and approval of bills. The organization and method of procedure of the legislative council shall be determined by a special law. CHAPTER II. THE KING AND THE MINISTERS Section I. The King Arts. 77-91. (Dealing with succession to the throne, the royal oath, regency, ministerial responsibility for acts of the king, appointment of ministers, royal veto, amnesty and par- dons, appointments to office, execution of laws, military ranks and decorations, negotiation of conventions, annual sessions, the royal message, dissolution and prorogation.) CHAPTER III. THE MINISTERS ArT. 92. The government shall exercise the executive power in the name of the king in the manner provided by the consti- tution. ArT. 93. The ministers meeting together shall compose the Council of Ministers, which shall be presided over, with the title of President of the Council of Ministers, by the one who has been intrusted by the king with the formation of the government. Ministerial departments and under-secretariats of state may be created or abolished only by law. ArT. 94. No one may be a minister who is not a Rumanian or who has not been naturalized. Art. 95. No member of the royal family may be a minister. ArT. 96. Ministers who are not members of the houses may nevertheless take part in the legislative debates, without, how- ever, having the right to vote. The presence of at least one minister shall be necessary for debates in the houses. The houses may require the presence of ministers at their debates. ArT. 97. In no case may a verbal or written order of the king relieve a minister of responsibility. Art. 98. Each of the two houses as well as the king shall have the right to impeach ministers and to arraign them before the High Court of Cassation and Justice, which alone, with all The Nation 277 its sections meeting, shall have the right to pass judgments, except as may be provided by law, in respect to civil actions by injured parties and in respect to crimes and misdemeanors com- mitted by ministers outside of the exercise of their official func- tions. The impeachment of ministers by the legislative bodies may not be passed except by a two-thirds majority of the mem- bers present. The inquiry shall be conducted by a commission of the High Court of Cassation composed of five members chosen by lot with all the sections meeting. This commission shall also have the power to determine the facts and to decide for or against the prosecution. The impeachment shall be supported before the High Court of Cassation and Justice by the public prosecutor. Cases of responsibility and penalties applicable to ministers shall be determined by the law relating to ministerial responsibility. ArT. 99. Whoever considers himself injured by a decree or provision signed or countersigned by a minister, which vio- lates the precise text of the constitution or of a law, may de- mand of the state, in accordance with the customary law, pecu- niary indemnities for the damage suffered. During the course of the trial or after the verdict has been rendered, the minister, on demand of the state and following a vote by one of the legis- lative bodies, may be summoned before the ordinary courts to respond in civil proceedings for the loss claimed or suffered by the state. The illegal act of a minister does not relieve from joint responsibility the functionary who has given his coun- tersignature, unless the latter has protested to the minister in writing. ArT. 100. Under-secretaries of state may be created. Un- der-secretaries of state may take part in the debates in the legislative bodies under the responsibility of the ministers. CHAPTER IV. THE JUDICIAL POWER ArT. 101. No jurisdiction may be set up except by virtue of a special law. Extraordinary commissions and courts may not be created under any denomination or on any pretext for the purpose of any special, civil, or penal process or for the trial of special persons. ArT. 102. For the whole Rumanian state there shall be only one Court of Cassation and Justice. ART. 103. Only the Court of Cassation, all its sections meet- ing, shall have the right to pass on the constitutionality of laws and to declare inapplicable those which are contrary to the constitution. The judgment upon the unconstitutionality of laws shall be confined to the case before the court. The Court of Cassation shall decide, as in the past, on disputes as to competence. The right of appeal in cassation has constitu- tional warrant. Art. 104. Judges shall be irremovable under special condi- tions to be determined by law. ArT. 105. Trial by jury shall be provided for in all crim- inal matters and for political and press offenses except in the the cases fixed by the present constitution. An action for damages on account of the acts and crimes of the press may be brought only before the same court which has jurisdiction to consider the crime. ArT. 106. Military justice shall be provided for by a spe- cial law. ART. 107. No special authorities of any nature may be set up with jurisdiction over administrative affairs in litigation. Administrative affairs in litigation shall be within the province of the judicial authorities in accordance with a special law. Any person whose rights are prejudiced by a valid administra- tive act, by an administrative act committed in violation of the laws and ordinances in force, or by the unwillingness of the administrative authorities to satisfy a request based on a right, may demand of the judicial tribunals that his right be recog- nized. The organs of the judicial power shall judge whether the act is illegal and they may annul it or fix civil damages up to the date of the recognition of the denied right, with juris- diction also to pass upon and to require an indemnity either

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278 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3036 from the defendant administrative authorities or from the functionary who is to blame. The judicial power has no juris- diction to pass upon the acts of the Government or those of the military command. CHAPTER V. DISTRICT AND COMMUNAL INSTITUTIONS ArT. 108. District and communal institutions shall be regu- lated by law. These laws shall be based on the principle of administrative decentralization. The members of district and communal councils shall be chosen by Rumanian citizens by universal, equal, direct, secret, and compulsory suffrage, and with representation for minorities, according to the forms pro- vided for by law. To these elected members there may be added, by law, ex-officio and coopted members. Adult women may be among the coopted members. TITLE IV. FINANCES Arts. 109-118. (Dealing with the requirements that taxes, exemptions, monopolies, pensions, and gratuities shall be regu- lated by law, the annual audit and budget, the Court of Ac- counts, publication of financial laws.) TITLE V. THE ARMED FORCE Art. 119. Every Rumanian without discrimination on ac- count of ethnic origin, language, or religion shall be one of the elements of the armed force, in accordance with the provisions of the special laws. The armed force shall be composed of the active army with its permanent, reserve, and militia units. Art. 120. Military grades, decorations, and pensions may not be taken away except by virtue of a judicial sentence and in cases determined by law. ArT. 121. The quota of the army shall be voted each year by the two legislative bodies. Art. 122. A Superior Council of National Defense shall be set up and shall have as its permanent charge the measures necessary for the organization of the national defense. ArT. 123. No foreign armed contingent may be admitted to the service of the state or may enter or cross Rumanian terri- tory except by virtue of a special law. TITLE VI. GENERAL PROVISIONS ArT. 124. The colors of the Rumanian flag shall be blue, yellow, and red, arranged vertically. ArT. 125. The seat of the government shall be in the capital of the country. ArT. 126. The Rumanian language shall be the official lan- guage of the Rumanian state. ArT. 127. No oath shall be required of any person except by virtue of a law which shall also determine the formula. ART. 128. The present constitution may not be suspended either in whole or in part. In case of national danger a gen- eral or partial state of siege may be declared. TITLE VII. THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION Art. 129. The constitution may be revised in whole or in part on the initiative of the king or of one of the legislative houses. After this initiative the two houses shall meet sepa- rately and shall decide by an absolute majority whether there is reason for the constitutional provision being revised. When the necessity of the revision has been admitted, the two legis- lative bodies shall elect from their members a mixed commis- sion which shall propose the parts of the constitution which must be submitted to revision. After the report of this commis- sion has been read in each of the two houses twice with an inter- val of a fortnight, the two houses meeting together in the same place, under the presidency of the elder of the presidents, in the presence of at least two-thirds of the total number of mem- bers composing them, and by a majority of two-thirds, shall determine in a definitive way the articles to be submitted to the revision. Following this vote the houses shall be dissolved by law and the electorate shall be summoned within the period prescribed by the constitution. ArT. 130. The new houses shall proceed, in agreement with the king, to the modification of the points submitted to the revision. In this case the houses may not deliberate unless two-thirds of the members composing them are present, and no change may be adopted unless it musters at least two-thirds of the votes. The houses chosen for the revision of the constitu- tion shall have the usual constitutional term, and, except for the modification of the constitution, they shall function as ordinary legislative assemblies. If the houses chosen for re- vision cannot complete their task, the new houses shall have the same authority. TITLE VIII. TRANSITORY AND SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS ArT. 131. A constitutional dignity attaches to and shall con- tinue to attach to the provisions of the agrarian laws relating to arable land, woods, and ponds suitable for expropriation in whole or in part, to their legal status, to the subsoil, to their valuation, to the method of payment, ete.,...as they are formulated in the articles below of each of the agrarian laws, which articles shall, in their totality, be an integral part of the constitution and similarly may be changed only in the forms prescribed for the revision of the constitution, viz.: (Here follows the citation, by number, of articles and clauses of the agrarian laws of July 17, 1921, March 13, 1920, and July 30, 1921.) ArT. 132. For the purpose of satisfying the normal require- ments of the rural populations of Bessarabia and Bukovina for firewood and building materials, the state shall designate in the forests on plains, hills, and mountains the sections which are necessary and appropriate. In the old Kingdom and in Bukovina, where the state will not have forests within a radius of 12 kilometers from the center of the commune to satisfy the requirements mentioned above, and in derogation of Article 7, letter c and of Article 8 letters a, c, and b of the law of July 17, 1921, for agrarian reform in Olthenie, Muntenie, Moldavia, and Dobrudja and of Article 5, paragraph a, Clause IV and of Articles 6 and 7 of the law of July 30, 1921, for agrarian re- form in Bukovina, expropriation may take place of forests belonging to public or private corporations within this radius, and only for want of this may there be proportionate expro- priation of the forests of all the private proprietors within this radius, strictly within the limits of these needs and in every case respecting an intangible area of one hundred hectares in each property. Trees replanted or in the course of being re- _planted may not be expropriated, whoever the proprietor. Con- tracts of sale for the exploitation of forests liable to expropria- tion-which are in effect at the time of expropriation shall be respected. Forests thus expropriated shall remain the property of the state and shall be administered and exploited by it in order to give primary satisfaction according to law to the needs mentioned above. The expropriation of these forests shall be accompanied by fair and previous compensation to be deter- mined by the courts. The method of expropriation shall be determined by a special law. ArT. 133. The following extraordinary ordinances are hereby ratified: No. 3,902 of December 29, 1918, published in the Monitor Oficial No. 223 of December 30, 1918, relative to the conferring of civil rights; No. 2,085 of May 22, 1919, pub- lished in the Monitor Oficial No. 33 of May 28, 1919, and No. 3,464 of August 12, 1919, published in the Monitor Oficial No. 93 of August 13, 1919, relative to the naturalization of Jews living in the old Kingdom. Likewise all the extraordinary ordinances for individual naturalization made before the ordinances mentioned above are hereby ratified. Jews living in the old kingdom who have not asserted their right to naturalization within the period provided by the extraordinary ordinance No. 3,464 of August 12, 1919, may make their naturalization declarations in accordance with the extraordinary ordinance No. 2,085 of May 22, 1919, within a period of three months from the date of the promulgation of the present constitution. Arts. 134-138. (Dealing with the effect of the constitution upon existing laws and ordinances.)

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Sept. 12, 1923] This constitution has been voted on by the national constitu- ent assembly of Deputies in the session of March 26, 1923, and has been adopted by a majority of 246 votes to 8, with 2 absten- tions. D: luca, M. G. ORLEANU, Secretary President a, ee BLD) This constitution has been voted on by the national constitu- ent assembly of the Senate in the session of March 27, 1923, and has been adopted by a majority of 137 votes to 2, with 2 ab- stentions. I. N. Cosoru, M. PHEREKYDE, Secretary President Cis Sv A.D.) South Africa of Tomorrow HE South African Native Affairs Department has issued an account of the progress of the native com- munity of South Africa during the three years since the war. Mr. Barrett, until recently the Secretary of the Na- tive Department, says that the spread of education and the stirring events of the Great War have had an unprecedented influence on native thought, and have led to a growth of “race consciousness” which will no longer accept present conditions without critical examination. An article in the Manchester Guardian of June 23, in discussing the report says: We are reminded that nearly all the veteran champions of native causes have passed away: the two Schreiners, Louis Botha, Maurice Evans, and the two Moffats. The older native chiefs, too, have gone, and the guidance of purely native thought is falling increasingly into the hands of young and ardent edu- cated natives. The native demand for the franchise is still unsatisfied; in Cape Colony alone does the native possess the vote—a heritage of direct British government. Instead of the franchise, General Smuts has given an advisory board of four experts on native policy, but no native has been appointed to this body, and it is already clear that this advisory board in no way meets the demand of a native franchise. The color bar is thus rigidly maintained in the legislative sphere. THE LAND AND THE NATIVE The 1913 Land Act, by which General Botha laid the founda- tions of his ambitious scheme for dividing the 300 million acres of South African land between the races—260 million acres for the occupancy of 1,000,000 whites and 40 million acres for 4,500,000 natives—is slowly pursuing its disentangling process, although legal decisions have limited its operations in Cape Colony, and is thus facilitating native purchases of land, whilst by the same process in the Orange Free State disabilities against purchase of land by natives have received confirmation. The most interesting feature is that the native is apparently less attracted than the white man to individual tenure. The follow- ing are the statistics of purchase since 1913: emis purchased ‘tribaly.. ys... Sse. e ewes 55 ce a COMMMMANY Jo cc vc cscs coo 43 “ ANGELA Yeu rernverre coe 3a ess 24 All land tribally purchased must be registered in the name of the Native Commissioner in trust for the tribe; those pur- chased communally must be governed by articles of association defining the rights of each shareholder; those purchased by in- dividuals are entirely a matter between buyer and seller. The Natal Native Trust is one of the most interesting and successful experiments in African land holding. The trust covers 42 native areas in Natal, comprising 2,192,568 acres and occupied by nearly 300,000 natives. The natives are encouraged to keep clean and healthy herds, lay down plantations, and undertake irrigation works. The trust has 60 officials, who advise and help the natives in their task of dipping 500,000 cattle a week and of keeping in motion some 22 miles of irrigation works. The Nation TAXATION AND EDUCATION One of the chief complaints of the natives in South Africa is that they are not only taxed without being given a voice in the spending of the money, but taxed far beyond any benefits re- ceived. This report shows that for the three years subsequent to the war the direct taxation borne by the four and a half mil- lions of natives of the Union was £2,468,000, or an average of £823,000 per annum. To this must be added Pass Law fees of £325,000, making a total direct taxation of £1,150,000 per an- num. To this direct burden must be added the indirect taxa- tion, which, like the indirect benefits received, is only a specula- tive figure, the two probably canceling each other in operation. What are the direct benefits? The Native Affairs Department, now manned by a staff of 582 persons, cost before the war £287,550; but today it costs £500,000. The total expenditure on education averages on the three years £202,000. Thus the native receives in direct benefits value to the amount of £722,- 000, as compared with a direct tax burden of £1,150,000—and no voice in the spending thereof! The educational facilities provided for the natives vary con- siderably in the four provinces of South Africa, as may be seen from the following schedule: Native Expendi- population ture Cape Colony: inc s<icim.s «pisses «+ + 1,500,000 £170,000 MvAnNSVaal coyclss: feces tee ae 1,220,000 56,759 USC fy SR te i a 1,000,000 32,502 Orange Free State.......... 350,000 5,273 The report on education is disappointing in that it chronicles so little beyond stating what is so obvious—namely, that edu- cation is everywhere crippled through lack of financial aid. The South African native college is progressing but slowly, the twenty students with which it was inaugurated have only in- creased to sixty—sixty from a population, including the pro- tectorates, of nearly seven million! The total number of natives employed under the oversight of the Native Affairs Department in the last year under review was 278,435. We thus obtain a picture of 4,500,000 people with a “racial consciousness” which demands an abolition of the color bar to civic and industrial advancement. This mass of humanity is smarting today under a growing sense of wrong: denied the franchise, denied any voice in spending the heavy toll taken from their wages, denied the right to purchase back from whites the land which once they owned, denied by organized white labor the freedom which those very labor unions loudly declare to be the right of every man (other than colored).

2397E. 14th Street, New York LABOR TEMPLE SCHOO 9 Dr. WILL DURANT, Director Fall Schedule, 1923 Teacher Evening Period Fee Course . Health and Life Dr. B. Liber M 8.30 10/8 -12/10 None 1 2. Play-structure Mr. Wm. J. Perlman Tu 7.30 10/9 -12/11 $3.00 3. American Literature Dr. Henry Neumann Tu 8.30 10/9 -11/6 1.50 4. Greek Civilization Mr. Spencer Miller, Jr. Tu 8.30 11/13-12/11 1.50 5. Human Nature Dr. Will Durant W 7.15 10/10-12/12 3.00 6. Science and Philos- Dr. Will Durant W 8.30 9/19- 6/25 4.00 ophy, 1789-1923 7. A Worker’s View of Mr. McAlister Coleman Th 7.30 10/11-12/13 None the Week 8. Contemporary Liter- Mr. John Cowper Powys Th 8.30 10/4 -11/2 1.50 ature 9. Psychic Factors in Prof. H. A. Overstreet Th 8.30 11/15-12/20 1.50 Civilization 10. The Evidences for Dr. A. Stone F 8.30 10/12-12/14 3.00 Evolution 11. Five Great National Prof. H. W. L. Dana Sa. 8.15 11/17-12/15 1.50 Literatures 12. Music and Litera- Dr. Will Durant Su 5.00 9/16- 6/22 5.00 ture, 1789-1923 with piano-recitals by Mr. David Sapiro Register in person or (preferably) by mail at 239 East 14th St. Send name and address for detailed prospectus and later announcements Wednesday, 8.15 p.m. Labor Temple Auditorium September 12 14th St. and 2d Ave. DISCUSSION—DEBATE “WHAT ARE THE TEN BEST BOOKS?” MR. JOHN COWPER POWYS and DR. WILL DURANT Chairman, EDMUND B. CHAFFEE, Director, Labor Temple All seats 50 cents

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280 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3036

SCHOOL of OPINION, ‘35935 SEPTEMBER Ist to 25th “Civilization, or Man and Man’s World” Lecturers: Harlow Shapley, Harvard; E. G. Spaulding, Princeton; James Harvey Rob- inson, New York; Everett Dean Ghe Martin, Otto Glaser, Amherst; Irwin Edman, Columbia; Carl Van Doren, Columbia; Robert Benchley, of “Life’; H. W. L. Dana, New School Social Re- search; H. A. Overstreet, Hor- ace M. Kallen, New School So- cial Research; J. E. Spingarn, Jas. G. MacDonald, Gutzon Borglum and others. For complete programme ad- dress: Frederic C. Howe, Director, Siasconset, Mass. ‘Sconset coors

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When you write to an advertiser, please say that you saw his advertisement in The Nation. It will help you, him, and The Nation. WORKERS’ NON-PROFIT CO-OPERATIVES A new manual of practical methods for working farmers and wage laborers who wish to co-operate in such a way as to get what they produce. The plans in this book differ from the plans of existing co-operatives in that they offer no interest or divi- dends on capital, but provide for the return of the capital in yearly instalments. The author was unjustly imprisoned for four years on a charge of inciting the Oklahoma draft riots. He is a veteran organizer who understands the economic problems of the workers and has a practical plan to offer. Cloth, $1.00 postpaid. Ask for book catalog. Charles H. Kerr & Company, 347 East Ohio Street, Chicago.

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1923 No. 3037 Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS 2. .ccsccccnccccncccnccedscccccepencesceens 281 EDITORIALS: Everybody Saves His Face...........ceecec eee ec cee ee ce crececees 284 The Trolley’s Battle for Life........... eee e cece eee e rere ee ec ee eeres 284 A New Program for Women.........-seeceeeceer reece nesereeerees 285 Remaking the Constitution ........... cece eee ee rece reece eereeeeee 286 THE LOST JAPAN. By Edward Alden Jewell.........5.2-esseeeeeeees 287 THESE UNITED STATES—XXXVIII MONTANA: LAND OF THE COPPER COLLAR. By Arthur Fisher..............+-. PAE 2A eV are,o 290 THE DICTATOR. Cartoon by Boardman Robimson...........++++++se+% 293 COAL CHARACTERS. By William Hard.........-.eceeeceeeeereeeeees 294 MUSSOLINI FAILS. By Giovanni Giglio. ........ce cece eee eee e ee eanee 295 GERMAN YOUTH AND THE PAGAN GODS. By Brent Allinson...... 296 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...........cc cece e cee rn ce ecreceere 297 CORRESPOND ENGE (ioc uuldelsisiicieciesiccssclsiviccic®s cicivcaisalnscesecncwnaiccsss 298 BOOKS: Santayana’s Philosophy. By Irwin Edman...........-+++++++++eeeees 299 Romantic Ireland. By Ernest Boyd......--.sseeeeeeesscreeeceeerees 299 Modern Histories of German Literature. By W. D. Zinnecker....... 300 A Human Collection. By Howard Irving Young..........--+.-+++++- 301 Is There a Cure? By Emil Lengyel...........eeeeeeceeeeereeveeees 301 General Dawes and the Budget. By Henry Raymond Mussey........ 302 A Successful American. By Eugenia Ketterlinus................45-- 302 A Romantic View of China. By Lyman V. Cady............2+-e00-- 302 BO Glcs irre fe ee ania acietle, d tele spucln(crBlole.e/6 pl ete- oie elk ins@ aie) eie.s/e.e\e\aieje 0 ate 302 MUSIC: ‘ De Pachmann Solves Some Enigmas. By Henrietta Straus.......... 303 DRAMA: Jog-Trot. By Ludwig Lewisohn:...........eseeeeseeeeeeeccereccees 304 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Where Mexico Stands “Fascistization” of the Italian Press Wrangel Island AIBA tO NARRERICANS . Gp osicois. wesc canes ns euiteenewisece ser geciceccecs From the Young Friends... ......ccccececscccccccccccsaseccsesecces eee meee eee ese sees esesesesessesessesesesessesesee OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpirTor AssocIATE EpiTors : LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENIN ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EpIToR : LirerARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApveRTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS Sugscrietion Rates—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. MERICA, as we predicted last week, is coming promptly and splendidly to the assistance of the stricken Jap- anese. In a few short days New York City raised half as much again for the Red Cross as the million dollars that was asked, while other funds brought the city’s total to about three millions. The rest of the country is respond- ing as generously. It will all be needed—and more. For, in addition to immediate pressing relief, there will be a long aftermath of disease and destitution which will tax Japan to the uttermost financially and socially. We rejoice in the fine spirit of human solidarity which our country is mani- festing. Although not wholly committed to the philosophy of Doctor Pollyanna Pangloss that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds, we do feel that Japan’s grim tragedy has pushed aside the menace of war between her people and our own, not so much because it has weakened her re- sources as because Americans, having stretched out their arms to the Japanese with succor, would find it less easy to reach out with bayonets. S a drowning man reaches after straws, we may per- haps find hope in the report that Germany has ordered an end to passive resistance in the Ruhr and is ready to give France such a lien on its industry that the big-business = interests of the latter country will compel their government to make terms. In this way impending revolution in Ger- many may be stayed and the nation permitted, somehow, to totter on. But in the end the price may prove fatally high. Passive resistance was the strongest moral weapon that Germany had. What does she gain by relinquishing it? At most, it seems, the indefinite slavery of her workers to the taskmasters of big business, domestic and foreign. OVERNOR PINCHOT recognizes that his settlement of the coal strike is anything but a solution of the problem. He has succeeded in finding a least common de- nominator that will satisfy the minimum requirements of the union and the operators and will get the men back into the mines. But Governor Pinchot wants to do more than this. He wants to establish some sort of control which will make it possible to increase the wages of miners with- out increasing the cost of coal to the people. And so he has called upon the governors of the thirty anthracite-using States to investigate the possibilities of price control and then to meet him in conference and decide what to do. All this is laudable and may be useful—but we doubt if it will bring down the price of coal. A profit—even an unduly large profit—is an elusive thing, especially when it is divided among producers and railroads and wholesalers and jobbers and brokers and retail dealers. And when once you have run it down it is extremely difficult to limit or reduce it. Something more than war-time powers of control will be needed to keep prices from going up when wages are increased; the chances are rather that everyone who has a finger in the pie, from producer to retailer, will act as if the whole burden fell on him alone, and the in- crease will be reckoned by geometric progression. The ad- justment of railroad rates by government commission is a simple matter compared with the control of commodity prices. Still it is something to have the facts of profiteer- ing made known, and if Governor Pinchot faces the prob- lem squarely, it is likely to lead him to some radical con- clusions, RANTING that the report on civil rights issued re- cently by the United States Coal Commission is inade- quate in its recommendations, timid in its conclusions, and far from complete, it is yet in many respects an amazing document. For it admits in a dozen different passages that governmental agencies have broken down in various parts of the mine fields, and that common civil rights do not exist. It is scrupulously impartial in the matter of dis- tributing praise and blame between the union and the operators; but the picture it draws of human conditions in the bituminous coal fields is there for all to see: whole districts belonging physically and politically to a group of absentee owners, districts in which outsiders are treated as trespassers on a private park, in which the population has no more rights than servants in the house of an autocratic master. Says the report: “These groups of villages dot the mountainsides down the river valleys, and need only castles, drawbridges, and donjon-keeps to reproduce to the physi- cal eye a view of feudal days.” The story of mine guards and deputy sheriffs paid by the coal company to keep out-

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999 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 side organizers out and inside organizers from enlisting their fellows in the union; of leases designed to “close” the mine town against all intruders; of bitterness ready to flame into murder and wholesale riot on both sides—all this is told and properly condemned. The bloody history of Herrin is carefully recounted. An occasional suggestion for improvement is made. And if the report does no more than this, it is because no commission appointed under present conditions is going to recommend the drastic steps that must be taken if coal mining is ever going to become an industry instead of a war. HEN Charles E. Hughes talks as a politician he has a lamentable tendency to emit buncombe and bump- tiousness; when he talks as a lawyer he has an equal facility for speaking common sense. His start in public life was made as a lawyer in the New York insurance inquiry, and as Governor of that State, in so far as his role was that of a legal mind, it was usually well played. When he left the Supreme Court to stump the country for the Presidency, he descended to outright politics and touched his lowest level. In his career as Secretary of State he appears by turns as blustering politician and clear-minded lawyer. A week ago we attacked his declaration of a super sovereignty in this hemisphere in the name of the Monroe Doctrine; this week we applaud his remarks on war before the Canadian Bar Association in Montreal. Mr. Hughes said: There is no path to peace except as the will of peoples may open it. The way to peace is through agreement, not through force. The question then is not of any ambitious general scheme to prevent war, but simply of the constant effort, which is the highest task of statesmanship in relation to every pos- sible cause of strife, to diminish among peoples the disposition to resort to force and to find a just and reasonable basis for accord. It is most desirable that all discussions of interna- tional relations should not revolve about questions of policy and expediency, however important these may be, but that along with this necessary discussion thére should be the determination to reestablish the law, to quicken the sense of the obligation of states under the law. The will to peace, in other words; a lofty conception and a practical one. And much would be gained too by the ful- filment of Mr. Hughes’s suggestion for the codification of international law. Of itself this would not prevent war, but a uniform and generally accepted statement of these now vague principles would give them far more weight and form a basis for peaceful agreements. IRECT action against radicalism or other opinion with which they disagree has recently been attempted in Paris by the five most widely circulated newspapers of conservative tendencies: the Matin, the Petit Journal, the Journal, the Petit Parisien, and the Echo de Paris. These publications gave newsdealers to understand that if they placed on sale the Quotidien, a new daily, they would not be supplied with the issues of any of the five big journals. Assuredly a simple way to suppress unpopular opinion in the press!—what our American police would call an “inside job.” But in spite of post-war reaction, France does not seem entirely to have forgotten the tradition of free speech and a fair field which for so many years has been her glory, and there has actually been a demand for the government to intervene and teach the newspapers themselves a lesson in the principles of the freedom of the press. The munici- pality of St. Etienne has protested against “the tyranny of the consortium of the great Paris journals,” while the city of Belfort has prohibited discrimination in the sale of news- papers on the part of the municipally owned kiosks. When in Paris recently H. G. Wells visited the office of the Quotidien and expressed his sympathy with and approval of the newspaper. Surely there must be some way in which we can speak to the men we fought and make them realize there is a better way of living among nations than continually battling one another... . How can we wish to deal with our former enemies if we haven’t the moral courage to get together in peace? ... Maybe there has been no change of heart among our former enemies, Per- haps there never will be unless we are men enough to carry to them our peace message. ... Hoarding and keeping in our hearts ancient prejudices will not bring the peace we earned by our victory. HESE are fine and true words and to the credit of Colonel Owsley, who spoke them before the fourth annual congress of the Interallied Federation of Former Combatants in Brussels. They would ring truer if one did not have to remember that a week previously Colonel Owsley assured the French people, upon his acceptance of the insignia of Commander in the Légion d’Honneur, that “the American Legion, representing 4,000,000 or more sol- diers . . . stands with and approves the action of France and Belgium [in occupying the Ruhr].” Nor can we agree with him that the military man would improve upon the politician’s failure to make peace. Both, like the bully of Italy, have too long had the habit of mouthing silly phrases about “honor” to have a clear conception of man’s proper relation to man. And if the British, oppressed by their war legacy of acute unemployment, had not held out, the Interallied Federation of Former Combatants would un- doubtedly have unreservedly approved a resolution “in- dorsing the occupation of the Ruhr as the legal means to obtain reparations under the Versailles Treaty.” As it was the French had to be content with the statement “that Germany can pay, with relatively short delay, the amount of reparations agreed upon in common by all the Allies.” FAMOUS clown died the other day at the age of seventy-nine who had spent sixty-six years in the sawdust ring. In his last hours somebody asked him if he had not wasted his life “just making people laugh.” ‘Well now just making them laugh isn’t the easiest thing,” answered Al Miaco good naturedly; “but there’s a deeper philosophy than that back of the clown.” Then he quoted the sentence of Beaumarchais which Le Figaro of Paris prints every day at the head of its first page: “Praised by some, blamed by others, ridiculing the fools, defying the wicked, I make haste to laugh at everything—for fear of being obliged to weep.” Like Beaumarchais, Al Miaco real- ized that there is no essential difference between laughter and tears, and he was able to move people as he chose be- cause of perceptions a little more acute than theirs. Amid the follies and futilities which surround us, possibly play- ing the clown is the only occupation in which a serious man can engage without feeling that he is making a fool of kimself. ITH the withdrawal of the American Relief Admin- istration from Russia and repeated reports of a bumper harvest, kind-hearted Americans have felt that the old earth had one less trouble to worry about. That they Com theiy

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 283 have turned their thoughts elsewhere too soon is the charge of Henry J. Rosenfelt, national director of the American Jewish Relief Committee, 103 Park Avenue, New York City. He reports that expected contributors have defaulted on their pledges to the amount of $3,000,000 and have almost crippled the work of caring for 1,165,290 homeless chil- dren of the Ukraine, made destitute by war, famine, and pestilence. While there is sufficient food in Russia to take care of the whole population, there is a lack of proper dis- tribution of supplies, including medical and sanitary relief. Unless money is immediately forthcoming, winter will bring inescapable death, the committee declares, to tens of thousands of these child wanderers, and the survivors will be virtually savages in the near future. Already they are diseased and brutalized, wandering on the outskirts of the towns, living on what they can grub out of the ground. It is reported that many girls under thirteen years of age, already mothers, are among the number. It is a problem to shock the sensibilities of the world. Surely the people of the United States, so prompt to respond to the needs of any population spectacularly ravaged by the harshness of Nature, cannot be less conscious of their duty to these man- made sufferers—the by-products of war. HE hand-cuffed, bullet-riddled body of Ben Hart, a Negro farm hand, was picked up on the road near Jacksonville, Florida, shortly after midnight, on August 25. Investigation by the sheriff’s office showed that the mob had slain an innocent, man who had spent all of Thursday night in a logging canip near Dinsmore, where he worked, and that he could not have been the peeper who looked in a girl’s window ten miles away. When an innocent person is thus casually done to death it adds a note of horror to a crime that is black enough when the victim is a convicted criminal. Lynching, as a form of misguided chivalry, has been definitely proscribed by the Women’s General Com- mittee of the Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation which met in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 1. The committee said: Whereas lynching, at one time practiced only as punishment by the mob for the violation of womanhood, is now resorted to even for robbery, petty crime, or no crime . . . and whereas we are overwhelmed with a deep sense of humiliation that this hideous crime is heralded abroad as the only means available to men for the protection of womanhood, and whereas we likewise suffer because of the seeming impotence of our State govern- ments in the protection of human life and in their inability to find and punish lynchers and members of mobs. . . therefore, be it resolved, that we deplore the failure of State governments to handle this, the most flagrant violation of the Constitution of our great nation; that we definitely set ourselves the task of creating such sentiment. . . that not only sufficient laws shall be enacted . . . but to secure the enforcement of the laws now in existence. \ ‘ HE politics of Wrangel Island and the motives which sent a band of adventurous ones out to claim it for the British Empire may be considered with mixed emotions, but only the most whole-hearted tribute can be paid to Ada Blackjack, the young Eskimo woman who alone survived out of that unhappy expedition. How she passed through her second winter on a snow-covered mass of rocks with a dying companion to care for, how she taught herself to shoot and set traps, how she was stalked by polar bears and found their tracks outside her tent in the mornings, and how, ‘ after the death of the sick man, she lived several months quite alone with her hope of rescue slowly dying, all these make a tale of courage and resource which in fiction would probably be considered too romantic to be credited. To rise in half-light which never grew brighter; to see nothing but ice and snow; to eat nothing but tea, moldy bread, a scrap of dried meat, and seal oil; to live within a hundred yards of the corpse of one’s only fellow-being; and finally to feel that rescue was almost impossible—what man would care to risk such an experience; what woman would be ex- pected to survive it? That Ada Blackjack was able to talk coherently of her life during the last few months is the highest measure of her extraordinary fortitude. HE late William Roscoe Thayer was for years prior to 1918 one of the most valued reviewers of The Nation. A past president of the American Historical Association and long editor of the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, his reputation as an historian was based on his remarkable “Life and Times of Cavour,” a book which is the best history of the resurrection of modern Italy that has yet been written. The fruit of years of patient labor and research, its worth is universally recognized. Un- fortunately none of Mr. Thayer’s later works reached the same high level. His “Life and Letters of John Hay” was a partisan record and his latest book, “George Washington,” was still less worthy of Mr. Thayer’s powers. Curiously enough, this historian was as much stampeded in his judg- ments during the war as was any of the ninety-three Ger- man professors who signed that shameful memorial white- washing their guilty government. Mr. Thayer was as rabidly and ferociously anti-German as anybody. In how many, many cases on both sides of the ocean the war de- stroyed the ability of historians and scientists to probe the facts of current history in that spirit of detachment which helped to make Thayer’s Cavour one of the great and lasting biographies of our time! With its author dis- appears a charming personality, one of the few remaining figures to connect Cambridge with its historic literary past. HE privileges accorded to genius have often been a source of irritation to the less gifted of us. But the case of Papyrus, winner of the English Derby, whose own- ers are going to bring him to America, can only excite our sympathy and our lively interest. This beautiful and deli- cate creature, whose nerves are strung as far above his brothers of the plow and coal-wagon as those of a poet above the coal-wagon’s driver, is certainly entitled to spe- cial consideration. Some of the necessary precautions to insure his well-being in a strange land are easy: his stall- mate will be transported with him to continue the contro- versies on the merits of jockeys and the various makes of bridle which have doubtless waxed furious during their residence together; the cat and kittens which walked boldly under his feet will make a small bundle on shipboard and will add a homely touch to the unfamiliar stable; and surely a Secretary of Agriculture will not be so hard-hearted as to deny a petition to bring in Papyrus’s own kind of fodder. What is a possible danger to common animals of in- fection from foot and mouth disease compared to the risk of derangement in the “‘in’ards” of a prince? Papyrus should have his own fodder, and if he needs a forest preserve to roam in, or Niagara Falls for his watering trough, The Nation, for one, would be unable to say him nay.

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284 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 Everybody Saves His Face REECE and Italy both accept the proposals of the Council of Ambassadors in connection with the mur- der of Italian members of the Albanian boundary commis- sion, and the tension in Europe relaxes. Italy is satisfied, Greece is satisfied, the League of Nations is satisfied, everybody is satisfied—except perhaps a few people anxious for the future peace of the world and doubtful how it is to be preserved as long as diplomacy remains the mixture of saving one’s face, “passing the buck,” and trafficking in national advantage which the Greco-Italian incident again reveals it. For that is the predominant impression left by the event: the futility, the dishonesty, the pettiness of diplomacy, and the precariousness of a world that has to depend on that kind of tactics for international peace. For observe what happened: Italy’s “national honor” is outraged because some Italian subjects are killed on foreign soil. In this particular instance the foreign soil happens to be that of Greece, exhausted with foreign war and internal strife, and having title to some Mediterranean territory which would fit nicely into the dream of Italian imperialists of “Mare Nostrum.” So Italy makes some rude and objectionable demands upon Greece. Greece knows she is powerless to defend herself, but “national honor” compels her to refuse some of the terms although she knows it may cost a thousand times more than any of them are worth. Comes then the League of Nations, intended to settle just such disputes, and wants to intervene. But Mussolini, knowing his demands to be unjust, threatens to pick up his blocks and go home; he won’t play. France, which has an illegitimate national interest to defend in the Ruhr, sides with him. The Council of the League of Nations is stumped; it temporizes and passes the case “unofficially” to the Council of Ambassadors, a super-legal body, repre- senting only the Allied Powers of the World War. Meanwhile Mussolini has been visited with the condem- nation of pretty much the whole civilized world for his bombardment of Corfu, in which, according to the Near East Relief, sixteen Armenian child refugees were slaught- ered. He hesitates and seeks to withdraw if he can save his face. The Council of Ambassadors offers the opportunity. He accepts terms no better than he could have had directly from Greece in the beginning had he been looking for a settlement instead of spoiling for a fight. Greece had refused only three of his seven demands: Italian partici- pation in the inquiry into the murders, the death penalty for the criminals, and an indemnity of 50,000,000 lire within five days. The Council of Ambassadors grants not one of these demands. It provides instead for an inquiry by Allied officials, “exemplary punishment” for the crimi- nals, and merely a deposit of 50,000,000 lire, the actual indemnity to be fixed by the inquiry. (Incidentally no in- demnity, no salutes of flags, no salvos of guns, no funeral pomp is provided for the children slain by the ruthless attack upon Corfu. That was not committed by individuals but by a government, and so is not murder but a legitimate gesture in the name of “national honor.”) The League of Nations emerges from the fray a little the worse for wear but still intact. There was a moment when it seemed as if Lord Robert Cecil, supported by the repre- sentatives of most of the smaller countries, would compel the League to justify its existence or perish in the attempt. But in the end the selfishness of diplomacy triumphed. The League found a better formula even than He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day. It decided that he who runs away without fighting may get another run for his money. The League goes on, but it is evident that it can be flouted at will. So much for the diplomacy of the Greco-Italian dispute. But there is a sidelight which reveals even more clearly the trickery and tawdriness of the whole business. About the time that the tension between Italy and Greece was at its height reports emanated from Belgrade that the Jugoslav Government was not disposed to ratify the agreement that its representatives in a mixed commission had accepted in regard to Fiume. Obviously it was the old game. Jugo- slavia saw Italy embarrassed with a big adventure and thought the moment propitious to increase her demands. Could one ask for any better commentary on the whole scheme of diplomacy as we know it? It is nothing more than a system of international hold-up or blackmail. Justice does not enter into the adjustment of most questions. It is a problem of finding the weakest spot in your opponent’s policy, or an awkward moment in his affairs, and using your knowledge as a bludgeon or a trading-point. But to preserve the system it is necessary that each nation save its face (however dirty), miscalling it “national honor.” And that’s what’s become of the Greco-Italian dispute. Italy saves its face, Greece saves its face, the League of Nations saves its face—and the old diplomacy goes on. The Trolley’s Battle for Life HE great strike which has tied up all the trolley cars in northern New Jersey since August 1 has far greater significance than the ordinary struggle for higher wages. What is chiefly involved is whether the New Jersey trolleys shall have competition or not. The great Public Service Corporation, which has for years exercised so malign an influence upon the political life of the State, has made no effort to run cars. Suspending all its service, it at- tempted to sit back and wait until the motormen and con- ductors and the officials of the various municipalities came to it hat in hand. That being impossible, the company made a peace offering, which let the cat out of the bag. It proffered higher wages and a lower fare, seven cents, if it were authorized to buy out all jitney buses running on the same streets as the trolleys at a fair valuation to be fixed by arbitration. In other words, it proposed to do away with all competition, and it was able to quote on its side the opinions of three judges who have upheld local authori- ties in refusing to permit competition with public service corporations by other agencies on the general ground that where the traffic will not support two competitors, but only impoverish both, it is to the public interest that one of these agencies be allowed a monopoly. To the company’s offer a suffering public has returned an emphatic No. A referendum in Elizabeth showed that a trifling per cent of the voters favored the abolition of jitney competition. The Mayor of Jersey City was firm in his opposition; so at this writing the deadlock continues; the battle between jitney-bus and trolley-car goes on. The company insists that it cannot live if the jitneys are per- . re ee os

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 285 mitted to ply, and refuses to attempt to run cars; the Gov- ernor of the State threatens to revoke its charter. It is able to sit back because it has other lines of business such as the supplying of light and power, which give it a profit- able revenue. But the truth is that the public often prefers the jitneys. They do not ride as smoothly over rough city streets, but they are speedier and more flexible. The jitney has, moreover, always been a one-employee affair, while it is only recently that the one-employee trolley has made its appearance in the larger cities—there are now some to be seen at night in New York City itself. So jitneys have flourished in New Jersey, great sums have been invested in them, and those that have been well managed have made considerable money when the trolleys were losing. Autobus or trolley—which is to survive? The war played havoc with trolley companies the country over. In New York City they have had to live on a five-cent fare, with the result that the metropolis has possibly the shabbiest, dirtiest, and most neglected trolley cars on this side of the ocean. In rural communities many companies have suc- cumbed. From New London, Connecticut, to the West there are miles and miles of abandoned rails, trolley poles, and wires; the stockholders have lost their entire invest- ment. A company which a few years ago was operating a successful line in the Berkshires has also abandoned its tracks. High costs for labor and materials and the enor- mous development of the private automobile, as well as the rise of the jitney, have all contributed to the present plight of the trolley. There has been a tremendous battle raging in New York for a couple of years over Mayor Hylan’s effort to run city autobuses, and there has been a great deal of talk about the necessity of building more subways, but nobody to our knowledge has as much as suggested the laying of more rails for additional trolleys. Higher taxes have, of course, added to the difficulties of the trolley companies, and the several cities have made increasingly great demands upon the companies for paving, etc. It is their complaint that the jitneys are not correspondingly taxed, although they are without the huge overhead and maintenance expendi- tures inseparable from the conduct of a trolley company. Whatever the facts as to this, the quiet way in which the northern New Jersey public has accepted the enormous inconvenience due to the cessation of the trolleys proves that their sympathies are largely with the jitneys. That makes more pressing the question whether the trolleys can live much longer, even under favorable circumstances. At any rate, the bus has been raised from the dead by the gasoline engine. There was a day when ark-like, high buses on huge wheels rumbled up and down New York City streets with straw on the floor in winter to keep the pas- sengers’ feet warm. You poked a nickel at the driver through a little hole in the roof, or dropped it in a box. When those relics of horse transportation went their way nobody dreamed that automotive power would revive them, or rather provide their bus successors. In Connecticut some public service corporations have themselves wisely gone into the motor-bus field; most of the trolley lines have allowed the jitneys to steal a march upon them, pre- cisely as the steam railroads were indifferent to the rise of the paralleling trolleys until the latter had done the rail- roads irreparable harm, when some of them, like the New Haven, bought up all they could at fancy prices—with dis- astrous results. A New Program for Women T is not what men do to women, but what they do for them, that keeps women in a state of rebellious subordi- nation. We have long believed that instead of fighting to abolish men’s privileges, our militant feminists should fight to abolish their own. And it would be no easy fight, either, for men get more satisfaction out of the sensations of protection than they do out of almost any other form of self-indulgence, and take more pleasure in woman’s de- pendence than in their own independence. If they want really to go to the root of the problem of inequality, the women’s organizations of the country should forget mat- ters of mere political importance and draw up a program something like this: 1. No man shall be allowed to give up his seat for a woman unless in like circumstances of age or infirmity he would give it up for a man. 2. With the same proviso, no man shall be allowed to assist women from public conveyances, shove them in at table, rise when they enter rooms, tip his hat, comment on women’s personal appearance, or show off. 3. With the same proviso, no man shall be allowed physically to defend, protect, or sustain any woman or resent insults for her or prevent her from fighting her own battles. 4, Absolute equality shall prevail in the matter of pay- ing for (a) carfares and taxi-fares, (b) meals, (c) tickets for amusements, including movies, merry-go-rounds, trips to Europe, etc. 5. No man shall be allowed to support any woman unless she is ill or encumbered with a small infant, and then only until some adequate system of sick and maternity insur- ance be established. The program can be almost indefinitely expanded, and should be—down to the most minute details of masculine gallantry and benevolence. We cannot ourselves undertake this task; instead we commend it to the imagination of our feminist readers. But they, and all women who support our program, must understand that the loss of their priv- ileges carries with it the solemn duty of getting on without them. This will probably be easier than most men imagine. In fact, it is hardly more than a delicate humoring of men’s passion for protection that makes women appear timid in the face of danger, unwilling to assume the burden of self- support, and innocent of the art of dismounting from street cars, or finding their way about the city, or checking trunks and buying railway tickets. Left to themselves, women may be seen on all sides performing these acts as a matter of course. As soon as they develop sufficient ruthlessness to perform them with similar equanimity in the company of men, letting masculine vanity shrivel and droop as it will, the emancipation of women will have arrived. One of the first privileges that women must shed is their monopoly of alimony. A Los Angeles judge has taken the proper view of this matter in a recent decision, ordering a married woman to pay her husband $5 a week alimony. The woman was able-bodied and earning a living, the man ill and unable to work. If the time ever comes when judges award alimony solely on these grounds—for both sexes— women may be said to have been lifted out of the humiliat- ing bed of roses on which at present they too complacently repose.

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 Remaking the Constitution O observer of political currents can have failed to notice the revolutionary change that has developed within a decade in the popular attitude toward amending the Federal Constitution. In the early years of this century a feeling had crystallized that no further changes were pos- sible in our organic law. The last'of the amendments growing out of the Civil War was adopted in 1870, and a generation thereafter a belief had become general that the Constitution had attained its final and irrevocabie form— a belief expressed both by conservatives, who exulted in the stability that this promised to existing institutions, and by progressives, who viewed almost with despair the wall that it raised across the road of political evolution. Then, quietly, the income-tax amendment was put before the country, and after an interval of almost four years— with no great discussion or propaganda—it was announced, to the surprise of many persons, that the necessary vote of the legislatures of three-fourths of the States had been obtained and the measure was part of our fundamental law. The amendment providing for the election of United States Senators by direct popular vote followed soon after, but it was not until the submission of the prohibition and the woman-suffrage amendments that keen public interest developed or the people came to look upon that kind of legislation as a normal part of their political machinery. Since those proposals, the effort to amend the Constitution has become almost as much a national pastime as baseball or the movies. The last Congress had before it 109 meas- ures to alter the Constitution, more than have been con- sidered by any previous Congress except the Thirty-sixth, which was flooded with proposals intended to avert the Civil War. This sudden passion to remake our organic law has ex- cited apprehension in some quarters, but the fear is not shared by the legal profession if its attitude is adequately expressed by our former Ambassador to Great Britain, John W. Davis, who in his recent presidential address to the American Bar Association voiced the opinion that to improve and adapt the Constitution was part of the effort to defend and preserve it. Mr. Davis added an observation which we think is the nub of the whole controversy: In the making and amending of constitutions, however, it is the people who are entitled to be heard; and it is within reason to demand that in future the ratification of amendments shall be submitted directly to the people of the several States or to legislatures selected after and not before the amendment has been proposed. The importance of this suggestion cannot be too strongly emphasized. Mr. Davis was referring to the apparently little known fact that the Constitution provides for two methods of submitting proposed amendments for ratifica- tion, as follows: The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three- fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof [the italics are ours], as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress. Obviously consideration of proposed amendments by State legislatures is indirect and undemocratic, whereas a con- vention specially elected for that purpose and no other would constitute a direct popular referendum on the ques- tion at issue. In the past, however, the second method has never been selected by Congress. Nor did it matter much until recently. Of all the amendments previous to those on prohibition and woman suffrage it may be said that they had been virtually ratified by public opinion before they were submitted to the State legislatures. Certainly it is true that the principles of the income tax and direct popu- lar election of United States Senators had passed into ac- cepted political philosophy before the amendments to estab- lish them were even proposed by Congress. Therefore the simplest and most economical method of ratification, that by State legislatures, was the best. It was otherwise with prohibition and woman suffrage. Both were highly controversial questions, still in the crucible of public debate, and no one could say with assurance how a majority of the people felt toward them. Both amend- ments ought to have gone before specially elected popular conventions in the several States, and it will remain a standing criticism of the democracy of the sponsors of these proposals that they declined this test, insisting upon what they regarded as the (for themselves) safer and easier route of the State legislatures. Whatever the opinion in regard to woman suffrage at the time the amendment was adopted, it seems safe to say that by now, at least, the Nineteenth Amendment has obtained popular approval. As much cannot be said of the Eighteenth Amendment, and one of the greatest obstacles to its practical enforce- ment is the widespread suspicion (whether founded or not) that prohibition is a minority measure foisted upon the majority during the preoccupation of the war. Of course it may be objected that even amendment of the Constitution through specially elected conventions does not insure a decision by a majority of the people of the country as a whole, since each State has an equal voice in ratifica- tion, regardless of its population. This is a fair criticism, and it has attained enhanced importance in recent times because the variation in the populations of the various States has increased rather than diminished since the Constitution was adopted. Ten of our industrial States contain nearly half of the country’s entire population, and it is certainly undemocratic that Nevada, with 77,407 per- sons, and Wyoming, with 194,402, should have the same influence in amending or preserving our organic law as New York and Pennsylvania, with their ten and eight mil- lion inhabitants, respectively. Yet the provision which makes this possible is part of the original idea of our _ government, which intentionally established a large meas- ure of State sovereignty and aimed to protect minorities against hasty and aggressive action by majority groups. To change this method of amending the Constitution would of itself require an amendment and is probably not on the immediate horizon. The immediately important issue is that in submitting future amendments of a controversial sort Congress shall be influenced to do it by the democratic method of specially elected conventions. If our Constitution is to be remade, bit by bit, to suit changing ideas, it is essential that we choose a technique which will leave the people with a con- viction that the verdicts arrived at are their own.

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 287 The Lost Japan’ By EDWARD ALDEN JEWELL STOOD on a lonely peak on the downward side of the world. Wind whistled across the steep mountainside. Everywhere outspread, as far as the eye was sovereign, the mighty system of Nikko-zan. Heights and valleys; levels which seemed rolling into a very eternity; incessantly the sound of plunging water. There were white falls. I could see them, though they were a long distance off. I could follow the winding of the slender Daiya-gawa, adventuring far to the eastward. And there was the avenue of the cryp- tomerias, curving and twining across the world like a mere serpentine pencil line into the haze of the far-away. The sun threw prodigious shadows over the valley below. They moved with majesty, yet relentlessly, too, like great slow tidal waves, drowning all they immersed. It seemed as though I stood at the very crux of the universe. Tablelands, valleys, rivers, ridges, trees, and water- falls—all that a circle-wise sweep of the eye could compre- hend—merged with the incorporate, and were given tongue for the time. Yet beyond everything, a stillness which was like Greek carving in marble: more golden than life, pro- founder than life, and which might not be destroyed by even an Imperial Shogun. Volcanoes die out slowly. Extinction, even when it comes, is only so-called. Zones of earthquake, eruption, sulphur, thunder, and squawl are zones with endless tales to tell. Tales out of the very center of the earth. Tales, freezing the blood, with nervous beginnings and abrupt termina- tions. Whispers which sometimes break off as though swift death were dealt. Warnings which may mean nothing. Assurances of protection and peace which may be dread harbingers of disaster. It seems, mysteriously, forever and ever, in regions with an interior turmoil that an essence out of earth rises up and colors the very soul of the man who dwells there. CONFLAGRATIONS [Disastrous fires in Japan have been, of course, fre- quent: congestion, and the peculiar flimsy construction of the houses, invite a rapid spread of flame. Acres may be swept clean in an hour. Tokio and Yokohaina have not hitherto been visited by a tragedy comparable to the pres- ent. Nevertheless, it is a safe assumption that the same spirit of courage touched upon in this account of a previ- ous conflagration will carry Japan through the most terrible hour of her national life.] They filled the night with their crimson alarm, and, ere the dawn, had swept acres and acres from a snug and pros- perous habitability into dreary, smoking stretches of charred ruin. So persistent were the visitations of fire that they be- came a subject for general comment. The newspapers took up the matter. Nearly everyone had something or other to advance—especially the Barbarians. Yet in the face of it all, the Japanese remained perfectly calm and inscrutable. Perhaps the philosophy liberated by these strenuous occasions partook rather largely of a sense of helplessness; * These sketches, written by Mr. Jewell on a recent visit to Japan, describe a lost country. Except for region described in the introductory paragraphs, every section mentioned has been desolated by earthquakes and tidal waves, or by fire. and one may suppose, if one will, that the relative ease with which the Japanese house is negotiated has a little to do with such stoic and even cheerful resignation. It is true, Gentaro need not find himself long roofless. If his dwelling stood within the radius of the disaster zone the fact is of course to be deplored. But it is scarcely a fact to lose very many winks of sleep over; besides, a visitation of the Kami must quite meekly be put up with. In a word, the thing cannot be helped. No time at all, and Gentaro has a fine new house. All Gentaro’s neighbors have fine new houses also. Which leads one directly to speculation concerning the difference between the house of Gentaro and the house of Jchn Smith. It stacks stone over against paper, poises against each other walls of sturdy brick and walls of flimsy plaster. It bids you make your choice between stout timbers and wafer-thin lath. And yet, it becomes a question whether, purely as a business proposition, Gentaro’s investment is not sounder than Smith’s. Gentaro builds him a house. It does not, naturally, cost very much. If it burns down (which it probably will, sooner or later) a little scrimping, and possibly a wee bit of mortgage, will evolve a new one quite as good. But now, Smith. He builds a house and it burns down. The loss is, to put it conservatively, a lot heavier. It will cost correspondingly more to rebuild. Probably Smith has some insurance. Possibly not as much, after the catastro- phe, as he could desire. Then there is the personal equa- tion. When Smith’s house burns, most of the family tradi- tions, to say nothing of chairs, tables, sofas, bric-a-brac, and miscellaneous impedimenta, all go up in smoke. And there is a limit to the assuaging force of an even adequate insurance. Smith can hardly restore Junior’s framed diploma from the eighth grade or his wife’s wedding gown, with its real lace and wistful little sprig of artificial orange bloom, packed carefully away in the attic. With Gentaro, however, the case is rather different. His house, one must note, is not cluttered with family albums and a prodigality of furnishing. It is simply four walls and some mats. The charm of his house is its emptiness. A Japanese would live in one of our houses only under an extreme compulsion. His eye delights in free space. And, one sees, a new free space easily assumes the prerogative of the free space that has gone up in smoke. Still, there is the dais in the parlor, which must not be overlooked, with its porcelain vase of flowers, its august kakemono full of pictures and script. Yes, even Gentaro is entitled to feel a pang or two. It was on Friday. The papers were full of fire stories. Three fresh conflagrations overnight had broken out in Tokio alone. Whatever the agency, it was too late to mend matters now. There lay those great smoking plains of ruin, all that was left of four hundred houses in the town’s lower quarter. I paid them a visit at noon. There was no excitement now. The crowd was good- humored. Those who had duties to perform went cheer- fully about them, while those who had none chatted about

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288 The Nation . oe [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 Ne ae the new disaster and did not seem to get in the way. Men and women plied tirelessly by with buckets. The buckets were full of still smoking debris—or they were empty, on their way back, as the case might be. Where the buckets were being emptied, I don’t know. There was an air of mystery about it all. It looked as though this were the way conflagrations were handled in the Empire—carried out rather than put out. But there was an infinitely greater marvel than this: something that marked the climax of the entire drama of fire. It was noon. The flames had died out about dawn. Yet already, entirely and securely and trimly hemming in the burned zone, were new board fences, expertly erected— even, it would seem, with a real eye to permanence. But the fences were not all. To have sprung there in so brief an hour might seem an adequate triumph. But that already the fences were densely covered with advertisements made a very profound impression upon me. There was but one decent conclusion to reach. The Nipponese are wonderful! If, as I came to look more minutely into that vast and largely inscrutable system for which the advertisements stood facade-like, I was to find what seemed flaws and to glimpse ineptitudes the West would hardly be guilty of, these would be, after all, but minor collapses. It was the fences, with their vigorous propaganda sprung since the dawn, which struck the true note of a new Japan. YOSHIWARA [This famous and almost unbelievably elaborate segre- gated district, although far removed from the center of Tokio, appears to have been completely demolished. The Yoshiwara housed thousands of state-licensed shogi, or prostitutes. It was their only home and for the most part they were locked into the houses.] Like ancient Babylon, I fancied, with its wide, uniform streets and its ornate houses all agleam with lights—a complete little city in itself. There was a spirit abroad in the place which, reflected in the faces of the bright houses as well as their inhabitants, seemed somehow to stir in one a sense of antique voluptuousness. A place of gaiety and most unbelievable glitter. So huge, so unreal—almost uncanny. The houses were like palaces; three stories, for the most part, and riotously rococo in design and decorat:on. Of the traffic or business of the place one was given a glimpse even as one wandered, full of amazement, through the endless glowing streets. It is a traffic or business in souls. You see them on display, all decked in their gayest finery, behind iron bars as you pass. The ground floor is a vast show window. The wares are all there, and one may pick and choose. There is the stock in trade of each brothel-keeper, in a community where every house is a brothel. Like the preliminary performance in front of cir- cus side-shows, the view is altogether gratis. You may gaze to your heart’s content. Perhaps your heart will be clutched with pity a little. Snug in their possession of an official license, all these shogi have to do, while yet the night is young, is sit in a half circle and look pretty. Yes, they are genuine articles —quite bona fide shogi. Yes, they are entitled to look down with a lofty and righteous scorn upon their gipsy jigoku sisters—sisters who have no license. Each house has a lobby. The manager sits there, like a still, sleek spider. He is ready for you. His goods are at your disposal. All you must do is hand him over your purse. You pay, just as though you were buying theater tickets at the box office. How much? Oh, I don’t just remember. But souls come cheap in a brothel. She slid back a bit of paper partition, and, with a modest little flourish, bade me enter. Then she made me a tiny courtesy and said: “Chairi-nasai.” Her room was square and rather spacious; I did not count how many mats each way. It was divided in the middle, not by a wall, but by a step running the whole width of the floor. The raised part was where one spread down one’s rugs to sleep. There was a wee balcony. From it you looked straight down into the animated street. Near at hand, in the lower end of the room, she had her little parlor and kitchen—heart-breaking affairs, both of them. At one side was a stove, and above this, ranged on little shelves, were the things she used in making tea and serving saké. Be- side the stove was a doll’s table upon which dainties were spread. There were cushions, quite large and soft. She knelt on one; I, opposite, on the other. The table was between us. And the kettle began to sing. To reach her I had first mounted a smooth polished stair, and drunk tea in a reception parlor while she was apprised of my approach. The tea was poured by quaint old ladies. Perhaps, in their day of suppleness and beauty, they were yujo too. In the words of Peer Gynt, “time, you know, brings with it many a change”... Poor little deichu no hasuw—poor little lotus-in-the-mud! I was a Barbarian; but she had no say in the matter. Her ways were charming and naive. We sipped our tea and talked a little, and she urged sweetmeats upon me. I offered her one of my cigarettes, and we smoked together, she pausing long enough in her dainty ménage de cuisine to accept a light and flash her fine teeth in a smile of thanks. I could not say that my little lotus-in-the-mud was ex- actly a beauty. It is written that the face of a shogi must be white as the snows on Futa-ara-Yama. Her eyebrows were very black and her lips were very red. The effect was, upon the whole, a little ghastly. Presently, when she had smoked her cigarette, she took out a tiny pipe from one of the sleeves of her exquisite kimono and began on that. There were shelves in the parlor as well as in the kitchen. On them she kept her treasures: little fuzzy dogs and pitiful dollies, small fans, diminutive trifles such as children anywhere delight in. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. What were these—relics of a happier time when she had played lightheartedly with other children, never dreaming she would one day carry her toys into such a place as this? Did she still pause to play with them sometimes? A wistful life hers must be, the life of this naive shogi in the Yoshiwara.... 4 We shook hands across the tiny table. The Barbarian humble—almost a bit reverent. “Good-night, Little Waterfall! Brightness!” “Mata-irassahai,” she murmured. “Please come again.” Outside the stars were shining brightly. The streets were quiet and nearly deserted. From a few casements came the sound of laughter and the strumming of the samisen. Lights shone down through a hundred paper panes. And I passed by the Willow of Welcome in silence. Good-night, White

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 3 SAGAMI BAY [It has been reported that the coast of Japan, in the vicinity of Yokohama, suffered not alone from earthquake and fire, but also from the inevitable tidal wave. Sagami Bay, Kamahura’s resort, is probably today unrecognizable —if, indeed, it has not been altogether swallowed up by the ocean. To the eastward lay Enoshima, popularly known as the “picture island,” reported to have disap- peared. | From the protection of a compartment nearly empty, and with rice fields skipping by outside the car window, we watched a sudden downpour of rain. It did not last a great while—only so far as Hodogaya. And then the sun shone, and the rain ceased falling; though the day thereafter was only so-so. It grew hazy and gray. But these qualities in the atmosphere tend to enhance the Japanese picture. Rice fields. Ever rice fields, with the day growing more and more gray and wistful. All about me the dream of foreign life was deepening. Kamakura at last, and to the Kaihin-in for tiffin. It is claimed for this hostelry that it “ig second to none among country hotels of Japan.” Of course W. Aoyama, the manager, may be a little inclined to extravagance. Still, the Kaihin-in is undeniably very nice, with its wide, free halls and its general air of spa- ciousness. Externally its architecture prompted some de- bate. There was certainly something Elizabethan about it (and fancy anything Elizabethan in Japan!). Yet the effect was subtly turned askew by the introduction of un- graspable Japanese notes. Through to the coast of Sagami Bay the journey was short and in the sand. It was like a bit of seashore any- where; and, so thoroughly had the idea taken hold of me that Japan was diminutive—a place of exquisite miniature —that I was wholly unprepared for the bold sweep of coast, with promontories spreading giant arms into the sea, and seeming, just at the first, with their rugged contours, scarcely more within the legitimate picture than the sturdy Elizabethanism of the tavern where we had just eaten. I stood in the sand. I looked off westward toward the cliffs of Hayama, where the Crown Prince has a villa; eastward toward Inamuragasaki, and the far little island of Enoshima. The sense of miniature left me, never to return in quite its former integrity. After all, here was no geography to be stuffed into your pocket. And the wash of little waves at my feet had back of it all the terrific power of the Pacific, however feebly it might croon and whisper this wan spring afternoon. Enoshima would be picturesque, only it is too exquisite for so broad an adjective. Steep streets and winding, up and up, with tiny lighted shops brim full of strange and pretty things. It is a little human dream on the edge of a murmuring sea. The place, so foreign and so queer and so boundlessly alluring, seemed stretching shy arms out toward me, smiling a welcome from each corner, through every cordial lighted pane. A final picture before I turned reluctant steps back down the steep main street. A poor, tiny interior, the principal room in a meager dwelling. I saw a little table spread with tiny pots and dishes. The table was barely a foot high. Its surface was a mere matter of inches. On the floor were mats, and the dais boasted a vase with one drooping flower. So strange, so unintelligible. So lovely in its strangeness. Here was an art in frugality! But lo, the note of sly progress and invasion: over the table blazing in still white glory, an electric light! I can see the great full disk of the early spring moon, rising up over Nippon, In the west still a wisp of wan yellow sunset. Through the green-tinted sky the moon rises, still lingering, still more yellow than white. The moon tonight is very Japanese. My thoughts stay behind with the friendly people of the little dream city. It is what I see when I turn and peer back over my shoulder that makes the moon Japanese tonight: an island, steep, with rough little streets and quaint houses, with its stalls of curious shells and toys, all agleam with sparkling lights. Some of the houses have occupants visible inside—cheerful silhouettes against the paper panes. And away and away, all up and down the shimmering mainland on the beach the moon silvers the sand and catches into starry points the scattered relics of the sea. BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA [There have been news rumors to the effect that not even the gods of Japan were spared by earthquake and fire. At this moment it is impossible for us to know the fate of perhaps the most celebrated religious figure in the Orient. However, since this Buddha is molded in solid bronze of prodigious thickness and weight, it is probable that he still sits there, majestic and unmoved, dominating a plain of utter desolation. ] Once it was a capital, when the Shogunate was young; but now how starved and shrunken a place is Kamakura! I rode through miles of streets in my ’rikisha. They were lined with wretched houses. They were full of scurrying, rough-clad children. And never was I more impressed with the hopeless impermanence of Japanese architecture. Of a once magnificent city there remains now nothing beyond a network of shabby lanes or byways, rather littered than lined with flimsy shacks of paper, light wood, and straw. And yet—there were temples. And there was the great Daibutsu. I came upon the superb seated figure from a considerable distance of avenue. Impervious Buddha, molded in the thirteenth century; colossal, silent; symbolizing a cult and expressing a cold scorn of the little squat fishing village of new paper houses. The burdened lids of bronze are never lifted. The free-chiseled nostrils are dilate, as though frozen in the act of breathing a more imperious air. The mouth is curved with eloquence; but the full lips never part. There is a vast repose in the figure. The lofty shoulders are rounded into a trance of deep, perpetual slumber. And yet—a repose such as we know not, evinced by the mystic pose of the hands, the thumbs touching, the fingers curled with a uniformity unattainable in mere flesh and blood. When Perry stormed the harbor the great bronze Buddha did not stir. Not the lusty political and social and indus- trial awakening of the nation has sufficed anywise to in- trude upon the enormous peace and dreamy sanctity of the Buddha at Kamakura. Not the Russian wars nor the Chinese wars, nor yet the war of wars could win the faint- est murmur of response from those lips carved speechless. If some day those great gold eyes should open—what then? And if those lips should be freed, what would the Buddha say? Would he, too, observe the terrible imperma- nence of all things Japanese? And would he mind the little kimono-clad urchins tumbling about with ragged familiarity upon the very steps of his altar?

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290 : The Nation ~ a [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 These United States—X X XVITI* MONTANA: Land of the Copper Collar By ARTHUR FISHER IX months is the longest one may live in Montana with- out making the decision whether one is “for the Com- pany” or “against the Company.” Even some members of that ever-growing stream of automobile pilgrims which en- ters our hot sage-brush plains from North Dakota’s prairies and threads its way westward through the irrigated valley of the Yellowstone are frequently to be found enlisted in one camp or the other before they have zigzagged down from some pass over the Rockies and crept along a narrow ledge above a roaring stream through the canyon into Idaho. The all-pervading and unrelenting nature of the struggle admits of no neutrals. Since the territory’s admission to - statehood in 1889 the struggle has continued. On the one hand, firmly intrenched, stand the ramifying and inter- linked corporate interests centering in the copper industry, now under the leadership of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. On the other stands the rest of the population which feels it has no stake in the Company’s prosperity but suffers from the Company’s exploitation of every nat- ural resource and profitable privilege, its avoidance of taxa- tion, and its dominance of the political and educational life of the State. The latter side has the largest potential man- power, although the forces of the Company, including all officers, henchmen, agents, sub-agents, employees who feel their livelihood is dependent upon their public attitude, un- affiliated business interests who sell to the Company and its subsidiaries or who must secure banking credits, and pro- fessional men to whom business can be thrown and who desire to rise in the social world—all these total a consider- able number. But the opposition is only partially united by farmer and labor organizations led by intermittent cru- saders for the democratic idea, frequently by men not en- tirely devoid of personal political ambition, although even for these the risks and the sacrifices are by no means small. But the Company is led by a single united command of professional soldiers designated in Montana by the term “on the pay roll.” The local field office in Butte is popularly known as “The Fourth Floor of the Hennesey Building”’— awe-inspiring title. Of the general headquarters back of the lines, ultimate source of all authority, Montanans are never reminded by the local press except when a short news item announces that the private car of Mr. John D. Ryan or Mr. Con Kelly arrived on the Missoula or Great Falls or Butte siding last night—from New York City. This important event usually occurs just prior to the breaking out of one of the big engagements, the biennial election, when the heavy guns are brought up and the very heavens are torn by the thunder of the campaign artillery and illumined by the fireworks of the press. Money is poured out like water; and men fall by the hundred before the temptations of the bribe-giver or the promise of future preferment, and the fear of the consequences if they do not yield. Frequently the atmosphere is charged to such a point that neighbor hardly dares speak to neighbor, and entire communities are rent in two by passion and fear. *Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1923, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. Between the major campaigns ceaseless guerrilla warfare is waged, now and then breaking out in the form of a labor battle in the mining camps, the ambushing of a teacher in the State University, or the shooting in the back of some small business man who talked too independently. In addi- tion a continuous flood of propaganda is poured out by the Company press, which includes nearly every daily paper and most of the weeklies, to maintain morale and win new recruits. Every newcomer to the State is approached through suggestion and advice, through business pressure and social temptation, until the day when he expresses some sentiment which henceforth throws him definitely into one camp or the other. Thereafter he is fair game for the side which he has slighted. And there are no closed seasons. The struggle of the Company to maintain its rule and its privileges against the people’s attempts to subject it to democratic control is an economic and political conflict in which the entire social development of the State is inex- tricably interwoven. But the conflict is more than that. It is the leading sporting event in Montana life. What the Harvard-Yale game is to intercollegiate foot- ball, what the Davis Cup matches are to international ten- nis, what the Grand National is to the English racing: world, the World’s Series to baseball, the Mardi Gras to New Orleans, or the Rose Festival to Portland, what a good county court-house trial used to be before the days of the movie, all this and more the battles with the Company are to Montana. They form Montana’s epic; an epic told through ten thousand newspaper editorials, ten thousand stump speeches, ten thousand unwritten anecdotes. The universal topic of conversation, it serves as a common in-- terest to unite the people of the State even as at the same time it separates them into two warring camps. Just now the key to every major operation in the con- flict is a short clause in the State constitution, adopted when Montana entered the Union with the purpose of en- couraging the mining industry to develop the State, and remaining unchanged since then. This clause provides that. mineral lands shall not be assessed for purposes of taxa- tion at a higher value than the price at which the lands were acquired from the Federal Government. As in no case did this amount exceed $5 an acre, and as today many of these holdings in “the richest hill in the world,” as Butte proudly’ boasts, are worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is not difficult to understand why the Company considers. expenditure of unmeasured sums for the purpose of winning an election or for “publicity and education” justified by the strictest business considerations. Just at present the severe agricultural depression through: which the State is passing has brought all tax issues to the front and has united the forces demanding a revision of: the constitutional provision, so that the Company has suc- ceeded in blocking reform only by the narrowest of margins. Prosperity may disunite the people before the change is: effected. But some day, perhaps in five years, perhaps in twenty, this peculiarly crude and obviously discriminatory constitutional privilege is certain to be remedied. It is by” ee Ns eee ee ee

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 291 no means as certain, however, that this will end the struggle between the people and the Company. The situation in Montana is not the same or as simple as that which for- merly existed in most of the Middle Western States in the old days of railway rule. In Montana the railways have long since yielded first place to the Company. They still, of course, employ expert lobbyists, but they attempt no wholesale winning of elections nor purchase of legislatures. In a State with only half a million population, which it takes as long to cross by limited train as it does to go from Chi- cago to New York, the influence of three transcontinental railway systems is by no means slight. And although there is considerable talk of taking the public into the railways’ confidence, there is good reason for suspicion that the bonds of unity of interest reaching out from higher banking cir- cles lead the railways to take the Company more often into its confidence than the public—and to find reasons for siding with the Company in its hottest battles. These battles will not end so long as the Company re- mains a combination of all the really profitable privileges and large-scale undertakings in the State. Copper is only the core. Surrounding this core are the largest lumber interests in the State; and the untouched timber resources in the jumble of mountain ranges which cross Montana, reaching their highest point in the Continental Divide, are extensive and are controlled by the Anaconda Company. So also are the principal banks, the largest water-power company, the smelters, coal companies, land companies, pub- lic utilities, newspapers, mercantile concerns. Where there is not outright ownership by the Company there is iden- tity of interest and an affiliation which reaches the same end of harmonious and united action. All this is the Com- pany; and the Company is more than this; for it controls in Connecticut the largest American brass company and domestic user of copper, and controls extensive ore deposits in South America and other parts of the world. When the constitutional mining-tax clause is a thing of the past, the struggle will still go on, widened, more complex, more diffi- cult to dramatize, but no less vital to the success of the democratic ideal in our third largest State. Unlike the situation in some other States, such as Dela- ware, where the power of the Du Ponts is perhaps even more complete and no less ramifying and carefully protected by every outwork and fortification of control of education and public opinion, the Montana fight is characterized by its openness and the vigor of the champions on either side. There is no supine admission of the hopelessness of the struggle, no silent submission to an insidious all-embracing octopus. In Montana the copper collar shines brazenly forth for all to see. Davids go bravely forth to the blare of trumpets to battle with Goliath. And their whitening bones strew the wayside like the skulls of the bison which once in countless thousands roamed Montana’s plains. The tradition of the open fight began in Montana in the days before the copper industry had been brought under one single dominant control as it is today. The mining inter- ests worked together against the live-stock men and the rest of the State, but within their own ranks there were vigo- rous clashes in which Irish labor followed Irish mine owner against opposing operators with the traditional loyalty and fighting spirit of the old country clans. The occasion for these sanguinary battles between companies has passed and the Irish blood has been largely replaced by immigrants from Southern Europe but the fighting spirit and much of the Irish leadership lives on. Nor has the fighting spirit failed to draw some sustenance in blood and traditions from districts removed from the mining camps. Montana cher- ishes her traditions and has developed a form of ancestor worship of which hardly less is heard than in Massachu- setts Bay itself—albeit the canvas of Montana’s Mayflowers was nailed down on the hoops topping heavy prairie schoon- ers, and her pilgrim fathers bear the locally revered title of “the pioneers.” These traditions speak much of vigi- lantes, of posses, of hangings after quick trials, of cattle wars against homesteaders and sheep men, of Indian wars and Custer’s last stand. The hand-to-hand engagements of most of the battles of today occur in or about the trenches of the Butte hill—that city in size and downtown appearance, perched on a gashed and torn foothill of the Rockies, shafts and drifts and tun- nels and ore dumps cropping up between skyscrapers and prosperous downtown clubs and churches, a city, yet no more than ‘“‘the biggest mining camp in the world.” Seen from a distance at night as the limited train starts crawl- ing down from the crest of the Continental Divide it is not unbeautiful, a hill of sparkling lights under a cloudless heaven of stars. At noon with a hot sun beating down from that same cloudless sky upon a jumble of tall build- ings and shacks, not a spear of grass or other vegetation in sight, clouds of dust swirling through the streets filled with miners idle through a lay-off, the blacklist, or a preference for bumming to going back into the deep hot mines, it is as forbidding a town as any in the United States. Either in the heat of summer or in the severe cold of the winter it is a town where the thin air of the high alti- tude stimulates men’s nerves and their appetites for the night life of the mining camp; and readily turns the hard- faced restless crowd full of injured, limbless, and diseased men into a mob. These physical conditions and the nature of the occupa- tion have had none of their raw edges smoothed by the labor policies of the Company. The temperature in the mines is commonly above 100 degrees, and the men’s lungs are eaten by the dust and their skin by the drip of the copper-impregnated water on bare, stooping backs. Fol- lowing periods of tremendous profits, such as that enjoyed during the war, the mines and smelters have been closed without the slightest provision for the mass of the em- ployees or their families. It is not strange that few men undertake the burden of a family which must almost of necessity transform them into abject slaves of the Com- pany. The intemperance, instability, and violence of the Butte labor movement and its publications—foremost of these the sometimes brilliant and always radical Butte Bulletin—are the natural result of conditions in Butte and of the labor policies of the Anaconda Copper Mining Com- pany and the personnel of local managers selected by absentee ownership. But Butte is not Montana, nor are even the smelter towns of Anaconda and Great Falls and other lesser mining dis- tricts Montana in any other sense than that they caricature the ultimate product of the Montana conflict, the symbol of which is the body of the union organizer Frank Little hanging from a railway trestle, or the office of the Butte Daily Bulletin in an abandoned church guarded by a “red guard” of rifles through a night of battle, a night, be it said, not entirely unwelcomed by the members of that “red guard,” the fiery writers of the Bulletin, and the officers of the local O.B.U. and I.W.W. Up to the outbreak of the World War, and even for a

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292 The Nation’ - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 year or so thereafter, almost anyone in Montana would have risked the prophecy that another decade would see agriculture the dominant interest of the State. It seemed certain that a new weight was to be thrown into the scales of battle and that the Company would soon have to yield to the new battalions arriving by the trainload, lured by the vivid recruiting literature and enticements of the rail- roads and the State immigration service—lawyers, mechan- ics, teachers, factory hands, clerks, doctors, farmers from the Middle West, none familiar with the peculiar problems either of dry-farming or irrigation, all hoping to find their Eldorado. For a few years those who first turned the sparse desert sod in this new migration prospered. They enjoyed better than normal rainfall and better than normal prices for wheat. Then followed four years in which the rainfall dropped from the 16-inch average to 8 inches, and the price of wheat was cut more than in half. Many a dry-land home miles from water or tree knew actual hunger, and all knew privation, disappointment, and misery as they saw green fields wither and die before the hot winds. And even the irrigated districts saw all profits disappear before low prices, high transportation rates, and burdensome charges for water. So today these acres on the margin of profitable cultiva- tion which are Montana—on the margin both because of scanty rainfall and the cost of placing water on the land— are being foreclosed and abandoned wholesale. In some dry counties of Montana 80 per cent of the farm lands have reverted to the State for failure to pay taxes, and bank after bank has closed its doors. Pressure of population is almost certain to make the irrigated districts ultimately profitable for those who can hang on, or for their successors. In the meantime the Federal irrigation service will have to wait for repayment of its expenditure and even for in- terest on the money. But whether the great dry-land area of Montana will ever be more than a siren temptress to the uninformed—one good crop year and two failures—remains to be seen. The possibilities of science in soil culture and in plant breeding are beyond prediction; western Nebraska and Kansas, with hardly more rainfall than eastern Mon- tana’s average, were once abandoned by the first disillu- sioned victims of the railway settlers’ bureaus. Science in marketing methods and cooperative distributing may also do much. But in the meantime the once-tilled lands of dry Montana are going back to the cattle range, a range scarred and ruined for years to come by the turning of the natural sod. “Montana’s real trouble,” said an old rancher to me, “is that her graveyards aren’t big enough.” He explained that he was not advocating a general resort to the hangings of vigilante days, nor even waiting until a new generation came on the scene, but that more Montanans must come to look upon the State as their permanent home and final resting place. From the first pioneers who washed their fortunes out of the gold placers, with hydraulic pressure turning pleasant hillsides into desolate wastes of boulders, nearly all who have come to Montana have looked forward to the day when they would have accumulated sufficient funds to permit them to live out the remainder of their days in southern California, Florida, or New York. Now and then a big brown stone house is erected on the hilly streets of Helena as a monument to financial success; but the owners are usually found living elsewhere. And the mansion of Montana’s richest citizen, who still keeps his local legal resi- dence (whether out of sentiment or to avoid income and inheritance taxes is not known), stands on Fifth Avenue, New York City—the “home” of ex-Senator W. A. Clark. Unlike such a State as Colorado, where the tourist popu- lation almost exceeds the resident population and is one of the State’s leading industries, Montana has done little to promote tourist traffic. Glacier Park is the advertising product of one railway and the plaything of the son of a great railway pioneer who opened up northern Montana, James J. Hill. It has hardly yet repaid interest on the investment, though its striking beauty may before long do so. Other sections of Montana’s mountains are hardly less attractive; yet they have not been capitalized to the extent even of the establishment of the “dude ranches” of Wyo- ming. Nevertheless every Montana rancher feels he has neglected his family if he is unable to find some period between planting or irrigating or harvesting or fall plow- ing when he can pack them all into a car or wagon, leave the stock in charge of relatives or neighbors, and take a camping, fishing, or hunting trip in the hills. Indeed, a symbol of Montana second only to the copper collar itself is that of a fisherman whipping a trout stream. No single subject in the legislature evokes the statewide attention, the enthusiasm, or the intelligent interest of a debate on the biennial revision of the fish and game laws. But even in this fact the coils of the Anaconda may be seen. Native Montanans who can sell nothing directly to the tour- ist trade are not enthusiastic about poachers on their fish- ing preserves; and it is expensive to build roads which will stand up under the wheels of the endless chain of cars which goes trekking across the State piled high and bulging sidewise with tents, extra cans of oil and gas, blanket rolls, and every sort of paraphernalia, the dust hardly given time to settle before it is stirred up by the Ford behind. AIl- though rain may turn this dust into a quagmire of mud— the famous gumbo—in the course of a few moments’ shower, and all automobile traffic of whatever nature be forced to suspend, no trip or family picnic is ever spoiled for a native Montanan by rain. In the midst of the hardest downpour or the most prolonged drizzle, whether in town or country, he greets everyone he meets with a broad smile. “Fine weather, isn’t it?” he beams. “Another million-dollar shower,” is the response. “If we get one more like this the crop is made.” Doubtless even the officials of the Company welcome a real Montana soaker, and watch with satisfaction the official rain gauge creep upwards, in the critical time of year, above the 8-inch minimum to the 16-inch average, even though they never find time to say so in the midst of their praises of the benefits to the State of A.C.M. development and their denunciations as dangerous radicals of every member of farmer organization, labor union, or independent political group. For in a personal way the Company’s officialdom and subordinates are for the most part “good fellows” who have risen from the ranks; something of the free and easy ways of the mining camp or the open range still clinging to them; and Montana is still too young and too near to the frontier to have yet produced that worst of human products, snobbery and the glowering resentment of a long-submerged people. In Montana one may still speak to a man as a man —before drilling him or his business or his reputation full of holes. The next article in the series These United States, to appear in The Nation of October 8, will be Indiana: Her Soil and Light, by Theodore Dreiser.

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293 The Nation Sept. 19, 1923] “To secure peace you must be strong.” ini Mussol

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294 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 Coal Characters (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD OHN L. LEWIS of the United Mine Workers. One of the most attractive gladiators now operating. The face of a giant, crossed from time to time by the convulsed delighted laugh of a child. Smites the rock of the power of the anthracite operators with the economic force of the organization of the miners; and if an increase in wages flows out, then he knows that the water is there and that the operators can afford an increase. If it does not flow out, then he knows that the operators cannot afford it. He seems justly to regard this method as much more reliable than any statistical method. Was once inclined to quail and quake under thunderstorms from enjoining judges. Is now so used to them that he seems barely able to hear them. Has realized thoroughly that arguments get you nowhere in this world unless you have some sort of force behind them. The operators have the force of the ownership of property. He has the force of the leadership of miners who will unanimously stop working. The essence of his diplo- macy is to prove that they will. He knows thoroughly that if people got the idea that his army would not march, then they would not care whether the members of his army were able to feed their children or not. He never saw any- body’s wages raised by statistics and public opinion and nothing else. He principally provides something else. He occasionally takes his army out for- practice maneuvers, just as Roosevelt sent the fleet around the world. . It is part of negotiations. Toward the reporters he is as realistic as toward the operators. He knows that the reporters have to make “prognostications” and he does his best to help them to “prognosticate” accurately. He does his best to help them to go right on what is going to happen. He spreads his vast bulk on a settee in a hotel lobby and stretches his massive legs out comfortably before him and clutches a cigar with his broad jaws and tosses back his helmet of thick flowing hair and settles down with the re- porters about him to confer on tomorrow’s story. He helps them to be right on the actual facts of the actual news de- velopments in thai story, and his “propaganda” slides auto- matically along on the back of his accurate and considerate and appreciated contributions to the reporters’ professional needs. Able, formidable, likable. Samuel D. Warriner, chief representative of the opera- tors. Slender, sophisticated, deeply informed, sharply acute. Plays the role of rapier to Lewis’s role of ax. Wears a Phi Beta Kappa key. Is very gentle-mannered. Recoils from rough language—and also from rough stories. Often looks worried. Tries to make Lewis look worried— and feel worried—about the future of the anthracite in- dustry under competition from the bituminous industry. Fails. Lewis and his lieutenants refuse absolutely to do any worrying about it. They profess to believe that bitumi- nous coal cannot oust anthracite coal. Warriner and his lieutenants profess to believe that it can. They know in fact that it sometimes does; because they sometimes lose customers to their bituminous rivals. They profess to be- lieve that they will lose more customers if the price of an- thracite keeps going up. They genuinely and sincerely worry on that point, and also on many other points having to do with the conduct of the anthracite industry. The miners’ representatives, not being responsible for the con- duct of the industry, leave all the worrying to the opera- tors. They realistically content themselves with getting as much as they can for the miners out of the income of the anthracite industry after the operators have done all the worrying connected with the acquiring of that income. Ownership, management, responsibility, and worry for the operators! _No part in ownership, no part in management, no admission to responsibility, and no collapse into worry for the miners! Main problem of the industry: to trap the miners into worrying for the industry! Warriner gets paler and more and more worried as the negotiations go forward. Has no personal hostility, however, to Lewis. Likes him. Has no vendetta, either, against the miners’ union. Has no plan and no wish to destroy the union. Would like, as he sees it, to persuade the union to be more reasonable. Accepts the existence of the union and hopes for what he would regard as its reformation. Has not ‘thought of any way of accomplishing that reformation. Lights a new cigarette and despairingly demands Lewis’s attention for the facts of the anthracite “margin of profit” and for the facts as to what the full eleven demands of the miners would do to that “margin.” Gets from Lewis principally an inquiry as to whether $4.08—which is the daily eight-hour wage of some few anthracite mine-workers —is a proper wage. Returns to his hotel and nestles into. a chair and gently asks the reporters if Lewis has made a statement to them today. He has. What is it? “If the operators do not yield to our just demands, we will give them the soundest thrashing they have ever had.” War- riner smiles very faintly. ‘Lewis offers force, and I offer arbitration.” We write it down. “With force threatened by the miners, and with arbitration offered by the opera- tors, don’t you think that the case of the operators ought to be strong with the public?” “Yes,” says a reporter, “but your case was just as strong in nineteen twenty-two, and the public gave you no help then.” “True enough,” says Warriner, and adds: “Now I'll tell you what happened in the conference today from my standpoint.” Tells it quietly, clearly, candidly, charmingly. A clean man and a clever man, struggling in a period when his industry has ceased to be autocratic in its relations with labor but has not yet de- veloped any systematic substitute for autocracy. Swashbucklers. Mr. Searles and Mr. Lyman. Press agents for the two sides. Commonly called swashbucklers ever since the United States Coal Commission said that press agents make everything worse by getting out “swash- buckling” statements. Mr. Searles swashbuckles for the miners, while swapping stories with the reporters jovially. Mr. Lyman swashbuckles for the operators, while swapping stories with the reporters gravely. In the absence of the reporters, Mr. Searles and Mr. Lyman swashbuckle by swapping stories with each other happily and contentedly. The reporters. They worry less even than Lewis. Lewis at least wants the miners to win. The reporters do not care which side wins. It could be proved in court that the reports of the coal conferences at Atlantic City and at

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Sept. 19, 1923] Harrisburg by the reporters for the principal newspapers and for the principal news associations were overwhelm- ingly as destitute of bias as the reports by the photog- raphers. Gifford Pinchot. Tense, athletic. High-minded. Rather high-handed. ‘Mens conscia recti. Integer vitae scelerisque purus.” All that kind of thing. Uses his fists. Hits the miners and hits the operators. Also hits the railroads and hits the wholesale and retail coal dealers. Wins a victory all covered with blood. Calvin Coolidge. Tranquil. Only President in recent years who has failed to see the Republic falling if there was a strike. Also only President in recent years who has failed to say “wicked! wicked!” to striking miners. Stands behind presidential desk, pale, slight, hardy, agile, and determined to keep all troubles securely on the other side of the desk at Harrisburg, Cleveland, Seattle, and other proper places for them. For him, a tranquil White House, if he can get it, and a people saying: “What? Change things in the White House? We haven’t heard of any trouble there.” Mussolini Fails By GIOVANNI GIGLIO [It has been suggested by more than one observer that Mussolini’s arrogant gesture of imperialist defiance, which may yet set Europe ablaze with war, was due in large part to internal difficulties; that in order to preserve the Fascist domination of the country, the Italian people needed the distraction as well as the uniting influence of an affair of honor and a common enemy. One of the important internal conflicts, in which Mussolint’s commands and threats have failed of their effect, is described in this article, written before the Greek incident had given the Italian dictator his opportunity to defy the world. |] Rome, August 20 HE class-struggle that Mussolini was to abolish to- gether with its Socialist propagandists and followers, is just becoming more evident in Italy through one of its most characteristic episodes: the big contest between ship- owners and seamen. Mussolini has smashed the Italian Socialist Party, but the splinters of the smashed mirror have remained together with the economic and social con- trasts that they continue to reflect in Italian life. The Fascist violence which has been able to suppress, imprison, banish, and even to force humiliating capitulations upon the Italian labor movement, has not been able to sup- press as yet, nor to banish or cause to capitulate, the strug- gle between capital and labor. This struggle has remained, and it is growing ever more violent in its attacks against labor. The present fight between shipowners and seamen is a most instructive instance. The most striking feature of this contest, in its present stage, is the personal inter- vention of Mussolini for the purpose of compelling both parties to come to an agreement, which has turned out, owing to the stubbornness of the shipowners, an utter fail- ure for Mussolini himself. In view of the importance of this failure in Italy’s present political situation, it may be useful to recapitulate some of the earlier phases of the struggle, In the summer of 1919 Captain Giulietti, the secretary of the Italian Seamen’s Federation, founded with the money of the federation the Garibaldi Shipping Cooperative So- The Nation 295 ciety. The funds were rather scanty, a few million lire altogether, but Captain Giulietti had a rather genial plan whereby he intended to increase them rapidly. The Gari- baldi Cooperative Society asked for and obtained from the Italian state the hiring of some tank steamers which had belonged to the Germans. With little expense these tank steamers were by the new owners changed into cargo boats. The Seamen’s Federation supplied the crews, and the first ship to start the new traffic of the Garibaldi was the Amil- care Cipriani, which sailed to Odessa with a cargo of victuals and medicals, the first contribution made by Italian workers to Soviet Russia. After that the Garibaldi kept in active service its fleet, consisting of five ships. Thus Captain Giulietti achieved his first object: to insure for the union a powerful weapon of financial resistance, to be able with better success to continue the struggle with the ship- owners for an increase of wages. In fact, the federation succeeded some time later in securing most favorable work- ing agreements and reasonably high wages. If some ship- owner resisted, Giulietti could easily boycott him, causing the crews of the boycotted master to sail on the ships of the union’s cooperative. The first to feel the advantages of such a situation were the seamen themselves, and very willingly they lodged in the treasury of their own coopera- tive 50 per cent of their increased wages. Thus, during the past three years, the Garibaldi has become one of the richest cooperative societies of this country. The shipown- ers perceived the trick when it was too late for them to mend matters and when the Garibaldi had already estab- lished itself upon a sound financial basis. But the ship- owners did not lose courage, and they charged the Gari- baldi with “permanently defrauding the state” and induced Parliament to order three public investigations of the man- agement of the Garibaldi. The results of all the three were, however, favorable to the seamen’s cooperative. These investigations were made under Nitti’s and Giolitti’s cabi- nets. When Signor Facta succeeded Signor Giolitti the political situation in Italy was rather difficult for Giulietti and the Socialist Party. The shipowners took advantage of this, and their next step was to bring about a trial of Giulietti and his assistants for their past “criminal” con- duct. Giulietti, to avoid imprisonment, was obliged to take shelter abroad. By this time Fascism was in its most vio- lent stage. As Giulietti could not be punished personally, the Fascisti attacked his residence at San Marino. The headquarters of the Seamen’s Federation and the Gari- baldi at Genoa were not attacked owing to the fact that Giulietti had put them, during his banishment, under the protection and leadership of Commander Rizzo, a great hero of the Italian war. But the shipowners clamored for the destruction of both the federation and the Garibaldi, and for this purpose they built up a Fascist seamen’s organiza- tion. To encourage the desertion of the seamen from Giuli- etti’s union they allowed the Fascist organization all the economic advantages enjoyed by the federation. Matters had grown very hard for the federation and the Garibaldi. Then Giulietti played his last card: the card of despair, which was to save his union and at the same time lose him the good opinion of the international labor move- ment. Giulietti had rendered great services to D’Annunzio when the latter embarked upon his Fiume adventure. Giu- lietti had brought to D’Annunzio, at Fiume, a ship laden with six thousand tons of rifles and explosives, and D’An- nunzio, as a testimonial of his thankfulness, had joined Giu-

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296 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3087 lietti’s union as an honorary member. Upon being asked to come to the assistance of the union, D’Annunzio became the arbitrator in the contest between the Fascisti and Giulietti. After long and difficult negotiations, D’Annunzio forced the Fascisti and the shipowners to give up their struggle against the federation and the Garibaldi. Thus a compro- mise was signed according to which the Fascist seamen’s organization was dissolved and incorporated in the federa- tion, which was acknowledged as the sole legitimate sea- men’s union in Italy, and Giulietti was confirmed in his post as secretary. There remained, however, a real task to perform: to persuade the defeated shipowners to come to an agreement with their terrible foe Giulietti. D’An- nunzio tried to overcome this difficulty, and a short time ago invited the shipowners to meet him in his Cargnacco villa. There D’Annunzio submitted to them a compromise of pacification that he himself had written and called the “pactum sine nomini.” The compromise draft was sub- mitted to Mussolini, who, as the Government chief, ap- proved it, promising to use all his influence with the ship- owners so that they might sign it. The negotiations were finally transferred to Rome and conducted under the personal direction of Mussolini. But in spite of this the peace treaty was not signed. At the eleventh hour the ship- owners put hesitation behind them and stated that they could not for sincerity’s sake make peace with Giulietti, and that in any case they could never sign a compromise which in their opinion would bind them, hands and feet, before foreign competition. So the matter stands today. The shipowners have made up their mind to resist the pressure of the Government; and the Fascist press, to defend the prestige of the Dictator, threatens and screams against the shipowners. The latter are now charged by the Fascisti with being the allies of international plutocracy, which is alleged to be conspiring against the Fascist regime. Mussolini, on the other hand, is credited with being determined to break the shipowners’ resistance, even to the point of enforcing D’Annunzio’s “pactum sine nomini” by royal decree. This is the first time that Mussolini has been so stubbornly resisted by the masters of capital, since the latter helped him to seize power. It is difficult to make any forecast as to the final issue of this contest. My impression is that Mussolini has even now enough strength to face and control this revolt by the shipowners, but it is doubtful whether the Fascist method of dealing with difficulties is the best way to bring the complicated problems of Italian political and economic life to a satisfactory solution. Contributors to This Issue ARTHUR FISHER has been connected with several papers controlled by farmer-labor groups in Montana. As a result of his views he was forced out of the law school of the University of Montana two years ago through the efforts of the American Legion. EDWARD ALDEN JEWELL is a writer of short stories and novels, who has spent the last four years traveling in Europe and the Far East. BRENT ALLINSON, who was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during the war, spent several years in Europe in the service of the Friends’ relief organization. WILLIAM Harp, The Nation’s special Washington repre- sentative, resumes his weekly letter in this issue. German Youth and the Pagan Gods By BRENT ALLINSON HERE was something almost theatrical about the light of this June evening reflected from a great, floating bank of pink clouds upon the faces and bodies of a hundred youths and girls in colorful outing costume, seated or stand- ing in little groups here and there among the trees. Talk- ing and chaffing together, and calling and chasing about, they made ready a picnic supper from baskets and bundles which they had carried on a long tramp to this sylvan soli- tude. It had been hot and oppressive in Berlin, and on the train journey to Zossen, in the Mark, the third- and fourth-class compartments were so crowded with excursionists bound for the country to tramp and sleep out of doors for the week- end that even the platforms were packed and the boys had actually ridden on the roofs of the cars. But here in the woods it was deliciously cool, and after a supper of sand- wiches and a little fruit and a drink of water we were ready to tramp on through the gathering dusk to the appointed spot in the deep forest, where the ceremony was to take place. For this was the night of the summer solstice when pagan gods were abroad, and the Wandervégel, the Youth Movement of all Berlin, in their several troops and Orts- gruppen were foregathering for their solemn midsummer festival. I was pleasantly conscious of being one of the very few Auslénder invited to participate in the ritual. What did it all mean, these pagan journeyings and prepa- rations, this romantic stirring of the youth of Germany? What were the aims of this strange movement—part pagan, part religious, part national, part international in spirit? What in the world were the boys and girls going to do to- night, out here in the pine forests of the Mark? As we moved on down a darkening road our column was hailed by another, and another, converging from the east and south- east, composed of somewhat younger boys dressed, like my own comrades of the hour, in short leather, or imitation leather, knickers, embroidered in colored thread and ex- posing brown knees and sturdy legs, stout shoes, some- times with knitted stockings, colored and plain, shirts of cotton or flannel, open at the throat, and occasionally a felt cap adorned with a goose-quill or a partridge feather. The girls wore dark skirts of flowered calico, pretty but ser- viceable, and sometimes bright aprons; and many wore their hair in parallel braids over their shoulders. The cos- tume was like that of some rude and rustic Dolly Varden without a hat, called everywhere in Germany Dirndlkleid. Altogether a picturesque outfit. On the long tramp through the cool night air the boys sang many an old “Lied” of war and love and longing which they had heard among the peasants on their rambles through the countryside, and which they had revised and published to all Germany and learned by heart. When, at length, it had fallen quite dark we came to a clearing, a kind of sandy hollow, where everybody sat down and waited. Presently from the dark woods beyond we heard the faint sound of singing. As the sound increased I realized that it was a part-song in which perhaps ten voices of men and women participated, a sad song, and

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Sept. 19, 1923] very beautiful. There was no accompaniment, no other sound. The singing continued for ten minutes, seemed to come nearer, and then died away into silence. Then a torch was planted on the uneven sand, and from the wood behind came forth costumed figures who began to speak and to perform a play—an allegorical play in which a princess is led by her curiosity to wander far afield until she is lost and, after many wanderings as an unhappy captive among the gnomes of some demi-world, is rescued by her own faith and the devotion of her kindred and the sacrifice of her lover. The play over, the sound of singing summoned us to continue our pilgrimage through the dark forest and we followed the guiding voices for perhaps half an hour until we came suddenly to a great open space, a grassy field be- tween two forests, culminating in a rounded hill. Walking over the field and up the slopes of the hill with the crowd, I noticed that the leaders were already setting fire to a great pile of wood and pine branches on the summit in the center of the clearing. As the flames kindled and mounted about the central, supporting tree to a height of ten or fifteen feet, the whole field was illuminated to the edges of the wood which completely inclosed it, and the great crowd of young people, their faces and arms crimsoned by the light, formed themselves into two huge circles and, linking hands, began to move and to run in opposite directions about the blazing fire. At length everybody sat down in a great ring and watched the fire until it burned down, talking quietly in little groups. Then an older man, one of the leaders, dressed like the rest, stepped to the fire and called for silence. “Bitte, Ruhe!” he said, and held up his hand. After a moment he began to speak, quietly, in a clear, cultivated voice. He apostrophized the fire as the symbol of all life and strength. He spoke of youth, of its fresh- ness and its hope and its purity. He spoke then of the dead, of the lost comrades from every troop—in some cases more than half of the members of the troop—who had given the last, full measure of devotion to the fatherland, and who slept now forever in the fields of France. He called for reconsecration of the spirit to the immortal ideals of strength and righteousness and fortitude and patience which through the centuries the German folk had ever tried to maintain. - And out there in the forest under the summer sky crowded with stars, by that dying altar fire in the midst of hundreds of young people, solemn, silent, despairing, or hoping against hope, and listening intently to the quivering voice of that man, I felt that I had never before been witness of a public ceremony half so moving. I felt merged suddenly in the spiritual community of an- other people, felt initiated into another life. It was a moment of transcendent vision and emotion which comes , $0 rarely in a man’s lifetime that, when it does, he never forgets it. In the earliest hours of morning the young people about the bonfire on the crest of the secluded field slipped away into the woods to sleep on the sand, pillowed by leaves and pine-tufts or folded in a blanket. Most of the boys marched away through the woods and down a long white road under a drooping moon to some abandoned army barracks three miles or more away, where they made themselves as com- fortable as possible on straw mattresses in “double-deck” iron bunks to awaken, tired but refreshed, for the athletic games planned for the morning. The Nation 297 In the Driftway HE Drifter feared that the romance of the road was gone forever. In all ages wayfaring had been wildly or quaintly adventurous. He thought of the Canterbury Pilgrims, the wandering players of Scarron, the traveling journeymen of the Rhine and Elbe, the stage-coach jaunts of all his friends in Dickens and elsewhere and despaired. In a high-powered car a friend had driven the Drifter to Boston. There were “road-hogs” and “speed-hounds” and traffic-cops of varying temper. The road-houses were spuriously elegant; the food was conventional and dear. No, said the Drifter to himself, it is all over. Maybe the hoboes have a little fun and adventure—maybe. * * * * * H E knows better now. You must stay away from Na- tional Highways and Boston Roads. Somewhere in northern Vermont, with the Adirondacks towering beauti- fully on one side and the Green Mountains no less beautiful on the other, the Drifter drove a Ford sedan over a white, sandy ribbon of road that wound in wild gyrations in and out of the hills, took breathless turns and unexpected leaps, and finally writhed its way into the tiny capital of Mont- pelier where under a Lilliputian gilded dome the State senate still deliberates by the light of gas lamps. The Ford sedan, named Susie, hopped and skidded in the sand and flew over rather than on the road. Inns were adver- tised at crossings in faded lettering. But when you got to them there was nothing to be had. A long, unshaven, lanky individual would gaze lugubriously at the Drifter and his friend. He had pork. “What else?” the Drifter asked. “Pork,” the hirsute gentleman replied with dull finality. Here hunting dinner was high adventure. You lost your way. From afar you spied a sign. “Ah,” you exclaimed and stepped on the gas so that poor Susie quaked and trembled. You came up to the sign. It said: “Pigs for Sale.” * * * * * UCH incidents smack of the roads of old. And if there are neither pilgrims nor wandering minstrels, there are “hitch-hikers.” Suddenly, some hundreds of feet in front of Susie, who was northward bound, appeared three figures who were at once lithe and stalwart. The Drifter stopped and beheld three young women—dusty Valkyries in gray knickers and sweaters and thick stockings, stout- booted, with small, gay caps, knapsacks and cameras slung over shoulders shapely even under the rough, knitted stuff. They wanted a lift. They were New York girls on a vaca- tion determined to beg lifts—that is the method of the “hitch-hiker”—to Montreal. One of them was communica- tive. “We’ve had good luck. If our luck holds we'll be hitching into Montreal tonight in time to catch a ferry for Quebec. No, we don’t often sleep at inns. Usually there’s a Y where we can stop nights. There are thousands of us, of course. Hitch-hiking is always done by twos and threes. We know girls who have hitched all the way to California. There’s little trouble and most motorists are pretty good to us. It’s a great way of seeing the country.” The roads full of “hitch-hikers’”! Unless human nature has changed —it hasn’t of course—there begins here a life of the road full of romantic and gallant and even brilliant adventure. Even a humble Ford car can rattle through fabled moun- tains and meet dryads on the way. THE DRIFTER

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298 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 Correspondence Jim Crowism To THE EpiTorR oF THE NATION: Sir: In regard to the article headed Jim Crow in Texas by William Pickens [issue of August 15], while I have no desire to go into any discussion of the law as it now exists in Texas with regard to the races, I do wish to state that all of our trains provide two compartments for our colored patrons, one that may be used as a smoking compartment and the other for women and men not desiring to smoke. Separate toilets for both sexes are provided on all of our trains. I have long recognized that the colored people pay fare the same as any other passengers, and should receive the same attention and courteous treatment as is accorded other patrons. We provide for the feeding of colored patrons of our line in dining-cars, either before or after white patrons have been served. Not only do we feel that we must comply with the laws as they exist, but we also take into consideration the human element and endeavor to give all of our patrons the attention, service, and accommodations they are entitled to. Dallas, Texas, August 15 W. G. CrusH, Passenger Traffic Manager, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The policy of the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the handling of colored traffic is necessarily in adherence to the regulations prescribed by the State and Federal governments, over the creation of which the railroad had no control what- ever. The segregation of races has been built upon a tradi- tionally peculiar racial situation which naturally exists in many of the Southern States, and, in my opinion, it is vitally essen- tial to the peace and welfare of the territory involved. A reading of Mr. Pickens’s article impresses me with a ten- dency to exaggeration. St. Louis, August 13 C. L. STONE, Passenger Traffic Manager, Missouri Pacific Railroad Company To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Smr: I am a Southerner by adoption, having been born in a Western State and moving to Florida when quite a lad, but I have lived in the North for the last six or eight years. This gives me, I hope, sufficiently varied experience to understand the different and conflicting viewpoints expressed. I can only say this, just now, that one who has not lived the better part of a lifetime in the South, or made sufficient study and had sufficient actual personal experience to understand the problems of the Southerner, cannot intelligently discuss the question. Whether Pickens will admit it or not, the facts are that the average Southern Negro is never an equal of a white man. He is either his subordinate or superior. Chicago, August 16 B. M. JEWELL, President, Railway Employees’ Department, American Federation of Labor To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I heartily agree with every fact contained in Mr. Pickens’s article, so far as personal observation is concerned, and with his conclusion that the whole system is in violation of the spirit of our Constitution and the genius of our institutions, as we so proudly express them. This, together with our whole treatment of the colored race, if not quickly righted, will bring the train of disaster upon us as a people which always follows in the wake of national falsehood and injustice. New York, August 11 FRANK P. WALSH Electricity for Railroads TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In commenting on Stuart Chase’s Junk, in your issue of August 1, Alice Stone Blackwell says: “The experts know that the best way to run a railroad is by electricity, not by steam, yet our railroads are not electrified and are not likely to be for a good while.” I wonder who the experts are who know that the best way to run a railroad (regardless of whether it is urban or rural or of dense or light traffic) is by electricity. Is it not possible that Miss Blackwell has fallen into line with many other liberals and accepted with little or no investigation the statements of the propagandists for electrification? Or maybe she has read uncritically that portion of the Superpower Survey report deal- ing with railroads. _ J. G. LYNE New York, July 30 A Federal Divorce Law To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: In the August 8 issue of The Nation I was much inter- ested in an editorial upon the prospective Federal marriage and divorce legislation which is now before Congress. It was par- ticularly interesting because of the impression it gave that your editorial writer had not fully digested the content of the amend- ment to the Constitution and the national uniform marriage and divorce law which Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas and Representative L. W. Fairfield of Indiana introduced into both houses of Congress last January. If he had done so I am sure that he would not have declared that the result of Federal action would be “to fasten a medieval system of divorce on every State and every individual.” Furthermore, I do not think that he would have stated: “‘As bad as the worst’ seems to be the motto of the Federal divorce-law advocate.” As I had something to do with the campaign of education as to the necessity for such a law and conferred with Mrs. Edward Franklin White, who drafted it, I cannot allow these statements to go unchallenged. A law which permits divorce on the grounds of infidelity, physical and mental cruelty, desertion, failure to provide, commission of a crime, and incurable insanity can scarcely be called medieval; nor can it be said to be “as bad as the worst.” As the divorce laws of this country are now, they are either a farce or a tragedy, and a desire of putting an end to the tragic or farcical situation, as the case may be, prompted the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and other organizations to take up the campaign for a national uniform marriage and divorce law. The proposed amendment to the Constitution is not at all tied up to the law itself; and should the amendment be realized and the marriage bill as drawn by Mrs. Edward Franklin White passed, if it were to be found inadequate by succeeding genera- tions, under the empowering amendment, another law could be passed to take its place. I agree with the writer of your editorial that the Scandi- navian law is ideal, but it would be quite impossible to pass such a law in this country at this time. There is no danger of Mrs. White’s law “fettering or ruining the happiness of a helpless minority.” AsI have said, everybody who is entitled to a divorce will be able to get one, and it will prevent men and women from going into States not their own and getting divorces without the knowledge of their wives or husbands. Also it will preclude the present confusing situation by which a man and woman may be legally divorced in one State and not in another; by which they may be legally married a second time in one State and bigamists in another; by which a child by a second mar- riage may be legitimate in one State and illegitimate in an- other. New York, August 28 GENEVIEVE PARKHURST, Contributing Editor Pictorial Review

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation Books Santayana’s Philosophy Scepticism and Animal Faith. By George Santayana. Scribner and Sons. $3.50. HIS book is particularly recommended to those—and they are many—who persist in regarding Mr. Santayana as a litterateur rather than as a philosopher. If by metaphysics we mean a sustained and consistent inquiry into the ultimate nature of Being, then no more thoroughly metaphysical book has been written in this generation. Nor will this statement frighten off those who know from previous experience that it is impossible for Mr. Santayana to touch any subject, however abstruse, without transmuting it into poetry and music. In this, his latest volume, he attempts to clear up for himself and his readers those bases and presumptions of his thought which have lain half implied and half expressed in his “Life of Rea- son.” The latter might be described as a comprehensive phi- losophy of life from the standpoint of the empirical and natu- ralistic observer. “Scepticism and Animal Faith” seeks to re- veal the sources of the instinctive compulsions which make those very beliefs in nature and experience inescapable. Mr. Santayana’s inquiry centers around the question, “How far may skepticism be carried, and what is it impossible not to disbelieve?” He is not engaged in the facile foolery of proving that chairs and tables do not really exist, that the coffee we drink and the music we hear, the landscapes we love and the people we hate are illusions. He is seriously trying to find out what in honest human experience we can and must assume, what it is that logic compels us to question and that life forces us to believe. A good part of the book, therefore, though perhaps the least original and interesting part, is spent in clearing away the ground, in pruning away gratuitous presumptions and vulner- able faiths. One may with all the logical sanction in the world, as Santayana shows, doubt self-consciousness, change, the very fact of existence itself. “For all an ultimate skepticism may show, ... there may be no facts at all, and perhaps nothing has ever existed.” Upon the ruins created by a candid, and somewhat playful, logic, Santayana proceeds to erect a surer scaffolding of in- dubitable realms of Being. Descartes begins with the Ego. This twentieth-century skeptic, having seen the wreck of many young solipsisms, is too wary for that. He begins to rebuild his world with nothing less fragile than the purely logical character of essences or terms. These cannot be doubted, for no claim is made that they exist. One may doubt all the various furniture of experience, and call every item in it a deceit and an illusion. But those illusions have each of them a precise logical quality and character, and each of those phantoms and deceits is its own indefeasible self. “Each will appear in its own world and shining by its own light, however brief may be my glimpse of it; no date will be written upon it; no frame of full or empty time will shut it in; nothing in it will be ad- dressed to me or suggestive of any spectator. It will seem in no world, an incident in no experience. The quality of it will have ceased to exist. It will be an Essence.” The only irrefragable element in Being, therefore, turns out to be this eternal infinitude of reinlogisch characters, like the letters of an alphabet that may never have been used to make words. It includes all that is known and thought and appre- hended, and an infinitude that never has been and never will be. “It is the sum of mentionable objects, of terms about which and in which something might be said.” This realm of logical characters is certainly not much to start with. It is certainly not the full-bodied nature which we commonly have to deal with and which we commonly have to believe. But this infinite and inalienable realm of essence, thin though it be, is alone immune to the shatterings of logic. For it is implied Charles in the very logic by which that shattering is performed, and in that shattering itself. If life requires for its continuance fur- ther belief, that is a matter of vital adventure, of human risk, of animal faith. It is this career and complication of animal faith that San- tayana traces. The bodiless being of Essence may involve no other existence nor any belief. But the intuition or beholding of essences does. “By the mere consideration of the way in which essence presents itself, we snatch from the jaws of skepticism one more belief, belief in discourse or in mind think- ing.” And granting the existence of mind, we are led sensibly and certainly to belief in experience, in substance, in nature, in other minds, and in the implied and eternal being of truth. And not least are we led to believe in the reality of spirit, that fine flame, generated by nature, expressive of it, and incarnate in it, the flame by the light of which nature is valued and understood. There is nothing logically compulsive about any of these beliefs. We are welcome to doubt all the observable and mal- leable features of the world in which we go on living. They are simply instinctive presumptions, animal faiths. They may well be suspect in refinements of speculation, and condemned from the standpoint of a free and poetic spirit as trivial, acci- dental, and absurd. But this so solid world by which we live, and in the understanding of which we control our fortunes, is not solely a matter for refined dialectic or sportive poetry. It is a construction of an adventurous instinct and a risking reason. In the bright clarity of our logic we may doubt everything save the logical forms of the phantoms which we doubt. But in the very act of living we go further. We take long leaps in the interests of that animal psyche out of which doubt springs, and of which reason and spirit are the instruments and the fruit. No one at all interested in current winds of doctrine can afford to miss this adroit and honest book. It comes to grips with the deeper issues over the surfaces of which contemporary thought has been glibly skipping. Santayana has provided an Introduction to Realms of Being that probes to the depths of reality without forsaking the light of common sense. IRWIN EDMAN Romantic Ireland Castle Conquer. By Padraic Colum. Macmillan. $2. HOSE who have followed the work of Padraic Colum from its beginnings in “Wild Earth” have always looked for- ward to the novel which one felt he could and would write. That anticipation is not disappointed in “Castle Conquer.” In spite of the years that have slipped by since he gave us that first book of poems, since “The Land,” “The Fiddler’s House,” and “Thomas Muskerry” established him in an unassailable position in the Irish Theater, this book betrays nothing of the changed life, the varied activities that have since been his. “Castle Conquer” belongs to the period preceding his hegira, and the perfume of Irish earth clings about it as unmistakably as it breathed out of every page of his early plays and poems. This prose has all the simple charm, the fresh tang that made the poetry of “Wild Earth” irresistible. The story centers about Francis Gillick, the returned student from the Irish College in Salamanca, who has given up his studies for the priesthood and come to settle down among his own people. As a “spoilt priest” he is too greatly handicapped in the immediate circle of his own friends and relatives, so he goes to another part of the country to work on the farm of Honor Paralon, whose daughters Oona and Brighid befriend him, until inevitably both girls are more deeply involved by their affections than mere friendship. It is to Brighid that Francis pledges himself, and their love is drawn by the author in scenes of a whispered and passionate intensity which con- trast curiously with the mawkish sentimentality, on the one

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300 hand, and the pathological realism, on the other, which are an essential feature of the average novel of today. In the rela- tions of these two there is a tender shyness, charmingly ren- dered, which is as characteristic, in its way, as the brutalities of James Joyce, who, too, has described one phase of the Irish attitude in matters of sex. But Colum shows how this idyll, like so many other normal human impulses, is overshadowed in Ireland by the figure of Kathleen ni Houlihan, into whose mouth W. B. Yeats has put words that are not forgotten: “Tt is hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries . . . and for all that they will think they are well paid.” In such service Francis Gillick gradually finds himself enrolled and in his adventures we watch the beginning of the Land War in Ireland, and see how inevitably the land and the nation became identical in the eyes of many generations. The evolu- tion of Gillick, the pressure of innumerable little circumstances which transform him into a “rebel” in the eyes of the British authorities, and finally, the accusation which lands him in jail —all these elements inseparable from the life of the period are skilfully woven into Mr. Colum’s narrative. His great skill lies in the unostentatious way in which he develops this main theme, without ever insisting upon it. This is not just the story of a young Irishman’s revolt, for the individual hero is merely the focusing-point of an era and a people. “Castle Conquer” is a true microcosm of Irish country life, the Ascend- ancy minority, harsh, always insecure and baffled, with its servi- tors drawn from the people, and then the people themselves, with their own life and traditions, sustained by a definite hope and the will to survive. Padraic Colum knows the Irish coun- tryside, its physical aspects at all seasons, the customs and beliefs of the peasantry, the striking characters who may be found by those who know how to seek them: Michael Philabeen, the weaver; Honor Paralon, young Maelshaughlinn, whose ad- venture at the fair is one of the most perfect incidents in the book, equaled only by the weaver’s story of how he took to the roads with young Owen Paralon—vignettes complete in them- selves and having the authentic ring of folk stories. One lays down a book of this caliber with a regret for all the cheap sentimentalities and trivial humor which make up the usual popular novel of Irish life, against which one wishes to set a “Castle Conquer,” or such a work as Seumas O’Kelly’s “The Weaver’s Grave.” The manner of the telling is a delight in itself, a style full of poetry and tenderness and color, touched with laughter which does not depend upon verbal caricature, that great stock in trade of the manufacturers of “Irish” fiction for export. With his first novel Padraic Colum has enhanced the distinction of his already valuable contribution to Anglo- Irish litefature, his work as poet and dramatist. ERNEST BoyD Modern Histories of German Literature Die Deutsche Literatur Unserer Zeit. Von Kurt Martens. Munich: Résl & Cie. Deutsche Literaturgeschichte in Einer Stunde. Von Klabund. Leipzig: Dirr & Weber. Das Grosse Bestiarium der Modernen Literatur. Blei. Berlin: Ernst Rowohlt. Das Biicher-Dekameron. Von Kasimir Edschmid. Berlin: Erich Reiss. Cy the making of German histories of German literature there is no end. The Germans themselves are conscious of their weakness for systematic presentations of literature; they seem to be ashamed of it, too, but they cannot quit the habit. It was a German who characterized the English as practical, the French as artistic, and the Germans as critical. This is their only excuse: they cannot help it; it is the nature of the Von Franz The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3087 beast. And so they continue to excuse themselves and to write histories of German literature. To be sure, there still are scholars who are unashamed. Several “regular” histories of German literature have appeared recently, without excuse, by the well-known scholars Oskar Walzel, Friedrich von der Leyen, Adolf Bartels, Karl Borinski, O. E. Lessing, Julius Wiegand. But more interesting, although not so “solid,” are the histories written by non-professional historians. And the serious student of German literature may perhaps take it as a hopeful sign that these historians are all men of letters, writers of ability and imagination. The student will remember that the chief reason for the existence of such an excellent literature of translations in the German language is that men with literary ability have not hesitated to translate the masterpieces of other languages. The German unlike the English man of letters considers trans- lating a good school of training for the young writer; the Eng- lish writer considers it as hack work. The result is that we have, for example, no Goethe in English. If Shelley had not restricted himself to just two scenes of Faust, we probably should have an English Goethe comparable to the German ver- sion of Shakespeare. It was this different attitude that gave to the Germans such translators as Schlegel, Tieck, Schiller, Voss, Fulda, Stefan George, Rilke, Morgenstern, and many others. If literary men are now writing histories of literature, may we not hope for interesting results? The “literary” historian likes to emphasize the non-academic character and purpose of his writing; he is writing not for the student but for the Volk, the people. Kurt Martens, whom the academic historian calls the novelist of the decadence, says in the preface of his “Contemporary German Literature” that he does not wish to write for the professional student of literature but for all classes of the “folk.” He does succeed in his com- bination of anthology and history in giving samples, charac- terizations, and classifications of about three hundred modern German writers in a manner to attract many different tastes to many different dishes. It is even a good book for academic use. The reviewer knows of at least one class in an American college that used it as a textbook. Klabund, whose bourgeois name is Alfred Henschke, is placed by Martens among the “Expressionists and related poets of radical progress.” He writes lyrical poems and novels, and -now he has written a “History of German Literature in One Hour.” (He has also written a “History of Universal Litera- ture in One Hour.”) It took the reviewer two hours to travel, under the guidance of Klabund, from the ‘Wessobrunner Prayer,” 800 A.D., to Friedrich Schnack’s lyrical poetry, 1922 A.D.,—and it was a pleasant trip. The perspective, the most difficult thing in a brief history, is well preserved by Klabund. He devotes seven pages to Goethe, three-fourths of a page to Hauptmann, and four lines to himself. His style is picturesque, clear, and terse. Men and movements are characterized in a language that is the poet’s rather than the scholar’s—a lan- guage rich in metaphors. It is a beautiful brief presentation of a large subject to the general reader, but it is still more valuable and interesting to one who is already fairly well posted. It would probably shock the poet-author to know this: he has written an excellent and interesting final review for the college student majoring in German. Those who are most ashamed deny their activity by camou- flaging their products under fantastic forms. Franz Blei, whose collected works in six volumes comprise the drama, novel, sketches, essays, and criticisms, directly denies the exist- ence of a German literature with a history. He says: “The less money a man has, the more does he speak of money. No people speaks so much in so many histories of literature of its own literature as the German.” And still he cannot help writ- ing atout it. He writes a descriptive catalogue, which he calls “The Great Bestiary of Modern Literature.” In the manner of the medieval bestiaries and by the methods of comparative physiognomy he tries to determine the character and traits of

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Sept. 19, 1923] The Nation 301 a ——SSSSS—<— human, “all too human,” writers by comparing them with re- lated (2) forms in the animal kingdom. He is most interested in the German species, but he also examines the foreigner. Indeed, he is more charitable toward the foreign writer than toward the native; the former occur more often not as animals but as students of animals, as “zodlogists.” Shaw, to be sure, is a zodlogist who likes also to transform himself into a “zoén,” in this case, a goat. Whitman, indeed is “the Great Pan, who has never died, because immortal, he alone among the gods.” “Das Wilde,” “das Hamsun,” “das Chesterton” are foreign beasts: beasts of prey, amphibia, and freaks. Blei’s ironical analogies are often illuminating, as the caricature is illumi- nating, but a consistent and continuous argument by analogy is sure to lose its point. Some of his beasts are, to say the least, very unlike anything in the biology of animal or of man. Kasimir Edschmid (Eduard Schmidt), novelist and lyricist of the most extremely modern school and author of the authori- tative book on Expressionism, has written a “Decameron of Books.” The author and a traveling Dutch gentleman are snow- bound in a tavern in Tirol. They must pass ten days in their own company, and, to while away the time, the author talks to the Dutchman about literature and the background of litera- ture. Really, the only thing in common with Boccaccio’s work is the number ten, ten days of exile; there is nothing of the very human element of the Italian “Decamerone.” Edschmid says what he has to say about German literature in the form of one-sided chats—witty, bitter, disconnected. He does not give us a sys- tematic or reasoned exposition—cleverness as contrasted with scholarliness does not permit of such procedure. This raconteur skips from Boccaccio to the German revolution; from the snow- covered landscape to European languages; from the Minne- singers to Expressionism. While answering the question, What is German? he skips delightfully from Goethe to Wedekind. His revolutionary attitude is expressed in the judgment that Goethe and Hauptmann are not as German as Dehmel and Wedekind. Visions that recall the snow scene in Kaiser’s “From Morn to Midnight”; grotesque sketches, for example, The Ski’s Laughter, serve as introductions to his discussions of literature. The manner and the thought are expressionistic. Brilliancy there is, but, as with so many of the modern radicals, it is a very flickering light with none of the steady radiance of the best stylists. Edschmid, of course, also takes a fling at the his- tories of German literature. They are paper wagons drawn by wretched lean nags. Von der Leyen’s recent work is a heavy truck loaded with machine-guns. Even Martens, whom we have put at the head of our list, finds no grace in the eyes of his contemporary; his history is a “picture-book wagon.” In order to preserve the figure of the vehicle, Edschmid’s own book might be classified as a rather unsteady “joy-ride machine.” W. D. ZINNECKER A Human Collection Teodoro the Sage. By Luigi Lucatelli. Bishop. Boni and Liveright. $2. E.. of the absence of comic strips the influence of European newspapers upon the speech and habits of the Masses may not be as great as that of their American con- temporaries, but thoughtful folk read their editorials, their critiques, and their special articles with greater benefit and appreciation. The reason for that is to be found not in the character of European newspaper readers but in the personnel of the correspondents and staff writers. We, on this side of the Atlantic, may boast of certain eminent men of letters who began their careers as journalists, only to desert the profes- sion when fame singled them out for notice, but the columns of many European newspapers still reflect the views of writers whom cultured opinion has raised to a high place. Such a writer was Luigi Lucatelli, the famous Italian jour- nalist, who served his paper, Il Secolo of Milan, until his death Translated by Morris from fever in 1915 while reporting the clash of nations upon the Western front. Because of the nature of his duties as correspondent and leader writer a great part of his writings could not be saved from the oblivion of newsprint. The collec- tion of fragments that has been published under the title “Teo- doro the Sage” represents the best and most durable portions of his journalistic work. In using the word “fragment” I do not wish to imply that these bits of writing seem to have been torn from longer compositions; rather do they appear to be fragments of life itself, clear and startling glimpses of an onrushing panorama that bewilders most observers by the com- plexity of its vistas and the vertiginous speed of its passing. Lucatelli’s heart throbs with pity for the human beings whose ineffectual gropings he describes, but his eyes are not blurred by sentimental tears. He sees straight and has the courage and power to tell what he sees. The man who sees straight and thinks clearly when considering humanity is called a cynic. If the right word bite instead of caress, the writer is a mis- anthrope and pessimist. Lucatelli’s pen pictures of humanity are not flattering or comforting but they resemble the original to a high degree. The book takes its name from the character Teodoro Nasica, who is the protagonist in the first group of sketches that are included in this volume. Teodoro the Sage is a blundering, bespectacled little brother of Zarathustra. He brings the man- ner of the philosophy lecture room to his intercourse with the man in the street. The casual reader will find these contacts highly amusing unless he chance to be stirred to thought. Luca- telli’s humor is two-edged; it slits our mouths into grins while it slashes our foibles to ribbons. When Teodoro philosophizes himself to death other characters appear upon the scene. Petty clerks, tradesmen, beggars, thieves, prostitutes, artists, rich wives, politicians—as human a collection as ever walked through the pages of a long novel, here caught in a gesture and pic- tured in vivid flashes. Morris Bishop is the translator and has performed his duty with intelligent artistry. So much for the clarity of Lucatelli’s vision and the vigor of his pen; what remains is the guile of the artist. In his triple distillation of the liquor of life the last drop will give a fillip to a palate that is dulled by literary craft. The author’s so- called “surprise endings” seem, when we have reached them, as natural as the tang to the lees of the bottle, and as exhilarating to our brain—if our palates do not continue to crave the sweet- ish concoctions of the romanticists. HOWARD IRVING YOUNG Is There a Cure? The Malady of Europe. By M. E. Ravage. Company. $2. T HE malady of Europe, as Mr. Ravage sees it, has two patho- genic eauses. The primary cause originates in the remnants: of the “bellum omnium contra omnes” ideology of the Middle Age, institutionalized in the European foreign offices whose spirit pervades all the doings of present-day Europe. It is this foreign-office spirit which tears asunder the economical and political unity of the European continent by antagonizing na- tions, classes, and religions, with no other aim in view than to: demonstrate the necessity of the existence of the antiquated system of the foreign offices. The secondary cause of the malady of Europe is the mental depression of the patient who is living in an atmosphere of artificially manufactured hatred and dis- trust. Nature made Europe a single country, Mr. Ravage as- serts, with a multitude of provinces, languages, and creeds. Unless the command of nature is complied with and Europe becomes “international minded” there is no hope for the recov- ery of its civilization. To make the term “international minded” more palatable for the American reader the author repeatedly declares that “internationalism” is the European equivalent of Americanism. When analyzing the symptoms of the malady the author finds that although Prussian militarism had been defeated the Prus-- The Macemillan.

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302 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 sian idea had triumphed gloriously. He does not see any dis- tinction between reparation and indemnity in the sense the former term is used in the Treaty of Versailles, which he considers as the greatest crime of the age. He insists that as long as the Treaty of Versailles is not abrogated Germany is absolved from her obligations which she assumed under duress. Mr. Ravage is pessimistic about the League of Nations as it is constituted today and avers that if it is given real power it would be nothing short of a centralized system of foreign offices possessing the accumulated vices of its members. He is strongly convinced that the present League of Nations supplied with “teeth” would be the greatest menace to the surviving demo- cratic forces of the world. The cure the author suggests is the internationalization of Europe, as the ultimate end. As first step in this direction he urges the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles. He blames France for misappropriating the funds collected as reparations by subsidizing the Russian counter-revolutionary armies instead of building up her devastated northern territories. He offers as a solution of the reparation problem the taking over by America of the reparation burden. For the amount that will be found as just reparation treasury bonds should be issued “under the guaranty of the United States Government.” With this money America should rebuild the devastated areas with the advice and cooperation of the states concerned. The reparation debt should be apportioned by a new peace conference. The amounts America advances for reparation purposes should be considered as a loan. But, by all means, America, who wields a tremend- ous influence in the council of the nations, has to step in and to help disentangle the European imbroglio unless she wants to be entangled in a new world complication. The dramatic treatment of the topic and the axiomatic re- marks of the author furnish the reader with easily digestible aphorisms which while recapitulating the essence of a whole chapter in a few words have another advantage in that they can be stored up easily in the memory for future reference. Emin LENGYEL General Dawes and the Budget The First Year of the Budget of the United States. By Charles G. Dawes. Harper and Brothers. $6. Be any man not too deeply impressed with the importance of being earnest that profane and redoubtable military and civic hero General Charles G. Dawes is bound to be an “amoosin’ cuss,” and his treatise on “The First Year of the Budget of the United States” an entertaining book. The doughty General kept a diary during that fateful year in Washington, wherein he set down for the edification of God and his own soul a record of the things he did and some of the things he thought he thought. Here are two hundred and forty pages of these modest notes, showing how I got up one morning after sleeping in General Pershing’s apartment, saved eight millions imme- diately after breakfast, lunched with our great President, then coordinated another ten millions out of existence, and rounded out a perfect day by showing a reluctant Congress how I was going to save three hundred and fifty millions this year. _ These notes are followed by one hundred and sixty pages of detailed economies effected by the Government under my direc- tion, beginning with oil and washers, of a fair value of 25 cents and a forced sale value of 11 cents, transferred by the Emergency Fleet Corporation to the Public Printer at an estimated (not to say demonstrated) saving of 14 cents to Uncle Sam, who unfortunately is no longer rich enough to give us alla farm. The General’s admiration of our late President brays from every page: “I have sometimes been fearful that I would find something disappointing eventually about the pres- ent Chief Executive as a business chief. I am now convinced that I will never find anything even as to detail.” A scarcely less fulsome tribute to Mrs. Harding is set down “in the hope that she, with others, may some time read this.” Now mani- festly a passage like this was intended to see the light only after the writer had been gathered to his fathers. We are therefore forced to a horrid suspicion that the reputable firm of Harper & Brothers have stolen this manuscript from the safe deposit vaults of the Central Trust Company under the very eye of the watchful General and his subordinates. Or was it General Dawes, after all, and not Chauncey Depew, who dedi- cated his own statue at Peekskill a few years since? Making all deductions, the book has value as a record of activities rather than ideas, as a picture of an active business man of a type unfortunately not too rare, and as a collection of docu- ments, largely unimportant ones, dealing with the installation of a more business-like system of handling the affairs of the Federal Government, but chiefly as a first-aid package to those who have forgotten how to smile in a world of income taxes and business-political “bunk.” HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY A Successful American A Man from Maine. By Edward W. Bok. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3. N OT satisfied with exploiting his own success, Edward W. Bok has now given to the world the life story of his father-in-law, Cyrus H. K. Curtis. That is, he has strung to- gether as his fancy dictated, events and anecdotes concerning the life of the president of the Curtis Publishing Company with slight regard for sequence or importance. “A Man from Maine” has no more value as a biography than Judge Gary’s account of a steel strike would have as history. And, saying nothing of what Mr. Bok has omitted, the facts he does give frequently contradict statements he makes and tries to prove. For instance, Mr. Bok says all young men have as good a chance to make millions as Mr. Curtis had, because Mr. Curtis had no special advantages such as having money lent him. True, no one lent him money until he needed it badly; in fact, had to have it to succeed, but then F. Wayland Ayer came to the rescue with two hundred thousand dollars’ credit with his own firm and guaranteed Mr. Curtis’s notes for one hundred thousand with his paper makers. Three hundred thousand dollars’ credit would almost seem to be a special advantage. But what can one expect? “A Man from Maine” is family and company propaganda with some Pollyanna philosophizing thrown in. EUGENIA KETTERLINUS A Romantic View of China The Charm of the Middle Kingdom. By James Reid Marsh. Little, Brown and Company. $3. HE writer of “The Charm of the Middle Kingdom” re- sided for some two years in China as a member of staff of the Chinese Customs Service. He began his acquaintance with China at Mukden in Manchuria, was later transferred to Tientsin, and still later to the frontier of Yunnan in the ex- treme south. He relates his impressions and experiences in a vivid and charming manner. He has caught into words many characteristic aspects of the daily panorama of Chinese life. His descriptions of things seen with the eye are exceedingly good. His language at times rises to sheer poetry. But his very gifts of colorful writing and artistic imagination seem to betray him into a “fine writing” not always in place. With regard to his personal share in his experiences he is an in- corrigible dramatizer. One comes therefore to feel that con- siderable fancy has become attached to fact in the accounts of his romantic passages with Chinese ladies, the constant pos- sibility of which seems to be the chief element in the charm which the Middle Kingdom holds for the author. The in- evitableness with which he perceives that every Chinese lady he meets is beautiful, nimble of intellect beyond her male country-

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Sept. 19, 1923] man, and withal is coquetting out of the corner of her eye with him, leads to the suspicion that the writer has something like a complex on the question. Plainly the author’s poetic temperament is not balanced by an instinct for facts. He gives marvelous new translations of the meanings of the well-known names, Fengtien (Mukden), Tientsin, and Peking, none of which can be borne out by the dictionary significance of the ideograms. The samples of Chinese conversation in his narrative contain egregious blun- ders. These indications by the wayside, together with the absence of a nice modesty with reference to what he tells of his own doings or the display of his rapidly acquired knowledge of things Chinese, warn us not to look to this work for authori- tative information. Rather let the reader take up this book as he would a novel with generous local color, or the sketches of a traveler, and he will not be disappointed. Indeed in all likelihood he will be captivated by its interest. Further, the book abounds in excel- lent photographic illustrations. But when he is done, by all odds let him turn to such a book as that of Bertrand Russell by which he can be helped into a real understanding of China. LYMAN V. CADY Books in Brief Rider’s New York City. A guide-book for travelers with 13 maps and 20 plans. Compiled under the general editor- ship of Fremont Rider by Frederic Taber Cooper and others. Second edition. Henry Holt and Company. $4.50. Rider’s Washington. A guide-book for travelers with 3 maps and 22 plans. Compiled under the general editorship of Fremont Rider by Frederic Taber Cooper. Henry Holt and Company. $2.75. Rider’s Bermuda. A guide-book for travelers with 4 maps. Compiled under the general editorship of Fremont Rider by Frederic Taber Cooper. Henry Holt and Company. $1.90. These are authoritative, well-arranged compendiums for the ambitious “sightseer,” offering suggested itineraries based on many facts and figures, telling him where to eat, sleep, shop, or have a sudden toothache treated. Without puffs, pictures, or padding, these guides aim to give every scrap of information which the tourist may legitimately require. The returned trav- eler of taciturn tendencies may save himself breath by silently handing out a Rider to the “Now-Tell-Us-About-Its” who crowd around. For those who refuse to “sight-see” as a matter of principle but are historically minded, a Rider’s Guide is still treasure trove with its fascinating glimpses of Old New York, of the Brooklyn Heights of Walt Whitman and Henry Ward Beecher, of the “embryo Capital” satirized by Tom Moore, and of the islands, now famous but long of evil repute, where was born the first child of the John Rolfe who later married Poca- hontas. The present edition of the first volume has been prac- tically rewritten since the first edition put out before the war, the second volume is offered as a “sincere tribute to the capital city” of the land; while the third volume is a labor of love pre- pared by an editor who hopes one day to retreat to Bermuda. Things Remembered. Arthur Sherburne Hardy. Mifflin Company. $5. Arthur Sherburne Hardy’s “Things Remembered” will prob- ably be read aloud next winter in many placid reading clubs and sewing circles. It is the perfect volume of reminiscences for such a purpose, abounding with anecdotes, with trivialities concerning monarchs and diplomats, and humor too often bor- dering on the facetious. If Mr. Hardy remembers as the high- lights of his years in Persia, Greece, Rumania, Switzerland, and Spain his Persian chef’s ideographic accounts, the golf course at Athens, or the splendors of the Palacio Real, he is perhaps only giving us a subtle comment on the general insignificance of the minor diplomatic career. Houghton The Nation 303 Music De Pachmann Solves Some Enigmas ET me confess it now. I called on De Pachmann for an interview, and he gave me a piano lesson. I also, I am ashamed to say, went to laugh, and I stayed, instead, to weep. But De Pachmann played to me, and the beauty he evoked was too rare and, perhaps, too sudden for my nerves. At any rate, he saw, and understood, and played even more divinely, if possible. But I am beginning at the end instead of at the intro- duction. That, to be perfectly accurate, took place in the hotel corridor outside the master’s door and across, not a cup of tea, but a well-filled laundry bag and its custodian, the latter a very earnest and excited little colored girl. After De Pachmann had, with equal earnestness and excitement, disposed of both, I ex- pected him to rush back and do what I had heard him do at a concert many years ago in the South. Justly indignant with an audience which had insisted upon more encores when the con- cert was virtually ended, he had turned angrily to the Negro janitor who had had to reopen the piano, and had said to him, quite loudly: “I play this piece for you.” Whereupon, he had sat down at the keyboard, and dashed off Chopin’s famous “Etude on the Black Keys”! Nothing so enchanting occurred this time, however. He sat down again, it is true, but in a comfortable chair, not on a stool; and mopping his brow, heaved a long and weary sigh. He was, indeed, very tired, for he had been giving interviews all after- noon. And as I had come at the tail end of the day, I found that to gain his interest I had to expand on the relative merits of The Nation and those of Musical America, the Musical Digest, and all the other worthy journals that had already preceded me in the quest. As luck would have it, I happened upon the one topic that is of vital interest to him at present, and that is his “new method.” The accounts I had read of it had left me somewhat puzzled. For in them he claimed to have discovered a wonderful new way of playing with stiff wrists, which, while it necessitated an entire revision of fingering, left him practically untired at the end of a long program. Now, it is perfectly possible that a virtuoso’s wrists, no matter how great their suppleness, may gradually stiffen as he approaches his seventies. But it is not at all possible for anyone, young or old, to play through a pro- gram with absolutely stiff wrists and not feel the physical strain. And so, to clear up the mystery, I asked De Pachmann. His distress was painful to see. “They don’t understand me, they don’t understand me,” he eried in despair. “Of course I do not play with stiff wrists. I hold my arms and hands so”—stretching his arms at right angles, with his hands on a straight line with the wrists, “never so”—turning in his wrists—‘“for then there is immediately a strain. But my wrists are loose and my arms. Feel them.” I did so, and found it was true. They both had all the relaxation essential to perfect tone. Then he went on. “There are five things to remember about my method: (1) Health to the body; (2) lack of fatigue; (3) straight wrists; (4) beauty of hands; (5) tranquillity. No moving about so and so”—twisting his body about as many pianists do. “See how beautiful the hands are this way,” he continued, “how Raphaelesque. A great French artist told me mine were even more beautiful than Raphael’s. Of course, I have had to refinger everything. But the tone! I tell you, before, I was like a student. I was like all the other pianists. I had a nervous tone. Only Liszt did not have a nervous tone. That was be- cause he had long arms.” “Is that why,” I interrupted, “you do not like other pianists?” “Yes,” he said, “and I do not like their banging. They try to make the piano sound like an orchestra. And the piano is not an orchestra, it is a piano forte.” “Why,” I asked, “do you think

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304 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 tt Godowsky is the greatest living composer?” “Because his coun- terpoint surpasses that of Bach. And, besides, he has dis- covered an entirely new harmony, and a new technic that is wonderful.” And then he spoke touchingly of his friend, who recently underwent an operation. “I really came over here more to see him than to play. I tell you, he is the greatest living composer. Nobody really knows him. You see, there are six great composers, different in style, of course, but equal in genius. They are: Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, and—Godowsky. Behind them, you may put, though just for a few things, Liszt and Grieg.” “But what about Bach?” I protested. “Bach,” he replied, “Bach, Mozart, and Weber should never be played in concert. They are too old. They are for students, not for the public. They are for people like us”—striking his breast. “And, besides,” he went on, “Bach did not write for our piano. I know that Liszt and Busoni and others have ar- ranged some of his things. But how dare anyone arrange Bach or Beethoven? How dare anyone change even one note?” “Then all the others between Brahms and Godowsky, like Debussy, for instance”— “Trash,” he answered, emphatically. him, Debussy? Trash, I tell you, trash.” He lives in a world of his own, and knows no other worlds; no other composers than those who serve his needs; no other pianists than those who fulfil his ideals. Worshiping beauty in the absolute, he compromises with no one, not even with him- self. “If I should make an ugly tone,” he said, “I would shut down the piano.” Knowing no other law than that of genius, he does not hesitate to pass sentence on himself. “Before I discovered my new method,” he declared, “I played like a pig. Now I play like a god.” And he proved it to me. “Come over to the piano,” he called, “and I will show you what I do. First, I play scales, like this, for sixteen minutes every morning. No one can play scales as I do.” And no one can! “Then,” he continued, “I practice Godowsky, for technic. Every morning I give to Godowsky. Perhaps, too, a few octave studies of Joseffy for legato.” Here his fingers melted in some octaves. “And now, listen to this, and look at my fingers. My tone is like velvet, hein? My fingering is colossal, nicht wahr? Liszt told me that he wished Chopin could hear me, I played his Nocturnes so beautifully. He also told me that not even Rubinstein had as beautiful a tone as I. Liszt was then seventy-three, about my age now,” he added parenthetically, “and I was a boy of thirty-four or five. But I can play some of his things now even better than he could.” And again, to prove his words, De Pachmann played me some Chopin, a few snatches of Liszt, and a shred of a Brahms waltz. And it was then I was guilty of tears. Not the first time, I admit, at a piano lesson, but the first time for such a cause. The action of his fingers, both from a mechanical and mental standpoint, would have been “colossal” for anyone whose fingers had always been trained that way for the music. But to adapt one’s entire repertoire, as De Pachmann has done, to a new fingering and technic, after playing another way for sixty years, is an unparalelled tour de force in virtuosity. In spite of his ripe maturity, his medium of expression has grown more exquisite with his art. HENRIETTA STRAUS “Mr. What-you-call- Drama Jog-Trot M®: A. H. WOODS, I am informed, picked up trunkfuls of German manuscripts. One such manuscript by Arnold and Bach he evidently handed to Mr. John Emerson and Miss Anita Loos who made an American play of it and did their job with considerable deftness, good sense, and feeling for character. Satire of Kleinstddterei has always been a solid basis of German comedy of the lower order. And since this is the exact counterpart of the Main Street motive, the adapters could quite naturally transfer the scene to Toledo, Ohio. The result is “The Whole Town’s Talking” (Bijou Theater), a sufficiently diverting little play full of concrete and natural touches that illustrate well a thoroughly explored section of the American scene and are embodied with easy skill in the acting of James Bradbury and Grant Mitchell. This account of the play is true enough and just enough. Yet it is necessary to add that the whole thing is utterly unimportant, that it has been done a thousand times from China to Peru, and leaves you with the final impression that, as there is nothing so thrilling as art that has distinction and power, so there is nothing so negligible as art that has neither. Hence I hoped for something refreshing from the produc- ing managership of Mr. Walter Hampden. I thought it pos- sible, moreover, that Mr. A. E. Thomas might some day again try to write a play of serious workmanship whether in a realistic or a romantic mood. “The Jolly Roger” (National Theater) is not such a play. It is the dramatization of a second-rate kind of “Treasure Island” with a semi-Elizabethan and, finally, semi-Shavian love interest thrown in. The make- up of the pirates is superb. But it remains make-up. Every- thing is and remains make-up. During five minutes of the last act the play becomes intelligent. It is far too late. Stevenson used to call this sort of thing “toshery.” It is feeble in books. It is dishearteningly feeble on the stage. Mr. Pedro de Cor- doba’s violent efforts conceal neither the fable’s lifelessness nor his own; Miss Carroll McComas is comely and appealing. But that is the virtue of neither the play nor the production. I anticipated a gayer moment at the Théatre de la Chauve Souris which is back from triumphs in Paris and Berlin and, if one is to credit the astute Balieff, the ultimate isles of the sea. Alas, that brightness seemed tarnished too. The program was old and seemed a little stale. One cannot rejoice forever in either the Wooden Soldiers or Katinka. I was glad to see again the parody of Italian opera. It is the perfection of parody. It is neither gross nor obvious. The music is almost as good as second-rate Italian operatic writing. The comic emphasis upon the rhetorical mood and form of that absurdly overestimated kind of art is never too heavy. Thus this num- ber gives one a subtle and precise sort of pleasure. Like all first-rate parody it is astonishingly good criticism. Other numbers illustrated once more the lovely perfection in the execution of elegant trifles which is characteristic of the Bat Theater. But upon this return engagement what one felt was that these things are, after all, but trifles which would have left a happier memory had they been less noisily “boosted” and more sparingly presented. And so I come to “Poppy” (Apollo Theater), a mere musical comedy, in itself neither very musical nor very comic, but lifted quite above itself by the presence in the cast of Mr. W. C. Fields. Grave aestheticians rave about Charlie Chaplin. I have always thought there was more than a touch of affecta- tion, of the gracious unbending of the professional highbrow in these raptures. Well, give me the admirable Fields. He is one of the deftest jugglers in the world. His tricks are amaz- ing. His speed, lightness, and precision take your breath away. In addition he is a comedian. He is quiet; he uses no great effort; he never makes you feel that he is saying to himself: “Confound you, laugh!” This is a common vice of broad come- dians. Mr. Fields’s execution is delicate and a matter, often, almost of understatement. His expression is marvelous. He is Micawber with a touch of Barnum. He is the most delicious scoundrel imaginable. He is the astute medicine man, fakir, confidence man of the ages. Out of juggling and slap-stick material and burlesque make-up and a few quiet gestures and glances he builds up a character worthy of Mark Twain at his best. Until the real theater begins to function this season I give my applause to this gorgeous clown. LUDWIG LEWISOHN

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International Relations Section Where Mexico Stands N view of the current discussions in the press regarding the exact nature of the agreement reached by Mexico and the United States, it is interesting to recall President Obregon’s statement of the Mexican position, published in that country on August 17, in which he specifically denies making any sacrifices for the purpose of securing recogni- tion. Nothing more than brief summaries of the statement appeared in the press of the United States; the full text follows: The work of the Mexican-American Commission, constituted by the Hon. Mr. Charles B. Warren and the Hon. Mr. John B. Payne, as representatives of the President of the United States, and Mr. Ramon Ross and Mr. Fernando Gonzales Roa as my own representatives in my capacity of President of Mexico, hav- ing been concluded, it is now my duty to inform the country regarding the manner in which that work was carried out, and its significance. To that end I wish to make the following statements: 1. The work of the Mexican-American Commission, which was begun on May 14 and ended August 15, was confined, in accordance with the preliminary negotiations, to a direct ex- change of views and information regarding the difficulties which up to the present time have been an obstacle to the re- sumption of diplomatic relations between the two governments. 2. The Mexican commissioners, after hearing the American point of view in every case, but without entering into any dis- cussion intended to modify our present laws, offered explana- tions of those parts of our laws relating to American interests in Mexico in connection with the oil and the agrarian questions only; and they also explained the manner in which the present Government, in pursuance of its original policy, has been en- deavoring to conciliate with the principles of international law the revolutionary ideals now embodied in our laws. 3. In addition, the Mexican commissioners confirmed the in- tention of this Government to conclude two conventions for the creation of mixed claims commissions. This intention was communicated to the Embassy of the United States by our Chancellery in an informal note dated November 19, 1921, and to Congress in my message of Septem- ber 12, 1922. Regarding the first of these conventions, our Chancellery, on July 12, 1921, addressed an invitation to all the governments whose nationals had suffered damage in their persons or in their properties through the last revolution in Mexico, and that invi- tation was based on Article 3 of the decree of May 10, 1913, issued by the First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, Mr. Venustiano Carranza, and on Article 13, amended, of the law of December 24, 1917. The object of that first convention would be to create a mixed commission to examine, from the point of view of equity, all the claims which citizens of the United States might have against the Mexican Government for damages arising out of the revo- lution. The second convention, having a more general jurisdiction and being of a reciprocal character, was intended to create a mixed claim commission to decide, in accordance with the rules of international law, unsettled claims of citizens of either coun- try against the government of the other country, for acts hav- ing taken place since the signing of the convention concluded July 4, 1868, but excluding, of course, those acts falling within the jurisdiction of the first convention mentioned. 4. The conventions referred to will be concluded if the two governments decide to resume diplomatic relations. 5. If the normalization of these relations follows the termina- tion of the Mexican-American conference, such result will not be due to any obligations contracted, nor to any agreements which may have been entered into for the purpose of resuming diplomatic relations, nor to anything that might contravene our laws or the rules of international law, or injure the dignity or the sovereignty of our nation. Such a happy event should be attributed, as far as these con- ferences are concerned, to the ability and patriotism of our own commissioners to explain, and to the generous broad- mindedness, free from any unwise prejudices, of the eminent American commissioners to understand the fundamental prob- lem that Mexicao is now facing, namely, the economic and moral betterment of the people in harmony with the development of foreign interests invested in the country, a problem which can only be solved, within the present national possibilities, through a complete realization of the political and social program of the present Government. I am pleased, finally, to be able to state that the good-will shown by the four commissioners, which but reflects the good- will so frequently shown by the two neighboring countries in so many various ways, made it possible for the commission to carry out its work in a spirit of uninterrupted and friendly eordiality. Mexico, D. F., August 17, 1923 A. OBREGON, The President of the Republic ‘‘Fascistization”’ of Italian Press VANTI of June 19 contains an article on the Italian press in which it is said: Genoa also is to have its Fascist daily. ... The greatest seaport in the country is too much under the sway of the exist- ing order to have any independent papers. A glance at the Secolo XIX, the Caffaro, the Cittadino, and the Corriere Mer- cantile is sufficient to show what opinions and what programs are expressed in these sheets, which are controlled by the Per- rone brothers, the Transatlantic, the sugar interests, and the Piaggio Company. ... The new Fascist daily is to be called the Giornale di Genova, and is the result of a disagreement among certain factions of Fascism in Genoa and of a skirmish between the Seamen’s Federation, D’Annunzio, and the Ship- owners’ Federation. After the “Duke” took hold of the government, and the sub- sequent signature of the marine agreement, news spread of the imminent appearance of a paper edited by Giuseppe Mastro- mattei, a high official in the militia and a man whose cordial relations with Mussolini and Giulietti were a matter of com- mon knowledge. The new daily was to be called Jl Mare d'Italia, and under the guidance of D’Annunzio was to carry on a special campaign in the interests of the sea workers. Everything was ready. ... But a warning came from the direction of the shipping interests of the danger of such a Fascist seamen’s organ, and the shipowners, taking advantage of the disagreement between Giuseppe Mastromattei and the leaders of the Genoa Fascio, succeeded at the last moment in wrecking the Mare d'Italia. ... Mastromattei was rescued from the wreckage and transferred to Rome, to the high office of Vice-Emigration Commissioner, while the shipowners worked out their plans, which are now an accomplished fact. ... The editors of the Giornale di Genova are to be Lantini and Pala. The former is a member of the Fascist Council, and the latter is provincial fiduciary. And an editor-in-chief is to be imported from Rome... . Genoa, as everyone knows, is the seat of the most powerful shipping companies, as well as of the sugar interests and high finance, which accounts for the fact that the government, in its attempt to “Fascistize” the Italian press, has picked out Genoa as a base.

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306 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3037 We have in fact been informed of a huge journalistic trust, with a capital of about 35 millions, which is planning to take over the following papers: Resto del Carlino, Bologna; Secolo, Milan (already accomplished); Idea Nazionale and Impero, Rome; and Giornale della Sera, Naples. A product of this trust is Il Corriere Italiano, the new big daily of Aldo Finzi, Under-Secretary of Domestic Affairs, which will appear within a few days in Rome. The Corriere Italiano, which will repre- sent primarily the big banking and sugar interests, is to have editorial offices for Liguria and possibly northern Italy, with headquarters at Genoa, managed by Corrado Marchi, the well- known journalist, now editor-in-chief of the Corriere Mercan- tile. In Rome the Epoca and the Nuovo Paese are to be suppressed, and, since the Mondo is too disturbing an element for the recon- struction government, every attempt is being made to kill it. It is said that this task is intrusted to Tommaso Monicelli, and is to be accomplished with the millions of Senator Agnelli of Turin, who is furnishing the editor of the Giornale di Roma with funds for the purchase of its printing press. Thus, with all troublesome voices reduced to silence, Italy will be “Fascis- tized” even in the journalistic field; and then who will dare to say that might does not make right? Wrangel Island HE discovery of the tragic death of the four young Canadians who set out to colonize the bleak shores of Wrangel Island has distracted public attention from the conflicting claims to the ownership of that Arctic territory. Harold Noice, commander of the Wrangel Island Relief Expedition, discovered on the shore a monument containing a proclamation left by the dead explorers, declaring the island to be the possession of Great Britain. This position is in direct conflict with the claims of Russia as set forth in the following note addressed by Foreign Minister Chicherin to the British Agent in Moscow. It is interest- ing to note that several American authorities claim that the island belongs to the United States, on the ground that the first person actually to land was an American named Hooper, in 1881. In connection with reports in British newspapers to the effect that an expedition led by Mr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson had raised the British flag on Russian territory, to wit, on the Isle of Wrangel in the Arctic Ocean, the Government of the Rus- sian Federal Soviet Republic addressed itself to the British Government in a note of May 24, 1928, asking to be informed as to whether this act had taken place with the knowledge and sanction: of the British Government. To this inquiry no reply has been forthcoming. Likewise there has been no reply from the British Government to a sec- ond note communicated by the Russian Government to the British Government on May 28, 1928, after the receipt by the Russian Government of additional information intimating that Mr. Stefansson in raising the British flag on the Isle of Wran- gel acted in the capacity of an agent of the Government of the Dominion of Canada. The Government of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Re- publics, being wholly unable to understand the absence of the requested explanations, and having in the meantime learned. that new expeditions are being planned by British subjects to the Isle of Wrangel, finds it necessary again to state that it regards the Isle of Wrangel as an integral part of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics. The Isle of Wrangel was officially incorporated as Russian territory, and the Russian flag raised thereon, by an expedition organized by the Russian Government and led by Lieutenant Wrangel, in 1821-24. Russian sovereign rights to the island have never been questioned by any other government, and it The Greatest Discovery Ever Made “I think,” said Michael Webb, the great Debunking Expert, in Bunk, “that the greatest discovery ever made is that a jackass will keep on walking straight ahead if you tie a bundle of hay in front of his nose. This is the great secret of the stuffed shirts who rule the world.” We think that the greatest discovery of this year is that same book W E. Woodward Ten years of advertising—ten years of finance, and twenty years of people who said “Why don’t you write it, it’s too good to lose”—this lies behind the writing of the book. Get it at your bookstore $2.00 HARPER & BROTHERS Established 1817 NEW YORK The JEFFERSON SCHOOL 23 West 87th Street, At Central Park West For Boys and Girls, 3 to 12 Years The School will open Sept. 27th in a new building equipped with every modern facility for the best Elementary and Kindergarten Education. The course of study provides the child with experiences which result in definite values—health, skill, knowledge, habits and attitudes. The methods employed are approved by the foremost educators. The teaching staff is carefully chosen for experience and training in these methods. All day ac- tivities; hot lunches served. French, Industrial Arts, Nature Study, Music and Rhythms are featured. Pupils now being enrolled. For catalog and appointments, address SYLVIA J. MARKS, Director Until Sept. 1st, at 1 West 92d St. Telephone Riverside 2501.

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Sept. 19, 1923] has been generally looked upon as Russian territory. This position is taken by British official sources as well, so, for instance, the British official publication “The Arctic Pilot” (vol. I, 3rd edition, 1918) admits that the Isle of Wrangel was discovered by a Russian expedition. It may also be noted that all geographic maps, including the British “Phillip’s New General Atlas” (1921 edition), put down the Isle of Wrangel as Russian territory. In the year 1910 the Russian Hydrographic Arctic Expedi- tion, under the command of Vilkitsky, made measurements around the island, and built thereon an iron navigation pyra- mid for the guidance of ships seeking entrance to the south- west part of the island, this pyramid being the first and only erection on the island. Thus the Russian Government took concrete steps to assert its rights and its duties as the posses- sor of the territory. Finally, in September, 1916, the Russian Government for- mally notified all the Allied and neutral governments that the Isle of Wrangel, together with other islands and territories adjoining the coast of Siberia, constituted an integral part of Russian territory. This notification elicited no objections on the part of any of the governments so addressed, including the British Government. Therefore the Federal Government is compelled to notify the British Government that it regards the raising of the British flag on the Isle of Wrangel as a violation of Russian sovereign rights. A Tip to Americans HE Berlin office of the American Express Company is distributing a card among American visitors which reads as follows: You are a tourist to be here a few days or weeks. from one who has been here several months. You are dwelling among people who have suffered nine years of war, at first military and now industrial. They are a sensi- tive, cultured people, on the whole as highly civilized as any nation on earth. You should not be surprised if one of them occasionally is out of temper with foreigners. It is only fair to remember that Berlin is their city and Germany their country, you and I only pilgrims. The streets, parks, concert-halls, restaurants belong to them, and we would show good taste if we gave right of way to them. As we eat a dollar meal for twenty cents, or listen to a dollar concert for ten cents, remember we are always getting more than our money’s worth. A tip to the wise is sufficient, and what is said applies to all tourists who read English, as well as to Americans. Of course, Unter den Linden is not a gauge of the distress of the poor of Berlin, nor Friedrichstrasse a gauge of the social morality of the people. Finally, you know that, if you do not like things here or the people, it is easy to find a train going to the boundary line, and fares are low. A little consideration, however, will prove to be the key to the goodwill of the people, who are courteous and warmhearted, and a good old American smile is better currency even than the dollar. AN AMERICAN (FROM 1630 A.D.) Take a tip From the Young Friends HE general conference of Young Friends held at Rich- mond, Indiana, July 27-August 6, sent the following message to the youth of Austria and Germany: In renewed realization of the physical suffering and spiritual loneliness of the young people of Germany and Austria we- have desired to uphold their courage in the search for “that life which takes away occasion of all wars.” We ask all men The Nation Harcourt, Brace and Company 383 Madison Avenue, New York By Edith Summers Kelley A novel of the Kentucky tobacco country, a dramatization of the lives of a strange and almost forgotten people who have never been twenty miles from home and yet whose lives are filled with the human tangle of centuries. $2.00 THE CONQUERED By Naomi Mitchison An historical novel of ancient Gaul and Italy at the time of Caesar’s Conquests. “The best historical novelist now writing.’—New Statesman. $2.00 MUSICAL CHRONICLE By Paul Rosenfeld Author of Musical Portraits “For the new generation in music there has at last arrived an interpreter with the uncommon power of making the aims and achievements of the distinctly modern masters comprehensible.”—Current Opinion. $3.00 THE LIFE OF CALEB CUSHING By Claude M. Fuess The life story of a picturesque and celebrated 19th-century American. Illustrated. 2 vols. $10.00 EVOLUTION AND EUGENICS By S. J. Holmes Author of “The Trend of the Race,’ etc. An important discussion of humanity’s complex problems. $3.00 SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE INSECTS By William M. Wheeler Professor of Entomology, Harvard Proves that science may be sometimes as intriguing as fiction. Illustrated. $4.00 MONTE CARLO 200 Sheets *2.22 STATIONERY 100 Envelopes Name and address or monogram. Relief engraving, any color. Sheet 51% x 8, white, grey, cafe, blue. 100 double sheets or 200 single sheets (100 marked—100 plain). For marking entire 200 single sheets ‘add 50c. FRINT plainly. Enclose check or money order. West of Miss. add 20c. Comparison urged. Samples submitted. DE LUXE STATIONERY CO., 505 Fifth Ave., New York to join us in this expression of comradeship in our common task. To the youth of Germany and Austria: In the splendid fellowship of the Fourteenth Annual Confer- ence of Young Friends of America our hearts have been drawn to you. As we have met day after day with representatives of the youth of England and Germany and with those of widely differing thought among our own people we have come to an overwhelming consciousness of the underlying unity of the human race. The clouds which darkened our minds during the war period are breaking away and we see how impossible it is to judge men in groups. We are convinced that every nation has sinned grievously and our pride in America is humbled when we think of our share in the misunderstanding and suspicion. At the same time there are those in every group who are seeking un- tiringly to build a world of love and truth. We have heard from one of your number of your dauntless faith in spite of hunger, loneliness, and disillusionment. Our problems are not your problems, but we join you in seeking through mutual fellowship the path of love. We believe with you that only in the earnest expression of love in the life of each individual, that love supremely manifested in the life of Jesus, can a new world of right and brotherhood be born. Signed on behalf of the Fourteenth Annual Young Friends (Quakers) General Conference, Richmond, Indiana, July 27 to August 6, 1923. CHESTER L. REAGAN, Chairman

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308 The Nation

SCHOOL of OPINION, ‘599357 SEPTEMBER Ist to 25th “Civilization, or Man and Man’s World” Lecturers: Harlow Shapley, Harvard; E. G. Spaulding, Princeton; James Harvey Rob- inson, New York; Everett Dean Martin, Otto Glaser, Amherst; Irwin Edman, Columbia; Carl Van Doren, Columbia; Robert ZTNoors | Benchley, of “Life’; H. W. L. Dana, New School Social Re- search; H. A. Overstreet, Hor- ace M. Kallen, New School So- cial Research; J. E. Spingarn, Jas. G. MacDonald, Gutzon Borglum and others. For complete programme ad- dress: Frederic C. Howe, Director, Siasconset, Mass. ‘Sconset

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General Electric Com- pany makes many dif- ferent types of motors, some small enough to wind aclock, somelarge . enough to operate these giant shovels; but a// designed to help electri- city do more for human service at a lower cost,

[ Vol. 117, No. 3087 BC ste AYN NN SAS = ee Ae we CLE: more ee Ny 5 <S bos vay Vg Le ne a 7 7 ay os a Sn By = = EG Lied The largest one-man shovels in the world, equipped with General Electric motors, take eight dump cartloads at a bite, and can take a bite a minute. Its shoulders never tire A giant worker-—excavating over three hundred thousand cubic feet a day! In three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, it could handle material equal in cubic contents to the Washington Monument. Think for how many centuries the world wasted its most precious pos- session—human lives—in labor that electricity can do! GENERAL ELECTRIC

In next week’s issue of The Nation Hungry Souls, a story by Thomas Mann, one of Germany’s leading novelists. “Once we had a Senator at Washington named R. F. Pettigrew, the only man of distinction we ever had at PETTIGREW Washington in any capacity. But we did not keep him there. He tells why in his latest book. I wish every voter in the State could read the book.’’ So says Hayden Carruth in The Nation’s story of South Dakota. The book referred to is [MPERIAL WASHINGTON. It tells truths that have been suppressed, and the second large edition is just ready. Send $1.25 and get it by insured mail. Address CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, 347 East Ohio St., Chicago

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1923 No. 3038 Vol. CXVII Contents MOTEOREAT PARAGRAPHS “so ccenslet cin cCctemieuic asses Sem sine esceccs 309 EDITORIALS: The Day of the Dictator. ......00cccscce esse ec c cree etc nt es eee eens 312 MEL TO eae iatalelaleia aici clvieleretabeletsialelairicieielslsivielelafeis)le\s c.arnlels cele isis acces 312 ORE Di tee EL a I OTeL oils aie loeieitercinie ticle ¢ calela oleltvates=/clsrecsluimielsfslslele vee vanes 313 MherOoal Strike Is’ Not) Settled. 2.0. occ eccccccvewencvescceusees 314 “SELLING” US ANOTHER WAR. By Frederick J. Libby............. 315 HUNGRY SOULS. By Thomas Mann. 22... sccccccncnessccesvetcvsneess 318 HIONIENIMOON. By sWilliam: Hardie cc cc. jes sccc ese cies siccs cc ccs eee eres 320 WHEN THE FRANC JOINS THE MARK. By Constant Southworth.... 321 THE REVOLT IN SPAIN. By Samuel M. Waxman..............+.... 322 MUSSOLINI STARTS A WAR. By Paul Blanshard.................. 325 PRONE DRO DRE I VWeAGYs oy, ere DTiGLEr. ciscl-telclelne clawisi carsjeistelern cs eee e's 326 ESE SEP NG EIN GHdO hee ct als beet eL eta (ntele!(eve (ny sual ctlaysiel sicrsNaieclala\aiareyenstafctels ea es eee 327 BOOKS: A Parfit Gentil Knight. By Henry Raymond Mussey................ 328 ihemticonomic Order, By George Soule. ce oc cn cuca wcleaisccsccceccees 328 Mystical Criticism. - By Edwin Seaver... 25.0. .:0.. cece ccc ce ec eeees 329 Desolate Something. By John W. Crawford..........---..25eee000- 330 Syllogism and Fallacy. By Clement Wood..............eeeeeeeecees 330 Interpretation of Racial Differences. By Kimball Young............ 330 eX CAPLLCS UT IMME SENET sar neroley ee iataietstehavsl aves c: 0, creVertisi shedalcisiateKevarlels/syeleleis apes élssceee 331 LB?.AMA: Gleam sae ye WA GE WISOBN «cic .siclclc o's! ale wleisies.c's/a ele'slecisjeaicieeecees 331 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: The New Dictator of Hungary. By Emil Lengyel................... 332 ra TUCEUsT ET re iG ere EUITICRA TIO oy tare, aca fate b loletel ove eta vine cle pleievers wlerelera/ isl sis.ecleesee 333 Bibs ses gles un G ONTEAENISES oar aa) =) clan 9 \n)s\a a) telglelaaie’ slqis cla o's5.s)p loin a's b0ss 334 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Epitor ASSOCIATE EpriTors LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ApvertTisInc MANAGER CoNTRIBUTING EpITors JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE _ FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN HK. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SuBscriPTION RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. ON-RESIDENT fees in State universities are a com- mon provision, but the University of California has added to its fee of $150 for students from outside the State an extra sum of $50 for all foreigners. Whether they live in the State or not, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, foreign students who have not taken out their first papers must pay both fees. Since Orientals are denied citizenship and since most foreign students have no inten- tion of becoming citizens, this will heavily reduce the num- ber of Hindus and Chinese and Siberians and other Asiatic boys and girls who have flocked to the university. This is a poor time to put up bars against such friendly emis- saries from distant lands as college students have proved to be. They come to us because they like us and admire our customs and methods; they carry home and apply these customs and methods—sometimes, to be sure, without due consideration of the results—and with them they carry home a feeling of friendly intimacy. If they are shut out from our great universities by specially devised fees and regulations, we will sacrifice what is probably the greatest influence for peace and good-feeling between us and other lands now existing, and the international tradition of scholarship and learning will be miserably betrayed. XIT the problem of Fiume. Italy takes the city and the glory, and Jugoslavia wins the port and the eco- nomic advantages. The Free City dies, and with it fades another Wilsonian dream. The business of dotting Europe with internationally “safeguarded” free cities, neutral zones, and independent districts was not born of an attempt to internationalize Europe but of a desire to camouflage the failures of diplomats and to soften the wounds to political prestige. When the statesmen could not agree they created a “free state.” They knew well enough that the free cities could not last, but they did not dare admit failure to their constituents. Out of their refusal to face the music has come the threat of half a dozen wars, and more will come. Poland seized Vilna and the disputed territory to the east; Lithuania seized Memel; Italy seized Fiume, and the veil that concealed the fact is now torn away. Some day Danzig will become either German or Polish, and the Sarre either French or German. Internationalization might work were there a genuine concert of the Powers to supervise it; but a League born out of Allied victory, excluding the two great Powers of northern and eastern Europe, is inevitably flouted at every turn and helpless in an emergency. HE temperamental mayor of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, complains that while he was away his city got in a ferment. “I decided,” he said, “that the only thing to do was to send these newcomers out of town and keep them out.” These newcomers are Negroes, two thousand of whom have been forced out of town within the past week under Mayor Cauffiel’s order that only Negroes who can show seven years’ residence be allowed to remain in the city. This is the same mayor that brought nation-wide attention to Johnstown a year ago by his spectacular stand on the sale of beer. So far the Ku Klux Klan has been the only group to praise the mayor for “banning Negroes purely on his own authority, unsupported by any statute of Penn- sylvania or the United States.” They burned twelve fiery crosses on the hilltops surrounding Johnstown in celebra- tion, apparently not at all concerned by the fact that this thing of disregarding the law may, in the hands of a Gov- ernor Walton, prove to their disadvantage. REPORT of the Child Welfare Association that child- labor conditions in New Jersey were worse than in any other State brought about a drive on the sweatshop bosses of that State early last July. It was charged that more than a thousand children, most of them between the ages of four and fourteen years, robbed of health, educa- tion, and play, were working at their homes in filthy sur- roundings, embroidering silk underwear, beading gowns, making silk gloves and veils, and working on tin toys des- tined for happier children. Many of them, tubercular and otherwise diseased, were making “sanitary” powder-puffs and sewing on rompers for talking dolls—a menace to the ultimate consumer. Girls under eight were embroidering “Filipino” night dresses at twelve cents per dozen with a deduction of two cents for floss. Two or three children working with their mothers averaged $3 a week but never rose above $6. Three hundred parents and eighteen con- tractors were haled into court. Some 400 complaints were made out involving twenty-eight shops in Jersey City and environs and fifteen in New York City. Eight sweatshop bosses were given jail sentences of sixty days in addition

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510 The Nation «< [ Vol. 117, No. 3038 eee to their fines. “The jail sentence,” said the judge, “will stamp out the practice.’”’ Then suddenly the sentences were suspended or stayed by filing notices of appeal, and the whole campaign dropped out of the news. With the election of Mrs. Nellie T. Smith, the Jersey City school teacher who led the crusade against the sweatshops, as the first woman member of the Executive Board of the New Jersey State Federation of Labor, there is a ray of hope that these children may have their childhood in some measure returned to them. T appears that we have done Old Sleuth Burns an in- justice. We thought the head of the United States Secret Service could see more red to the square inch than anybody in the country; we believed he could concoct a seditious plot with less material than anybody in the world. We were wrong. The officers of the United Mine Workers are entitled to the championship belt for their publicity purporting to show the spread and danger of bolshevism in America. But John L. Lewis and his press agent, Ellis Searles, are four years too late. About this time in 1919 press and public would have lapped up such tales as a cat would fresh cream. Now they are musty bread. The news- papers, to be sure, have printed this serial horror story, but they have consigned it to the inside pages and their readers have yawned and turned to the next column. The one statement that caused even a ripple was the assertion that the massacre last year of non-union coal miners at Her- rin, Illinois, was instigated and led by sixty-seven Lith- uanian Bolsheviki. ‘HIS charge was so contrary to all known facts that it has been contradicted by the chairman of the Bitumi- nous Operators’ Special Committee and by the prosecuting attorney of Williamson County, the latter stating that of half a hundred persons indicted for the Herrin crime not half a dozen even had foreign names. We have also been reminded that the Coal Commission in a recent report said: “It is true that Communists have made efforts to establish organizations in that county and that a few for- eigners were induced to join; but there is no evidence that this had any relation to this lamentable and horrible occur- rence.’ Was Mr. Lewis, then, merely baying the moon? Not exactly. With his eye on the convention of the United Mine Workers, he wanted to secure his position there by discrediting his enemies of the left wing in advance. All’s fair in love, war, and labor-union politics. LL education is not “Lusked”—even in our United States, where of late years we have seemed in danger of becoming accustomed to government by hysteria. Out of the West (but not from California) comes a superin- tendent of schools with a recipe for the self-rating of high-school principals, the first system devised, it appears, for measuring the educational “higher-ups.” This super- intendent believes that the common human tendency to de- velop an ever-narrowing field of interests and work is a handicap to real education, and accordingly his formula suggests that a principal should be a student of the social and economic life of today in order to make his school “meet the needs of worthy living.” The principal who. would obtain a passing rank on this test must, with his teachers, study open-mindedly new methods and ideals in teaching as they appear; he must develop a democratic type of school supervision; he must see that his teachers know the importance of developing thinking rather than memory, that they not only give intelligence tests but use the results, and that sufficient attention is given to extra- curricular activities to satisfy the needs of all children. One of the twenty-three questions on this rating-card asks the principal if he reads at least one of a list of seven magazines, all but one of which are devoted mainly to events of the day, the Survey and The Nation being in- cluded. While the card indicates that a definite educational ideal is essential, it is made clear that this may be a chang- ing one. To many a high-school principal such a spirit in his superintendent would be as welcome as it would be unfamiliar. DUBIOUS asset at all times, marriage will soon be- come a positive liability to an enterprising young woman. The news from Atlantic City that contestants in the beautiful bathing-girl competition were ruled out if they were married, and that the particularly lovely entry from Brooklyn, N. Y., may lose three silver loving cups be- cause she has since been discovered to have a husband, should result in a heavy loss of fees at the marriage license bureau for weeks to come. Ye gods! Has the time come when an ambitious, honest, hard-working beauty who aims to help decorate the flat in Flatbush with a few solid silver ornaments is discarded in favor of careless young women with no family responsibilities? The judges may argue that the beauty of the married competitor has already done its deadly work; that she no longer needs the advertisement of a cup and a half-tone reproduction in the rotogravure sections. We unhesitatingly discard this suggestion as old- fashioned, and we hope that another disbarred candidate, Miss Alaska, will recover every cent of the $150,000 dam- ages she is demanding from the competition officials. The truth is that behind this whole bitter controversy may be discerned the play of terrific forces; something more effec- tive than a one-piece bathing suit would be needed to cloak the sinister spectacle of economic determinism in its fatal course. LL over the country wherever stories of high adven- ture are loved—and that is everywhere—people are reading and marveling over the exploit of the young French- man, Alain J. Gerbault, who quite alone sailed from Cannes to Fort Totten, L. I., in a 30-foot boat—because he “‘wanted to see New York” and because he loved the sea. A racing sloop about twice the length of a small canoe. Four and a half months alone with following winds for friends and hurricanes and tropical winds for foes. Lost sails, broken booms, shattered bowsprit—and then 1,500 miles of fair weather and warm winds. Then terrific head winds and tropical rains, broken gear, soaked duffle, and days of fever and unconsciousness. More hurricanes, waves that filled the boat and buried it under tons of water wrecking every- thing, all but drowning the skipper. Days on end without a moment’s sleep; weeks without sight of another vessel; and, at last, land after eighty hours on watch. This story ranks among the world’s great epics—along with Ulysses and some distance ahead of the adventures of King Arthur’s knights. And it is crowned by that touch of gorgeous in- sanity that makes heroes out of brave men: Alain Gerbault is buying a new boat. His next voyage will be no puny

: / - 4 FY 4 {

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Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 311 summer-time cruise; it will last three years and lead him around the world. HE American Civil Liberties Union showed its in- tegrity of purpose when it wrote to H. W. Evans, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan: ‘We believe heartily in free speech for Klan as well as anti-Klan, and we offer you our assistance in maintaining that right.” At the same time the Civil Liberties Union points out: In June, 1922, the home of the Mayor of Columbus, Georgia, was bombed because of his support of law and order as op- posed to the Klan’s activities. ...In January of this year a railroad worker in Harrison, Arkansas, a town run by a “Citi- zens’ Committee” of Klansmen, was lynched because he refused to confess to sabotage, of which he was not guilty. ... The Klan in Harrison recently lynched a man named Lean. Fre- quent letters from the district inform us that “peaceable as- semblage,” as well as every other right, is still denied to all but “citizens.” . . . Interference with the right of labor unions to organize workers has been one of the principal activities of the Klan. In January of this year J. E. Marsh, a speaker for the Farm Labor Union of Atoka, Oklahoma, was severely beaten by your members and ordered to stop his work for the farmers. A few months later in Bald Knob, Oklahoma, dele- gates of the Industrial Workers’ Union were menaced and searched by a mob of Klansmen and driven out of town... Religious hatred scarcely consistent with your recent defense of “free speech” caused Klansmen of New York to burn churches. . . - School teachers have been dismissed and left without posi- tions in West Virginia and Georgia because of their Catholic faith, and attempts are constantly being made to limit the freedom of children to attend sectarian schools, as witness the recent legislation in Oregon fostered by the Invisible Empire. O this indictment might be added the statement from the office of the Governor of Oklahoma that it is the Ku Klux Klan that has led to the need of military rule in Tulsa County. Yet according to the Solicitor General of Georgia, the Klan seems belatedly to be seeking to get rid of the odium it has brought upon itself, by “spending money with apparent sincerity in connection with the local investigation [at Macon, Georgia] and appears to be especially desirous of exposing its own members who have been trapped as participants in the floggings.” In Port- land, Maine, the Klan suddenly threw its support to munici- pal reform, thereby, according to the New York Times, almost defeating a good thing by the stigma it brought upon it. Whether the new wine of civic virtue can be poured into the old bottles of Klanism, already condemned by pub- lic opinion, is a problem the Klan itself must solve. There is no solution in organizing Red Knights to battle the White Knights. As The Nation has frequently pointed out, nothing is gained for the cause of law and order by extra- legal methods against any organization, though it be the leader of all outlaws. IT by bit we make way against disease. Radium in greater quantities than anywhere previously known has just been discovered in Turkestan, and the find promises to reduce the price of this precious commodity, putting it at the disposal of hospitals and people that so far have been unable to afford it. Simultaneously we read in Porto Rico Progress that twenty-five plants of a West African shrub that yields chaulmoogra oil have just been received for setting out at the United States experiment station at Mayaguez. The public is probably not yet familiar with the remarkable results that chaulmoogra oil has had in the treatment of leprosy. Scientists are not ready yet definitely to pronounce it a cure for this tragic disease, but in the early stages it seems almost to have demonstrated itself as such. At the leper colony of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, for instance, five victims out of seventy-five have been allowed to return home on parole, all symptoms of leprosy having apparently disappeared as a result of the use of chaulmoogra oil. Whether these persons are permanently cured, it is too early to say, but at least the disease has been temporarily arrested. Hitherto chaulmoogra oil, obtained from India, has been expensive and hard to procure, but the United States Department of Agriculture has recently discovered a shrub in West Africa which yields the medi- cine and, owing to the fact that it matures quicker than the Indian plant, promises a sufficient supply for all suf- ferers in a short time. ‘—) TISTS who mourned their failure to observe the recent eclipse of the sun may console themselves with the thought that all is not lost. If science cannot insure a clear day, business can at least insure against rain and clouds, and did so. The sequel was the payment of pre- miums to a considerable amount to various observatories foresighted enough to take out insurance policies. Evidently the day of the absent-minded scientist who cannot take care of himself in even the simplest emergency is passing; for even if the Professor insists on forgetting his umbrella, his wife has only to arrange a little policy covering that acci- dent, with nothing to do for the rest of her life but spend the insurance. Of course there were some observers who did not think of protecting their interests in this way; they spent months in the preparation of instruments, they set up a great silk screen on which the shadow might be recorded, they taught an obliging helper the exact speed at which seconds must be counted in order that he might call them out in a loud voice, and the sun unobligingly veiled his face. These unbusinesslike creatures had only their trouble for their pains; if they had only thought to insure the process, how much more comfortable they would have been at its failure, A BEAUTIFUL silver fish, swimming along at thirty miles an hour, passed over the tops of New York buildings the other day. The sun made its back glisten like a sword blade; from a distance it appeared a grave, delib- erate minnow, turning carefully in order not to spill some precious drop from its nose. Pedestrians craned their necks, roofs were thick with watchers, but apparently the fish did not see them, for it swam serenely on. What, said the curi- ous ones, will the fish do in the future, when it is tired of floating in the air? It will drop bombs upon cities, was the reply, and let loose clouds of poison gas; it will fly as a scout over mountains and over armies; it will even cross the sea. True, its use in time of war is not the only use to which it will be put; true, it may carry mail and passengers in time of peace. But it is well to be prepared. The fish, which men have named the dirigible ZR-1, did not indicate what it thought of these proposals. Yet it is not altogether im- possible that, in the act of carrying bombs which its pas- sengers drop upon sleeping humans, even the fish, though rigid and helpless, at the mercy of its masters, will shiver with pity to see a noble machine put to such a tragic use.

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312 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 The Day of the Dictator USSIA, Italy, Spain, Oklahoma. Westward the course of dictatorship takes its way. Is there a common thread running through events in these widely separated regions? We think there is in spite of differences in time, conditions, and temperaments. It would be absurd to push a comparison too far, yet in all these instances there has been something in common. To start with, there has been a failure of civil government to do its job. Whether auto- cratic or democratic in name, it has been unequal to the situation confronting it. It has not been so much its cor- ruption—which in measure men can tolerate—as its appal- ling inadequacy. It is this which has led great numbers of people to acquiesce in, if not to welcome, a change of almost any sort. The change in every case has been effected by foree—by an overriding of constitutional means—and, if it has survived, has done so because, in spite of everything to be said against it, it has seemed to promise at least to be more effective than the government it overthrew. In Russia a dictatorship of the proletariat, or of a prole- tarian party, displaced the shell of a pitifully incompetent and selfish autocracy; in Italy a dictatorship of the middle class superseded a bureaucracy enmeshed in red tape, floun- dering in an effort to side with labor and with capital at the same time; in Spain a dictatorship of the army has seized power after the tragic muddling by politicians of the cam- paign in Morocco and the failure to meet domestic needs in any satisfactory way; and, finally, in our own State of Oklahoma we see a governor attempting to make himself a dictator because of the failure of civil government to cope with the Ku Klux Klan. Governor Walton says—and known events in Oklahoma and elsewhere make it credible—that the Klan has superseded civil government. His answer is to supersede both Klan and civil government with his own little despotism. There was a better, and constitutional, way of proceeding. He might have sought the removal of delinquent officials through impeachment or criminal prose- cution. But that was too slow—too orderly. Is dictatorship, then, the only way out of the morass into which modern government seems to have wandered? We think not. In the first place the dictatorships have not yet proved the success of that method. They have achieved no ultimate solution, and they have trampled on much in the way of liberty and democratic tradition which must be re- stored unless they are to prove only a new kind of tyranny. We doubt the efficacy of force to obtain better political in- stitutions, because political institutions are eventually what human virtues and frailties make of them, and the club has never been shown to be a good method of enlightening men’s minds or ennobling their hearts. An Oklahoma newspaper says: “Oklahoma is suffering from two distinct menaces. . . . The creed of the Klan is the creed of the mob. The creed of Walton is the creed of a dictator. . . . The people of Oklahoma . . . want neither Klan nor king.” Admirable! But merely to inveigh against dictatorship accomplishes nothing. It is the product of events—an in- exorable sequel of our carelessness and _ self-absorption. There must be hundreds of persons in Oklahoma who want neither Klan nor king, but what have they been doing to prevent either? Unless we can find through democracy a way to efficiency, justice, and liberty, we shall get dictator- ship—and we shall deserve it. Ready to Learn HE schools of the country have opened once more. Sey- eral hundreds of thousands of children from elemen- tary to high-school age are ready to learn and have no place in which to be taught. Many thousands will have to be con- tent with part-time instruction; many other thousands will be taught during so-called double sessions. There will be wrong hours, overcrowded classrooms, conditions scarcely sanitary and therefore pedagogically absurd. The human organism at its frailest, most plastic, most crucial stage will be both psychically and physically mauled and mis- shapen. This is no overstatement. No one with a practical experience of teaching can think without horror of hot, overcrowded classrooms, teachers with nerves worn thin, unsuitable surroundings, ineffective equipment. We spend over four-fifths of our national income on wars—past and future. But the children of the country cannot go to school properly. The scandal is worst perhaps in New York City since that is today the richest city in the world. During this year’s session 150,000 children here will receive only part-time instruction, 200,000 will be taught in double sessions. The high-school situation is even more appalling. There will be over 100,000 pupils of whom only one-third will receive their instruction under normal conditions of time and place and equipment. As unfortunate as the lack of room for school pupils is the fact that many of them have to occupy quarters which ought long ago to have been condemned, and would have been if it were not for the lack of other accommodation. Conditions are notoriously bad in some of the schools of lower Manhattan, in districts populated largely by recent immigrants, thus giving the children of these newcomers the dingiest and most unfortunate early impressions of American life. It is more than useless to speculate concerning the specific causes of these facts which have been presented with authoritativeness and precision by the World. For what- ever the immediate cause the ultimate one is that we are vastly more interested in other things than in education and that our boasted American pride in those schools which, open to all, shall create for all citizens equality of oppor- tunity, is like so many other national pretensions here and elsewhere, more noisy than sincere. It is perfectly clear that no great corporation selling any material commodity, howéver base, is managed with the lack of foresight, earn- estness, and attention to necessary expansion which charac- terizes the management of our democratic educational sys- tem. Men will see to it that, as the population increases, there will be no lack of breeches and cosmetics and ginger- ale to satisfy all comers. Human souls and future citizens can scramble along somehow. But the case of New York is only the most conspicuous and flagrant. An inquiry conducted by Collier’s brings out the fact that these conditions are assuming national propor- tions. That the larger cities, Chicago and Philadelphia, for instance, should have the greater number of pupils who cannot get proper instruction may at first seem logical. The contrary is the truth. Not only wealth but culture are con- centrated in the leading municipalities. If these are slack and careless, what is to be expected of the taxpayers and local authorities of Winchester, Kentucky; Bogalusa, Louisi-

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Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 313 ana; Laredo, Texas; Mansfield, Ohio; or Hamtramck, Mich- igan? What at all events the very useful inquiry of Col- lier’s has established is that the conditions we have de- seribed are countrywide. More than 1,000 cities of over 5,000 inhabitants each have reported so far and all confess to a larger or smaller shortage and deficiency in regard to that minimum of educational opportunity which the demo- cratic state is in honor bound to offer to the children of its citizens. It is well known, of course, that the conditions in the country schools though different in character are no better and that in progressive and highly industrialized States country-school sessions of six months and even of three months are not unknown. A great deal of printed indigna- tion has also been poured out over the average salary paid to teachers in small towns and villages. And that average is, indeed, farcical. But the difficulty goes deeper. Many of these teachers can earn very little. Their preparation is unbelievably meager. In so comparatively civilized a State as Ohio it is possible for people to teach in high schools who have not even the poor and doubtful guaranty of a collegiate degree of any kind. The real question that arises then is: Do we really care for education? Are we, as a nation, genuinely concerned? It is by a rigid examina- tion of our minds and consciences in this matter that any- thing will be accomplished rather than by hectic, periodic outcries over one phase or another of our apparent care- lessness and parsimony. Richer—but Happier? ‘SN , a great number of people read the Bible, and all the people read a newspaper. The fathers read aloud to their children while breakfast is being prepared— a task which occupies the mothers for three-quarters of an hour every morning.” What reader can supply the missing word? Strange to say, it is “America.” But let us continue the quotation: And as the newspapers of the United States are filled with all sorts of narratives—comments on matters political, physical, philosophic; information on agriculture, the arts, travel, navi- gation; and also extracts from all the best books in America and Europe—they disseminate an enormous amount of informa- tion, some of which is helpful to the young people, especially when they arrive at an age when the father resigns his place as reader in favor of the child who can best succeed him. One scarcely knows which detail of this picture is least characteristic of the American life of today—the breakfast that, without the assistance of prepared foods, needs three- quarters of an hour to make ready; the morning paper that, innocent of baseball reports and crime stories, serves the combined purpose of an encyclopedia and a literary an- thology; or the patience of the junior portion of the family, meekly receiving its quotidian dose of edifying knowledge at second-hand from the paternal lips. But this description is of the America not of 1923 but of 1800. In that year Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, the French economist and statesman—whose sons, establishing themselves in Delaware, became the founders of the American family— prepared, at the request of Thomas Jefferson, a scheme for national education in the United States. The first English translation of it has recently been issued by the University of Delaware Press, and it is from this publication that the above extracts are taken. The educational proposals put forward in this book pre- sent many curious, not to say quaint, features. Du Pont suggests, for instance, that history should be treated not as a school subject but as a recreation, and that history books should accordingly not be used in the classroom but given as prizes. Textbooks should be printed under the direction of Congress—the selection being made from competitive manuscripts submitted in response to an offer of prizes for the best primers—and their use should be compulsory in all primary schools in the United States, public and private alike. Ethics should be taught in the secondary school by the French master, the approach to the subject being made through ‘“Télémaque.” Botany should come at the end, not the beginning, of a medical course, as a recreation and relief. But the main interest of this book lies in the side-lights it casts upon contemporary national conditions. Take, for example, Du Pont’s argument for teaching the mechanical arts to all pupils: The people of this country [he says] have not yet found it necessary or wise to arrange for such a subdivision of labor as now develops the manufactures and commerce of greater nations by limiting the resourcefulness of many of its citizens and in- trusting the welfare of multitudes of families to the varying accidents of fashion, or to the unjust and uncertain market of exclusive privilege protected by artillery, or to the perfectly un- reasonable hope that other nations will not learn how to work for themselves and may be kept ignorant of the secrets of skilled labor. On the contrary they are now at that fortunate time when every man must increase his talents by some knowledge of all crafts; when the race grows enlightened, strong, and vigorous; when families can live in comfort, can enjoy freely and leave for their descendants the dew from the skies and the richness of the earth, which depend on the whims of no one, with no fear of an- other nation’s jealousy, and can increase their possessions by allowing all countries. to profit thereby and so give no cause for envy. With this may be bracketed the startling sentence with which Du Pont introduces his scheme for a school of mines: “T have no desire that the United States should give much thought to gold mines, which are very rare and happily are unknown in that country.” How terribly stagnant and unprogressive it all seems! Can it really be that America was ever so backward a coun- try as Du Pont depicts it—a country with no “pep,” no “hustle,” no “getting a move on’? Newspapers, forsooth, that serve an educational purpose and that bear reading aloud! Industries that are limited to farm labor and the mechanical crafts, with no steel mills, or cotton mills, or automobile works, or munition factories! And yet one can imagine some lover of his kind looking back with a wistful regret to the simple conditions of a national life long since transformed beyond recognition. Simple conditions—yes, and more humane conditions, too. In his first chapter, the author emphasizes the special educational opportunities available to the United States of his time from the fact that the “paternal affection” of the Americans “protects young children from working in the fields,” so that “it is possible to send them to the schoolmaster.” But today, out of a total population of 12,502,582 between the ages of ten and fifteen, no less than 1,060,858 are reported as “gainfully occupied.” We have discovered that it is unconstitutional to prohibit child labor. Our commercial and industrial prosperity may be a thing to boast of, but are we quite sure that it is worth the price?

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314 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 The Coal Strike Is Not Settled &§ OAL Strike Settled on Pinchot Plan.” This is the headline that appeared in one of New York’s great dailies in announcing the agreement between the anthracite operators and miners to resume work on a basis the most important provision of which was an increase of 10 per cent in the wages of the workers. Most of the other newspapers of the country gave the news in a similar way. Coal strike settled? Wewonder. Not that we blame Gov- ernor Pinchot; he did the best that he could in the circum- stances. In the face of oncoming winter and cessation of work in the mines, his job was to get production started again in the least possible time. It was not for him to sug- gest an adequate or ultimate solution but merely an oppor- tunist scheme for providing the people with coal through the coming winter. He deserves their thanks for having done this, but it would have been better for them to go through a winter of shortage and suffering unless they envisage Governor Pinchot’s “settlement” as merely a temporary respite and, thanking their stars for an exten- sion of time, have the intelligence to deémand—and the cour- age to apply—a plan sufficiently radical to end these recur- ring crises in an essential industry. Fortunately there is some evidence of such an attitude. Although the news accounts in the daily press generally heralded the Pinchot agreement as a “settlement,” editorial comment has shown a wholesome concern over the tiresome repetition of placating workers temporarily through a slight increase in wages—passed on to the consumer with interest —while leaving untouched the essential question of reor- ganizing the industry on a basis of efficiency and justice to all concerned. It is interesting also to see that the National Retail Coal Merchants’ Association is protesting against the Pinchot agreement, especially the suggestion that the cost of the wage increase be absorbed chiefly by the retail dealers instead of shifted along to the consumer. What does this protest mean? The retailers know, of course, that there is and will be no legal way of compelling them to accept smaller profits. The consumer knows that the re- tailers have no philanthropic interest in protecting his pock- etbook. Thus the answer seems to be that the retailers fear economic conditions that may make it difficult to pass on to the buying public an increased charge which Gov- ernor Pinchot estimates will average sixty cents a ton and others think will be nearer a dollar. At least one possible economic obstacle. in the way of higher retail prices for anthracite has had wide mention in the press within recent weeks. It is the substitution of bituminous coal, or possibly oil, by the present users of anthracite. Indeed there has been such widespread insist- ence that soft coal may be readily substituted for hard as to suggest a deliberate though carefully concealed propa- ganda in that direction. Even the United States Bureau of Mines has joined in the effort to make the public regard bituminous coal as a ready substitute for anthracite. Such a change would, of course, be easiest for the owners“of big offices, hotels, and apartment houses in the large cities, promising a saving to them of thousands of dollars in fuel bills. No wonder they look upon it without dismay and that propaganda is adroitly spread before the public intended to reconcile it to the soft-coal nuisance and danger. Un- fortunately for such propaganda soft coal is not a substitute for hard, and no outcome of the strike could be more unfor- | tunate than a belief that recurrence of such trouble is not especially to be feared since emancipation from the use of anthracite would furnish a ready escape. There are at least two important reasons why this is not so. In the first place, the supply of bituminous coal is no better assured than that of anthracite. Conditions in the soft-coal industry are as wasteful and unjust as in the pro- duction of anthracite. There is the same bitter struggle between the operators and the United Mine Workers; there have been repeated and similar interruptions of production and shortages in supply in recent years. The only differ- ence is that it just happens that there is no general strike in the soft-coal fields this autumn. More important even than this reason is the fact that from the standpoint of cleanliness, comfort, and health soft coal is no substitute for hard. One of the real forward steps in civilization taken in this country within recent years is the practical elimination of offensive smoke in some great cities through the use of anthracite. No doubt it is true that with proper apparatus and scientific firing semi- bituminous coal, or mixtures of hard and soft, can be used with no great production of fumes and soot; but it is far more certain that no such outcome could be expected in connection with a general abandonment of anthracite. The ability, or even the effort, to eliminate smoke would lag far behind the introduction of fuel notorious for its evils in that respect. This has been amply proved in New York City, for instance, where even a temporary relaxation of the anti-smoke regulations during last winter’s anthracite shortage led to gross offenses in the use of soft coal which, although now illegal, are in fact continuing to some extent right up to the present time. It is notoriously easier to let down the bars than to put them up again. No, the reorganization of the coal industry must be faced as a whole—both anthracite and bituminous. The present Coal Commission has made some interesting and possibly useful studies in regard to conditions, but little more than could be made—or have been—by newspapers, maga- zines, or economic organizations. What Congress and the public want is a plan—an adequate scheme for reducing waste, eliminating excessive profits, and introducing fair working conditions into an industry where tyranny, profiteering, and anarchy now prevail, with their inevitable danger and financial burden for the public. One of the big questions to be considered in connection with the reorganization of the coal industry is the develop- ment of super-power systems—means, that is, whereby fuel can be converted into electricity at the mines and trans- mitted over great areas, thus saving, for certain purposes, transportation charges and the evils of conbustion in our cities. The Nation has already made plain its belief that no scheme of reorganization is likely to be adequate which does not in some form embody nationalization of the mines, but we are not committed to any preconceived plan. We do insist that the country needs a coal commission which will give it not essays but definite and sufficient directions for getting out of the woods.

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Sept. 26, 1923] ‘“‘Selling’’ Us Another War By FREDERICK J. LIBBY T must have become apparent even to the most hasty reader of newspapers that there has been an extraordi- nary amount of material in the press during the past few months with regard to the Army and Navy. What are its sources? We have before us documents which tell the story better than any comment. First, for the sources of the official Army propaganda. A general order, issued over a year ago, reads as follows: The Secretary of War authorizes and desires public and private discussion on appropriate occasions by officers of the Army in support of the military policy of the United States as established by law and of the policies of the War Department in furtherance thereof designed to secure the national de- fense: .°.. The national defense is the ultimate mission of the Army, and a proper presentation to the public of the necessities in this regard, since it is essential to the accomplishment of this mission, becomes naturally and logically one of the important duties of the officers of the Army. As the policies involved have been worked out with much care after a very full consideration of all the factors entering into the problem, it is desired, in order to avoid confusion, that they should be discussed from the standpoint of the War De- partment unless special authority for a different presentation is obtained from the Adjutant General of the Army. By order of the Secretary of War: JOHN J. PERSHING, General of the Armies, Chief of Staff General Orders No. 20, War Department, May 15, 1922 The announcement, printed in the Army and Navy Register, on September 2, 1922, of the fall convention of the Military Order of the World War, contained these words: . . . It will seek new methods by which to assist in securing adequate appropriations for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Reserve Corps, so that the National De- fense Act may not be openly, insidiously, or indirectly repealed by diminutive Americans who use the term “economy” as a smoke screen. THE RESERVE OFFICERS ORGANIZE At about the same time, at a convention held in Wash- ington, D. C., and reported in the Army and Navy Journal, a Reserve Officers’ Association was organized for the same purpose, and adopted resolutions from which the following passages are taken: . . . Be it resolved, that this convention of reserve officers of the United States express in public to the Congress of the United States, and likewise to the people of the United States, that the time has arrived when all citizens in public and pri- vate life must definitely stand by this act and insure its execu- tion through proper appropriations, or be considered as one of those who do not stand for adequate national defense of the United States of America... . Be it further resolved, that this Association, through its national and local officers and through its individual members, constantly bring before Congress as a whole and individual Congressmen and the press of all parts of the United States that the necessity for adequate national defense does exist; that the Amended National Defense Act is democratic, is in accordance with the genius of the American people, is non- militaristic, is economical; that supporting it is a non-partisan action, and that the public man who fails to support it is fail- The Nation 315 ing in his duty as a citizen of the United States to provide the means necessary to insure the enforcement of the principles on which this government is founded and for which it stands in the eyes of the world. Subsequent reports in the same journal chronicle the formation of local branches of this officers’ association in New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky. Presently the Military Training Camps Association turned its attention to recruiting, and on December 23, 1922, the Army and Navy Journal printed a letter signed by the Secretary of War commending this action: DEAR SIR: I am pleased to inform you that I accept in principle the patriotic offer of the Military Training Camps Association submitted to me by you on October 10, 1922, and I hereby extend to the Military Training Camps Association formal recognition as a cooperating agency in fostering the voluntary military training of citizens... . The Military Training Camps Association is further author- ized to create a system of county and local chairmen—thus completing in detail a nation-wide organization for C. M. T. C. recruiting in the time of peace and for such wider function as might be requested by the War Department.... The corps area commander is further authorized, in his dis- cretion, to furnish office space, clerical assistance, stationery, printing, and advertising matter to assist the Military Train- ing Camps Association with their part of the work. THE NATIONAL GUARD’S PUBLICITY From a report on the National Guard submitted to the War Department by a General Staff officer after visiting various camps of instruction we take the following section as summarized in the Army and Navy Journal, January 6, 1923. ... (b) To mold public opinion favorably toward the con- tinued support of the Army of the United States, the great cry was a publicity bureau and “publicity,” and more parades ef organizations displaying their coats of arms, crests, insignia, and distinctive uniforms (for dress) with the meaning of same and the history of the organization played up in news- paper articles describing the parade or event; also, to periodi- cally hold maneuvers or camps in accessible localities to which the general public can be invited. The possible uses of the National Guard and the other military organizations of civilians are suggested in an editorial printed in the Army and Navy Journal on January 6, 1923: ... The reorganization of the National Guard on a scale hitherto unknown, the organization of the cadre of reserve divisions, the revival of the Plattsburg idea and the placing of it upon a permanent and national basis, and the success of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps have created a force at present of nearly 400,000 civilians directly interested in the Army of the United States. When the families and others influenced by the views of these 400,000 are taken into con- sideration, it is easily seen that millions of American men and women, scattered throughout every portion of the United States, have an interest in adequate national defense. THE NATURE OF THE PROPAGANDA The results of this effort to organize support for military appropriations appear in the following examples drawn from different periods and a well-nigh limitless store.

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The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3038

Admiral Coontz and the Manufacturers In recognition of the attitude of the National Association of Manufacturers in favoring a larger navy, Admiral R. E. Coontz, Chief of Naval Operations, yesterday entertained John E. Edgerton, president of the association, and the organiza- tion’s directors at a luncheon on board the battleship Wyoming. In the evening, the second night of the association’s conven- tion in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Admiral Coontz addressed the 500 delegates, urging an adequate navy as a gocd business investment. After saying that at the end of each war the American peo- ple had been inclined to “wreck” the Navy, the Admiral said: “.. Our foreign policies are as strong as our fleet and no stronger.”—-New York World, May 10, 1922. A “Military Committee’ at Work WESTERN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS MONADNOCK BLOCK CHICAGO, ILL. May 26, 1922 To ALL MEMBERS: .. . Read this pamphlet carefully and, if you are between the ages of 17 and 27 years, ask yourself this question: “Can I personally partake of this training which is offered me. . .?” Only by local support can these camps be made fully suc- cessful, and it is a duty of every citizen to lend his active aid by producing at least one eligible young man to attend this year’s camp. It is felt that the society as a whole should actively support this patriotic movement. Let each of us pro- duce at least one applicant of good physique and character. D. D. GUILFOIL, Chairman MurrRAY BLANCHARD R. I. RANDOLPH E. F. BRACKEN H. S. BAKER J. N. SCHUFREIDER An Appeal to National Fear (Special to the New York Times) WASHINGTON, July 14.—While the American Army, under instructions from Secretary Weeks, is holding itself in readi- ness for any call in connection with guarding nearly 254,000 miles of railway, the War Department is going ahead with the execution of plans for a reduction of the regular army to 125,- 000 men, as ordered by Congress. ... The War Department has less than 25,000 infantrymen in the United States with which to cope with any emergency. This fact is all the more significant because the brunt of any strike duty would fall mainly upon that branch of the service. “The Credit of the Firm” ... We anticipate some trying days ahead of the firm. Various wild-cat schemes of socialism and bolshevism are seeking to encroach upon our territory and to impair the stand- ing of our organization through the country. An effort is being made to disparage our output and deny our claims for further extension of credit by a much-advertised substitute called “disarmament,” presented as a panacea for every na- tional ailment from callouses to consumption. This is in the interest of firms who are rivals of ours across distant seas and especially in the Oriental trade— General Harbord to the Re- serve Officers’ Convention. Gum vs. Guns A comprehensive and enlightening discussion of the peace activities of the Army was made in a speech delivered by Sec- retary of War Weeks before the Boston Chamber of Commerce at its annual dinner on November 14... . The Secretary brought out the rather startling fact that the nation spends more on chewing gum than it does on national defense.—Army and Navy Journal, November 18, 1922. Dangerous Tendencies in Women’s Clubs Boston, December 14 (By Associated Press).—Addressing the Women’s Republican Club of Massachusetts today, General John J. Pershing said that “dangerous elements are moving to- ward a revolution in America,” both openly and secretly, and that because national problems have not been thoroughly dis- cussed, “there have crept into so many women’s clubs these undermining and disruptive tendencies toward radicalism of all sorts.” Pacifism, “the disease which strikes but at constitutional government,” he added, “was one of these tendencies.”—Wash- ington Post, December 15, 1922. General Pershing Here and There General John J. Pershing, U. S. A., made an address at Minneapolis, Minn., November 27, on the subject of national defense. He spoke on the relation of military training to preparation for citizenship and of military training in its relation to war.—Army and Navy Journal, December 2, 1922. General John J. Pershing, U. S. A., who is making a brief tour under the auspices of the American Defense Society, made two forceful speeches this week, during which he made a strong plea for adequate military preparedness. His first speech was made at St. Louis, Mo., con December 4, at a Cham- ber of Commerce luncheon attended by business men and mem- bers of civic and women’s organizations who demonstrated great enthusiasm for his views. His second speech was made at Chicago, December 6, at which place Brigadier General Charles G. Dawes also spoke.—Army and Navy Journal, December 9, 1922: ... The General’s addresses have been followed with the greatest of interest throughout the service. He was appar- ently determined that his voice in behalf of reasonable national defense should reach every section of the country. The re- sponse which has come through the press is proof that he reached the entire American public with telling effect—Army and Navy Journal, December 30, 1922. General Ely Stimulates the Legion Scouting the idea that there would be no more war, and de- claring that in the future some of our Allies in the recent World War might be arrayed against us, Major General Hanson E. Ely, president of the National War College, strongly ad- vocated strong defensive measures in an address at this morn- ing’s session of the convention of the Maryland Department of the American Legion. ... General Ely said that the United States was the richest of all the nations of the world and im- plied that all other nations were ready to try for some of our wealth. The only preventive for this is adequate defense, the speaker implied. The taxes required to provide adequate na- tional defense would be nothing to what we would have to pay in the event we were defeated in war, General Ely asserted. The World War, he said, created 2,500 millionaires. ... He added that a pure undiluted doctrine of Americanism should be given students in schools and colleges, and stated that the Legion should seek the removal of persons with communistic ideas who are employed as teachers in various educational insti- tutions in the country. General Ely freely expressed himself against radicalism and said a show of armed force is needed and that real measures should be taken to prevent the growth of the seeds of communism and radicalism. He urged the or- ganization to exert efforts to prevent I. W. W. and communis- tic speeches, and followed this by stating that preventive meas- ures are always best.—Frederick (Md.) News, August 24, 1923. Navy Day A “SELLING CAMPAIGN’’ Navy Day, last October, was described by the Washing- ton Evening Star as “one of the biggest selling campaigns that has ever been attempted in the United States.” It was generally proclaimed and celebrated, but Governor Baxter of Maine refused to give it his official indorsement; and instead issued a statement in which he said: a <a - EEniiansaananninnmeemniters se ee in eee ~

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Sept. 26, 1923] ... Many of the sponsors of Navy Day are inspired by patriotism, while a few others may be actuated by less worthy motives. What will the world think of the United States if, in the face of our binding promises, preparations for naval expansion are made? If every nation holds a Navy Day the great principles of the Disarmament Conference of 1921 will soon be forgotten. Nothing should be done to undermine the great achievements of that gathering. .. . I believe that a Navy Day at the present time is uncalled for and inadvisable. All good citizens are loyal to our Navy and it will never lack proper support, but the present is no time for naval expansion, and our country should and will live up to both the letter and the spirit of its Reduction of Arma- ments agreement. For these reasons I shall refrain from in- dorsing Navy Day. The editor of the Boston Transcript vented his patriotic wrath on the Governor of Maine in these terms: . . . As for Governor Baxter, the noble traditions cf the good old State of Maine and the splendid service of her sons with the Colors in the Great War are sufficient assurance to all who know the stuff of which the men and women of Maine are made that Mr. Baxter’s sham and hypocrisy, his distortion of the truth, and the cunning with which he has employed his office to curry favor with the National Council for the Reduc- tion of Armaments and to honey-fugle the small minority of pacifists in his own and nearby States will, in due time, receive the rebuke and the repudiation of the plain people whose ser- vice and sacrifice in peace and war have earned them the right to speak for the State of Maine. We have no doubt that this rebuke and this repudiation will soon be forthcoming from the Maine Department of the American Legion, and that it will be reinforced by the patriotic sentiment of the people of Maine without regard to race, religion, party, or walk in life.... Give the Legionnaires of Maine time to be heard from and the shame and disgrace of Governor Baxter’s pusillanimous per- formance will prove to the country that, although he is for the moment the chief executive of Maine, he has abused that office to become the State’s chief traducer.... MISCELLANEOUS PROPAGANDA We have not room in this article for the adequate dis- cussion of magazine articles such as have appeared in Current History in the December and January numbers. Regarding one of these articles Congressman Anthony stated in the House of Representatives on January 16 that it misrepresented Congress as reducing the number of commissioned officers by 1,400 when the total reduction due to legislation was approximately 500 and said that the article “was written by an officer by the name of Myer [Mayer] who was one of those discharged under the pro- visions of the act of Congress.” Magazines containing articles issuing from the War Department have been sent to editors accompanied by per- sonal letters. The National Republican in December carried a series of three articles by Secretary Weeks. The Nation’s Business for January contained a very significant article on How Industry Is Being Trained for War by the same voluminous author. The War Department held a confer- ence with educators on November 16-18 in the hope of “popularizing” universal military training under the terms of the National Defense Act of 1920. It was recommended that “regular press agents” be employed “for the purpose of keeping before the public the news items having to do with the amended National Defense Act and above all, any steps taken or contemplated which will attract the atten- tion of the young men eligible for service under this Act.” And in June, 1923, Secretary Weeks called a conference of The Nation 317 ministers with the results described in the following ac- count in the New York Times of June 9: The quickest way to invite war would be for America to pur- sue peace unarmed and undefended, according to pronounce- ments and findings today submitted to and approved by Secre- tary Weeks on behalf of the conference of religious and welfare workers called by the Secretary to consider the religious and moral training of soldiers. The findings were adopted unani- mously. ... “We deprecate any attempt made under the cloak of religion and in the name of false pacifism to deny the sup- port of the churches to the well-being of our Army and Navy,” one pronouncement said. Two vastly important mediums of militarist propaganda are indicated in the following quotations from the Army and Navy Journal: ... Another means of carrying the message of the day into the homes was the radio broadcasting station. Speakers of national reputation sent their eulogies of the Navy to the farmers of the great central section as well as to those along the coast more familiar with the subject, possibly. None of the Navy stations were used, the offer of the commercial radio organizations having been so generous as to meet the demand. The motion picture news weeklies did their share in making the Navy better known. The Navy is getting some very good advertising from a motion picture film called ‘Rolling Down to Rio,” which shows the trip of the Secretary of State, Charles E. Hughes, to Rio for the opening of the Brazilian Centennial Exposition. The picture was produced at the instigation of the recruiting divi- sion of the Bureau of Navigation under the supervision of the Recruiting Bureau, New York City.... The articles on military matters which flood the press are the result of a well-organized and far-reaching military propaganda, for part of which we are paying out of our Federal budget. The War and Navy Departments have definitely adopted the policy of “educating”? the nation, beginning with the children, to the carrying out in full of the National Defense Act of 1920. This act provides for the militarization of the entire resources of the nation. We are getting ready, not for peace, but for war. Contributors to This Issue SAMUEL M. WAXMAN is professor of Romance languages at Boston University. CONSTANT SOUTHWORTH, a member of the staff of the Institute of Economics, has recently assisted in the preparation of a book, ‘“Germany’s Capacity to Pay.” THOMAS MANN is one of the greatest living German writers of novels and short stories. FREDERICK J. LIBBY is executive secretary of the National Council for the Prevention of War. PAUL BLANSHARD has just completed a study of the European labor situation. The Nation has sent out an important letter to all of its readers whose addresses are on record in this office. But many thousands of readers are not on our sub- scription lists and it is necessary that we secure their addresses. If you have not received our letter, will you kindly send us your name and address on a post card? You will be much interested in what this letter offers to our readers. The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City

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518 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 Hungry Souls By THOMAS MANN MOMENT came in which the sense of his superflu- A ousness penetrated Detlev’s very soul. He let the festive crowd carry him away as though by accident, and thus without farewell he drifted from those other two. A human current carried him past the long wall of the gorgeous auditorium. He offered no resistance until he knew himself to be far from Lily and the little painter. Then he stood still near the stage, leaning against the gilded vaulting of a proscenium box between a bearded baroque caryatid and its female counterpart whose swelling bosom protruded into the hall. As best he could he assumed the attitude of a calm observer. Now and then he raised his opera-glasses to his eyes. But his wandering glance al- ways avoided one spot in that radiant circle of vision. The feast was at its height. At well-appointed tables in the boxes people were eating and drinking; against the balustrades stood men in black or gaily hued evening clothes, huge chrysanthemums in their buttonholes, and leaned down toward the powdered shoulders of women in fantastic garb. Chatting they watched the gay throng which here gathered into groups, flowed more evenly yon- der, seemed at moments to whirl and dance and then dis- perse with a swift flash of color. The orchestra fell silent. The couples stopped on the dance-floor and laughed as they looked at the stage whence came the groaning and blaring of a musical “stunt.” Four or five persons, dressed in peasant costume, with clari- nettes and nasal string-instruments were playing a parody of the Tristan score. For a moment Detlev closed his burning lids. Even through this voluntary distortion of the tones he heard their pain-touched yearning for union. And suddenly, almost throttling him, there arose in him again the woe of the eternal solitary who, in envy and love, has lost his heart to a bright and common child of the world.... Lily ... in his soul the name was all beseeching and tenderness. He could no longer keep his eyes from that one point. Yes, she was still there. She was still in the same spot where he had left her. Now and then when the crowd drifted apart he could see her whole figure. There she stood, leaning against the wall, her hands behind her, in her milk-white frock trimmed with silver. She held her head a little to one side and chatted with the little painter and looked straight into his eyes, looked archly into those eyes that were as blue, as frank, as untroubled as her own. What were they talking about? What could they be talking about all this time? Ah, this talk that flowed so easily and freely from the inexhaustible sources of harm- less spiritual triviality and happy ignorance and natural cheer. He could not learn the art of it, he who had been made somber and difficult by a life dedicated to vision and knowledge, crippled by insight and creative agony! He had gone. In an access of defiance, despair, and mag- nanimity he had stolen away and left those two children of the world alone together. He had left them—only to see, from afar, while this jealousy tore at his throat, the smile of relief that they exchanged instinctively at being freed of the burden of his presence. . Why had he come? Why again tonight? What drove him to seek this torture—to mingle with the crowd of the simple of mind and heart which surged about him and excited him and yet in reality never accepted. How well he knew that desire to be accepted! Once in an hour of great clarity of vision he had written: “We lonely ones, dreamers detached and disinherited passing our days in an artificial and icy negation . . . we whose cold breath spreads about us an unconquerable estrangement the mo- ment we show our visionary and desperate faces among the living . .. we, poor ghosts of the world, whom men meet with a shy respect and leave as soon as possible lest our hollow and disillusioning glance disturb their simple joys . we all nourish within us a surreptitious but consum- ing yearning after the unsophisticated, the simple, the alive, after a little friendship, devotion, familiarity, un- complicated happiness. That life from which we are ex- cluded, that life we want, is not a vision of wild and tragic splendor; it is not the rare that we rare spirits want; the normal, decent, amiable—that is the goal of our dreams. Just that—life in all its endearing banality. .. .” He glanced at those two... . Good-natured laughter interrupted the playing of the clarinettes which were dis- torting that deep and sweet and somber melody into a pierc- ingly sentimental tune. He looked upon those two. He said to himself: You are that warm, delightful, foolish life of man which is in eternal contradiction to the life of the mind, of the spirit. Don’t think that I despise you. Take no heed of my defensive gesture of contempt. I and my kind, accursed with knowledge, unblessed and speech- less, we stand far from you and in our eyes burns a greed and a yearning to be like you. Does our pride stir within us? We are lonely none the less. Do we say to ourselves that the works of the spirit and of the creative vision unite us in a higher love with men of all places, all times? But with whom? With what men? Ever and ever only with our brothers in suffering and yearning and poverty! Never with you, O blue-eyed ones who get along so well without the life of the mind! And now they danced again. The performance on the. stage had come to an end. The orchestra sang out reso- nantly. On the smooth floor the couples turned and swayed. And Lily was dancing with the little painter. How daintily her lovely head rose from the calix of her silvery collar! In a serene and elastic alternation of stride and turn they glided about within a narrow space; his face was close to hers; smiling, yielding themselves not unrestrainedly to the sweet triviality of the rhythm, they continued their chat. Suddenly something akin to the movement of molding and fashioning hands stirred within Detlev. And yet you are mine, he reflected, and I include you. Do I not see through your simple souls and smile? Do I not mark and preserve with an ironic love every naive impulse of your very bodies? At the sight of your merely instinctive ex- istence there arise in me the powers of the living word, of the ironic vision, and my heart throbs with the tri- umphant desire to recreate you and, by the light of my art, deliver your foolish happiness to the cognition and pity of mankind!

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Sept. 26, 1923] True. But all that had arisen in him with so much proud defiance eollapsed ‘again into the old weariness and yearning. Ah, to be, but for one night, like these—not artist but man. To escape for once that curse which is an unalterable commandment: Thou must not be but behold, not live but create, not love but know. To live and love and accept but once in a mood of humbleness and simple-heart- edness! He quivered; he turned away. It seemed to him that in all these comely, flushed faces there appeared, at any aware- ness of him, an expression of both curiosity and revulsion. The desire to escape his silent conflict, to seek darkness and stillness, became irresistible. Yes, he would go. He would go without farewell even as he had left Lily’s side, and at home lay his fevered and unblessed head upon a cool pillow. He walked toward the door. Would she observe his going? How well he knew this process—this silent, proud, despairing withdrawal from some hall, some garden, some spot where people were merry, with the unadmitted hope that he could give the bright being for whom he was longing one shadowed mo- ment, one of reflection, compunction, pity. He stood still and looked in her direction. His soul was all entreaty. Should he not stay, persist, be with her even though from afar in the hope of some unforeseen miracle? In vain. There was no possibility of communication, understanding, hope. Go, he said to himself, go into the darkness, lean your head upon your hands and weep, if there are tears in your world of icy desolation. . . . He left the hall. A burning pain pierced him and also a senseless, irra- tional expectancy. Surely she must have seen him and have understood; she must, must come and follow him and stop him, if only out of pity, and say: “Stay, be happy, I love you.” And he walked very slowly although he knew with an overwhelming and ironic certainty that she would not come, his little, dancing, chattering Lily. It was two o’clock in the morning. The corridors were desolate. Behind the long tables of the coat-rooms the attendants were half asleep. No one but himself thought of leaving. He wrapped himself in his opera-coat, took his hat and stick, and left the building. In the square, in the whitish gleam of the wintery fog, the cabs stood in long rows. The cabmen stood about in groups stamping on the snow to keep warm. Detlev mo- tioned to one of them, and while the man got ready to draw up he stood near the door of the brilliantly lit vestibule and let the sharp and tonic air play upon his hot temples. The flat after-taste of the champagne made him want to smoke. Mechanically he took out a cigarette, struck a match and lit it. And in this moment, just as the little flame of the match died, something happened to him that he did not understand at once. It left him confused and horrified and weak. It was unforgettable, never to be gotten over.... For as his eyes recovered from the glare of that tiny flame there arose out of the darkness a half-savage, hol- low-cheeked, red-bearded countenance whose inflamed and dark-circled eyes stared into his with an expression of wild scorn and strange, famished curiosity. Two or three paces away from him stood the man with the pain-scarred face. His fists were clenched in his trousers’ pockets, the collar of his ragged coat was turned up; he was leaning against one of the wrought-iron posts that flanked the entrance of the theater. His glance glided over Detlev—took in the The Nation 319 costly coat, the opera-glasses, the evening shoes, then rose again with that expression of half-lecherous and greedy wonder. Once the man raised his head with a brief, con- temptuous gesture. Then the cold shook his body; his emaciated cheeks seemed to show deeper hollows; with a quiver he closed his lids, and the corners of his mouth drooped in a blending of spitefulness and sheer misery. Detlev stood quite still. He struggled after comprehen- sion. Suddenly he saw as in objective vision the air of wealth and comfort and well-being with which he, a par- taker of the feast within, had left the vestibule, nodded to the cabby, taken a cigarette from his silver case. In- voluntarily he raised his hand as though to strike it against his forehead. He took one step toward that man, breathed deep as though to speak, to explain.... And then, in- stead, he stepped silently into the cab and almost forgot to give his address to the driver. For he was utterly desper- ate, utterly beside himself at the hopelessness of making this darkness clear... . What huge and fatal error and misunderstanding there was here. This man, famished, disinherited, had regarded him with greed and bitterness, with that enforced con- tempt that is bred of envy and of yearning! He had, in a sense, made a display of himself—this hungry man. Had not his shivering, his spiteful and sorrowful grimace had their origin in the wish to give pause to one who was so boldly happy and at ease, to create in that other one shadowed moment, one of reflection, compunction, pity? Detlev wanted to cry out: “You err, my poor friend. You missed your effect. To me the image of your wretchedness was no terrifying monition from a strange and fearful world. It did not put me to shame. For we are brothers! “Is the pain there, comrade, high in the breast? Does it sting and burn? How well I know it. And why did you emerge? Why, instead of remaining proudly defiant in your darkness, do you seek out the glowing windows be- hind which are the music and the laughter of life? Ah, do I not know the morbid urge that drives you on to nour- ish thus this wretchedness of yours which can be called love as easily as hatred? “Nothing of all that is lamentable in you is alien to me. And yet you thought to put me to shame! What is this life of the intellect? A game of hatred. What is art? Creative yearning! The home of both of us is in the same land of the cheated, the hungry ones, the accusers and deniers. And common to us both are also the treacherous hours of self-contempt in which we lose ourselves in our humiliating love of life and of the happiness that is folly. But you did not recognize your fellow-outcast.” Error, error! But even while his great compassion filled him quite, there gleamed deep within him a prescience at once sorrowful and sweet. Did that man only err? Is there any end of erring? Is not all our earthly yearning error and confusion—not least of all his own which fixed its desire upon life that is simple and instinctive and dumb, unilluminated by mind and art, unredeemed by living speech? Ah, we are brothers, we creatures of the peace- less and suffering Will; only we do not recognize each other. We stand in need of a different love...a different love... And while he sat at home among his books and pictures, beneath the sightless eyes of marble busts, he was moved by the mild words once spoken: Little children, love one another. ...

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320 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3038 Honeymoon (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD HE new President is coming from Vermont. He ar- rives in the Union Station. It is night. The new President is tired. Naturally pale, he now looks pallid. He also looks meager. He also looks scared. The Union Station looks terribly big and high. The lights in the ceiling of the concourse look terribly remote and lofty. Through a great cavern of Olympian illumination the new President trips along like a little ambling automatic toy, with fixed face and fixed untelling eyes, to where he is greeted by Mr. Secretary Hughes, robust, magnificent, more Olympian than the station. . . . Some Assistant Sec- retaries of This Department and of That Department ap- pear on the edges of the station and wonder if it was, or was not, their duty to have greeted the new President in the absence of their Chiefs. They wonder and depart, while the new President stands receiving the greetings of Mr. Secretary Hughes and of Postmaster General New, repre- senting all of Washington and all of the Republic. He is welcomed by two men. There is one of them for the right side of him and one of them for the left side of him as they put him into a motor-car to be driven to a hotel. So a new American ruler enters his capital. ... Statesmen from every province of the Republic begin to arrive in the Union Station. They proceed to the hotel in which the new President is quartered. They are admitted to his apartment. They emerge. “He sat silent and listened.” “He chattered like a magpie.” “He is for getting into Europe.” “He is against getting into Europe.” “The Republic is safe.” “Calvin Coolidge will prevent the Re- public from falling.” “He is a strong man.” “He is greatly admired by the people of my State.” “Harding left a great many Democrats in office.” “Coolidge is a good party man.” “I can tell from his face that he is go- ing to be strong.” “The country will be driven with a firm rein.” “He did not say where he was going to drive it but, my dear boy, he is a good driver and I am riding with him.” “We congratulate the country that the Re- publican Party once more has given it a great man in the presidential chair.” ... A broad desk. The new Presi- dent behind it. Iu front of it a throng of newspaper cor- respondents. On the table their written questions for the new President to answer. The new President looks up from the table and gazes at his questioners—and through them at the whole public—calmly, steadily, firmly. He is not scared. He is even amused. He smiles, with the cor- ners of his lips pulled down quizzically, and he says in a drawl: “I see a great many of you here. I do not flatter myself. Presently, as I become an old story, there will be fewer of you.” This. sally charms his questioners. They like'a realistic person. They hopefully await his answers to their questions as he lifts those questions, one by one, from the table. He begins answering. It is a test mo- ment. The new President wins it. To each question he gives an answer prompt, precise, apt, curt. He attacks the point, he covers it, he quits, and takes up the next question and the next point. He finishes. The correspond- ents clap their hands. He receives their appreciation with a smile—a little wry shy smile. Perhaps he was never really scared. Perhaps he was only—all the while—then and now and always—shy, a bit, along the deceptive New England surface of him. A shy surface, a totally calm and confident interior: such is often the temper bred in the clearings of Vermont. ... The correspondents hasten to tell their readers that a strong man is in the White House. . . . Gentlemen in club corners are glad to hear that there is a strong man in the White House. They remember hav- ing been told that Mr. Coolidge once ate some strikers in Boston. What is a strong man? It is a man who eats strikers. Gentlemen in club corners thereupon readily be- lieve that the correspondents are right in saying that the new President is a strong man. Mr. Coolidge, they con- clude, has not changed. The United Mine Workers will now learn what’s what in this country. ... The honey- moon shines down upon the White House and envelops it with a silver screen on which the new President is seen moving forward on a high horse with a sword extended before him and with the edge of the sword gleaming invin- cibly with moonshine. ... The correspondents assemble again before him and ask him what he is planning to do about the United Mine Workers. He tells them. He is going to see to it—he has already seen to it—that if there is a strike in the anthracite region there shall be, and will be, a sufficient supply of substitute fuels to keep the country from freezing. He tells them this fact, and takes up the next question. ... The correspondents appear be- fore him again and await again the customary presidential sermon against strikers. They got it in writing from President Wilson. They got it by word of mouth from President Harding. Shall not the strikers be seen as menacing the nation? Shall not the Republic be seen as tottering? Shall not all good men be summoned to hold the strikers down and to hold the Republic up? Apparently not. The new President, in response to inquiries, says through a spokesman that if there is a strike in the an- thracite region there shall be, and will be, a sufficient sup- ply of substitute fuels to keep the country from freezing. ... No presidential sermon ever did actually prevent miners from striking or ever did actually make miners go back to work. Nor did any injunction ever do it. This President fails to try to do what cannot be done. . . . Gif- ford Pinchot of Pennsylvania telephones to the White House and asks about trying to reconcile the miners and the operators. The new President, in response to this overture, asks Mr. Pinchot to come to Washington. Mr. Pinchot comes, he talks with the new President, and he goes back to Pennsylvania to try to be—on his own re- sponsibility—a reconciler. . . . The honeymoon still hang- ing in the sky, the White House reporters report that Mr. Pinchot is ‘‘cooperating” with the strong man in the White House. ... Mr. Pinchot raises the miner 10 per cent... . Gentlemen in club corners sit up. Wages higher under a strong man? Can it be? ... The honeymoon dips toward earth and shows a presidential magic sword dulled by dark cold common sense. A President who, when it is impos- sible to eat strikers, does not pretend to be engaged in eat- ing them? A President who does not thrill and fool the club-corners of the country by stamping his foot to intimi- date the strikers without intimidating them? The honey- moon sinks behind a lounge. . .. The new President con- tinues to say only what he can do. He evidences no leader- ship at all toward things he cannot do. The things he can do are few. The things he cannot do are many. It was so with former Presidents. With this President it is tacitly and presidentially admitted to be so. A cold dawn breaks.

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Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 321 When the Frame Joins the Mark By CONSTANT SOUTHWORTH The paper mark was worth 105,000,000 to the dollar on September 15. When the new gold currency becomes a reality it will not be worth anything. \HE mark is lost. God save the franc! The German mark keeps on its headlong journey down- hill. Its collapse is the external manifestation of the eco- nomic and social collapse of one of the world’s greatest nations. It betokens mis- ery — physical and mental wretchedness—on a _ scale seen only at rare intervals in the world’s history. The French franc, on the other hand, has been com- paratively stable for some months at slightly less than ) [ bes 0 | i one-third of its nominal === value. French industry —— seems prosperous. In May, i; — Ba ess =a —. ——___ for the first time in many years, exports exceeded im- ports. French government credit, though not as strong as it has sometimes been, is sound—French bonds rank well on the world’s ex- changes. France apparently is one of the oases in the European desert of economic desolation and prostration. Have not the French then good reason to congratulate themselves? No, they have not. It is hard to see how the franc inside of four or five years, probably less, can help following the mark, and with it drawing France into a slough of despond similar to but not quite so deep as that in which Germany is now wallowing. Why? The reason is that no nation which consistently fails by substantial margins to balance its budget can ultimately avoid increasing its circulation of paper currency—and when the printing presses have once got well going, there is no stopping them. France has made a good start toward a financial debacle. Since the beginning of the war her budgets have been in a sorry plight. With characteristic naivete, the French Government since the war has been setting aside a large proportion of its expenditures into a so-called “recoverable” budget of which not a sou is covered by tax receipts. It is covered by borrowings from the elastic savings of the French people. The idea, when this system was established, was that Germany would before long make reparation payments large enough to let the French Government pay off all the money it should borrow on “recoverable” account. Then everybody would be happy. Unfortunately for the poor French rentier (holder of French government bonds), it has been demonstrated that Germany for some years, at any rate, cannot possibly mus- ter the surplus of exports which alone would enable her to acquire the bills of exchange necessary for reparation pay- ments. At the present time Germany cannot export enough Hands Across the Ruhr “Discussions between French and German industrialists con- tinue.’—Press Dispatch. to pay for sufficient food and raw materials to keep her economic machine from disintegrating. Moreover, France’s venture in the Ruhr has shown that forcible attempts to collect from Germany only add to the French budget deficit. France may succeed in forcing Germany into the condition of a vassal state or in dividing her into a score of quarrel- ing districts—that is, she may put Germany out of the economic race—but the process can only add to the diffi- culties of the French budget situation. Due to the loans necessi- tated by the repeated budget deficits, the French public debt increased from 33.6 bil- lion francs at the end of 1913 to the colossal sum of 280 billion francs at the end of 1922. The latter sum in- cludes only the domestic debt and that portion of the 3 foreign debt which was bor- Xe ] rowed from private lenders x abroad—in other words, that part of the French debt the paying of interest on which is of immediate concern to French government credit. The debt to foreign govern- ments, amounting to approx- imately 100 billion francs at present exchange, upon which no interest or sinking-fund charges are being paid, may be ignored for our purposes here. The interest and other charges for 1922 on the 280 billions, according to the budget estimates, were 10.7 billions, while the total revenue except through borrowing for the same year was estimated at 23 billions. The debt service was thus practically half of the total real revenue. The most recent estimates for 1923, made in the course of the Senate debate on the budget bill, place the debt service at about 60 per cent of the revenue. Unless a miracle happens to the French national psychol- ogy, the deficits will continue. France will continue to squander money on the Ruhr and similar projects. Her economists will continue to deplore wasteful public-works programs. She will make loans for military purposes to Eastern European countries. She will lavish money on armament to hold her place in the Near East and elsewhere on the earth—as well as above the earth, with her aircraft. The reconstruction work will undoubtedly be continued, for it is little more than half completed and its suspension would throw large numbers out of work. On the side of receipts, France will talk bravely but do little about increasing revenue from taxation. The French legislature recently rejected a scheme to prevent wholesale evasion of the income tax. It also rejected the proposal of the Minister of Finance for a horizontal increase in tax rates. We shall hear, as we have heard recently, reports of great mathematical victories—large anticipated deficits valiantly wiped out by raising the estimates of revenue expected from various taxes and lowering the estimates of Drawing by Art Young

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322 The Nation ~ ~ [ Vol. 117, No. 3038 expenditures. And even if France should make a sincere attempt to reduce uneconomic expenditures and increase revenue from taxation, it would probably be impossible to prevent the growth of the public debt. The fixed payments which she has to meet, of which the debt service is the greatest, must surely swamp the ship of state unless there be a national consecration to debt reduction. Such a conse- eration would involve a degree of universally distributed discernment, devotion, and education beyond the bounds of achievement in the time available. In passing we may remark that France has not yet paid off any appreciable amount of the loans she contracted to meet the indemnity for the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The deficits must then continue and the debt must grow larger, and with it the interest on the debt. As stated above, the debt service is now about 60 per cent of real receipts. It will not be many years before the debt service approaches 100 per cent of real receipts, for borrowings of from 20 to 30 billions a year go on regularly. These recent borrowings are at higher rates than the old loans, a considerable por- tion of which (the old loans) is carried at rates varying from 3 to 5 per cent. Recent issues of treasury bills have cost the Government as high as 614 and 7 per cent. This means that the debt service is increasing in greater propor- tion than the debt itself. The present 60 per cent ratio of debt service to revenue will assuredly mount. As that ratio gets near 100 per cent, the Government will have to increase its paper money in circulation. One will see the government borrowings from the Bank of France steadily rising. The French Government will regularly dis- count its treasury bills with the Bank of France, receiving in return the latter’s irredeemable notes, just as the German Government does with the Reichsbank. As the rates of interest on new borrowings rise, the old loans, bearing lower rates of interest, will go lower and lower in value. The franc, except during short periods when the Government artificially bolsters it, will go lower on the world’s exchange markets. The French citizens, who hitherto seem to have had inexhaustible bond-absorption capacities, will lose the greatest faith of their lives—their confidence in their Gov- ernment—for they will witness their life savings slipping. Even if they do not understand the meaning of falling French exchange, they will understand the meaning of prices rapidly rising, their own wages or profits rising much less rapidly, their government bonds (which have a remark- ably wide distribution and are an important source of income in France) actually decreasing in value, and the interest on these bonds remaining the same in depreciated paper as it formerly was in higher-value currency. The credit of the Government may deteriorate slowly, or again it may vanish overnight. Whichever course it fol- lows, it will be interesting to see how the French people take their financial ruin. Germany has taken hers in the main calmly. The majority of her people have, so far at any rate, been willing to suffer silently. One important reason is that they realize that the foreign oppressor’s heavy hand has had much to do with their country’s plight and that their own Government is therefore only partially to blame. Another reason is, that of all peoples in the world they are the most disposed to submit to governmental authority. But it is different in France. The French Gov- ernment’s “alibi” of Germany’s perverseness in not paying must some time lose its power of control. From childlike faith in his Government, the French rentier is likely to graduate to envenomed resentment. There will be no for- eign oppressor for him to blame. The French Revolution recalls interesting possibilities for the Frenchman who does not like his Government. It will be just as well not to be around when the bottom goes out of French government credit—particularly for the Minister of Finance. The franc then is going to follow the mark. And the main reason will be the overwhelming inclination of French statesmen to indulge in oratory and avoid facing economic facts. Less actual undernourishment among the French people will result than in Germany, due to a greater degree of agricultural self-sufficiency in France than in Germany. But as in Germany the whole industrial system and mech- anism of commodity exchange will be turned inside out. The ultimate result, combined with continued chaos in Ger- many, may be the permanent partial deindustrializing of all Western Europe, including neutral countries and Great Britain. But we anticipate. First let us watch what hap- pens in France when the franc goes under. The Revolt in Spain* By SAMUEL M. WAXMAN LTHOUGH the Spaniard as an individual is the most democratic of persons, the government of Spain is the most autocratic in Europe, if we are willing to except the temporary dictatorships in Russia and Italy. In twentieth- century Spain the King still rules by divine right, makes and unmakes ministries, appoints senators for life, hand- picks army officers and church dignitaries, and creates grandees who in medieval style are exempted from paying taxes. Buttressed by grandees, life senators, army Officers, and high ecclesiastics, Alfonso is nevertheless a prisoner of the Spanish political system. Without their support he would lose his job and without his support they would lose their privileges. This close corporation controls the state and with its vast landed holdings wields a great eco- *This article, the result of recent first-hand observation in Spain, was written just before the announcement of the revolutionary uprising in Bar- celona. nomic power outside of the industrial cities. Like pre- war Russia, Spain has a comparatively small middle class. It is for the most part a pastoral and agricultural country, the larger part of the population consisting of peasants, sturdy, frugal, and unlettered. With a small group of in- tellectuals at their head, the constantly increasing bour- geoisie of the commercial and industrial cities is vocifer- ously demanding a reform of the constitution of 1876 in political, military, religious, and economic affairs. It is the general belief outside Spain that Alfonso is a popular king. That is not true; he fears for his life like the for- mer Czar of Russia, and rumors of his abdication are not unfounded. He realizes that his position is extremely in- secure, but he is a good sport and will hold out to the bit- ter end. Since the World War, the rich in Spain have got richer, and the poor poorer, and the unpopularity of the

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Sept. 26, 1923 The Nation 323 Moroccan War has brought the peasantry closer to the in- tellectuals and the labor organizations. A bloodless revolu- tion such as is going on in England does not seem possible in Spain where popular education is practically unknown and where there is a very small prosperous middle class. The chasm between the classes is wide, and it looks as though it would be filled with blood before constitutional changes are made. The thunderings of Spain’s moral and intellectual leader, Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher, essayist, poet, and drama- tist, must make the King and his entourage quake at times, but his only punishment has been demotion from rector to professor of Greek at the University of Salamanca. Una- muno’s “Tragic Sense of Life,” reviewed in The Nation of May 17, 1922, will explain to the American reader why the all-powerful church in Spain humiliated this latitudi- narian Catholic. It was not his political utterances, but his religious heresies that got him into trouble. He brow- beats the King under the very shadow of the royal palace and went so far recently as to walk into the lion’s den. When rebuked by his followers for such subservience to royalty, he replied that he was not afraid to tell the King what he thought of him face to face. And so Unamuno fulminates from his ivory tower in lofty philosophical language, now and then stepping down to lecture platform and newspaper column. He is always vigorous and force- ful, but never violent, and so reaches only the intellectuals. José Ortega y Gasset, also a professor, writes a work en- titled “Invertebrate Spain,” a most cruel and searching examination of conditions in his country, and the book is allowed to circulate freely. In general the American has the feeling that there is more freedom of speech in Spain than in the United States. Spain is at war and these lead- ers are obstructionists. But the Spanish Government has a way of permitting revolutionists to let off steam by talk- ing and writing. Let the foreigner hazard the statement that Spain is surely ripe for a revolution with such incen- diary material in the hands of the people, and the answer invariably is: “These are but ‘words, words, words.’ Span- jiards are excellent rhetoricians, but what we need is ac- tion and for action we must have men of action.” But just as the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution had their prophets, so men like the late Angel Ganivet, Unamuno, and Ortega y Gasset are the prophets of the Spanish Revolution, and the Moroccan War just as the World War in Russia may prove to be a two-edged sword. Spaniards are being taught action in Morocco. Indirectly the teaching of the prophets reach the people of Spain, who read very little, through the newspapers and the Ateneo of Madrid which has begotten many smaller Ateneos throughout Spain. From the Ateneo of Madrid, at once a forum, an intellectual club, a library, and an ex- tension university, has come almost every political, eco- nomic, and educational reform that Spain has had in the past hundred years. It is not so highbrow as it once was, and until very recently its president was the political liberal leader, Romanones, who resigned a few months ago because he refused to sanction a manifestation in the streets against the war policy of the Government. In spite of his opposition, the Ateneo led a peaceful manifestation of 100,000 people against the leniency of the Government toward incompetent and criminally neglectful army officers. This demonstration brought about a change of ministry. Ever since the terrible disaster at Anual, Morocco, of July, 1921, when an entire army was cut to pieces, ten thousand men, including the commanding general, killed, and one thousand taken prisoner, the favorite game among Spanish politicians has been to “‘pass the buck.” Day after day the newspapers reiterate the urgent necessity of plac- ing the responsibility for this catastrophe, but each time that the investigators find out too much, the ministry either resigns or is forced to resign, and no scapegoat can be found who is willing to accept martyrdom for the sake of whitewashing the King and his group. If the King will appoint incompetents to high civil and military office then he must accept the consequences. Public opinion is at such fever heat today that the Government dare not fly in the face of it, and on several occasions the King has had to yield to it. The dissolution of the juntas, groups of army officers who had attempted to run the army from within, is a recent case in point. The King realizes that he is playing a dangerous game trying to please his entourage and placate the public at the same time. Thus far he has compromised by yielding a little to the one or to the other. The day is coming, however, when he must either abdicate or throw in his lot with the people. The second alterna- tive is a difficult feat, as Louis XVI and Nicholas discov- ered. Sporadically we see newspaper reports about Spanish military operations in Morocco which mean little or noth- ing to us. The Spanish papers headline the Moroccan war news which is so heavily censored that it takes several days for the truth to leak out. And so as soon as the pub- lic realizes one reverse another has taken place. Now and then there is a mutiny at a port of embarkation. The latest occurred only a few days ago at Malaga where a Basque contingent had to be marched aboard a transport under the guns of loyal troops. The anti-war feeling is spreading more and more every day, and the Government is making every effort to bring the war to a successful end before the patience of the people who are sending their sons to slaughter and paying burdensome taxes becomes exhausted, and before the loyal troops become disaffected and join the mutineers. Outside military and government circles there is no en- thusiasm for this war anywhere in Spain. What is it all about? Since the expulsion of the Moslems in 1492, Spain has held portions of North Africa, and in the coast cities from Tangier to Oran there are large groups of Spaniards. Since the beginnings of the Entente Cordiale between France and England through which France recognized England’s sphere of influence in Egypt and England rec- ognized France’s claim to Morocco, Spain has demanded a share of the spoils. After several international confer- ences, Spain was allotted a small strip of the coast from Tangier to the Algerian frontier but exclusive of the city of Tangier itself, which was too strategic and rich a prize for powerful nations to bestow upon a weaker nation. Not being able to come to an agreement between themselves, France and England have compromised by making Tan- gier an international city, and by the Treaty of Versailles it temporarily shares the same fate as Danzig and Fiume. A Franco-Anglo-Spanish conference which is to decide its ultimate destiny has been promised for some time, but it has been postponed because of more pressing international difficulties. France, who occupies the greater part of Mo- rocco and who has no Moroccan port on the Mediterranean, naturally covets it, and Spain claims it on the ground that

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324 The Nation ~« [Vol. 117, No. 3038 ———t—____e___......_gggee it falls within the territory allotted to her. But England is not particularly anxious for either of them to possess the finest harbor of Morocco which even more than Gib- raltar forms the gate to the Mediterranean. It looks now with the strained relations between France and England as if Tangier would either remain an international city or go to the weaker of the two contestants, Spain. A new com- plication has arisen. According to newspaper dispatches Italy has sent a warship to Tangier and proclaimed her candidacy for the possession of the ancient Pillar of Her- cules. After the Spanish American War the Spaniards heaved a sigh of relief. Their great empire in Europe, in Amer- ica, and in the Philippines had dwindled down to a part of the Iberian peninsula, the Canary Islands, and a few pos- sessions on the northern and western coasts of Africa. They set about to improve their economic situation at home which had been neglected through centuries of almost con- tinuous European and colonial warfare. But since 1904 and especially since the World War, with the fate of Tangier hanging in the air, the Spanish Government has been try- ing unsuccessfully to pacify her strip of Morocco com- monly known as the Rif. And so by the irony of fate Spain who escaped from the World War finds herself engaged once more in an unsuccessful colonial war, impelled by national pride and by the fact that a group of capitalists has large financial interests in the Rif. It can be easily understood why Spain was so little inclined to take sides with the Allies in the World War. It is more likely that had she gone into the war she would have thrown in her lot with Germany, for Spain as well as Germany felt that she had not been treated fairly in the partitioning of North Africa. Germany’s offer of Gibraltar and Morocco was a tempting bait which might have precipitated her into the war or at least given her the opportunity to bargain for the freedom of Gibraltar and a larger share in Morocco had she been more powerful. As it was, her hands were tied. English and French capital have a strong hold in Spain. The min- ing regions in the north of Spain and the wealth of the city of Bilbao are largely in English hands, the fortress of Gibraltar would have been a great military asset, and Portugal was England’s ally. Large railroad interests are in the hands of the English and the French, although con- siderable holdings have been transferred to Spanish capi- talists since the war. The anti-French feeling in Spain is bitter. The memory of the Napoleonic invasion is still vivid, and the more recent exile of the religious congre- gations at the time of the separation of the church and state in France has still further alienated devout Catho- lics. But what rankles most of all is France’s occupation of Morocco and England’s past acquiescence in French policy. In spite of the Agadir and Tangier incidents, which threatened to bring war in 1907 and 1912, little has been said about North Africa since the opening of the war. Since the Treaty of Versailles the status of Morocco has been regarded as a fait accompli. Yet the partitioning of North Africa was one of the chief causes of the war; had the French and English been more generous with Ger- many, the Great War might have been possibly avoided or at least postponed. But now the Hispano-Moroccan War and the struggle over Tangier have pushed North Africa once more to the front of the stage and it looks as though it were destined to stay there for some time to come. It is only during the past hundred years that North Africa has been reannexed to Europe. While the Turk was busy holding his own in Southeastern Europe, France and England seized Egypt and Algeria. Later France added Tunis, and in attempting to annex Morocco against a hos- tile Germany added fuel to the flames of a European war. When Italy seized Tripoli in 1912 while Turkey was fight- ing the Balkan Wars, it seemed very evident that in return for the acquiescence of England and France, who con- trolled the Mediterranean, she would either remain neutral in the event of war between the Triple Alliance and the Entente or side with the Entente. As we have seen she did both, and now having recovered her lost provinces she is a serious rival to France in the struggle over the con- trol of the Mediterranean. The fact that Tunis is largely populated by Italians and the constant friction between French and Italians do not augur future peace, especially under the present militarist dictatorship in Italy. Another glance at the map will show the proximity of Sicily to Tunis—which with the boot of Italy forms a lake within a lake bounded by Italy, France, and Spain on the north, and Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco to the south, with Eng- land intrenched at both ends, at Malta and at Gibraltar. The geographical conformation of this western Mediter- ranean lake explains the presence of Italy’s warship at Tangier. Everything in Europe points to a jockeying for position in the event of a future war. France, who is building up a tremendous empire in Northwestern and Central Africa, has already made her continental alliances, for it is only by force of arms that she can maintain her empire. Eng- land is mainly concerned with preventing her empire from disintegrating, and so has been willing to grant freedom to Egypt on paper while she maintains a large army there. All this may sound cynical to American ears which have been lulled by the phrases “war to end war” and “a war to make the world safe for democracy” and by the hopes and promises of the League of Nations, but at the present writing a league without the United States, Germany, and Russia is a sorry farce in a Europe filled with bitter rival- ries and jealousies. Neither England nor France want war. With the possible exception of Tangier England does not want territory in North Africa, but neither does she want France to have more. Her attitude toward Italy is not clearly defined. Are they possibly coquetting with each other? North Africa is, then, a part of Europe. AI- geria is no longer a colony, it is a province of France, it is divided into départements and sends its senators and depu- ties to Paris. Tangier has been long one of the most cos- mopolitan cities in the world, and France’s portion of Morocco has been almost completely “pacified” under the intelligent and wise rule of Maréchal Lyautey. Spain on the contrary has been muddling along, losing the money and prestige she won through non-interference in the World War. Although she possesses a certain amount of up-to-date equipment, such as aeroplanes, tanks, and gas, the war in the Rif does not lend itself to the use of such modern paraphernalia. It is a guerrilla war fought in the mountains, and the enemies are nomadic and fanatic mountaineers who do not come out into the open. Rarely does the Spanish soldier see his enemy who fights with the fanatic, fatalistic fury of the Moslem. His duty is to kill as many enemies as possible. If he gets killed, it is Allah’s will. Nor do the Spaniards use their superior war mate-

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Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 325 rials to greatest advantage. The Moroccan War requires skilled engineering, and unfortunately for Spain she has few trained engineers and lacks technical schools for the training of army officers. Then, too, Spanish Morocco is partly under civil and partly under military jurisdiction, and there is often friction and jealousy between the min- istries of state and war. But worst of all the Spanish army is cursed with graft and favoritism in the appointment and promotion of officers. Temperamentally the Spaniard is an intense individualist; cooperation is foreign to his nature. He will not sell his soul to the modern Moloch efficiency. Furthermore he is fighting only half-heartedly for a cause to which he is either violently opposed or in which he has no interest. Thus from top to bottom the Spanish army lacks that rigid discipline which is so necessary to the suc- cessful military machine of today. But the greatest difficulty that Spain has to contend with is the fact that it is a land divided against itself. Since the Spanish American War regionalism and separatism have threatened several times to plunge Spain into civil war. Geographically the Iberian peninsula is a unit, but Portu- gal, strongly dominated by British influence, and Gibraltar, are constant reminders of Spain’s past inability to unify the peninsula. But while Portugal and Gibraltar are primarily sentimental problems, Catalonia and Viscaya are burning actualities. The Catalans and the Basques, the richest industrial and commercial peoples of Spain, speak non-Castilian languages. They are more energetic than the agricultural and pastoral peoples of central and south- ern Spain, and have recently joined hands in the economic war with the central government. The Basques are a hardy mountain race which was never subjugated by the Mo- hammedans, and although they speak a language totally different from the Romance Castilian, they have thrown in their lot for centuries with central Spain. Their present difficulties are economic rather than political and are cen- tered in the industrial population of Bilbao and in the adjacent mining regions. The Catalans have not only eco- nomic but also political grievances against the central gov- ernment. Their language is more closely related to Prov- encal than to Castilian and morally they resemble the French rather than the Spanish. They are very proud of their literature and culture, and especially since the war, with its talk about the rights of small peoples to choose their own form of government, they have been very turbu- lent. Barcelona, the second largest city of the Mediter- ranean, the “New York of Spain,” is a hotbed of discontent, and is frequently under martial law. Economic questions have become so inextricably woven with political issues that it is very hard to separate them, but the great strug- gle seems to be between the ruling privileged class of wealthy landholders centered about the King and the work- ing classes of the cities and intellectuals. It looks now as though Catalonia must go through the same bloody experi- ence as Ireland before a compromise can be reached. Feel- ing is running higher than ever before because of the Moroccan War to which Catalonia is even more violently opposed than the other provinces because of its interference with commercial prosperity. Extremists have gone so far as to petition the League of Nations for complete autonomy. Thus far the Catalans have found support only among the Basques, but a feeling of unrest is spreading to other urban centers which have large industrial populations. The Spanish Government has failed to bring the war in Morocco to a successful conclusion. All thinking Spaniards who may possibly disagree on every other issue are deter- mined to place the responsibility for failure where it be- longs, and since the King has been either unwilling or unable to punish the guilty and incompetent, they are making every effort to take the responsibility of ruling Spain out of his hands and place it in their own. The King and his entourage are determined not to lose any of their medieval privileges; they are determined to save their faces in European politics by winning the war in Morocco; they are determined to hold out to the bitter end and—as was the case with Russia—the end will be bitter. Mussolini Starts a War By PAUL BLANSHARD Milan, September 2 ENTRAL Milan is ablaze with excitement. The news has reached the city of the murder of the Italian mis- sion in Epirus in the performance of its duty in establishing the border of Albania. Gray-green uniforms fill the great arcade near the cathedral. There is the rumble of a thou- sand men talking at once. A detachment of tired boys passes on the street, grotesque in misfitting uniforms and bulging knapsacks, their feet clattering heavily on the stones. Gentlemen with spats and curled mustaches sip coffee at cafe tables under the sky and curse Greece. A middle- aged soldier goes by holding a little girl very tightly in his arms. The bored look has gone from the faces of the young officers. The street women come closer to the cafe tables. The Fascisti get to work. Tablets commemorating Greek heroes in Genoa are torn down and Italian ones substituted. The commander of a Greek ship in Naples is ordered to run up the Italian flag. The chorus for war is almost unani- mous. A commission merchant of chocolate products tells me gleefully that business will increase during war. Of the newspapers, only Avanti tries to analyze the situation honestly and even Avanti does not speak in ringing tones. The Italian Socialists have no love for the Greek Govern- ment and they have vivid recollections of recent Fascist raids. Giustizia, organ of the right-wing Socialists, dodges the issue and uses its front page for a long discussion of the inheritance tax on the day when other papers are sup- porting the Government’s war measures. The situation provides an excellent stage setting for Mus- solini. Fighting is the safest thing for the immediate future of Fascism because Fascism lives by fighting. Things have been getting dull at home. The black shirts are losing some of their first glamor. In fact these shirts are beginning to look uncommonly like workmen’s shirts. War! A happy thought, worthy of Seward. Anybody can run a government during a war. Mussolini of the iron jaw and sick eyes, leader of Italy in a war for justice! No longer merely a Fascist interloper but an international leader with the pose of Napoleon and the morality of Zane Grey. Ecco! A note to Greece that would draw wrath from China. The note is one of the most atrocious in modern diplo- matic history, demanding that Greece not only apologize but complete an investigation within five days, pay 50 million lire indemnity, and practically admit responsibility for the crime. Greece answers with ample regrets, offers

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326 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 ee ——————t—t—sSs___eese to pay homage to the Italian flag, and to pay an indemnity to the families of the victims. Mussolini pretends that the answer is a rejection of the Italian note and orders the Italian military forces to occupy the island of Corfu, an important island off the coast of Greece. In all the press there is scarcely a voice to ask: “Was the Greek Government really responsible? Was the murder committed by private brigands without the connivance of the Government?” The Corriere della Sera of Milan says that the assassination was committed by men who “seem to have been garbed in the style and color of Greek soldiers.” But this paper which has the reputation of being one of the most scrupulous in Italy offers no proof. The technique of getting mad is still the same as it was before the World War. Not a single point in the process has been changed. First comes the “international crime” in which some citizen is killed by individuals in a foreign country. Then comes the report of the incident in the press, always with headlines and always with extreme bias. If the offending nation is weak, the offended government issues an ultimatum. It is pompous and irritating, overshooting the mark. The opposition government is insulted. Its na- tional honor is at stake. It rejects the ultimatum condi- tionally with explanations. The press of both countries declares its solidarity with the governments in this national crisis. The offended government declares war not so much because its citizens were killed but because it cannot extri- cate itself from the tangle of its own diplomacy. It is easy to blame the governments without blaming the people. In this case the Italian people want war. The street cars are full of people who are talking about “bom- bardare la Grecia.” Militancy has been ground into them by their nationalist education. Compulsory military serv- ice for all young men keeps thousands of impatient young- sters ready for the bloodiest emergency that the diplomacy of old men can create. In occupying Corfu Mussolini made his great mistake. The capture of Corfu is a threat to the control of the Balkans by England and France because Corfu is the Gib- raltar of the Adriatic. In the long run he cannot hold it without the consent of England and France and neither England nor France is anxious to give Italy control of the Adriatic. Mussolini is in a dilemma: He cannot afford to oppose England and France and he cannot withdraw inglori- ously from Corfu without a great loss of prestige in Italy. Greece is too weak to win a war or to stop a war. If the war is stopped, it will be because of the power of foreign capital speaking through the English and French govern- ments. That power is especially important for the Fascisti because they have in mind an elaborate program of dena- tionalization. They propose to sell the railroads and tele- phones, and perhaps the parcel post to private capitalists. Where is the money to come from for the purchase of these public utilities? It must come largely from abroad. So Mussolini is likely to listen to the voice of foreign capital. Italy shows no respect for the League of Nations as such but only for the economic and military power of the Eng- lish and French governments. La Sera of Milan remarks: “Italy will go to the court of the League of Nations and to the Council of Ambassadors when France goes there with the question of the Ruhr, and England with her mandates.” Et tu, Italia! If Italy cannot be persuaded or compelled to use the machinery of the League of Nations, that outcast institution will have no place to lay its head. In the Driftway IR BASIL ZAHAROFF is a great man. The Drifter never takes sides in any political discussion, so that he does not base his opinion of Sir Basil on the fact that he has just given the Greeks two and a half million dollars to placate the latest Tyrant of Europe. No, it is not Sir Basil’s generosity that makes him great; it is his restraint. Sir Basil, so the: Drifter reads, is writing his memoirs. Every word is written by his own hand and each year of his life is treated in a separate volume (Sir Basil was born in 1850). If any reader feels that restraint so far is lack- ing, let him only read further: Sir Basil has made a will, and in his will he provides that his memoirs be destroyed after his death. * * * * * FENO state the case plainly, the Drifter has never heard the like of that. Accurate statistics are lacking, but he is nevertheless sure that eleven out of every fourteen persons are writing their memoirs; of the eleven, six are doing it with their own hands. And accurate statistics are not lacking to show that not one of these persons will decree that his memoirs be destroyed either before or after death. Sir Basil, therefore, stands alone upon the peak of this extraordinary eminence. It is doubtless only the Drift- er’s perversity that makes him yearn more than he ever yearned for anything to read Sir Basil’s memoirs; and that makes him resolve never to read any memoirs to which their author does not will destruction. * * * * * T may be that Sir Basil has set a dangerous literary precedent. If the reading public should follow the Drift- er’s example, authors already harassed will be on the horns of a painful dilemma: either preserve your book and let it remain unread, or destroy your book and rouse the inter- ests of the reading public too late. We shall then have a condition similar to that during the reign of the First Emperor of China. That worthy, sincerely believing him- self to be the greatest man who had ever lived, believed also that his reign should mirror his greatness. It was plain, he reasoned, that nothing finished before he came to the throne could equal what came after. Accordingly he ordered that all books be destroyed; literature, he felt, should begin with himself. The result was that for years afterward the favorite sport of an unknown author was to bring forth a book of his own composition, declaring it to be one of the lost books before the First Emperor. The Drifter is pleased to offer this suggestion to persons who shall go on living and writing after books begin to be destroyed in order to be read. * * * * * T may be, however, that the best way to reduce the pro- duction of literature is to destroy the typewriter. On all sides this infernal machine is being congratulated on its fiftieth birthday. But besides being the cause of the decline cf chirography, the typewriter has made the lives of authors and typesetters so easy that almost anyone can write a book and have it read at least once. The Drifter is willing to begin the holocaust by taking an ax to his own machine, and he guarantees that the result will be fewer Driftways. THE DRIFTER

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Sept. 26, 1923] Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. The Homely Truth To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: When will The Nation take time off from abusing the fire that won’t burn the stick that won’t beat the dog that won’t, etc., to turn its batteries on the pig that won’t go over the stile? Which of the nations is demanding the original pound of flesh? The United States is demanding return of money lent to its Allies; the Allies are demanding money from their debtors. Is France more or less justified in exacting repa- ration for devastation wrought on her soil in violation of recog- nized laws of warfare than we in demanding return of money lent to our Allies and largely spent in our own country for munitions to fight battles in which we were vitally interested? Are we prepared to make financial sacrifice to restore peace to the world? If we are, let us go to Europe and propose limitation of armaments and military expenditures. Let us attach to our proposals the offer to consider the whole ques- tion of reparations and war debts as one, which it really is, and let us be prepared, as the wealthiest nation, to make the largest sacrifice. If we are not prepared to do these things, we have but one part to play—hold our tongue. Portland, Oregon, September 1. BENJ. M. WOODBRIDGE Are the Russians Cruel? TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Gorki’s stinging indictment of Russian cruelty in your issue of September 5 says and implies a number of horrid things apt to mislead the uninformed reader. The first sweep- ing implication is that Russians in general and peasants in particular are, essentially and racially, downright fiends with a thirst for revolting forms of cruelty and torture. At best, they are insensible brutes to whom bloodshed is mere sport and human life is dirt cheap. This fling means to hit all Russians irrespective of time, historical change, political class convul- sions, education, and environment. The rural clodhopper, the factory worker, Whites and Reds alike, gloat over the sight of diabolical and ingenious devices for, and ways of, inflicting torture and crushing out human life, for all of them “are Russians.” Both my own experience in and out of Russia and the uni- versal dictum do not bear out this contention. In my continu- ous and vital contacts, during the five years of the social con- vulsion in Russia, with the boys of the Soviet army units and the Russian Reds in general, I have not known of a single case where Russian Communists or mere 100 per cent peasants were guilty of any act of cruelty remotely suggesting anything implied in the above contention. During the fiercest days of the Red terror, under the Cheka, counter-revolutionists, foreign spies, brigands, gang leaders, and food profiteers were stood against a wall and shot down, but no preliminary torture of any kind was either practiced or allowed. The riff-raff of Denikin’s and Wrangel’s hordes, drawn from the very dregs of the Kuban and the Don, committed atrocities that age one with horror as they aged me, but neither these nor the Kishi- nev hordes are in the least typical of the Russian peasant. The White Guard officers did what a frenzied mob of the nobility or master class of any race will do when hurled at break-neck speed into the social pit by their former slaves. The Siberian peasant who thought killing his Bashkir neigh- bor was a trifle compared with stealing his cow was of the The Nation 827 hardened stock of the Siberian frontiersman very remotely suggesting the typical Russian. Besides, had Gorki taken the trouble to know him and his rough life and to realize what a cow meant to him the verdict would have been far less severe. Are all Nordic Americans, Italians, and Magyars, racially and essentially and eternally, fiends of cruelty because of the atrocities committed by hooded klan mobs, prison wardens, phosphate-mine bosses who force their victims to rot away piecemeal in the pits, Colorado bull-pen thugs of yore, or by Mussolini’s black-shirted brutes and Horthy’s organized cut- throats? New York, September 10 6 ‘Bah’’ TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The Nation, the weekly Nation, the good Nation, the sensible Nation, the literary Nation was a weekly weekly, a good weekly, a sensible weekly, a literary weekly. Then came Sandburg, Carl Sandburg, Sandburg the writer, Sandburg the writer of dippy stories; and he wrote a story for the weekly Nation, the good Nation, the sensible Nation, the literary Nation. He called it The Two Sweetheart Dippies. How They Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumberyard Fence and Heard about the Sooners and the Boomers. “Thumbs down!” say the non-dippy readers, the sensible readers. “Bah, away with dippy fiction; away with Sooner and Boomer fiction; away with pig-pig-pig fiction, Bah!” (Bah speaks more than it means whenever ‘it is spoken.) So soon the Editors, not wishing to be called goofs, or snoofs, grave robbers, pickpockets, porch climbers, pie thieves, pie- faced mutts, bums, big bums, bigger bums, biggest bums, big greasy bums, dummies, rummies, or mummies, decided not to print any more dippy stories. For the thousands of good readers had made war on Sandburg, on Carl Sandburg, on Carl Sandburg the writer,.on Carl Sandburg the writer of dippy fiction, of pig-pig-pig fiction, of black- and brown-striped fiction. Thus The Nation became again the good Nation, the sensi- ble Nation, the literary Nation. “Bah,” they said. (Bah speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken—or written.) Philadelphia, August 1 CHARLES RICE PHILIP S. RESNIKOV Books for San Quentin TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Str: The generous responses of Nation readers to earlier appeals, together with the present situation at San Quentin, are my excuse for one more brief communication. With about seventy I.W.W. now serving time at San Quentin and many more soon to be added, the demand for good reading and some variety is one which friends of constitutional liberty still outside will not be slow to answer. By a rule of the prison neither periodicals nor books can be sent prisoners direct except by publishers. But, by the kind- ness of the warden, Mr. Johnston, other books can be sent to me and will then reach the men inside. Having been a regu- lar visitor at the prison for three years, I suppose the warden has some confidence in my judgment, and has allowed me to loan many books from my own library to our comrades inside. A desire was expressed today for Wells’s “The Outline of History” and for “Ancient Society.” If by any chance the historical books written by Prof. Carleton Hayes of Columbia University—one a two-volume history of Europe since 1815, another his history of the Great War—could be sent, these additions to the stock of available books would be wonderfully stimulating and educative. I will gladly act as a medium in this matter and answer all inquiries sent me. San Francisco, August 4 W. T. Brown, 2943 Fillmore Street

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328 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3038 pe RR SS Se Books A Parfit Gentil Knight Industrial Democracy. By Glenn E. Plumb and William G. Roylance. B. W. Huebsch. $2. HE late Glenn E. Plumb will forever remain an outstand- ing figure in the knight errantry of American industrialism. This big corporation lawyer and public-utility manager who for- sook all in order to follow after that industrial democracy in which he so eagerly believed, and who out of his own experi- ence and thought evolved a plan of economic control so remark- ably similar to that simultaneously developed by the guildsmen in England—this man was of the type to make one glad. to avow “I am an American.” His untimely death is a loss not alone to the labor and liberal forces of the United States, but to that world-wide fellowship of choice spirits, whatever their political or economic beliefs, who possess a profound faith in the fundamental soundness of democracy as the true basis of social organization, and in the capacity of intelligent thinking, directed by honest good-will, to solve the economic problems of democratic society without recourse to violent revolution or destructive force. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. And now we have Glenn Plumb’s industrial last will and testament. It is not a book for the technical economist and political scientist, who will doubtless find in its large generali- zations much to despise, and in its detailed statement of fact and argument many a salient open to gleeful attack. To the conventional profit-grabbing financier (not to the thoughtful business man) and to the pestiferous and rapidly multiplying young breed of “business” economists it will be matter for misunderstanding and merriment. In these days of disillusion- ment and distrust of all “solutions” it may even be doubted whether the common people will hear the prophet gladly. Yet to all who knew the man, the work will remain a source of in- spiration and renewed faith. Witness the simple statement, signed by the presidents of fifteen powerful labor organiza- tions, which immediately follows the dedication “To all who toil’: “We can render no more valid service to our times than by the widest diffusion of these truths in which we believe.” Reduced to its simplest terms the book is an argument for the application of the principles of the Plumb Plan in modified form to all industries, as a means of realizing industrial democ- racy, substituting the service for the profits motive, meeting the condition of world bankruptcy “due to the accumulation of profits and the consequent impairment of the world’s buying power,” and thus pointing the way “by which a stricken and distracted world may emerge from the economic, political, social, and moral chaos into which the collapse of autocracy has plunged it.” Mr. Plumb divides all industries into four groups: national public utilities; state and municipal public utilities; other industries based on grants or involving natural or eco- nomic monopoly; and all other industries. The first group will be owned by the Federal government; the second by the State or the municipality; the third by those who “invest? either their labor or their money; and the fourth according to the varying preference of those who are engaged in the various industries. All industries in the first two groups will be leased to corpora- tions without capital stock or bonds. Rates will be fixed by public agencies, and wages by boards of directors representing equally the public, management, and labor. If costs are reduced below rates, half the surplus will go as a dividend to manage- ment and labor, half to public surplus, to be used for extensions and betterments. When the surplus exceeds a fixed percentage rates will be automatically reduced, and wages and salaries (as distinct from dividends on wages and salaries) increased, thus keeping up the perpetual pursuit of increased efficiency, lower rates, and higher pay. A similar scheme will be applied to in- dustries in the two private groups, but they will be privately financed, the investor of money or property getting capital stock bearing a limited, preferred, cumulative rate of dividend, almost exactly like preferred stock at present. But—and here is the specially interesting point—the “investor” of labor will get labor stock, carrying no claim on the property of the corpora- tion, non-transferable, and valid only during employment. It will carry voting power, however, on the basis of a dollar’s wages equaling a dollar’s dividends. After payment of wages, salaries, and other costs, preferred dividends on stocks will be paid. Any excess earnings will be surplus, to be divided into corporate surplus and public surplus. The former may be used as determined by the stockholders, both capital and labor, any distribution being in proportion to stock of both kinds, of course. Public surplus will be expended to improve plant or to retire capital. Provision is made for the reduction of price if surplus proves excessive. By the application of such a plan, Mr. Plumb hoped to transfer the control of industry to those directly interested in it, whether as workers or as active in- vestors of capital, to transfer the emphasis from profits to service, to remove from industry the growing burden of capi- talized profits, to get rid of bankers’ control, and to secure constantly rising efficiency and falling prices. This is not the place for a criticism of the plan or of the scheme for its detailed application to railroads, coal mining, and agriculture contained in the book. It cannot be said that Mr. Plumb ever successfully solved the problem of wage-fixing which is central to the success of his plan, though he did offer useful suggestions. Other difficulties are surmounted by an act of faith, and plenty of fault may be found with some of the detailed financial calculations. But when all deductions have been made, we have here the work of one of those robust Americans who have dared believe, and have realized the need of adding to faith earnest thinking. Glenn Plumb’s life and work will offer suggestions to the growing number of those who honestly and earnestly seek for methods of getting for- ward out of our present perplexities. HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY The Economic Order Incentives in the New Industrial Order. By J. A. Hobson. Thomas Seltzer. $1.75. Economic Motives. By Zenas Clark Dickinson. Harvard Uni- versity Press. $2.50. ji ae existing economic order is natural and right, because it rests upon human nature, and human nature cannot be changed. This is the underlying assumption of most defenders of things as they are. In a more elaborate form it is implicit in the theories of the classical economists. All of them were amateur psychologists; all of them accounted for economic in- stitutions by tracing the actions of men back to certain ‘‘mo- tives.” Among later followers of these pioneers their psycho- logical analysis dropped out of sight or was taken for granted, but for many years conventional economics developed on this primitive basis of psychological assumptions. Since then psychology has traveled a long road, or rather, many roads. As it approaches the stature of an exact science based -on experimental data, generality after generality is ex- ploded, and few certainties remain. One certainty is, however, that although the guesses of the early economists were sugges- tive, they were far indeed from a precise statement of psycho- logical “laws” on which a dependable economic science might be built. Mr. J. A. Hobson, in his little book on incentives in the new industrial order, attacks the popular assumption on a less fundamental ground. He does not argue that human nature is a different article from that described to us by the classical economists, but he does contend that the present industrial or- der is not the one which they accounted for. Whether human nature changes or not, human institutions do change. Free | | ES tah ned

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Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 329 competition has disappeared in many basic industries and can- not be restored; in these industries economic self-interest can- not be depended upon to further the general good. Public con- trol is necessary. From this starting-point Mr. Hobson’s inquiry is directed to the question of how the ordinarily assumed motives will work under the new order. The inquiry answers the usual objec- tions made to public ownership or control. Will sufficient new capital be forthcoming? Will inventors, technicians, and managers be well enough rewarded to call forth their best ability? Will there be effective discipline and productivity of labor? Will enterprise be killed by bureaucratic red tape? Will the consumer be protected? Mr. Hobson believes that the elimination of the wastes of private industry will produce larger savings in the aggregate than are piled up at present— in part by the elimination of industrial depressions. He cites the familiar example of large war production with a diminished labor supply to prove the point. He contends that the highest ability is even now called forth as much by public recognition and a desire to serve as by financial rewards. Labor, he thinks, is badly disciplined and rebellious new, and will react much better to an atmosphere of mutual advantage than to the pres- ent atmosphere of compulsion and fear. Since he favors the nationalization only of those enterprises which are already con- trolled in large units, he does not look for an extension of the dead hand of bureaucracy, but advocates the counteracting effect of democratic control. For the protection of the consumer he looks chiefly to special representatives of consumers in gov- erning boards, as well as to the cooperative movement. It is a valuable little study which will set the general reader thinking, though it does not visualize the fundamental issues arising from recent developments of psychology. Mr. Dickinson’s book on economic motives is a more care- fully documented piece of work, which adopts the opposite at- tack on the subject. It does not seriously discuss the changes which have taken place in economic institutions, or attempt to contemplate any new order, but merely reexamines traditional economic theory in the light of modern psychology. The book is painstaking—so much so that in some respects it is more the usual doctor’s thesis than a real orientation of the subject. It is not necessary to begin with Aristotle or to devote nearly half the book to an analysis of the psychology of the classicists. When the author finally arrives at the modern schools of psychology, he presents a summary which will add much to the knowledge of most readers. Because psychology itself has so few definite results to offer, however, and opinions differ so widely in the regions where guessing is still possible, he is forced to make his own evaluations, which may or may not be accepted. Certain large conclusions do appear to be warranted. “Human nature” is capable of a good deal of variability. Innate instincts are comparatively few in number, and may be led into innumerable paths through association, convention, or other psychological mechanisms. Theories ac- counting for economic phenomena on the basis of such vague “motives” as self-interest or pain-and-pleasure are mirages floating unsubstantially in hot air. Human behavior seems to be capable of almost illimitable alteration through education. There are doubtless natural limits of some sort to the attain- ment of strange ideals, but, as Mr. Dickinson says, “it is prac- tically impossible at present to say what they are.” Mr. Dickinson’s economic conclusions, however, are not startling. When he begins to discuss the applications of mod- ern psychology to economic theory, he appears to forget the broader implications of his psychological investigation. It is doubtless true that education is a slow and uncertain instru- ment, that it can do little with adults, and that this fact ac- counts largely for the disappointed hopes in such a drastic ex- periment as that of the Russian Communists. But that does not do away with the series of obvious changes which have already taken place in capitalist institutions such as are noted by Mr. Hobson, or with the certainty of future economic de- velopment. Not until a body of economic fact has been built up by the same careful scientific study of quantitative data which the modern psychologists have applied to their material, can a really fruitful juncture be made between the two sciences. GEORGE SOULE Mystical Criticism By Arthur Machen. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. T is, perhaps, to be expected that Mr. Arthur Machen, hav- ing determined to arrive at some standard of judgment whereby literature, “fine literature,” “literature with a capital L,” might be distinguished from “mere literature,” has suc- ceeded in giving us nothing but an apology for his own books. Indeed, it would be strange if such were not the case con- sidering Mr. Machen’s emotional bias against any form of rationalism. “T suppose there are only two parties in the world: the Rationalists and the Mystics, and one’s vote goes with one’s party,” Mr. Machen tells us in the last chapter of his book, having tried to convince us, in the previous five chapters, that he was arguing by a Coleridgean “cyclical mode of discours- ing” in an attempt to arrive at deducible truths. He admits that he belongs with the mystics. Like most of the tribe he has a faculty for so mystifying the commonplace that it takes on the semblance of wisdom. Like a good mystic Mr. Machen starts out with a premise which he defines in terms of itself and then proceeds to justify it on the basis of certain examples which he selects to prove it. The acid test of literature in the highest sense is ‘‘ecstasy.” And ecstasy is ‘rapture, beauty, adoration, wonder, awe, mys- tery, sense of the unknown, desire for the unknown.” Ecstasy is, in brief, that quality of literature which makes -it “fine literature” you know not why. A rather shaky foundation on which to build a critique. Nevertheless, it affords the critic a magic wand of dogmatism which he has merely to wave to separate the sheep from the goats at first reading. Take, for instance, “Pickwick Papers” and “Vanity Fair.” The first titillates Mr. Machen to a sense of ecstasy; the second does not. Ergo, to the junk heap with Thackeray along with “poor, draggle-tailed George Eliot” and unspeakable Gustave Flaubert, while Dickens is raised among the lower order of saints. Moreover, there is no need to make such a fuss about the desire of the unknown in the Odyssey, which raises it, in the critic’s estimation, to incredibly lofty heights. There is really nothing so mysterious about it. Given the early Greeks, a people dwelling by the vast and inexplicable sea, and given the ocean that reaches none knows where, teeming with all sorts of unknown possibilities, the adventures of Ulysses follow with all the logical certainty of Euclidean geometry. To say, also, that writers like Rabelais wrote of giants to achieve the heroic and to avoid the commonplace stature of mankind and so differ noticeably from modern authors who take ordinary men and women and treat their symptoms real- istically, is not sufficient. Rabelais exaggerated, probably, not because he wished for the unknown, the unheard-of, but be- cause, by the simple process of applying a magnifying lens, a greater clarity could be achieved. In the same way contempo- rary authors writing of the diseased, the abnormal, are able to achieve a greater clarity of insight into human nature. Mr. Machen would have us believe that literature brings us closest to the heart of life when it removes us as far away from it as possible. Artifice, he maintains, has nothing to do with art and the less we have of it the better. Now it is impossible to conceive of the spirit except in terms of the body. He is compelled, therefore, to concede begrudgingly that artifice is of some utility. Indeed, it is conceivable that artifice is the whole of art and that, as Miss Dorothy Richardson pointed out some Hieroglyphics.

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330 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3088 dae rere EE time ago, genius is the usual thing, talent the rarity. For Mr. Machen to say that the lyric is the purest example of art hardly contaminated with artifice is to give himself away com- pletely. For the lyric is the clearest example of the perfection of artifice to such a degree that the most intangible subtleties may be expressed thereby. If art approaches its maximum intensity through a minimum of artifice, the finest book in the world would be a book with nothing in it. But of course Mr. Machen doesn’t mean that. After all, he is a mystic and we are criticizing him from the camp of the rationalists. “Art is by its very definition quite without the jurisdiction of the schools and the realm of the reasoning proc- ess, since art is a miracle, superior to the laws.” When a critic believes that, criticism of him is futile. EDWIN SEAVER Desolate Something Desolate Splendour. By Michael Sadleir. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2. oom day a novel will be written about an elegant roué who is not reformed by and does not marry his young and beau- tiful ward. Im spite of all the intrigues and devious villainies of Mr. Sadleir’s novel, it was the novelist’s own struggles with his temptation that kept at least one reader’s devoted interest. Those who would like to know whether Mr. Sadleir respects his roué’s finer nature and lets him go sinful to his grave will have to read the novel themselves. Suffice it to say that Mr. Sad- leir calls his reprobate “the Man of Pleasure,” and paints him in much more agreeable colors than his brother the Puritan. Moreover there is a charming and virtually pure young man who is all ready for the heroine to marry and live happily with ever after. There are several sinister schemers. One of the worst is an invalided earl; he is a quite dreadful person. The exact depth of his infamy is left undetermined but you suspect the worst when you find out that he paints his face. It is, altogether, a leisurely, entertaining romance, with moments of breathless suspense. The hateful people get theirs and the nice people get theirs, and it is a lot of fun pussyfooting after the author with the bag of awards on his back. JOHN W. CRAWFORD Syllogism and Fallacy A First Book in Logic. By Henry Bradford Smith. Harper and Brothers. $2. HIS conservative introduction to the study of the business of reasoning casts no new light upon this branch of phi- losophy. The apparent purpose of the book is classroom work rather than general reading; but it lacks especial adaptability to either. It is informative to encounter again the mnemonic Latin jingle containing the valid moods of the Aristotelian syl- logism, whose unaccountable omission from many studies and reference works upon the subject is the less excusable, when it is remembered that they refer constantly to the Barbara mood, the Bokardo mood, the Festino mood, and the rest of them, with no clue to their exact significance. The few examples toward the end of this book of some of the famous fallacies and dilem- mas of logical history lend a touch of vividness to the siccific theme. Logic, it has been said, is the child of a good heart and a clear head. Both here should have yielded a volume less formula-ridden, and more imbued with vitality. Keyser has said that mathematics is identical with logic; but the breathing body of his text is in surprising contrast to this finely pre- served mummy of thought. The plan of the work left no room for even a brief outline of the golden history of the subject, of the resounding names from the beginning who have shed luster on themselves and the topic by their penetrating critiques. When we come to the treatment of the moderns, the handling is even more cursory. An answer is attempted to be made to a few of the objections of Bertrand Russell, Peano, Schroder, and others. But the author is apparently not in sympathy with these iconoclasts, and the most he will grant to Symbolic Logic is a modification or broadening of several of the classical prop- ositional functions, which is by no means a complete answer to the spirit of the criticisms. A logic, for instance, which fails to take into account, even in an appendix, non-Euclidean problems and transfinite numeration cannot be regarded as complete. The logie of the future will be broader in its scope, more im- bued with a conception of the modern intellectual audacities concerning the fundamental materials of thinking, less abstract and abstruse in its development. A course faithfully follow- ing this book will hardly win an undergraduate ballot as the most popular course; and while that is not everything, it is something to make the broadening of the frontiers of knowledge and the mechanics of knowledge both satisfying and beckoning. CLEMENT Woop Interpretation of Racial Differences A Study of American Intelligence. By Carl C. Brigham. Princeton University Press. $3.50. Te present conflict of divergent racial stocks has brought us a recrudescence of the race theories of Gobineau and H. S. Chamberlain. The more or less accidental success of Grant’s “The Passing of the Great Race” is equaled by the spread of the propaganda of Stoddard, Gould, and Barr. So long as such books remain in the limbo of the accurate and the scientific, thinking persons pay little attention to them. When a work appears, however, which has considerable scientific validity, as has the present one, but in which the conclusions seem twisted to fit preconceptions and to give strength to racial prejudices, it is time to take account of the trend of academic writing bearing on such an important and vital topic as racial mixture. , Professor Brigham, taking the data from the psychological examination of our army in 1917-18, has shown the decided superiority of draftees born in Northern as compared to South- ern Europe. While there are several criticisms to be offered to the use of the statistical method alone in the treatment of racial differences, the writer’s principal error lies in attempting to universalize his results to make them support an outworn thesis of the racial superiority of the Nordic stock. The work of Retzius and others has shown us the fallacy of the “Nordic race” theory. Further, the facts of overlapping in practically all racial traits as explained by Boas should prove sufficient correction of the assumptions of the present volume. In addi- tion the tremendous force of the theory of cultural determinism, supported as it is with great evidence, ought to make us cautious in alleging marked intellectual differences in racial, to say nothing of sub-racial, stocks. There are no doubt some racial differences as there are cer- tainly large individual differences within races, but to argue for the inferiority of the Latin and Alpine stocks in contrast to the Germanic on the basis of the evidence Professor Brig- ham sets forth is to give aid and comfort to obscurantism rather than to foster true scientific analysis. Many sociologists and psychologists believe, on fairly good grounds, that intelligence- differences do exist between the recent immigration from South- ern Europe and that of older standing from Northern Europe. On the other hand, very few assume that these differences de- note universal differences between Northern and Southern populations as a whole, nor do a great many believe the same to be unaffected by environmental changes. This discussion of the problem of “American Intelligence” would be stronger had the writer omitted his interpretative chapters borrowed from the Gobinists and confined himself to the purely statistical method with which he began his analysis. KIMBALL YOUNG

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Sept. 26, 1923] Books in Brief The Day’s Journey. By W. B. Maxwell. Doubleday, Page and Company. $2. Mr. Maxwell presents to his followers one of the most in- teresting novels of the year. It is the story of a life-long friendship of two men of our own generation, a friendship which is tested by temperament, by unhappy marriages, and by war, which manifests itself in quarrels and separations, in moments of stress, and in the dull routine of daily interests. There is simple beauty in the author’s prose and genuine art in the portraiture of his heroes. Grey Towers. Anonymous. Covici-McGee Company. $2. While it is pretty generally agreed that there is something wrong with the average American university, it remained for an anonymous antagonist to realize the fictional values in the prevailing iniquities. A, novel which gives off creative heat over the injustices that lurk in thesis grading is a unique prod- uct, at any rate. Naturally, more serious transgressions are not wanting, and quite a sizable problem is worked up out of campus materials, possibly with the intent to separate the sheepskins from the goats. Raw Material. By Dorothy Canfield. Company. $2. Miss Canfield announced her intention in this collection of Harcourt, Brace and sketches to keep her feet religiously on the “strait neutral © path of sacred Objectivity,” but oddly enough, her best mo- ments are those in which she has wandered from that resolve. Those sketches which conform most faithfully to the pattern of raw material—in the novelist’s sense—are inclined to become little different from competent journalism; they are seldom provocative in the way that the author manifestly wished them to be—“pegs on which to hang the meditations of many differ- ent moods.” Miss Canfield holds that character delineation which is without the mark of literary tools upon its surface is a more desirable product than that which has been cunningly polished by the devices of the novelist. It would be easy to refute this thesis without going outside her own book. Heart’s Blood. By Ethel M. Kelley. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. The Cape Cod of Joseph C. Lincoln, with its fluent old men and its too abundant cheerfulness, is emphatically absent from Miss Kelley’s novel. If one desires an antidote for salty quaint- ness in fiction, this is it. The heart of a starved old maid, who is awkwardly but passionately in love with her cousin’s hus- band, is exposed with almost clinical thoroughness, in a narra- tive devoid of humor. The one character in the book who has lived long enough to acquire a philosophy is called upon to act as tragic chorus; the rest are puppets of misplaced or unreward- ed love. The novel’s thesis seems to be: “How do you know what life is like? How do any of us know till we find out?”— and the solution: “There is no help for what there is no help for.” A needless amount of futility can be crowded into such texts as these, and it appears that the novelist has strained a little beyond the borders of true character in order to be in- evitable. Drama Gleams OWE and with something like reluctance the theater of the early season drags itself toward a point where contact with the human intelligence is conceivable. One need no longer alternate wholly between impulses of flight and cold disgust. Curiosity begins. One doesn’t mind going to see what is hap- pening. There is a perhaps. Mr. Bores Thomashefsky, long famous on the East Side, has rented the Nora Bayes Theater and gives Broadway its first The Nation 331 Yiddish playhouse. His first production, “The Three Little Business Men,” is a complete mistake in judgment and a com- plete failure. It is Broadway hackwork at its rawest and ugliest; it is far too much Broadway trade-goods to make any impression on Broadway. Had the Moscow Players played “The Three Little Business Men” their stay would have been brief. What audience did Mr. Thomashefsky hope for? The ignorant, Jew or Gentile, go to vaudeville, burlesque, melodrama. The cultured up-town Jew will not abandon the productions of Hop- kins or the Guild to see bad plays in a language he usually no longer understands. The Ghetto intellectual is even more fas- tidious than he. The cultured and liberal Gentile will, as the Moscow Players proved, go to see great plays greatly acted even in a hopelessly alien tongue. There is no reason why he should trouble himself about this silly and meretricious comedy. It is a pity that so wretched a choice was made. The acting of Mr. Thomashefsky and Mr. Rudolph Schildkraut was superb. It has a spontaneity, a solidity, a finish which the wanderer on Broadway is always yearning for and commonly in vain. Mr. Ludwig Satz is said to have an enviable reputation on the Jewish stage. But since Mr. Thomashefsky and Mr. Schild- kraut played in a mood of almost austere realism and Mr. Satz gave a performance of pure burlesque in quality and technique I was too shocked by the discrepancy to relish his undoubted merit. _ The pleasant Mr. Edward Childs Carpenter gives us his annual pleasant little play. This time it is called “Connie Goes Home” (Forty-ninth Street Theater). It is quite negligible as drama. But it is an uncommonly suitable play for the jeune fille. Perhaps there is no longer a jeune fille; perhaps sixteen is always flapper now. But if Louisa Alcott is still read, as I believe she is, there should be a large and justly delighted audi- ence for the story of “Connie Goes Home” and for the most engaging performance of Miss Sylvia Field in the title role. This brings me very naturally to the puppets. They are from the Teatro dei Piccoli in Rome and disport themselves at the Frolic, the third New York playhouse to be built on top of an- other one. The puppets are quite the most ingenious ever seen here. They are little marvels in agility and grace. The Pier- rots are haunting, the Negro acrobat is astonishing, the prima donna is funny in an eerie way, and both Puss and the Ogre in César Cui’s little opera “Puss in Boots” are all that they should be. But this too is a show for children. The adult imagination is pleased and astonished for a little while. Then it is jaded. It cannot play at the beautiful game of make-believe to quite this extent. To the child the puppets are neither puppets nor people. They are like Puss and the Ogre in Perrault’s tale— creatures about whose nature you don’t reflect. You simply accept them. But to grown-ups the puppets, alas, are puppets. You can’t help seeing the wires. And when you have said: How ingenious, how delightful! you are quite ready to go. You are also ready to go in the middle of the second act of what should have been the first important production of an important play this season. Mr. St. John Ervine is a tragic dramatist. He should stick to his last. “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” (Belasco Theater) reminds one inevitably of the scriptural crackling of thorns under a pot. And the thorns were picked by Oscar Wilde and the pot put on by Bernard Shaw. Mr. Ervine is painfully and elaborately and _ icily witty. After every Wildish line you can almost hear him: “Thank heaven! Another one. How many more will make a brilliant comedy?” The fable is foolish. It will not bear even indicating. Mrs. Fiske, determined at last to be understood, plays with her accustomed speed, edge, hard vivacity; she plays the same perverse and topsy-turvy lady whom, under varying names, she has played for some years. There never was any such lady. If there were she could not, of course, be better played than Mrs. Fiske plays her. To me that reflection is cold comfort. So here an eminent dramatist, an eminent actress, an eminent director have coopezated on something obviously trifling and shoddy. Why? Lupwig LEWISOHN te Por :

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International Relations Section The New Dictator of Hungary By EMIL LENGYEL UNGARY never had more right to being called the “reactionary storm-center of Europe” than since the ascension to unofficial power of Captain Julius Gémbés, leader of the right wing of the so-called ‘“Christian- National Party” in the Hungarian Parliament. Captain Goémbos is the “strong man” of Hungary, a kind of Hun- garian Mussolini, in whom many see the future military dictator of the land of the Magyars. It was Captain Goémbés who, dissatisfied with what he termed the “drifting of the government of Count Bethlen toward liberalism,” organized the various Hungarian terroristic societies into a loosely connected association of the “defenders of the race.” With their cooperation he quite recently initiated a reign of terror all over Hungary which, while directed chiefly against those whom he calls the “destructive ele- ments,” aims at the same time at the overturn of the present Hungarian Government and the establishment of a super-reactionary regime. The strike of the railway men and locomotive engineers which was called in the first days of August was intended to be the prelude to a vigorous reign of terror of the Goémboés party. Characteristically, the strike was forced upon the unions by the extreme reactionaries with the threat that if they did not comply with the order of the “dictator” they would be treated as traitors of their coun- try. Although the strike was unsuccessful and had to be called off thirty-six hours after it had started, the partisans of Gombés did not let themselves be discouraged and con- tinued to prepare for the time when a coup d’état, timed more judiciously, would sweep them into power. They documented their ambition in a spectacular way during the recent electioneering campaign in Cegléd, a large city of the Hungarian Puszta. In Cegléd a new member of Parliament was to be elected. The Government made it a point of honor to carry away the victory and mobilized a considerable part of the finan- cial and moral resources of the government party in sup- port of its candidate. All their efforts were of no avail against the terroristic methods of Gdmbés, who had his own candidate in the field. His men prevented two members of the Cabinet from speaking to the voters. They intimidated the inhabitants of the city to such an extent that when election day came only those appeared at the polling booths who voted for the candidate of Gémbés. As a result, the government candidate was defeated and one of Gémbés’s lieutenants sent into the Budapest Commons. One of the manifestations of the campaign of terror which is being carried on by the partisans of Goémbis is the suspension of liberal papers. The courts, which are to a considerable extent under the influence of the super- reactionary party, send newspapermen to jail by the score simply for having incurred the displeasure of the dictator. This servile submission of some members of the Hungarian bench was made clear in the Hungarian Parliament itself by Rezsé Rupert, one of the leaders of the liberal opposi- tion. Mr. Rupert drew attention to the dangerous situa- tion arising from the fact that judges are allowed to join terroristic political organizations such as that of the “Awakening Hungarians,’ main supporter of the reign of terror of Captain Gémbés. He said that several presi- dents of county courts had addressed inquiries to the com- petent authorities asking whether judges might be mem- bers of the organization of the “Awakening Hungarians” and that replies had been received stating that “inasmuch as this organization is not conducted along political lines” judges might become members. ‘The consequence of this decision is obvious,” continued Mr. Rupert. “While crimi- nals with political affiliations on the right side of the house are let off with a nominal punishment, editors of liberal papers are sentenced to years in jail for attacking the almighty ‘Awakening Hungarians.’ ” The aggressive attitude of members of the Goémbos fac- tion sitting in the town council of Budapest assumed such proportions as to compel the aldermen of the opposition to quit their places in a body. The clash was precipitated by a debate about the compilation of the electoral lists from which—so the opposition asserted—the names of thousands of democrats and liberals were left out, because, as the official annotation on the lists termed it, “their birth could not be proved with the necessary documents.” The Hungarian Government which, on the one hand, sees its existence menaced by the aggression of the Gdémbés group but, on the other hand, does not feel strong enough to struggle for political supremacy, makes strenuous efforts to bring them back to the fold by forcing upon Parliament the most reactionary measures. The most important of them, which, if passed, would crush the last remnants of consti- tutional liberty in Hungary, has been introduced in the House by Mr. Emil Nagy, Minister of Interior. A semi- official communique contained in the Budapest paper Nem- zeti Ujsdg sums up the chief features of the bill: Any person convicted of a political offense may be sentenced to the suspension of his political rights. Such persons are to be excluded from the political club or party of which they are members and their application for admission into another political party is to be rejected. They are forbidden to take part in political meetings. Their connection with newspapers as editor, publisher, or reporter is to be dissolved. It is in the discretion of the court to prohibit a person found guilty of a political offense from carrying on his present occupation or profession. Disobedience toward the authorities charged with maintain- ing order in a meeting is punishable with from two to five years in jail. Any person preventing the resumption or continuation of work with a view to causing or prolonging a strike or employ- ing force against any of the parties in the controversy is sub- ject to imprisonment for a maximum term of six months. This also applies to any person found guilty of instigating a strike. Members of Parliament are liable to criminal prosecution for statements made in the plenum of the House or in any of the committees thereof if such statements are covered by the definition of the Penal Code of “slander” or “calumny.” Per- mission to institute criminal action against a member of Parlia- ment for any of the offenses specified is given by the House upon the recommendation of its committee charged to investi- gate cases of exemption from parliamentary immunity. The member thus extradited is to be tried before a special tribunal composed of the justices of the Royal Hungarian Curia. The manufacture, sale, or possession of explosive materials or weapons is a criminal act punishable with imprisonment for life. Persons whose political activities may prove a menace to the

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Sept. 26, 1923] security of Hungary or may lead to internal disorder are to be placed under the supervision of the state police department. Such persons have to report at the local police station at in- tervals specified by the court. They cannot leave the locality in which their residence is situated unless they obtain the per- mission of the Minister of Interior to do so. Hungarian liberal papers, in their comments upon the bill, point out that it would put the Government in a posi- tion to silence all members of Parliament, newspapers, or newspapermen whose political opinion was at variance with that held by the party in power. The threatened drastic punishment for the manufacture, sale, or possession of ex- plosive materials or weapons is almost unanimously con- sidered by the papers of the opposition as being intended for the consumption of public opinion abroad by proving that the Hungarian Government goes to the limit in up- rooting the causes of anarchy. In the meantime, however, Gombés and his “defenders of the race” keep Hungary in constant excitement with a long chain of outrages against “members of the other race” by whom they mean: liberals, Socialists, Jews, foreigners, and even the conservative- minded bourgeoisie if they do not approve of the terror- istic methods of the dictator. France and the Rhineland HE following article signed by Franz Dahlem of Ber- lin, appears in the English edition of the International Press Correspondence for August 23: The Great War was fought for the conquest of new fields for exploitation and new markets, for the purpose of defeating competitors and imposing favorable economic treaties. The Central Powers lost the war. It is not they who are now ex- ploiting—as they intended it should be—the natural resources and man-power of a Rhineland-Westphalia and Lorraine-Bel- gium that lie beneath their sway. The matter is entirely re- versed. The Entente was victorious. And it is now reaping the harvest of its success... . It is only a waste of time to imitate the bourgeoisie in weigh- ing the question as to whether the French are actuated more by political than by economic motives in making the attempt to separate the most valuable and flourishing part of Germany from the body of the state. When the Comité des Forges lays its hand on Rhineland-Westphalia, it is only natural that this conquest should be politically secured; that the French Govern- ment should intervene and the army advance—for that is why they are there. Here it is merely intended to show, with the aid of some data and statements made by the leading men of France, the general line being taken by French Rhineland policy; we shall not here enter into the question as to how far the influence of Anglo-French antagonism has modified this line, or is further likely to modify it. At the end of the year 1916 the French ministry set itself the following war aim in the West: “France claims Alsace-Lorraine with the frontiers of 1792, the Saar district, and also demands the formaticn of an inde- pendent German state on the left bank of the Rhine, as a buffer state between France and Prussia.” On February 14, 1917, the following agreement was reached between the government of Czarist Russia and the Poincaré Government, in return for the cession of Constantinople to Russia: : “J. Alsace-Lorraine is to be restored to France. “2. The frontiers are to be extended to at least the limits of the former dukedom of Lorraine (thus approximately to the line Trier-Kaiserslautern.—ED.), are to be drawn in accordance The Nation 333 with the judgment of the French Government, as required by strategic necessities, and are to include the whole iron area and the whole Saar district as French territory. “3. The remaining districts lying on the left bank of the Rhine, outside of the French districts, are to be converted into an independent and neutral state, and are to be occupied by French troops until the enemy states have completely fulfilled all the conditions and pledges contained in the peace treaty.” These arrangements were upset by revolutionary Russia. General Foch, the commander-in-chief of the Allied troops, held tenaciously to the above agreement at the conferences which preceded the conclusion of the Versailles peace treaty. It suf- fices to cite the following from his memoranda of November 17, 1918, and January 10, 1919, at the peace conferences: “Compared with the 64 to 75 millions of Germans living in Germany on the other side of the Rhine and in the surrounding states, the numbers of the population on the left bank of the Rhine are only as follows: Belgium 7,800,000, Luxemburg 260,- 000, Alsace-Lorraine 1,900,000, France 39,600,000, a total of 49,560,000. If we add to these 5,400,000 on the left bank of the Rhine, we obtain a total of 54,960,000. “.. As this total by no means reaches the number of the German masses, it follows that there can be no neutral states on the left bank of the Rhine. The population on this bank must be in a position to take up arms against the German danger when this arises. Neutrality is a chimera, even from the standpoint of defense, for it must be an armed neutrality, and must be combined with the action of the neighboring powers.... “This state organization must lead to the adoption of an anti- German attitude on the part of this population, a political atti- tude which can become military at a given moment. Thus the men capable of bearing arms must be organized, in times of peace, in numbers proportional to those of the population, as troops adapted to fight against Germany in case of war.... “Besides this military necessity, such an arrangement must be accompanied by the following measures: (1) Germany must be absolutely prohibited from any military access to, or any po- litical propaganda in, the country left of the Rhine; this coun- try may even be protected by means of a neutral zone on the right bank. (2) The military occupation of the left bank of the Rhine is to be secured by the forces of the allies. (3) The left bank of the Rhine is to have its necessary markets secured by participation in a joint customs’ regime with the other west- ern states.” At the peace conference the standpoint of Clemenceau-Tardieu with regard to the western frontiers of Germany was, in view of the Anglo-American opposition, finally formulated as fol- lows: “1. In the general interest of peace, and in order to secure the execution of the fundamental clauses of the League of Na- tions, the western frontier of Germany is drawn on the Rhine. In consequence of this Germany renounces all sovereignty over, and all customs’ connection with, the territory of the former Empire lying on the left bank of the Rhine.... “3. The territories on the left bank of the Rhine (with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine) are to be constituted as one or more independent states, under the protection of the League of Nations.” After first rejecting the separation of the Rhineland from Germany, both Wilson and Lloyd George gave way. On April 20, 1919, the latter declared to Clemenceau that he was in agreement with an occupation for a period of fifteen years, and that this occupation, should Germany not meet her obliga- tions, could be prolonged, or renewed after evacuation. The decisive French ministerial council, which accepted the peace treaty in the form handed to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau on May 7, was held on April 25, 1919. In this decisive session, the Prime Minister, Clemenceau, addressed the following re- marks to the President, Poincaré: “M. President, you are much younger than I. In fifteen years

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334 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3088 I shall be here no longer; in fifteen years Germany will not have fulfilled all the clauses of the agreement; and in fifteen years, should you do me the honor to visit my grave, I am fully convinced that what you will have to tell me will be: ‘We are on the Rhine, and intend to remain there.’ ” Poincaré, as Premier, is continuing this policy with obstinate tenacity. The Ruhr action proves that imperialist France is now determined to present accomplished facts to the world. At the Versailles peace conference France’s annexation policy was supported by the alleged necessity of securing France from fresh attacks on the part of Germany, but since then the Comité des Forges, the French military authorities, and the French statesmen, have been using much plainer language. It: suffices to give two examples of this. A draft drawn up in 1919 by the former commander-in-chief of the Rhine army, General Mangin, on the occupation of Dus- seldorf and Duisburg, concludes as follows: “It is possible to disorganize the steel industry, dyes (by- products), and agriculture (manures). There can be no question of killing industry and agriculture. The working population demands nothing more than to work for us, provided that it can get something to eat and is paid (!). Destruction of in- dustry—social danger—risings—without profit to France. Ar- ticle 270. Only the convention of Rhenish notabilities (co- operative and economic) could state what services German in- dustry can perform for France in the occupied territory. These delegations will become the germ of the special representation of the special interests of the country. .. .” M. Adrien Dariac, the chairman of the French finance com- mission, spoke even more clearly in his secret report to Poin- caré on May 28, 1922: “Could France not consider the exchange of German coke suitable for smelting, and French ore, for the purpose of joint exploitation, upon a basis on which real industrial cooperation would be possible? We cannot demand of Germany that she pay immense sums for thirty-five years, if, on the other hand, we are afraid to see her industries develop in a manner enabling her to pay her debts. “But as soon as we have gained a footing on the right bank of the Rhine, and have forty-five million tons of ore at our dis- posal annually, we shall be in a position to play a decisive role in the German iron industry, for we can demand control of its preduction as an equivalent. “The first act of our autonomy policy is the financial organ- ization of the Rhineland: the drawing of our customs boun- daries—closed to the east against Germany, open to the west to France in order to avoid the danger of economic strangula- tion arising from a double state wall and its attendant limita- tion of exchange of goods; further, a budget separate from that of the republic, and the substitution of the unhealthy mark by sound ‘currency. “The second act is the substitution of the Prussian officials by Rhenish ones. “The third act is the expansion of the authoritative powers of the High Commission and the convention of an elected cor- poration. “These are doubtless far-reaching plans, but plans which would be fully justified if carried out judiciously and with a capacity for differentiation, and in proportion to the extent to which Germany avoids fulfilling her obligations. A far-sighted policy could accomplish by means of skilful diplomacy—adding one link after another to its chain of actions—the gradual separation of a free Rhineland from Germany, under the mili- tary protection of France and Belgium.” This is the policy of imperialist France, and its accomplish- ment is being tenaciously striven for. No bourgeois government in Germany can put a stop to this work of destruction. It is only the proletariat, only the proletarian revolution, which can liberate the powers, and create for Soviet Germany the allies that can save the Rhineland and the entire country from colonial slavery. ... The Bulgarian Communists HE attitude of the Bulgarian Communist Party to the recent revolution in Bulgaria is expressed in the fol- lowing declaration addressed by the central committee of the party To the Workers and Peasants of Bulgaria: On this night the government of the Peasant Party was over- thrown by a military coup d’etat. A new government, headed by Professor Al. Zankoff, was created. ... The new govern- ment is a government of a great coalition of all bourgeois parties, from the People’s Party and the followers of Rado- slavov to the Social Democrats. Only the Peasant Union, just overthrown, is excluded from this coalition. The Stambuliisky government, which maintained its power over the masses of peasants and workers by terror and violence, is overthrown. It was the government of the peasant-bour- geoisie which, by its demagogy, succeeded in bringing within its fold considerable masses of the peasants, but which had used its power not to protect the interests and liberty of these masses but to uphold its own class and clique interests. It was a gov- ernment which had not fulfilled its promises to the small land- holders and farm laborers and which had sought to maintain its power not by the confidence of the toiling masses of the city and country but by the class dictatorship of the peasant bour- geoisie. The government of the Peasant Party, which had suppressed the rights of the working population and pursued a bitter campaign of persecution against the sole defender of this popu- lation, the Communist Party—this government was itself to blame that it had lost the support of the workers and poor peasants in its fight against the bourgeois parties. Therefore the workers should not support this government today. But the new government ... is instituting, in the place of the overthrown military and police dictatorship of the peasant bourgeoisie, a new dictatorship of the city bourgeoisie....A regime which begins its career with a military rebellion and military dictatorship offers no guaranties for the safety of the rights and liberties of the people. Therefore the workers and toiling peasants should not and will not give their support to the new government. The parties of the city and peasant bourgeoisie which con- stantly talk of liberty and lawfulness are in reality treading under foot every right and liberty of the people. In their clique- fight for power they are making use of the government ma- chinery and the armed forces of the country, and are ready to let loose a civil war in the country. The masque of bourgeois legality is torn, and the only party representing in fact the rights and liberties guaranteed by the constitution is now the Communist Party. The toiling masses of the city and country will not take part in the struggle between the city and country bourgeoisie. Such participation would only mean for the toiling people to draw the chestnuts from the fire for their exploiters and oppressors. While the working class and the toiling peasants abstain from giving their support either to the old or the new government, they must unite and fight independently for the protection of their class interests and for their political liberties. We are not yet acquainted with the program of the new gov- ernment. But for the past four decades we are acquainted with the acts of the parties constituting the new government. The laboring masses have no confidence in these parties. They must unite under the banner of the Communist Party and loudly and plainly express their willingness to fight for the realization of their demands. In the name of the toiling people we demand that political liberties be respected and extended. We demand the full free- dom of speech and press, of assemblage and coalition. We demand that measures be adopted against profiteering and rais- ing of prices. We demand the lifting of the pressure of taxes

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: ) Sept. 26, 1923] The Nation 3385 ALFRED 7A7 KNOPF THE - BORZOI - ALFRED - A - KNOPF: THE BORZOI - ALFRED - A “4:51 6} re) a BORZOI - ALFRED - A +: KNOPF + THE BORZOI - A Brie s 220 W. 42 Street, New York ALFRED - Oswald Garrison Villard’s * * # *#* eagerly awaited book SOME NEWSPAPERS AND NEWSPAPERMEN has just been published Oswatp GARRISON VILLARD, former Managing Editor, Editorial Writer and President of the New York Evening Post (1897-1918), Editor of The Nation, knows the inside of newspaper offices and newspapermen as few men do. In this book he lays them bare. “Mr. Ochs and his Times,” “Mr. Hearst and his Moral Press,” “The Chicago Tribune: ‘The World’s Greatest Newspaper’,” and many others made a setisation when first printed in The Nation. With them appear here new and flashing essays on other great newspapers and their editors and a series of tables of newspaper circulations and other facts which make the book as much a necessity to the student of journalism as a revelation to the casual newspaper reader. 450 pages, 8 illustrations, 8vo, cloth. $3.00 net A LOST LADY by Willa Cather Author of ONE OF Ours (Pulitzer Prize Novel of 1922) In an atmosphere individual and full of color Miss Cather unfolds this romance of the Old West of the railroad aristoc- racy when the transcontinental lines were being laid across the plains. Through the whole story the figure of Marian Torrester stands out as Miss Cather’s greatest triumph. Third large Printing. $1.75 net. There is also a large paper edition limited to 200 copies, signed by the author. $10.00 net. FROM AN AMERICAN LEGATION by Ira Nelson Morrts From July 1914 to April 1923 Ira Nelson Morris was Ameri- can Minister to Sweden. He has written an absorbing and lucid account of how that nation beset by agents of the allied and associated powers fought desperately and successfully to preserve her neutrality. $3.50 net WOMAN: A Vindication by Anthony M. Ludovici A study of the relations between the sexes which will doubt- less arouse much discussion here as it has in England. Cour- ageously unsentimental, critical of marriage as it exists today, and yiolently anti-Puritan, Mr. Ludovici is no less opposed to the feminist than to the spinster. $3.00 net THE BLIND BOW-BOY by Carl Van Vechten Author of PETER WHIFFLE “The great realistic novel of contemporary New York life. Van Vechten’s New York is as entertaining as Petronius’s Cumae, and the company that assembled at Trimalchio’s ban- quet was not more diverting than that which gathered in Gramercy Park and furnished material for this modern ‘Satyricon.’’’—Ernest Boyd in The Nation. Fourth large Printing. $2.50 net THE DREAMS OF CHANG by Ivan Bunin, author of ‘THE VILLAGE The only authorized American edition of Bunin’s stories. The tales in this volume represent the full range of his great achievement in the field of the short story. Included among the fifteen tales is the famous “Gentleman from San Fran- cisco.” $2.50 net THE DOVES’ NEST AND OTHER STORIES by Katherine Mansfield Author of THE GARDEN Party These short stories represent the last phase of the work of the brilliant authoress whose death is mourned in two hemi- spheres as a tragic loss to English letters. John Galsworthy said of her work: “It has the rare flavor that endures. Beauti- ful work!” Second Large Printing. $2.50 net In CANADA from The Macmillan Co. of Canada, Ltd., St. Martin’sHouse, Toronto. A THE ° BORZOI + ALFRED - A - KNOPF! - + THE BORZOI - ALFRED + A + RNOPF, + - THE BORZOI - ee eee ee a Pat Stated a ALFRED - A » KNOPF: - THE BORZOI + ALFRED - A;

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burdening the working masses. We demand guaranties for the peace of the Bulgarian people. We call upon the working people of the city and country to unite and fight for the realiza- tion of these immediate demands and for all slogans of the Communist Party. A partial fulfilment of these demands can be accomplished only under the constant and growing pressure of the struggle of the working population. Completely they can be achieved only when a new power shall be instituted—the government of the workers and peasants. Only a workers’ and peasants’ government which would originate not within the parties of the city and peasant bourgeoisie but in the ranks of the workers and toiling peasants, and which would be supported by the organizations and armed forces of the workers and peasants, will guarantee the freedom and peace of the country and de- fend the interests of the working population. ... The new government has so far not raised its hand against the Communist Party. But the recently instituted regime of military dictatorship is directed against the rights and liber- ties of the working people, and so also against the Communist Party. While we demand that these rights and liberties be reestablished, that the state of siege be lifted, we call upon you to gather under the banner of the Communist Party and to be prepared to resume the struggle as soon as the government raises its fist against the only party representing the interests of the workers. The New Education in Europe An account of recent fundamental changes in the educational philosophy of Great Britain, France and Germany which record distinct progress. By Dr. FREDERICK W. ROMAN Price, $5.00 E. P. Dutton & Co. RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 7 East 15th Street in History, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Literature, Science, Music, Drama, and Art. Opens October first. Write for ‘‘RAND SCHOOL NEWS”’ for complete schedule. The Fall Book Number Courses 0 The Nation will appear in two weeks under date of OCTOBER 10, 1923 Bulk orders for clubs or classes should be placed in advance. The Nation ~- [Vol. 117, No. 3038 —the year-round skin treatment This wonderful emollient is used with great success by noted skin specialists for pimples, blotches, facial eruptions, roughness, abrasions and chapped lips and hands. It protects the delicate skin surfaces against trying weather conditions and by supplying nourish- ment to the facial nerves and skin cells, effaces wrinkles and restores the bloom of youthful heaith. “Toilet Lanoline” is especially recommended for cuts and burns and for relief of pain after exposure. “Toilet Lanoline” is a remarkable skin softener ang preserver. A delicately scented preparation that is safe for SMALL CHILDREN. PREPARED BY | | “TOILET LANOLINE” PLEXO PREPARATIONS, Inc. NEW YORK Sole Agents and Distributors General Drug Co., N. Y., 94 N. Moore Street THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION by ARTHUR LEWIS deals with the most interesting and dramatic element in social development and shows how and why vested interests side with ancient ignorance against new knowledge. Cloth, 60 cents postpaid; catalog free. CHARLES H. KERR & CO., 347 East Ohio Street, Chicago Prodish Art Theatre ws, 8 age" MAURICE SCHWARTZ in “Shabbethai Zevi’’ d by ZHULAWSKI f EXvery Friday Eve. Sat. and Sun., Mat. and Eve. | OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER — A BEAUTIFUL PLAGE .+. BERKSHIRE HILLS FOR a WEEK-END or an EXTENDED VISIT | \ | | 1 Among our guests such persons as Mr. Louis | Untermeyer, E. E. Robinson, F. Luis Mora, |) Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn, Mme. Helen Teschner | : quiet, excellent light, Tas, Sara Teasdale, Jessie B. Rittenhouse, B. ning water. 156 Wife “i W. Huebsch, C. Bertram Hartman, Suzanne Boe Sey Syewue. La Follette, William and Marguerite Zorach and Mary Ellis have found this mountain farm an ideal spot for a week-end or an extended visit. Rates $7 a day and $35 a week. Ad- dress E. G. Ohmer, Western View Farm, New Milford, Conn, 2% hours from New York. Telephone Connection. i | | | OFFICE TO SUBLET || Fifth Avenue and 20th Street || |. Eiith Avenue asa aces | Unusually attractive offices, 600 square feet, renial. Apply National Consumers’ Large Re resentative Stock at BEYER’S BOOKSHOP 207 FULTON ST., Opp. Terminal, Upstairs, NEW YORK | GERMAN BOOKS "Went | | SCHOOL of OPINION, *scoxser, SEPTEMBER 1st to 25th “Civilization, or Man and Man’s World” five large windows. Run- Lecturers: Harlow Shapley Immediate occupancy. Reasonable Harvard; E. G. Spaulding, League, Princeton; James Harvey Rob- inson, New York; Everett Dean Martin, Otto Glaser, Amherst; Irwin Edman, Columbia; Carl Van Doren, Columbia; Robert Benchley, of “Life’; H. W. L. Dana, New School Social Re- search; H. A. Overstreet, Hor- ace M. Kallen, New School So- cial Research; J. E. 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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 “| Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1923 No. 3039 - a] 7 t, a Cc tent HEN a British commercial mission headed by a cousin ontents of the Prime Minister returns from Soviet Russia TEOHIAT, PARAGRAPHS jx.) icv Caen tvic tas elok Retsiieresecrecece 337 talking of the “success which the Russian Government has : f ee, Ee EDITORIALS: aes Aa achieved in stabilizing her currency on a gold basis” and Neither Peace Nor Victory...........ceceee cece eeee ee eree eee seerees : ? : ; a ‘ anes NG cee eenarr DEAN Jn 1s HORI U tal Seroin HENS im isla nhs A eghldl tise. oe oe eee 340 announcing that two-thirds of the currency in circulation is John eee ab SVATaPnis ocala Rin ee, Rie LVG ios Sintaotaredaleeleislieler a cletehalahdjisvele'sisis 5.0 cess ay in gold notes, it is high time for the outside world to sit up Forward, March! .......cccccccccccecccc tere cs src cee secs sess cssens , é Y Sea eee 2 ee eo 342 and take notice. John Maynard Keynes predicted, in the MISSING MOST OF EUROPE. By Harbor Allen...........+.+e-e+seeeee 343 Genoa Conference days, that Russia would be the first of the THE GERMAN SAMSON. By Agatha Marshall Bullitt................. 344 bi n et back to metal currency, but PEBBLES IN THE FARMER’S BOOT. By H. G. Andrews............. 345 East European nations to g cm y; THESE UNITED STATES—XXXIX. INDIANA: HER SOIL AND he was laughed at as a visionary. Lack of recognition seems LIGHT. By Theodore Dreiser........+-.s0e00- ‘ we cece rere ees cesses cd to have troubled Russia very little. The American Scandi- GOOD OLD SQUIRREL CAGE. By William Hard...........+..05-00005 ‘ ; : ; : CARTOON. By Boardman Robinson.........-..seeeecesseeeeeeeeeee eens 352 navian Review reports that despite the break in relations OKLAHOMA’S KLAN-FIGHTING GOVERNOR. By Aldrich Biake...... 353 between the Russian and Swedish governments, business is IN THE EAS Ey wing dade F ely expanding: the Baldwin mission admits that it ex- ee MEA i Cher ee LUE bees vier\L ih) pects to conclude important contracts at once; a French mis- The Process of Government. By Pe ee ns Pi dtavale sy sie ae sion reports astonishment at the commercial activity of Some Editorial Reminiscences. By Osw arrison Villard......... 5 f America and Asia. By Emil Lengyel..:...........00eeeeeceeeeeeees 357 American firms in Moscow. Mr. Hughes AY. prate Pe Honest Pastorals. * ‘are a gears Picts {s\stevaeereia alte sic tr ate: avers Tt a long as Mr. Coolidge lets him, but the solid fact remains Christian History. y Huber PUTIRO Us sere pelt charter he setae terete) aKe sya 2: « 3 3 5 ; : Castile’s Darkest Hour. By Roy Temple House...................-. 359 that Russia has achieved the seemingly impossible task of Peso ig) Lee TE EMIS cies ot an arena Vets chic als) «lok sara) aloe ey =! lo aMalateuete aisialeeralcleialdl a piolwis,ele soe © 359 establishing a favorable trade balance—her exports now ex- DRAMA: : : ‘ : First Fruits. By Ludwig Lewisohn.........0.ccccccececeeeeseeesees 359 ceed her imports. It would be amusing if Russia were to INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: ie progress so steadily, and the politicians to remain so blind, Manama hte | LITLE TARCS acs cjeie alec cicteje ics = s.cle.s e/a eajsinlvicieie nivivecsces Metcanes Biriends ingthe PACifics sete cee cet cassis veloc ce tele ec. aeses oe 364 that she would float loans abroad before the governments OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpiTor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDIror IRITA VAN DOREN, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SupscrirTIoN RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HERE is something ingratiating in the organization of a group of Coolidge-for-President clubs in New York City by an auctioneer! Is it based on the assumption that our highest public office is now an article of merchan- dise which may properly be put up for sale to the highest bidder? Or is it a feeling that the Coolidge candidacy needs to be assisted by some unusually brass-lunged boost- ing in order to offset the proverbial silence of the occu- pant of the White House? Mr. Coolidge himself seems to be doing his part in various discreet and practical ways. He has extended the olive branch to the Republican in- surgents by a dinner invitation to Senator Borah and a decision that Federal patronage in Wisconsin, hitherto re- served for the tractable Mr. Lenroot, shall hereafter be allotted to the La Follette forces. Speaking before the con- vention of the Red Cross, Mr. Coolidge advocated a deep faith in spiritual things, tempered by a hard common sense adapted to the needs of the world. Quite so. Until after the Republican national convention next summer, at least, ~.e expect Mr. Coolidge will lean even more toward the vemper of hard common sense than toward deep faith in spiritual things. én had decided that she was sufficiently respectful of private property to be recognized! | HE London Daily Herald is coming to be in Lenin’s class as a nine-lived cat. This Labor daily seems, if not to thrive on, at least to survive repeated disaster. Re- ports of its imminent death have been frequent; the latest circumstantial report, reaching this country at about the same time that the New York Call was being transferred to trade-union hands, provided a welcome text to the editors of some New York newspapers who thereby proved to their own satisfaction the impossibility of a great labor daily. The British Trade Union Congress, however, decided other- wise. By a vote of 3,000,000 to 800,000 it undertook, tempo- rarily at least, financial responsibility for the continuance of the paper. This was a wise decision. Great newspapers are costly enterprises; many of the most famous metropoli- tan newspapers are conducted at a loss to please their mil- lionaire owners. Labor papers have particular difficulty in making ends meet because of the hostility of advertisers. But labor cannot afford to leave the collection and distribu- tion of news, the very basis of modern democracy, to its economic opponents, and British labor in particular, which has become His Majesty’s Opposition, would be mad if, on the eve of political success, it should sacrifice its chief in- strument of popular education. IVIL rights have so long been abrogated in Spain, cabinets have so frequently changed, sectionalism has flourished and been suppressed for so many years, syndical- ist uprisings have so often been quelled and radical leaders forced to fly, that the current news from that country is hardly interesting. The present military government is acting like all recent previous governments, only a little Persons circulating false rumors will be executed more so.

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>. 7P22- 338 within twenty-four hours. The jury system is abolished. No flag but the Spanish flag may be displayed and no lan- guage other than Spanish used in public documents. Mean- while the possible opponents of the new regime are lying low—the Socialists and Communists and syndicalists, the Catalonian and Basque separatists, the liberal republicans. Are they biding their time, as their leaders claim? Or is opposition weak, divided, uncertain in its aims? We sus- pect that the latter is true; the only hope for counter- revolution lies in the determination of the new Government to prosecute with even more vigor—and thus doubtless with even greater losses—the disastrous war in Morocco. N Bulgaria counter-revolution has hit a livelier pace. As we go to press 100,000 armed peasants are on the march to Sofia. They are said to be supported by the Communists, and Moscow, as usual, is credited with having a hand in the affair. Dissatisfaction with the Zankoff Government, which by a military coup supplanted the Government of Stambuliisky and killed the Premier himself, has been growing with every week of its existence. Like the Span- ish Government, it is supported by army officers. It is, without doubt, hated by almost everyone else, especially by the peasants. Its treatment of Communists and peasant leaders has solidified an opposition that stands a fairly good chance of toppling it out of office though the rebels may have to wade through their own blood to do it. If they succeed, the world may have another soviet state. E are glad to present elsewhere in this issue a friendly picture of Governor Walton by one of his political helpers. The portrait tallies closely with that drawn in the mind’s eye from a reading of the newspaper dispatches: a big-hearted, rough-and-ready, unschooled and undisciplined man, who embodies in a large measure both the good and bad of the American frontier tradition. Leaving out of count the charges of broken pledges and turncoat politics made against the Governor by Oklahoma radicals, and taking him at his best as presented by his friends, he is obviously a type which can both accomplish much good and create an awful mess in public affairs. The frontier tradition was all right—for the frontier. But Oklahoma, emerging from a Territory into a State, has been trying to grow away from the frontier toward civilization through law. The Ku Klux Klan has been a peculiarly insidious revival of frontier ethics, but Governor Walton, setting up what in Europe would be called a military dictatorship, is meeting it with methods unpleasantly like its own. Newspaper censorship and machine-guns ready in the streets seldom work as intended. We do not deny the right to apply martial law in certain circumstances any more than we do the right of revolution in others. But we doubt if recent events in Oklahoma justify either one or the other. Unless Oklahoma wants to go back to the frontier and stay there, sooner or later it will have to return to civil government and try to solve its difficulties that way. The road to democracy through law is a tedious and tortuous one, but so far as we can see it is the only way. |g its final report on the anthracite industry—bituminous coal remains to be considered—the United States Coal Commission recommends the creation of a special division of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the supervision The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3089 of coal. This is neither an original nor a profound con- structive suggestion with which to cap the reams of factual material that the commission has made public. Yet it would be unfortunate to regard it with indifference. This suggestion, if put into effect by Congress, would at least insure a permanent authority with power to collect facts, prescribe reports, and establish uniform practices and methods of accounting. This, indeed, is the first step which District No. 2 of the United Mine Workers of America, with its progressive program for nationalization, has been advocating. Meanwhile the public is becoming accustomed to government control of fuel through another series of in- cidents. If various States can, as they have been doing, undertake the purchase and sale of gasoline, why is public control of coal such an alarming prospect? If you are protecting the gamblers and bootleggers, so much the worse for you and your administration. If you are in favor of having them put out of business, come clean and do it... . But whether you are in favor of protecting or outlawing those leeches on society, they are going out of business until this strike is called off. You have the chance to put them out of business if you will. But they are going out of business, whether you will or not. HIS to the mayor of Seattle by certain citizens inter- ested in law and order. Nor are these citizens dealing in words alone. They have a committee called the Dehorn Committee (“dehorn,” we are told, is Far West for bootleg liquor) which goes about from gambling joint to blind pig and asks the proprietor to close up. The proprietor closes up. It is to his interest to do so. These citizens put power behind their requests and they are listened to. The mayor listens to them, too, but rather unwillingly. It is hard to forbid people to enforce the laws or to stop violations of them. And while the police of Seattle and the other consti- tuted enforcers of the Eighteenth Amendment have had their own little arrangements with its violators, and doubt- less hated to be disturbed, they could do little about it. The virtuous citizens won, and not only continued to enforce the law but even enforced a little cooperation upon the city authorities. And these citizens? you ask. Rotarians? Civic-betterment leaguers? Well, no. They belong to that other body of uplift workers—the I.W.W. There is a strike on in the lumber camps of Washington—a strike to obtain the freedom of all political prisoners—and the I.W.W. is. going to see that decency prevails while the strike ‘lasts. HE great trolley-car strike which for nearly two months completely stopped service on lines affecting nearly 150 towns in northern New Jersey has ended with an undisputed victory for the men and a three-year agree- ment under which they have gone back to work with better hours and a 20 per cent increase in wages. The capitula- tion of the company came finally in the face of judicial proceedings which sought either to compel the railway to resume service or to place it in the hands of receivers. The company is petitioning the Public Utilities Commis- sion of the State for permission to raise fares from eight to ten cents, but it is doubtful if the increase will be granted. Perhaps never before has a great transportation system abandoned so quickly and completely all effort to run its cars in the face of labor difficulty, and more than anything else, this callous disregard of public welfare aligned sentiment almost solidly against it. Menaced on

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 339 the one hand with jitney competition and on the other with a receivership, surrender to its employees seemed to be the only course open to the company. But the adjustment of labor difficulties has not settled the vital economic problems raised by the motor bus and the privately used car. OMETIMES voters in this country have a quiet and un- expected way of disposing of demagogic politicians when one is afraid that the latter’s spectacular activities may have quite captivated the multitude. Something of this sort has happened in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where Mayor Joseph Cauffiel has been decisively beaten in the primary election, running fourth in a list of seven. The mayor’s recent announcement that every Negro in the city of less than seven year’s residence would have to get out, coupled with his earlier absurdities in regard to the sale of beer, convinced many persons outside of Johnstown that Mr. Cauf- fiel would be a good person to retire to private life. It is satisfying to note that the voters of Johnstown, unimpressed with the mayor’s efforts at self-advertising, have come to the same conclusion. ESIGNATIONS from the faculty of Amherst College, in consequence of the forced withdrawal of Dr. Meikle- john as president, so disorganized teaching schedules that the opening of classes had to be postponed several days. At Clark University the arbitrary policies of the president, Wallace W. Atwood, have so affected the ranks of those about to enter college that the freshman class enrolling this year is hardly half the usual size. Both these happenings are sad yet encouraging facts in our scholastic life. One hates to see signs of disintegration in two respected insti- tutions, but still more it is gratifying to observe that autoc- racy and illiberalism are resented both by the teaching forces and the upgrowing student body in this country. Signs of intellectual independence among teachers and stu- dents are of immensely more consequence than occasional backward steps by trustees who would bring into education the atmosphere of their counting houses. HEN the steamship President Adams of the United States Lines sailed out of New York harbor for Europe the other day it had a new kind of quartermaster on the bridge—nicknamed among sailors “Metal Mike.” This Robot sailor, or sailor Robot, is a creation of the in- ventor of the gyroscope compass, and in connection with that instrument is designed to control automatically a ship’s rudder so that a vessel can be steered on a given course - without human assistance. If this “Metal Mike” proves it can do a quartermaster’s work—and it is said to have had successful use already—it means, in steamships at least, the disappearance of that figure symbolic in the public mind of the whole art of seafaring: the man at the wheel! To be able “to hand, reef, and steer” has from time almost immemorial been the measure of an able-bodied seaman. Aside from the housemaid’s round of polishing brass, scrub- bing decks, and “soogey-moogeying” dirty paint-work what is there left now for a poor sailorman to do? Well, there is still the lookout. Unless—unless Mr. Sperry presently in- vents automatic eyes to pierce the darkness ahead and thus remove the shadowy figure that now stands in the crow’s- nest or paces the forecastle head calling back lustily to the bridge as he strikes the bell: “Lights are burning bright, sir, and al-l-l’s we-ell.”’ Neither Peace Nor Victory HANCELLOR STRESEMANN, after consultation with representatives of all German parties, has determined upon complete and unconditional surrender to the French demand for abandonment of passive resistance in the Ruhr. He did not obtain any of the preliminary conditions for which he asked. There is no assurance that the French will amnesty the thousands of Germans whom they have imprisoned, or permit the hundreds of thousands whom they have deported to return to their homes. Nor is there any guaranty against further French invasion of Germany or against consolidation of French rule in the Rhineland and the Ruhr. Force, brute force, the sheer power of the French army, has triumphed. Yet force has won such triumphs before, and learned too late that they were vain and empty. The Germans paid dear for their triumph over the Bolsheviks at Brest-Litovsk. That overwhelming victory did more to injure their moral position in the world than anything which had happened since the invasion of Belgium. The promised economic advantages faded; the people of the new territory put un- der German aegis sullenly yielded but never really sub- mitted—and in the Rhineland and the Ruhr the French face a people with an even deeper sense of national loyalty. What have the French won? Eight and a half months ago Poincaré sent his ‘“‘corps of engineers, guarded by a few soldiers” into the Ruhr, expecting that they would take over its industries and start a steady flow of repara- tions and supplies to France. The corps has grown into a costly army of a hundred thousand men; months of strikes and stoppages have followed, cutting off the two million tons of coal which the Germans had each month shipped to France; French blast furnaces have been forced to shut down for lack of coke; the value of German paper currency has been wiped out; the franc has lost a quarter of its value; and the war-welded friendship between England and France has been wrenched into almost open hostility. After all this comes the German surrender. Thrice before the Germans, protesting inability to keep their word, have been forced to sign on the dotted line—once at Versailles in 1919, once at Spa in 1920, and once at London in 1921. Each time the experiment has proved disastrous. Now Strese- mann signs another blank check, and once more it will turn out that the money is not in the bank. Was it worth so much fighting to make a German Prime Minister again agree to overdraw his country’s economic account? For Poincaré as a French politician it is doubtless a great victory. His position in Parliament and the position of his political associates in the 1924 elections is enormously strengthened. For the French steel magnates, whose lawyer Poincaré was before he assumed his present office, it may also be a victory. Behind the scenes they have doubtless made terms with Hugo Stinnes and the German indus- trialists, to the mutual profit of both parties. But the task of reconstruction has not been facilitated; the problem of balancing the French budget and saving the French franc has not been solved. France stands more alone than ever, hated on every side, on her eastern frontier a still great people resentfully dreaming of ultimate revenge—and France should know what dreams of revenge may be. For the French people, as for all Europe, the German surrender can mean neither peace nor real victory, but only more chaos and more misery. .

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EW YORK without its customary newspapers was a curious sight to those accustomed to the solid rows of papers that usually hide men’s faces in the subways and on the elevated. People who habitually sink their minds in the trivialities of the daily newspaper the moment they for- sake their office cares and associates were chagrined to find themselves face to face with their own petty selves, forced through the weary ride homeward to stare at the ad- vertisements as their only escape from a too familiar ego. It was a revelation of the function of the modern daily newspaper, which is not so much to give an account of the world we live in as to provide a means of escape from that world—to supply unreal entertainment as a relief from real monotony. Philadelphia papers, Yonkers papers, the Bronx Home News could not meet the need. The labor Call, the Com- mercial, and the Wall Street Journal could not satisfy the strap-hanger. They were strange, and he wanted familiar- ity—the pioneer tradition of America finds no expression in the newspaper reader. They were serious, and he wanted levity. Without Mutt and Jeff, without Abie the Agent and the Hallroom Boys, the average New Yorker felt uneasy and lost. He did not know what to think about without the newspapers to instruct him. The various editions of the Combined New York News- papers printed in insufficient numbers on few pages were a fascinating study in editorial judgment. Despite the common heading, the contents differed. Under the same title one discovered the familiar type of the Herald, the News, the Journal, the Mail, or the Evening Post. Most of the papers, forced to choose, omitted their editorial pages. Not one neglected sports. Political cartoons were dropped, but the omnipresent “strips” and “comics” appeared in all their sorry glory. The World found room for F.P.A. and Heywood Broun, but not for the page that Frank Cobb makes famous. Recognition of the decline of the edi- torial function of the newspaper was all but complete. The Ward murder trial crowded more enduring news to a mini- mum. Many a reader must suddenly have realized that despite the delay in receiving it, he could more easily learn what -was going on in the world from a weekly like The Nation than from the elaborate, overgrown columns of the daily papers. It was a positive relief to find only eight pages of newspaper type to wade through instead of the customary thirty-two. It was difficult to penetrate to the causes of the sudden deprivation of newspapers. The issue was confused by the double character of the dispute. The pressmen struck against the newspaper publishers, but the most violent con- flict was between the New York workers and the national officers of their union. Mr. Berry, president of the Inter- national Printing Pressmen’s Union of North America, acted almost as agent for the publishers and is today serv- ing as a sort of strike-breaking detective agency recruiting men to smash the New York strike. Naturally the men are bitterer against him than against the publishers. But the curious fact is that in principle they were right in their dispute with the publishers, wrong in that with Mr. Berry. The men violated no contract to which the publishers were a party. Their contract with the publishers had expired on September 1, and the publishers—confident, perhaps, in The Nation - The Newspapers [Vol. 117, No. 3089 the tacit support of Mr. Berry—were refusing to modify the indefensible Manton award under which the men had, grumblingly, been working. On the other hand, they were members of an international union whose constitution re- quired the assent of the national officers before a strike should be declared. This assent the men were unable to ob- tain. They knew they could never obtain it; their dispute with Mr. Berry was of long standing; they believed Berry to have tricked them before and to be ready to trick them again. So they deliberately violated their union constitu- tion, and struck. It was a dangerous defiance of union discipline for two reasons—first, because without discipline and solidarity the union movement is meaningless, and sec- ond, because by running the risk of outlawry they jeopard- ized their own immediate success. There come times, how- ever, when civil disobedience, in the union as in the state, is the only safeguard of liberty; and Berry’s dictatorship in his union, maintained by a sort of rotten-borough system of representation, had, in the minds of the New York press- men, amply justified their action. They went out to the last man, and at this writing they are still unanimously on strike although the publishers have since offered them most of the conditions for which they struck if only they will abandon their local leaders and enrol in a new local under the hegemony of Major Berry. More fundamental is the dispute with the publishers which was the direct cause of the strike. On February 21, 1922, Judge Martin T. Manton of the United States Court of Appeals, acting as arbitrator between the New York newspaper publishers and pressmen, handed down a decision which has since kept the pressrooms in constant turmoil. He swept away the old working rules and established new ones against which the men protested and have ever since been protesting. Some of them were so stupid that by pre- cise adherence to them the men have sabotaged whole news- paper editions. Judge Manton based his revision, as the New York Call points out in an able editorial, on the anti- quated legal conception of ‘master and servant.” The employee, he said, “labors for the pleasure or interest of another.” He “represents his [the employer’s] will, not merely in the ultimate result of the work, but in the details.” Many of the old rules were bad rules, but they had grown up as part of the industry and represented a treasured and dignified conception of the worker’s right to share in de- termining the conditions under which he works. A revision should have been the product of cooperative deliberation, not a dictatorial mandate, and the revolt of the New York pressmen is a significant expression of the failure of dic- tatorship. The issue at root is the old issue of democracy. New York, reading unaccustomed or consolidated news- papers, probably reflected little on these larger issues. Very few who went without their usual paper meditated upon the issues of cooperation among the varied workers and inter- ests which together make the daily newspapers. But prob- ably a good many half-consciously reflected the comment of the Volkszeitung which, like most of the foreign-language papers (which sell a million copies daily in New York City), settled with its pressmen and appeared as usual: “The capi- talist press of New York City was never so upright and truthful as today when it says to the public: ‘We are all one and the same, however various the names we bear.’ ”

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 341 John Morley HE writers and statesmen of the last generation are passing. And each time that another lays down the burdens of earth, the journalists tell us that the last of the Victorians is gone. In their sense it is not true. Of the sentimental idyllic Victorianism, of the period of the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin of the mind, hosts of survivors are in our midst. It is not so with that other group and strain and tradition which, contrary to the popular notion, ren- dered the reign of Victoria illustrious in the annals of Eng- land and the world. Of that group John Morley was indeed the last survivor. One thinks of him truly as ultimus Romanorum. From a world torn asunder by wild doctri- naires and hysterical visionaries there is gone the last of those intellects whose sovereign lucidity, noble poise, ultimate tolerance, were as a beacon and light and guide from the publication of the early works of John Stuart Mill until today. Morley was the son of a Lancashire surgeon. He was lawyer, journalist, philosopher, statesman. Immediately on leaving Oxford he commenced writing for the Saturday Review; later he was associated with the editorship of the Pall Mall Gazette and for fifteen years he edited the Fort- nightly Review. He entered Parliament in 1883 as an ad- vanced Gladstonian Liberal; he became, in time, Chief Secretary for Ireland; upon his retirement from politics in 1914 he was President of the Council and Secretary of State for India. Among his services as a statesman must be accounted his plans for constitutional reforms in India which, had they been carried out in time, would have saved both Britain and India long years of enmity and conflict, his early advocacy of a liberal policy toward Ireland, his resignation from the ministry upon the British declaration of war in 1914. Upon the causes of this resignation— Trevelyan and John Burns, it will be remembered, went with him—Morley was silent. He was in his seventy-sixth year. He had never been a friend of futile tumult and petty pas- sions. But the explanation which will some day be given to the world in the third volume, yet unpublished, of his mem- oirs, cannot be obscure, at least in its main outlines, to any attentive reader of the essay on The Expansion of Eng- land in the third volume of his “Miscellanies.” He knew that the “imperialist or bombastic school’ was a school of traders and money-changers, that the imperialist wars of the industrialist age were traders’ and money-changers’ wars. He remarked with quiet irony then that “war is often entered upon even in our own virtuous days without pre- liminary consent from Parliament,” and placed on the same basis of imperialist advantage and moral claptrap the pay- ing of money “for a war, say, for the defense of Afghan- istan against Russia, or for the defense of Belgian neu- trality.” These things, these actions that loom so gigantically in the eyes of the world, are quickly dwarfed and soon recede. John Morley will be remembered by his books, the “Vol- taire,” the “Rousseau,” the “Life of Gladstone,” the treatise “On Compromise,” above all, the “Critical Miscellanies.” Today these sober volumes are not, we fear, very widely read. There is no vain striving and crying in them; there are no plumes or banners. People read Chesterton and Kipling, and drive their chariots ever more madly into the barbarous realms of religious and patriotic myth. It was wy from precisely that sort of picturesque but deadly barbarism that the Utilitarians, the Mills, father and son, Matthew Arnold and Leslie Stephen, Huxley and Morley were anx- ious to save both their countrymen and mankind. Morley said of John Stuart Mill that “with his reputation will stand or fall the intellectual repute of a whole generation of his countrymen.” A later generation’s intellectual repute has already fallen with its neglect of John Morley. It made him a peer of the realm of England; of his spirit and of the spirit of his thought and counsels it neither knew any- thing nor wanted to know anything. His later years were spent in a world full of fire-eating myth-mongers and abso- lutists and empty opportunists. The voice of reason was silenced; the voice of Lloyd George prevailed. The Mills, father and son, Arnold and Stephen, Huxley and Morley—these men all had what Morley so happily called the “sensibility of the intellect.” They wanted honor among minds. They held self-deception and its consequent muddling to be somewhat less than human. They wanted not blindly to do what is commonly called ‘‘good” and is often both cruel and stupid; they wanted, in Morley’s words, “to find out what the good is—which is harder.” They were all very fond of the eighteenth century and very posi- tivistic in temper, and fought shy of metaphysics. Yet they were far more philosophic than the metaphysicians who are so often poets gone wrong and build up huge sys- tems to ground and buttress the idealistic assumptions that give them a pleasant feeling. Arnold was, of course, a great poet and so both richer and more variable of nature than the others. But he, with Mill and Morley, wanted “reason and the will of God to prevail,” and it is significant that Morley, like Arnold, was a great Wordsworthian on Wordsworth’s realistic and genuine and non-theological side. Of that whole school and tradition the works of Morley are the last and not the least enduring monument. His prose was like his temper and his doctrine—weighty, se- rene, and unadorned. Its sobriety was natural and yet perhaps it was heightened by his fear of exaggeration and excess. Often a faint glow warms it, when he thinks of Wordsworth or Goethe, or speaks of his master, John Stuart Mill, or discourses on that tolerance, on that noble reason- ableness which alone, according to him, and to his teachers and friends, can mitigate the troubles of mankind. His pages are always grave and wise and liberal. Liberal! The word threatens to fall into disrepute. But that is due to a misconception. The great philosophic Brit- ish liberals, Mill and Morley, never turned their backs upon the path on which their thinking led them. They were quite ready to face radical change in both the moral and the social life of mankind. Their liberalism was a matter of temper. They wanted change to come through reason and such action as grows out of the exercise of the reason. They were averse from red flags as well as from others. They expected salvation from no kind of violence, no un- governed passion, no panacea or myth, old or new. It is perfectly permissible and easy to argue that, amid the hot and desperate needs of the world, their word is not the last. It remains true that their word is a word never to be for- gotten, never to be unheeded except at our extreme peril. And the last great speaker of that word of truth and reason’ was John Morley.

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342 The Nation ~ [ Vol. 117, No. 3039 Forward, March! SIGNIFICANT armistice in the fifty-three-year fight between the contractors for convict labor and ineffi- cient State governments on the one hand and the employers of free labor supported by prison-reform agencies on the other was concluded on September 15. On that date the Re- liance Manufacturing Company made an agreement with the International Association of Garment Manufacturers not to make further contracts with State governments for the manufacture of convict-made textiles for sale on the open market, and to cooperate where such contracts now exist in changing the character of prison industries as fast as may be in line with the “States’ use system” urged in The Nation for July 11, 1923. The withdrawal of this largest single employer of convict labor, a company which has been using 3,136 convicts in ten different States, will reduce the amount of prison-made goods thrown on the open market to under- sell free-labor products by one-half and will mean the grad- ual elimination of the most extensive prison industry now exploiting State governments and their prisoners. Con- tracts for the manufacture of hosiery, chairs, shoes, brooms and brushes, harness, lumber, and the mining of coal (in Alabama) remain—all at little or no profit to the States and without wages for the convicts. The Reliance Manufacturing Company has proved con- cretely that prison labor is profitable. The forward-looking penologist insists that work for the prisoner is essential for his well-being and ultimate “cure.” It remains for the States to accept these facts. The National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor has worked out a system, and the Associates for Government Service, a non-profit corporation, is rapidly putting it into operation, calling for prison indus- tries operated by the States themselves, with no interme- diate contractor to absorb the profits. The products will be used in the State, county, and city departments, and the surplus will be sold to other States, counties, and cities not in a position advantageous for the manufacture of the par- ticular commodity. The plan embraces a careful allocating of the prison industries with regard to the supply of raw materials and the absorption of released convicts into the free industry in that locality. It proceeds on the standardi- zation of specifications for all commodities, a practical measure both from the production and the purchasing standpoints. It provides for an adequate wage to the con- vict worker, from which one part shall be deducted by the State for his keep, and another part for the support of his dependents, thus relieving innocent families of the stigma of charity and law-abiding citizens of the burden of unneces- sary taxes. This system is sane and sound from every standpoint. Already New York State is making for its own use school desks, shoes, clothing, cotton cloth, and tinware, and doing printing for its prison department. Ohio has similar prison industries and in addition is making brick for her State roads. Massachusetts is manufacturing aluminum ware for Mississippi. New Jersey is selling shoes to Alabama and several other States, and is making automobile tags for Vir- ginia, while Virginia is manufacturing desks for New Jersey. The plan provides for zone conferences to be held as the States call for them and it is to be hoped that soon the United States may be known for the justice and excel- lence of its prison industries system. Where Canada Leads S% ADAM BECK, director of the most extensive hydro- electrical power development in the world, was dis- tinctly pleased. Mayor Maguire of Toronto was pleased. The citizens of the Province of Ontario were pleased. For year after year delegation after delegation of American business men, holding conventions in Toronto, had politely given the Canadians to understand that as far as “pep,” business enterprise, and practical common sense were con- cerned the Canadians were a bad second. At the Public Ownership Conference, held in Toronto in September, 1923, the atmosphere was distinctly different. Men and women had traveled from California and Oregon and Florida to learn from Canada how to conduct public enterprises. The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario started in 1910 to distribute power—1,000 horse-power all told— to a few Ontario municipalities. Today it furnishes 600,000 horse-power at cost to 369 Canadian towns and cities, and supplies some 60,000 horse-power to Rochester, Syracuse, and Oswego. The cooperating Ontario municipalities now own a plant worth $250,000,000. The price of electricity since the establishment of the commission has been cut in halves and thirds, saving to the people of the province in their light and heat bills, it is estimated, $100,000,000. The average charge to residences in the province is from two to three cents per kilowatt hour. The commission is now building on the Canadian side of the Niagara River the largest single hydro-electric development in the world— the Queenston-Chippewa station. Naturally a convention staring such facts in the face recommended for the United States a Federal Super-Power Commission, to coordinate all agencies, Federal, State, and local, in the development of publicly owned and operated super-power plants. Naturally it came to believe that the public ownership and operation of super-power was possi- ble on the other side of the border. What it learned of the unscrupulous tactics employed in the United States by opponents of public ownership tended in the same direc- tion. Rudolph Spreckels told how the Greater California League, which defeated the public water-power amendment last year, “never,” according to the testimony of its own president, Mr. Cullinan, “had a meeting. ... I [Cullinan] appointed myself as president. I was employed by the power companies, through Mr. John S. Drum . . . and met, with myself, after the employment, and organized the Greater California League.” Over $1,000,000 was spent. No account was kept of expenditures—but the State amend- ment was defeated. The delegates listened to statements of progress morn- ing, afternoon, and night. From Emil Davies and Charles Edward Russell, fresh from Europe, they heard that there was in Great Britain and the Continent even now a steady progress toward, not away from, municipal and national ownership—Julius H. Barnes notwithstanding. Amos Pinchot sounded a strong call for railway nationalization, and proved from the lips of the American railway presi- dents that war control had been a success, not a failure. Naturally, Sir Adam Beck and the mayor of Toronto were pleased. They had done the things the men from across the border wanted to do. They had advanced from theory to proof. Canada was showing the United States the way.

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Oct. 3, 1928 The Nation 343 Missing Most of Europe By HARBOR ALLEN Munich, September 1 “-ESTERDAY, as I trudged home to my little student room in Munich, it suddenly came over me that I had been in Europe half a year and yet had missed most of it. I had just bought the European edition of “The World’s Greatest Newspaper,” written in a charmingly wretched English with genuine American headlines. It still lies on the table beside me; across the top: “Deauville Winds Up Big Week by Gambling Flurry.” I glance down the column: “Wagers at 20,000 francs a coup... 50,000 on the bac- .. gor- carat table . . . a syndicate of ten million francs . geous set of diamonds... a peacock fan. . . . Maurice, the dancer ...the Eng- a ee Tae Fives marks are worth 2% cents. Miss Fanny Ward... .” They are fat-sounding names Soviet ruble. that follow, complacent and prosperous. Yes, obviously, I am miss- ing most of Europe. The more I look at that paper the more I am convinced of it. But on the other side of my table lies the letter I received last night from Franz, who scribbled his notes beside me at the university all of last spring. Franz writes that he is working seventeen hours a day, double shift, in a mine somewhere in Upper Bavaria, trying to scrape together enough money to continue his studies this winter. He is worried. Books, he has heard, now cost a million times the pre-war price. (They have gone up since.) He doesn’t want to be left high and dry as he was last year. Last year Franz dug coal all summer in the Ruhr, two eight-hour shifts a day; but in the fall, when the mark suddenly dropped, his money lasted just one month. Might he dare to ask that I help him? Could he im- pose upon me so much as to beg that I change into dollars the inclosed five million marks at the current rate and keep them for him? It took him three weeks to save up those five million marks, and already they are worth in buying power one-fifth of what they were when he got them. Food is appallingly high, even in the mining camp. He is sleep- ing in a barrack. He hasn’t seen a book for weeks, and he is aching to read—anything good. It hurts to be a Bettel- student, but if only I could help him even so little he would always be my grateful Franz. _ Five million marks—50 cents—for three weeks. And across the table my eye catches—‘“‘at 20,000 francs a coup.” But then I suppose Fritz, Fred, and Hans are missing most of Europe, too. I wonder where they are now? They prom- ised to write, but the new postage rates, eighty times those of two weeks ago, are probably too much for them. When I came to know Fritz, Fred, and Hans I couldn’t believe what I had heard about them when I first came to Munich. “Come along,” I was told, “and see for yourself.” I found marks. When this article was written 5 million marks were worth 50 cents; when this article is printed 5 million The German mark is now worth less than the Germany’s paper-money circulation jumped in one week in mid-September from 600 tril- lion to more than a quadrillion marks. A Berlin newspaper which cost 2,500 marks on July 28 cost 500,000 on September 9. The German Government spent 247,970,000 marks between August 10 and August 20, and its total in- come for the same period amounted to only 4,340,000 The Government has stopped issuing postage stamps and is simply stamping the words “Tax Paid” on mail matter presented at the post office. Fritz, Fred, and Hans living in one attic room. Furniture consisted of one rickety table and two chairs. There was no bed. A single candle, sparingly used, served as light for study and heat for thawing out numbed fingers. Each of the three had one shirt which he wore only on Sunday. One cannot live like a gentleman, they explained, when a fair-sized laundry bill runs up into the millions of marks. For food they had an ingenious arrangement: by pooling the earnings of their spare hours they found they could afford one full meal each day. Consequently, every third day each of the three dined like a king in a dirty, cheap little restaurant; and then returned to his room to munch on dry bread for the next two days while his companions took their turns. Then there was. Rudi. Rudi comes from a good family. All last year he worked through the night in a locomotive factory and studied during the day. In the spring he was discharged from the factory; he was too weak to work. Rudi, it seems, had contracted tuber- culosis. It is spreading like pest in Munich, and easy enough for a_half-starved man to get. But Rudi wasn’t going to give up; he applied to the Studentenhilfe or Students’ Relief for a fighting chance. What they told him Rudi took calmly enough. They said that to help him would consume enough of their funds to provide for four healthy students; and that in time of universal distress they had to provide first of all for the fit. Rudi, in other words, was too big a risk. He would have to shift for himself. So Rudi bade us a rather carefree fare- well, refused to accept a penny, and disappeared. Nobody seemed to care. When a ship is sinking every man looks out for himself, and there isn’t much sentiment wasted on the fellow who can’t. Besides—Rudi is only one of many. Missing most of Europe—no doubt. But there are some things which the English rubber magnate, and Miss Fanny Ward, and Mr. Preston Gibson are missing, too; things which I wish they could see as I have seen. I wish they could see the glittering, half-starved animal eyes in the emaciated boyish faces up here on Ludwigstrasse. I wish they could see the crude food served in the mensa academica which, even at reduced prices and still more reduced por- tions, costs thousands and thousands of marks. I wish they could see the threadbare clothes, and the tiny, dingy rooms devoid of even a flicker of heat in the winter. I wish they could spend half a morning in the little green office of the Auslandische Studentenhilfe fiir die Miinchner Hochschulen, a small group of foreign students organized in the hope of pouring here and there a drop of water on a hot stone. ‘We shall have to select more carefully when the university opens in November,” they could read on a

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344 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3039 placard over the door, “for now we can help only the best and the neediest. It will take $3 a month to support a student this winter. Last winter we did it on $2.” And the dollar bills, apparently, are coming in slowly. Most for- eign tourists who pass through Munich are too busy read- ing the continental edition of “The World’s Greatest News- paper’”—and seeing most of Europe. Fully one-third of the 15,000 students at the University of Munich, despite every effort to help themselves, despite the sacrifices of graduates and friends of the institution, are utterly unable to keep above water. A good percentage of that third are actually facing slow starvation or the inevitable diseases that accompany undernourishment. And all this was so a month or two ago, when students could still get a plate of macaroni, a few potatoes, and a chunk of sour black bread for 10,000 marks. What are students going to do this winter? Many of them, obviously, will not be able to return. To the European youth, giving up his studies is not simply a matter of surrendering so many football games each year, a junior prom, and a frat pin. It means that he is once for all shut out from the profession for which he has been preparing half of his life; that he must probably become, at least in the immediate future, a common laborer; that he must definitely surrender the social and intellectual life which is the prerogative of the cultured German. And the others—many of whom will be unable to find per- manent work—will come back. They will have to endure again the torturing humiliation of begging and bickering their way. Those who graduate have little hope of finding a position or of being able to apply their learning. To buy a single scientific textbook will cost them a whole month of the pay they drew digging with pick and shovel in the mud of the Isar canal, or cutting peat under a glow- ing sun in the Bavarian highlands—that is, provided the money doesn’t depreciate to one-tenth its value, while books increase tenfold, both of which are more likely than not. Think of it! A month’s pay for a single commonplace book such as 50,000 half-interested American students will be buying now for a $5 bill without even a second thought. There they lie beside me: the letter on one side, the newspaper on the other. “If only I can help him a little. . .’ And then my eye skips down the smug columns of print: “ ... eight hundred were served at the gala din- ner last night ir the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs.... Mme. Sapene, with the most elaborate collection of jewels seen here this year . . . two ropes of pearls, earrings with four huge stones each, six wide diamond bracelets. .. .” Somehow, I’m rather glad I am missing most of Europe. The German Samson By AGATHA MARSHALL BULLITT Berlin, August 20 N some old fantastic lampoon—was it by Goethe or Vol- taire?—-I remember the dire dilemma a state fell into, because its paper-note printers laid down their work and went off on a holiday. What sounded like a grotesque satire, an impossible situation amid impossible surround- ings, has become literally and acutely a fact in Germany today. The dollar skyrocketed up to one, two, three, four, five millions of marks in less than as many days, the prices ran a race with the dollar, foodstuffs pretty nearly van- ished, people became panicky, the Reichsbank printers struck. Berlin waked up one morning to find herself with- out even worthless paper marks enough to keep the pot boiling for the day. The banks closed. What was the use in keeping them open when there was no money in them? Trillionaires found themselves with scarcely the where- withal for a meal, at least as far as German currency was concerned. Those who had Devisen thrust their hands down into their treasure and brought forth two, three, four dollars, whatever was necessary to supply their needs for the day. But see! though the dollar was officially standing at four to five millions, these Croesuses discovered they could only realize a million, or perchance half a million, on their dollar. The German waiters, shopkeepers, and porters abruptly turned the tables on those who had been demanding cartloads of hard-earned German paper for one small American greenback; the owner of foreign Devisen could take what was offered him by the happy possessors of million mark bills, or he could go hungry. A strange sight, a city like Berlin, without money! Huge factories not able to pay employees, offering coupons that could be redeemed at the banks when the money mills again began to work; employees refusing to take these coupons, for it would mean hours of weary waiting in front of the teller’s window; the factories trying to ap- pease them by payment in Natuwralien, in margarine, rice, noodles. The shops, most of them, closed their doors, or kept open for only a few hours a day. There was little in them, and that little they wanted to hold back till they could see what was what. The housewives lined up by the hundred, with camp stools and knitting, vaguely hoping by a many hours’ vigil to obtain a quarter of a pound of something to stave off hunger from the family. In some places riots took place and numbers were killed. I have not myself chanced to run across serious disorder, but intense excite- ment prevails. And why not? Wages and salaries ranging from six to fifteen millions a week, with butter (when you can get it!) costing a million and a half a pound, meat two millions, a loaf of bread two hundred thousand, an egg sixty thousand, a pair of shoes thirty millions, a suit of clothes fifty millions! Who can pay such prices? None but the foreign capitalist or the native profiteer. Down with both! What’s the use in working if you can’t make enough to live on? And as for saving, none but a maniac would think of laying up for tomorrow. What-buys a good drunk tonight may not pay carfare in the morning. That’s the worst of the whole miserable business—you never know one minute where you stand the next. If you could only say: So much for rent, so much for food, so much for clothing, and make so and so much. But no; you have not the slightest idea what your expenses will be from day to day, or from hour to hour. While having your lunch at a restaurant, the waiter comes and changes the prices on the menu; you probably have to pay double what you expected when you gave your order. You only know one thing: you cannot possibly meet expenses with what you are making, and you see no possibility of making more. So much for those who are lucky enough to be employed. But what about the many who have no such luck—those who have desperately looked for work and can find none? There are but three alternatives. They are literally driven to dishonesty, to begging, or to despair and death. Of those by circumstances driven to a dishonest livelihood I shall

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 345 not speak. Their sins be on the heads of those who robbed Germany of the means to look after her own. The beggars fare comparatively well; there is still a crust of bread for them here, a plate of warm soup there. But those who cannot beg and cannot steal! Among them are to be found Germany’s best. They are going completely under—are almost gone—yet so quietly, so decently, that the outside world hears no moan. They brush their threadbare clothes and take a walk when night comes on that none they know may see their plight. Or they tramp the streets by day, looking always, always. . . . Is there work nowhere for will- ing men and women? The workmen have their unions. To a certain extent they are looked after when unemployed. But the brain workers? Nobody can pay for brain work in Germany to- day. They are verily starving. The aged and the ailing are starving too. Words fail to describe their anguish— the slow wasting away. Is it a wonder that the German people are nervous, over- wrought, incapable of sustained clear thinking? The won- der is they are as calm as they are. But can this calm last? Hunger stalking a land makes it ripe for change. The Communists are holding meetings which are hugely crowded. And a new note is being struck at these meetings —the national note. In the old days German Communists, in their efforts to be truly international, succeeded often in being only anti-national. It is different now. Their appeal is to the German people as a whole: to the intellectual as well as the manual worker; to the small shopkeeper and to the official; to all who are suffering under the intolerable strain of the time; to the great middle class that has become more proletarian than the hardest day laborer. To these the Communists appeal, urging them to join in the effort to free the fatherland from foreign imperialism, foreign capitalism; to make Germany a place for the German people to live and be happy in. It is said that this new appeal is but a maneuver—that the German Communists have seen they cannot win over the masses without appealing to love of home and fatherland; that Radek has given the word, and they are following his lead. This may be, but the drive is a powerful one, and anti-Communists, the world over, if they wish to hold their own against the despairing German masses, would better have a care! Germany is ill fitted just now for experiments. Under- nourished for years, she is physically and mentally anemic. Though strong and hardy by nature, the superhuman strain that she has been under has sapped her vitals. The strain must be lifted if she is to live, not a new strain put upon her. To attempt to introduce Communism at this time would be death to Germany, I am convinced. Her enemies may be glad to hear this. But she will not go down alone; her death will spell the death of those who have brought her to this pass. There was a strong man once shorn of his strength by the enemy’s cunning. They put out his eyes, bound him with fetters, and made him grind in the prison house. Then they brought him out one night and bade him make sport for them at their banquet. And he, sitting between the pillars of the banqueting hall, remembered his lost strength and his lost sight. And he prayed to God that his strength might be given back to him just once to be avenged of the enemy. “Let me die with the Philistines,’ Samson cried out in his anguish, and his wish was granted him. “He took hold of the middle pillars upon which the house stood, . . . and he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and all the people that were therein. So the dead that he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.” Pebbles in the Farmer’s Boot By H. G. ANDREWS HILE the farmer is totaling his losses, a portion of the public is tabulating his gains. The farmer, con- sulting his bank balance, contrives desperate means of relief for a desperate financial situation. Statisticians, consulting government reports, present surprising proof that agriculture is on Easy Street. The foot that wears the boot is the one that has the decisive sense of pain. If the foot hurts, bootmakers may present figures showing the foot gear is large enough, but those figures will not prove whether there are pebbles in the boot. The farmer is walking lame. He insists he is lame. The boots he wears seem to be large enough. In such a situation the obvious thing to do is to look for the pebbles. Agriculture has always had its recurring periods of travail. Like other big industries uneconomically organ- ized, it is prince or pauper. Which means that agriculture suffers from an inferiority complex in one generation and from delusions of grandeur in another. Just now the delu- sions of grandeur, born of war-time prices and conditions, seem faded into the post-war inferiority complex due to changing conditions which in their essence are related to some process of deflation. Agriculture, through its spokes- men, would say that there is now no need for deflating the farmer, since he is flatter than flat right now. Facts are more personal than figures. at the figures. If the decade from 1910 to 1920 is made the basis of inquiry, it appears that the American farmer was making money all of the time. He apparently closed every year with a nice, fat paper profit. Moreover, the farmer was one of the fortunate industrialists for whom profits ran that were in no wise dependent upon labor performed. Farm invest- ments have appreciated very materially. Any business concern that doubles its investment in ten years—makes 100 per cent by the unearned increment route—is doing very well. The American agriculturist did that. Ac- cording to the census figure, the 1910 farm-land value was, in round figures, $28,000,000,000. By 1920 that in- vestment had increased to approximately $55,000,000,000. Those figures cover both improved and unimproved farm land. It does not do at all, however, to say that the increase came about by reason of improvements. For the unim- proved land increased as rapidly as the improved land. In- deed, in many instances it increased faster. This is what we are up against on the face of things. Spokesmen for the agriculturist say that farming is a business and that judged by business standards it has been consistently a losing venture. Truly, then, we have a most Nevertheless, let’s have a look

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346 The Nation - remarkable situation—something strange in the annals of finance. We have a business that has been losing money but which has been increasing in value at the rate of 9 per cent a year. We have an industrial plant that does not pay its way but which is marked up in price all of the time. The rise of the American agriculturist, as told in the Fed- eral census figures, is an inspiring one. Here are a few of the facts as far as the period between 1910 and 1920 was concerned: The value of farm land increased $26,354,000,000. The value of all farm property increased $36,933,000,000. The value of farm improvements increased $7,490,000,000. The value of implements and machinery increased $2,329,- 000,000. As against all of these increases, the mortgage debt in- creased only $2,277,000,000, reaching a total of approxi- mately $4,000,000,000. But let us pause to listen to an objector. The four bil- lion dollar mortgage figure, says he, is not large enough. Correct. It does not include mortgages on farms tilled by tenants. Such mortgages are perhaps an evidence of agri- cultural well-being. A farm that can support a tenant, an owner, and a mortgage at one and the same time is by no means a bankrupt concern. It is, in fact, going rather strong. But suppose farm mortgages totaled $8,000,000,000, the highest figure mentioned in this connection. What is an eight billion dollar mortgage as against a seventy-seven billion dollar property? Any other industry in the country except agriculture so fortunately situated would consider itself on Easy Street. The truth is that no matter how farm figures are handled, the farmer apparently turns up as a miracle worker in the financial world. There we have the one phase of the situation. What is the other? Senator Capper in a recent statement says that 600,000 people will leave the farm during the present year. The Senator intimates that the low price of wheat is driving people away from the farm. That is the position farm bloc leaders generally take. There is a stock reply to the wheat argument which runs about as follows: The wheat crop comprises in value about one-sixth of the annual total production. The per capita consumption of wheat in the United States is about 600,000,000 bushels, of which the 50,000,000 people on the farms consume one- half. In addition, the farmer feeds a lot of wheat to his stock and needs 100,000,000 bushels for seed. All of that leaves the exportable surplus of wheat somewhere around 200,000,000 bushels. Suppose wheat is low, say the people who talk back at the farmer, corn brings a good price. Surely the farmer can stand it to lose $100,000,000 or even $200,000,000 on his wheat if he gains approximately $700,- 000,000 on his corn crop. The figures for comparative wheat and corn prices are right enough. They are facts. The answer to that is another fact. Senator Capper is quite correct when he says that in all probability 600,000 people will leave the farms during the year 1923. That is only part of the story. The facts are that more than 1,500,000 people have left the farm since 1920. It is only necessary to circulate-around among the people who leave the farm for the towns and cities to find that all of them are not leaving because they want to. A great many of them leave because they have to. It takes a lot of money to live in town, city folks say. That is right; but it takes a lot of money to live in the country. It takes so much money that it is becoming in- [ Vol. 117, No. 3039 creasingly difficult for the landless man to obtain a home that he can call his own. Any farmer worth his salt works for the time when he will have a farm that belongs to him. In 1880 there were approximately 4,000,000 farms being tilled in the United States. Seventy-five per cent of them were occupied by their owners; 25 per cent were occupied by tenants. In 1910 there were approximately 6,300,000 farms in the United States. Owners operated 63 per cent of them; tenants. operated 37 per cent. It is important to understand not only the extent of tenancy but also at what rate it is increasing or decreasing. On the basis of the number of farms involved tenancy increased 44.5 per cent in the United States between 1880 and 1910. At the rate of increase in tenancy that has been prevalent since 1910, approximately 55 per cent of all the farms in the country will be under tenant operation by 1940. The rungs of the ladder upon which the landless man climbs to farm ownership are, roughly, home labor, hired labor, tenancy, and ownership with or without mortgage. The rapid increase in land values during the last thirty years, and particularly during the last eight years, has made it increasingly difficult for the landless man to acquire a home. This is shown by the fact that statistics compiled in three typical Mid Western States reveal that those who attained their farms thirty or forty years ago spent an average of 5.2 years as hired hands and 4.9 years as ten- ants. Three decades later the hired-hand stage occupied 7.9 years and the renter’s stage 11.1 years. That is, nine- teen years of labor, nineteen years of unceasing toil before the average landless man can secure a farm—blanketed by a mortgage. Farming is popularly regarded as a stabilized industry as far as ownership and management are concerned. The contrary is true. The annual turnover in agriculture, ownership, and management, being the factors considered, is so great that no other industry could experience it and survive. Twenty per cent of all of the farms in the United States had different occupants—owners or tenants—in De- cember, 1922, than they had the year before. During the year 1922 approximately 25 per cent of the farms occupied by tenants changed hands. During that year at least 10 per cent of the farms changed owners. The never-ending travels of the tenant farmer, the yearly search for something better, is not evidence of rural pros- perity. The tenant moves for a variety of reasons, the principal one being that he has to. Perhaps the landlord raises the rent. Or the tenant finds he cannot pay the rent contracted for. The tenant is perhaps sold out for debt. Or he believes that in some other county or some other State he will have a better chance in his fight to achieve economic independence. Here we have the crux of the agricultural problem. Pro- duction is increasing per man employed upon the: farms. Price levels as a whole have tended to increase. Farm lands in many districts have within the last twenty years jumped from $75 an acre to $475. Many farms have changed hands at even higher prices. Agriculture has all of the external statistical evidences of a highly prosperous, thoroughly stabilized and standardized industry. And yet agriculture walks with a limp. There are pebbles in the farmer’s boot. A farmer writing in the San Francisco Chronicle makes a general explanation of the condition in which he finds him- self, saying:

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Oct. 3, 1923] There is no doubt that multitudes of the small farmers of whom I am fairly typical, and who are making the outcry, are in real trouble if they have bought farms at inflated values, expecting to pay out by the sale of products at inflated prices. A good many such will go broke; so will some tenants who have agreed to pay rentals which cannot be got from the lands. It is unfortunate. In many cases it is pitiful. It cannot be helped. They did not know that extreme inflation must inevita- bly be followed by a corresponding depression. The pendulum must swing. Incidentally—I wish I knew when—it will begin to swing back toward prosperity But comments of this kind get us nowhere. They are explanations that minister to confusion, The lowa farmer who recently wrote a letter to the New York World hits the mark. He bought his land for $65 an acre. It is worth $425 now. This farmer says that if he figures on the basis of his actual investment he is doing all right, put that if he figures on present or recent sales value, he is losing money. Even as crop prices range now he “could get along.” But God help the man who buys the place at the $425 figure! When a farmer says that his land is worth $425 an acre, what does he mean? What are the factors that have contributed to that value? Just what has been capitalized? If the farmer would begin answering those questions hon- estly and intelligently, he would perhaps be less inclined to “cuss” the money powers. For the farmer has helped make the agricultural rope that is slowly strangling him. Here are some of the factors the farmer has capitalized: The railroad. Land prices went up as soon as a branch- line or a main-line railroad was within hauling distance of the farm. The country school—the entire rural-school system. Land went up because “we have fine schools in this county.” Hard roads. Land always goes up wherever “there is an improved highway to market.” Modern invention—binders, tractors, threshing machines, all modern farm equipment. The farmer believes that the money interests capitalized the twine-binder and the trac- tor. They did. But where they capitalized for thousands the farmer capitalized for millions. : Freight rates. As freight rates have declined, as mar- kets have become more and more accessible, land prices have increased. Growing urban population. That’s right. The farmer has capitalized the city. In 1890 64 per cent of the popu- lation lived in the country. In 1920 49 per cent lived in the country. The more people there are in the cities, the more people there are to feed. The greater the demand for farm products, the higher the prices of land. The growth of the cities has ministered to farm prosperity, and everything that ministers to farm prosperity the farmer capitalizes. The landowner does not overlook any bets. New York, for example, is now a congested port. It is one of the most expensive ports in the world. If New York spends half a billion dollars on its port, decreasing the charges in and_ out, the farmer will capitalize the decrease. At the present time the agricultural bloc is demanding lower freight rates. If freight rates are reduced, the re- duction will be immediately capitalized. The farmer does just what the railroad does, which capitalizes all of the prosperity that comes its way. The wheat growers, who are now making loud outcry, have been insisting that the canalization of the St. Law- rence would increase the price of wheat ten cents a bushel The Nation by reducing freight charges to Liverpool. Suppose freight rates to Liverpool on wheat were reduced, would the Amer- ican farmer capitalize the reduction? He certainly would. High prices for farm products are, of course, another factor that is promptly capitalized in terms of land value. What does all this mean to the tenant, who comprises about 40 per cent of the agricultural population? It means that the way currents are now setting the more prosperous agriculture becomes the harder it will be for him to obtain a farm home of his own. The man who owns land exacts from the tenant payment for all the benefits our present order confers upon agriculture. The landowner even capital- izes the advent of the automobile. Hard roads and Ford cars have made farm isolation a thing of the past. The tenant pays for the fact he is not isolated. He pays in terms of ten years of his life. Whereas a decade ago he could be- come a home-owner in ten years, it now takes him twenty— on the average. The tenant pays in the form of rent for all agricultural benefits and the purchaser of farm land pays. The man who buys 160 acres of land in Iowa, Illinois, In- diana, at the present time, pays for more than land. He pays for the railroads, the schoolhouses, the hard roads, for modern invention, and for the fact that cities like Chicago and New York have become places of comparatively easy access. Moreover, the purchaser of farm lands at prevailing prices, owing to the fact land values have not as yet been very materially deflated, would pay a good round sum for the high prices for farm produce that prevailed during the war period. The American farmer is one of the most sadly overcapi- talized business men in the world. As a result, he is racked by business depression and is wrecked by business pros- perity. The farmer, like landholders everywhere, appropri- ates to himself all of the values that result from our pres- ent complex economic and social life. These values are appropriated legally enough. Moreover, it is counted good business to capitalize agricultural benefits. But there must be a limit somewhere. There is a zenith for every- thing. Land prices cannot continue forever to mount. Overcapitalization in the end defeats itself. The burden becomes so heavy the public cannot bear it. And then individuals lose their stake. Economic problems have a way of solving themselves if let alone. But the undirected solution is not always a pleasing one. The rural land problem is working itself toward a solution. The answer is—the tenant. When land prices are inordinately high, land passes from weak hands to the hands of the strong. It passes by the mortgage route and by the investment route; but it passes. Owners’ shift but the tenant remains the permanent factor. Agriculture is prosperous. It is so prosperous that many farms for many years have maintained an owner, a tenant, and a mortgage. But prosperity built upon overcapitaliza- tion is deceptive. It can disappear in a night and with it the savings of millions of industrious workers. Agriculture is prosperous. Agriculture is lame. Speculation in land, the inflation that follows dealings in “paper profits,” overcapitalization of both the earned and unearned increments, the attempt to perpetuate transient crop and price conditions in the form of permanent capi- talization, the land-tenure system that makes possible the appropriation by the individual of values that properly be- long to the community, tenancy, and inflation—these are the pebbles in the farmer’s boot.

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Hy i 348 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3039 These United States—X X XI X* INDIANA: Her Soil and Light By THEODORE DREISER HERE is about it a charm which I shall not be able to express, I know, but which is of its soil and sky and water—those bucolic streams and lakes which so charm those who see them. And where else will one find such beech and sugar groves, so stately and still and serene— the seeming abodes of spirits and elves that are both friendly and content? Rains come infrequently and then only in deluging showers. Corn and wheat and hay and melons flourish throughout the State. Spring comes early. Autumn lingers pleasingly into November. The winters are not, in the main, severe. Yet deep, delicious snows fall. And a dry cold in the northern portion makes sleighing and skating a delight. The many lakes and streams afford ample opportunity for house-boats, lakeside cottages, and bunga- lows as well as canoeing and fishing and idling and dream- ing. In the beech and sugar groves are many turtle doves. The bluejay and the scarlet tanager flash and cry. Hawks and buzzards and even eagles, betimes, soar high in the air. Under the eaves of your cottage are sure to be wrens and bluebirds. Your chimneys are certain to shelter a covey of martins. And to your porches will cling the trumpet vine, purple clematis, and wistaria. From the orchard and wood- lot of your farm will sound the rusty squeak of the guinea hen and the more pleasing cry of the peacock, “calling for rain.” One should not conclude from this, of course, that the State is without manufacture, or that, size for size, its cities and towns are not as interesting as those of other States. To me they are more so. There is something in the very air that sustains them that is of the substance of charm. What it is I cannot say. You will find it suggested in the poems of Riley and the stories of Tarkington, a kind of wist- fulness that is the natural accompaniment of the dreams of unsophistication. To be sure the State is lacking in urban centers of great size which somehow, regardless of character, manage to focus the interest of the outside world. Apart from Indianapolis, a city of three hundred thousand, there is no other of even a third of its size within its bor- ders. Evansville, on the Ohio, and at the extreme southwest corner of the State, has possibly eighty thousand. Ft. Wayne, in the northern portion of the State, the same. Terre Haute, the most forthright of its several manufacturing centers, had, until recently at least, a population of seventy thou- sand. And because of the character of its manufactories which relate to steel and coal it is looked upon by many who are not a part of it as grimy. Its smaller cities such as Gary, Hammond, South Bend, Kokomo, Richmond, Muncie, and several others literally resound with manufacture, being centers for steel, packing, automobiles, engineering sup- plies, farm machinery, and so forth. Yet contrasted with the neighboring States of Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois—in particular the latter’s northern portion—it pales as a center of manufacture. Ohio can boast quite ten centers to its one. In passing from any of these States into Indiana one is reminded of the difference between Holland and Germany * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1923. The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. or France, the one with its canals, its windmills, and level fields, dotted with simple homes, the other with its plethora of cities and factories and, in the old days, its ever-present army. The one is idyllic, the other almost disturbingly real and irritatingly energetic. Yet to my way of thinking the State is to be congratu- lated rather than not upon this limited commercial equip- ment. Not all of our national domain need to be commercial, I trust, however much we may wish it. A few such pastoral areas might prove an advantage. Besides, as I have in- dicated, there is running through the mood of the State something which those who are most intimate with it are pleased to denominate “homey” or “folksy”’—a general geniality and sociability. And with this I agree. The automobile and the phonograph, plus the dancing which the latter inspires, have added so much to the color of the small town and the farm in these days. Or, if it be the lone cottage, far from any town, with neither automobile nor phonograph, then the harmonica and the accordeon are found to be in service. And one may sing and dance to those. It is the light, or the soil, or what? In this connection the church life of Indiana, as well as its moral taboos, have always interested me. Morality one might well assume by now, as well as all important social regula- tions, are best and most understandingly based upon and regulated by the Golden Rule. Beyond that, among the in- telligent, restrictions and compulsions are few. Neither theory nor dogma nor ritual nor custom nor creed are dis- turbingly binding. Yet in my native State, and despite the steady growth in scientific knowledge, devotion to denomina- tional liturgy and dogma appears to be unmodified. Go where you will, into any city or town you choose, and there will be not.one but four or five or six or more churches of the ultra sectarian type and each with a lusty and convinced following. Nowhere, considering the sizes of the various cities and towns and hamlets, will you see larger or more attractive edifices of this character. And not infrequently the Bible school attachments or additions are almost as impressive as the church themselves. In short, sectarian religion appears to flourish mightily. It is the most vigorous and binding of all local social activities. The affairs of the church are not only spiritually but socially of the utmost importance. Nearly everyone belongs to one or another of the various denominations and the rivalry between the several sects is not infrequently keen, especially in the smaller places. And in the main, and despite all science, they are still imperial- istic in their claim to revelation and devotion. Religious innovations are taboo. Even modern liberalizing theologic tendencies, though sanctioned by a stray soul here and there, are not in the main either understood or approved of. To this day in many orthodox quarters the youths of the hour are still discouraged from attending the State or any other university on the ground that they are “hotbeds of infidelity and irreligion.” And the local press, running true to form, as it does everywhere, editorially sustains this contention. And yet, as the world knows, Indiana has its “genius i bee

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 349 belt” geographically deliminated even, as “south of a line running east and west through Crawfordsville.” And, lo- cally at least, and until recently there was no hesitation in stamping the decidedly successful literary and art products of the State as the effusions of genius. Well, there’s neither good nor ill but thinking makes it so. Certainly the State may well be proud of George Ade and Booth Tarkington and William M. Chase, the artist, to say nothing of those dis- tinguished elders James Whitcomb Riley and General Lew Wallace, the author of “Ben Hur.” Whether as much may be said for some others still remains to be seen. Certainly from the point of view of current popularity they have noth- ing to complain of. And as for posterity, well, posterity pays no grocer’s bills. There are many aspiring writers who would gladly change place with George Barr McCutcheon or Charles Major, who wrote “When Knighthood Was in Flower.” t Yet apart from these the State is not without a few per- sonalities whose names will awaken responsive and other than literary thought beyond its borders—William Henry Harrison, the “Indian fighter’ and quondam President, for instance, and Thomas B. Hendricks, once a Vice-President. Also Oliver P. Morton, an efficient early Governor; John Hay, diplomat, author, and cabinet officer of his day; and John Clark Ridpath, the historian. As a true and loyal Hoosier I suppose I should add that James B. Eads, the distinguished engineer, once lived in Brookville, Indiana, that Robert Owen founded his human brotherhood experi- ment at New Harmony, in Posey County, that Henry Ward Beecher was once pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, and that Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have studied those few books and caught that elusive some- thing that later gave character and beauty to his utterances somewhere in a log cabin in Spencer County. But beyond these, what? Well, beyond an agreeable and respectable and kindly social world in which to be and pass one’s brief and changeful days, what more is needed? Trusts? There are several in active operation, ye tin-plate and ye steel trust, for instance; the former organized at Kokomo, Indiana, the latter in full and dictatorial swing at Gary and Hammond, where only so recently as July, 1919, a number of very respectable employees on strike were promptly and in true liberty fashion shot to death upon the streets of Hammond, their crime being, apparently, opposi- tion to insufficient wages and certain (as they seem to have assumed) unsatisfactory piece-work conditions. The moral entanglements resulting from this method of adjusting labor difficulties are before the courts of Indiana at this very time. Large industries? Indianapolis, Kokomo, and South Bend are assumed to be automobile manufacturing centers of the greatest import, nationally and internationally speak- ing. The steel interests of Gary, Hammond, and Terre Haute are assumed, not only locally but nationally, to be second to none in America. Indianapolis has not one but several enormous packing plants. The underlying coal-beds of southwestern Indiana—especially about Terre Haute— are listed as among the important resources of the Central West. The melon- and fruit-bearing powers of the climate and soil of that same area have brought about not only specialization and intensive cultivation but a trade-mark which is of the greatest value. In addition the State has scenic wonders such as the caves about Wyandotte and such natural scenery and curative springs as have given rise to French Lick, West Baden, Mud Lavia, The Glades, and all the delightful lake life that characterizes its northern half. But perhaps, after all, this is not the type of thing that should be registered of Indiana. Despite a long and happy intimacy with it, it is entirely possible that I have not even suggested or have entirely missed its truer spiritual signifi- cance as we are wont to say of so much that is but deeply human. Going south through Indiana once with a friend and fellow Hoosier, we two fell into a solemn and almost esoteric, I might say, discussion of the State and its signifi- cance, intellectually, emotionally, and otherwise. Previous to what I am about to set down I had been pointing out a number of things—not only those that have always appealed to me, the poetic and folksy charm of the State and its in- habitants—but also a number of other things that rather irritated me, its social devotion to dogmatic religion, for one thing, its rather pharisaical restfulness in its assumed en- lightenment and knowledge of what is true and important to the world at large, its political somnolence as suggested by its profound and unchanging devotion to the two ancient and utterly platitudinous parties. With all of this he most solemnly agreed. ‘Then, having done so, entered not so much upon a defense as an interpretation of the State which I will here set down as best I can. “You should go sometime to an automobile speed contest such as is held annually at the Speedway at Indianapolis, as I have often, year after year; in fact, since it was first built. There, just when the first real summer days begin to take on that wonderful light that characterizes them out here—a kind of luminous silence that suggests growing corn and ripening wheat and quails whistling in the meadows over by the woods, you will find assembled thousands from this and other countries, with their cars and at times their foreign tongues, individuals interested in speed or fame or the development of the automobile. And this might cause you to feel, as it has me, that as rural as it all is, at times Indiana is quite as much of a center and more so even, than places which, by reason of larger populations, set themselves up as such. As I say, I have been there often, and getting a bit tired of watching the cars have gone over into the woods inside the course and lain down on the grass on my back. “There, about me, would be the same familiar things I have always known and loved since I was a boy here, but that getting out into the world for a time had made me think that I had forgotten, though I hadn’t—the sugar and hickory and beech trees, the little cool breezes that come up in the middle of the day and cool the face and hands for a moment, and rustle the leaves—the same fine blue sky that I used to look up into when a boy. But circling around me continuously, just the same, to the south and the north and the east and the west, where were the banks of the track beyond the woods, were these scores of cars from all parts of the world, with their thunder and dust, the thunder and dust of an international conflict. Then I would get up and look to the south along the immense grandstand that was there and would see, flying in this Indiana sunlight, the flags of all the great nations, Italy and England, France and Bel- gium, Holland and Germany, Austria and Spain. And it came to me then that the spirit that had been instrumental for some reason in distinguishing this particular State from its sister States, as it unquestionably has been distinguished, was and still is, I think, effective. It has won for Indiana -

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300 a freedom from isolation and mere locality which is world- wide. It has accomplished here, on this quiet Hoosier soil, a very vital contact with universal thought.” “Universal thought is a pretty large thing to connect up with, F ,’ I contended genially. ‘And this is all very flattering to dear old Indiana, but do you really believe your- self? It seems to me that, if anything, the State is a little bit sluggish, intellectually and otherwise. Or, if it isn’t that, exactly, then certainly there is an element of self-com- placency that permits the largest percentage of its popula- tion to rest content in the most retarding forms of political, religious, and social fol de rol. They are all, or nearly all, out here, good and unregenerate Democrats or Republicans, as they have been for, lo! these seventy years, now—come next Wednesday. Nearly all belong to one or another of the twenty-seven sure-cure sects of Protestantism. And they are nearly all most heartily responsive to any -ism which is advertised to solve all the troubles of the world, in- cluding those of our own dear nation. I call your attention to the history of the Millerites of southeast Indiana, with their certain date for the ending of the world and their serious and complete preparation for the same; the Spiritualists and free lovers who fixed themselves in north- western Indiana, about Valparaiso, if I am not mistaken, and Mormon fashion ruled all others out; the something of soil magnetism which drew Robert Owen from Scotland to New Harmony and there produced that other attempt at solving all the ills to which the flesh is heir. Don’t for- get that the Dunkards—that curious variation of Mennonism —took root out here and flourished mightily for years, and exists to this day, as you know. Also the reformed Quakers. And now I hear that Christian Science and a Christianized form of Spiritualism are almost topmost in the matter of growth and the enthusiasm of their followers. I have no quarrel with any faith as a means to private mental blessed- ness. But you were speaking of universal and creative thought. Just how do you explain this?” “Well, I can and I can’t,” was his rather enigmatic reply. “This is a most peculiar State. It may not be so dynamic nor yet so creative, sociologically, as it is fecund of things which relate to the spirit—or perhaps I had better say to poetry and the interpretative arts. How else do you explain William M. Chase, born here in Brookville, I believe, General Lew Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley, Edward Eggleston and his “Hoosier Schooimaster,” Booth Tarkington, George Ade, John Clark Ridpath, Roswell Smith, who founded the Cen- tury Magazine, and then Lincoln studying and dreaming down in Spencer County? All accidents? I wonder. In fact I am inclined to think that there is much more to soil and light in so far as temperament and genius are con- cerned than we have any idea of as yet. There may be, and personally I am inclined to think there is, a magnetic and also generative something appertaining to soil and light which is not unrelated to the electro-magnetic field of science in which so much takes place. I look upon them as potent and psycho-genetic even, capable of producing and actually productive of new and strange and valuable things in the way of human temperament. Take little Holland, for in- stance, and its amazing school of great painters. And Greece, with its unrivaled burst of genius. Or Italy, with its understanding of the arts. Or, England, with its genius for governing. There is something about the soil and light of certain regions that makes not only for individuality in the land but in the people of the land.” The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3039 “For instance,” he continued, “I insist that the Hoosier is different mentally and spiritually to the average Amer- ican. He is softer, less sophisticated, more poetic and romantic. He dreams a lot. He likes to play in simple ways. He is not as grasping as some other Americans and some other nationalities. That may be due to the fact that he is not as practical, being as poetic and good natured as he is. If he be poor and uneducated he likes to fish and play an accordeon or sing. If he is better schooled he likes to read, write verse, maybe, or books, and dream. In a crude way, perhaps, he has the temperament of the artist, and so I still look to Indiana, or its children, at least, to do great things, artistically. And all this I lay to the soil and light. Why? Idon’t know. I just guess that they have something to do with it. “Nothing else explains to me Edward Eggleston and his turning to letters at that early time and in the region from which he hailed—the extreme southeastern part of Indiana. Or General Lew Wallace writing ‘Ben Hur” there in Craw- fordsville, under a beech tree. Neither will anything else explain to me why the first automobile this side of France was built right here at Kokomo, and almost at the same time that the first one was perfected in France. Nor why the first automobile course, after Brooklands, England, was built here at Indianapolis—not near New York or Chicago, as one might have expected, perhaps. Or why an adventurer like La Salle should come canoeing up the Maumee and the St. Joseph into this particular region. The French, who first had this territory, chose to fortify at Terre Haute and Vincennes. Why? They might just as well have fortified at other points beyond the present State borders. “What I am trying to get at is this: Via such a soil and such light as is here cooperating you have a tempera- ment more sensitive to the resource above mentioned. In the case of those who wandered in here, like La Salle and Lincoln, you have sensitives affected by the conditions here. Their dreams or aspirations were here strengthened. This is a region not unlike those which produce gold or fleet horses or oranges or adventurers. There are such regions. They are different. And I look upon Indiana as one such.” “Bravo!” I applauded. “Very flattering to dear old In- diana, to say the least, and as an honest native, and moved by self-interest, I hereby subscribe. But—’ And then I went back to the churches, the hard-headed convention- alities, the fact that the “inventor” of the first automobile here was accused of robbing the French of their patents, that Robert Owen was a canny Scot who saw to it that he never lost a dollar in his idealistic enterprise but held the whole town of New Harmony and all that thereunto apper- tained in fee simple, so that when the idea proved ground- less he was able to shoo all his assembled theorists off the place and sell it for what it would bring. But my friend was not in the least abashed. He reproached me with being incurably materialistic and clung to his soil and light theory, which, I may as well admit, appeals to me very much. His final rebuke to materialism was that human nature in toto is nothing but a manifestation of forces which unavoidably assume opposite phases, which same we label good or evil, but which really are found to be supplementing each other in any manifestation which can be labeled life. So you may see how far Indiana, with its temperament carried us. But admiring and even revering the State as my native heath I am perfectly willing to admit all of his claims and even more of such as may be in its favor.

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 301 Good Old Squirrel Cage (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD HE squirrel cage of national presidential political issues is turning at Washington with just about all of the good old standard stock squirrels in it and with many—if not most—of the recently intruded newcomers getting tired and dropping out or running slowly. The proletarian revolution, which in 1917 and 1918 and 1919 seemed likely to become an extremely healthy and rapid squirrel by this time, is looking very thin and scrawny to the political eye and is running with a limp in every leg. Injections of propagandist arsenic and alarm by the American Defense Society and the United Mine Workers seem to do it little good. Labor as labor is occupying but a small place in the thoughts and plans of the gentlemen who are arranging the strategy of the campaign of 1924. A minor exception to this rule is found at the spot where the new-fangled labor squirrel is seen treading on the toes of the good old-fashioned railroad-question squirrel which is running with all the energy and all the speed natural to an issue animated now by some fifty years of political ex- perience in captivity. The labor problem in general has almost fallen out of the cage where the major parties chase their issues and their issues chase them. Railroad labor, however, through its adventitious association with the issue which most enrages the leaders of the ‘farm bloc” and of the “progressive group” is able to maintain a place among the minor worries of the political regulars and among the major hopes of the political guerrillas. Railroad labor is relied upon to be the “town and tank- town” wing of agrarian radicalism in its fight upon the Esch-Cummins Transportation Law. In this alliance the farm is distinctly the senior partner and the locomotive the junior partner. Our pro-labor senators are virtually all of them from agrarian States. Railroad labor finds political cooperation with the Farmers’ Union in Iowa easier than a political cooperation with the Plumbers’ Union in Connecti- cut. The cornfields of Iowa give us that wooer of labor, Brookhart; and the machine shops of Connecticut give us that ignorer of labor, McLean. In such circumstances the politicians are not much daunted by the specter of the solidarity of labor. They regard it as only a phantom squirrel. They are disturbed really only by Warren 8S. Stone and his colleagues among the leaders of labor on the railroads; and they are dis- turbed by them only as long as the farmers of certain Western States remain dissatisfied with farm-product prices -and farm-product railroad rates. Whenever farmers are angry, railroads are banged. ‘That is the observation of the politicians. They will do lit- tle for labor as labor because labor as labor does politically little for itself. They put additional bridles on the rail- roads—or stick them full of additional pins—in precise proportion as the temper of the farmers seems to require it. The one ultimate large permanent dominant squirrel in American politics is the farmer, the Western farmer, when lean and hungry and accordingly in running trim. The Democrats are hoping that in 1924 he will run in their livery. They intend to entice him most particularly _by teaching their good old tariff squirrel to keep pace with his discontent. They have not forgotten that in 1892, upon the heels of the passage of the McKinley tariff law, Mr. Grover Cleveland of New York, on his way to the White House, acquired the electoral votes of Illinois and of Wis- consin and five of the electoral votes of Michigan. They are expending immense toil and trouble on the task of try- ing to make the Fordney-McCumber tariff law as unpopu- lar among the farmers now as the McKinley law was then. They are encouraged in this task by noting that Robert Marion La Follette voted against the Fordney-McCumber tariff law and was subsequently reelected to the Senate from Wisconsin by a majority of unprecedented size. They are further encouraged in it by noting that in Minnesota in the struggle against Mr. Magnus Johnson it was not thought wise by Governor Preus to give the Fordney- McCumber law any warm embraces in public. In 1892 a third-party candidate—James B. Weaver of lowa—running under the description ‘“‘Populist’”—got more than a million votes and carried four States. In 1924 the Populist Party of Weaver is succeeded by the Farmer- Labor Party of Henrik Shipstead and Magnus Johnson with the same mixed offerings of agrarian reformation, political progressivism, and labor sympathy. It is not doubted that certain of these offerings will translate them- selves in certain ways into institutions to be established and venerated in the future. Such has been the fate of many of the offerings of the Populists. For immediate politics, however, the prospect of a Farmer-Labor third- party presidential candidacy in 1924 is regarded as an element in the fighting chances of the two old parties against each other rather than as an element gifted with any power to transform their policies. The Republicans will defensively and soothingly praise Harding and Coolidge, just as in 1892 they defensively and soothingly praised Harrison. The Democrats, as their one important concession to novelty, will equip their tariff squirrel with a League of Nations tail. Their advocacy of the League of Nations is subsiding to an advocacy of a vague participation in European affairs for the one specific visible and voluble great purpose of enlarging the market for farm products in Europe and of thus enlarging the prosperity of farmers in America. Peace as a motive is getting superseded by grain. A mandate to govern Armenia is getting displaced by a mandate to carry Minnesota. The Republicans accordingly, just as aforetime, will at- tack the Democrats as economic internationalists and will praise themselves as economic patriots. Incidentally the Republicans will again undertake a special defense of cen- tralized authority, as in the matter of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead law, while the Democrats, under pressure from such leaders as Al Smith of New York, will tend more distinctively toward a Jeffersonian defense of local self-government and of personal liberty. Revolutionary economic ideas about a working-class state and revolutionary political ideas about a world-state are languishing in the Washington cage. The hardy veteran ideas of the elections of the last quarter of the nineteenth century are thriving. The imported squirrels are running like snails. The native squirrels, with a few patches of decorative imported fur on them, are running with all their old accustomed trained steadiness. America, my fellow- citizens, has collided with Europe and has veered off and is America—America—still.

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[ Vol. 117, No. 3039 The Nation 352 «@Je2AS OF UMOAZ sI sy FEY] ‘peoj aesae) Ano sy} Yop }eou yeYyM UoOdN,, 2: 31BUI « e od

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 353 Oklahoma’s Klan-Fighting Governor By ALDRICH BLAKE* T is quiet at the Capitol. For several hours Governor Walton has been interviewing job-seekers. He sees them all personally; he would like to help them all. Sud- denly the monotony is broken: “A committee from Henry- etta, Governor.” Oklahoma’s chief executive smiles graciously, rises and shakes hands with his visitors—a minister, the chief of police, and a prominent business man. The committee begins its story. The people of Henryetta are being intimidated by the Klan. A number of outrages have occurred. One man has been killed. The circum- stances were—— The Governor interrupts: “I have heard enough. Mob violence is going to cease in Oklahoma; within five minutes the order will be given to place Okmulgee County under martial law.” The committee is dazed. The press of Oklahoma, always hostile to Walton, howls its derision. The Governor’s friends are alarmed. “Jack has made a mistake,” they say. Oklahomans are still talking about “Jack’s mistakes.” They will tell you they love him on account of the “mistakes he has made.” In fact, this young Governor thrives on “mistakes.” It is the Walton way—a tremendous decision in a flash, a terrifying attack on the enemy, a wallop that leaves friend and foe alike paralyzed by the impact. You can hit as hard as you like. There are no rules, Queens- berry or other. It’s “dog eat dog” when Walton sounds the tocsin. It is so in the Klan war that now splits Oklahoma asunder and threatens to assume national proportions. Academic discussion long since has ceased. A young Jew with a police- court record is seized on the main thoroughfare of Tulsa, taken to the whipping pasture, and severely beaten. The troops are ordered to Tulsa. The Governor is deaf to the suggestion that an investigation first be made by the civil authorities. “Make them feel martial law in Tulsa,” are his orders to the adjutant general, “Tulsa is rotten. There is no civil law there, only Klan law. Why waste time?” The strategy of attempting a civil investigation first does not appeal to him. He jumps a cog, maybe two. It is his way. He leaps across the first- and second-line trenches and engages the enemy in hand-to-hand combat at the very walls of the citadel. And he has never lost a battle. Some say it’s the daring of the man that has made him a political leader of such tremendous power; others state he is pos- sessed of unerring intuition, that instinct serves him better than reason. In any event, Governor Walton does not pretend to be a scholar in politics. He admits that he is not ‘“Jearned.” His enemies assert he has never read a “serious book” in his life. Perhaps so; but his friends are not shocked. Gov- ernor Walton has drawn richly from the experience of everyday life and contact with the “under dog.” Asa loco- motive engineer and railroad conductor, he studied men. He loves the poor. If you are “down and out,” see Walton —that’s what they will tell you in Oklahoma. If he can help you he will do it and he won’t ask your politics. Publicly, * Aldrich Blake is Executive Counselor to the Governor of Oklahoma, the highest appointive position in the State. he is a Democrat, but there are scores of Socialists and Republicans on the State pay roll—put there by Walton. Just now the Governor is engaged in his greatest battle. For two years Oklahoma had lived under a cloud—a thick mist behind which'the Invisible Empire gave its orders to sheriffs, prosecuting attorneys, jurors, and judges, ordered citizens flogged, threatened others, and instituted a busi- ness boycott against what they call the ‘“‘alien world.” The more timid leaders urged that the Klan be left alone, allowed to run its course. Meanwhile tens of thousands of citizens silently and sullenly submitted to a gradual en- croachment upon their precious liberties. Such a condition could not endure—not in Oklahoma where men value initiative, enterprise, and freedom. On August 14, Governor Walton sent the troops to Tulsa. In less than six weeks a Grand Dragon and a Titan have been put under ar- rest charged with rioting, four Klansmen have confessed to flogging a defenseless citizen and have been sentenced to two years each in the State penitentiary, many others have been bound over to the district court, the Invisible Empire has announced that all masked parades and meetings will be “deferred,” and the fiery cross, which had brazenly burned in some cases from the tops of the courthouses, has been taken down and destroyed. Walton did it. Personally Governor Walton is a most charming gentle- man. A bitter foe becomes tractable in his presence. A woman with a couple of ragged children can win a pardon or parole for her husband quicker than the warmest political friend or the shrewdest lawyer. In fact, it is almost impos- sible for Governor Walton to resist the appeal of poverty, no matter what the request may be. Early in his admin- istration he announced that all death sentences would be commuted during his term of office. A storm broke over him but he did not waver. And so again he braved public scorn when he wrote a letter urging President Harding to release the political war prisoners. ‘“Here’s the letter; now howl,” he said to the reporters when making the communi- cation public. And the papers howled. Another Walton “mistake.” His sympathy for the tenant farmers and wage-earners of the State is almost pathetic. “I cannot give them all jobs,” he will say, “and political and industrial reforms are so slow. What can I do?” He has already given them warehouses, an anti-discrimination law, a first-class market commission, and legislation of inestimable value to the growing number of cooperative societies. Governor Walton gets most of his amusement poking fun at Oklahoma’s newspapers. In fact, he never fails to give the “corrupt press” credit for his political success. For years Walton has fought the newspapers and the news- papers have fought him, and Walton has always won. By his enemies John Calloway Walton is regarded as a political adventurer, corrupt machine politician, hypocrite, and brainless tool in the hands of designing men who have crept into his councils; by his friends “Governor Jack” is hailed as the champion of political freedom and democracy, a two-fisted fighter after the style of Roosevelt and with a heart like the heart of Lincoln. And so goes the battle in Oklahoma.

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In the Driftway WO oddly similar tales of shipwreck and suffering at sea have recently come to the Drifter’s notice, one recounting the escape of four of the crew of the barque Amy Turner, the other telling the story of the survivors of the steamship Trevessa. The Drifter has seen only the barest outline of the loss of the Amy Turner, attracted to the story by a headline in an English newspaper, reading “23 Days in Open Boat.” Now, three days in an open boat, unexpectedly, is usually an adventure worth the telling, and when you add twenty more days, you have the fabric of high romance. The only hint of what those twenty-three days were like, however, in the account which the Drifter read, was contained in one line which said: “Lack of food and water caused the greatest suffering to the crew.” One may accept that statement without undue or elaborate argument. * * * * * ERHAPS some idea of what the four men experienced P may be gathered from the log of the captain of the Trevessa, for he was also twenty-three days in an open boat in circumstances probably not greatly dissimilar. The Trevessa foundered in the Indian Ocean on June 4, last. S. ©. S. signals were flashed from her before she went down, but although they were answered, assistance did not arrive in time. The crew had to take to the boats. All got away, one boat in command of the captain and the other under the chief mate. Each boat had a moderate amount of tinned milk and ship’s biscuit, but a scanty supply of water. At first the boats kept together, but this proved too much of a handicap, losing them much time, especially at night. So on the sixth day the men in the captain’s boat, which had the larger sail, wished their comrades the best of luck, gave them three cheers, and as the captain wrote in his log “shook the reef out, hoisted sail, and car- ried on,” heading as best they could for the island of Mauritius. * * * * * HIRST and cold are perhaps the two things most to be feared in an open boat. Owing to their location, the men of the Trevessa suffered only slightly from cold; but the torture of thirst set in almost at once, as the skipper had to limit them to one-third of a cigarette tin of water a day, and did not begin on that until after forty-eight hours. The captain, however, was wise in methods for obtaining relief. On the fourth day out his log reads: Instructed men to lift sea water in handkerchiefs and draw water into nostrils and blow out again, and not to allow any to get back in the throat. Tried this with good results. Also to strip to the waist and swill with sea water. Rather cold; only a few tried. Fortunately the morale of the crew was good. On the fifth day the skipper wrote: “Issued ration milk and biscuit, and were treated by McGreen (A.B.) to the following little song: “«T like ham and eggs, I like eggs and bacon. Anybody here says I don’t like ’em, He is jolly well mistaken.’ ”’ One’s heart warms to McGreen (A.B.). Not great poetry nor remarkable song, you sniff. Ah, but the proof of poetry The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3089 Thus judged, the Drifter sur- mises that McGreen (A.B.) deserves a niche among the or song is in their effect. On the eighth day, according to the captain: All recognize now the benefit especially of wetting head and neck and keeping them wet. All sucking small lumps of coal and buttons. The latter helps a little to keep our mouths clean. For some days all have had a horrible taste in the mouth, and the mouth and tongue thickly coated with white slime. * * * * * immortals. HE first death is entered laconically in the log of the seventeenth day: “3 a. m.: Jacob Ali died. 7 a. m.: Jacob Ali buried.” Just that for one spent life. + * * * * N the twenty-third day the carpenter sighted Rodri- guez Island, and was rewarded with a whole cigarette tin of water. The chief mate’s boat landed at Mauritius three days later. In all thirty-three men of a crew of forty-four survived the foundering of the Trevessa. Ten died in the boats and another shortly after reaching Mauri- tius. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. The Rest of West Virginia TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. James M. Cain’s article in your number of June 27, West Virginia: A Mine-Field Melodrama, is very good as far as it goes, but it is much more the view of a newspaperman going in to “cover” an assignment on the distressing situation in the coal fields than a picture of West Virginia by one who really knows the State. Even though coal may be the dominant force in the industrial and commercial life of the State, a large por- tion of the population is not directly concerned with it. The hills of the Alleghany Mountains through the eastern and western “Panhandles” and the central portion of the State are not, as Mr. Cain describes them, “striking in their bleak ugli- ness” and “hard and barren save for a scrubby whiskery growth of trees.” They are low, gentle, peaceful, and friendly, carpeted with grass and daisies or covered with thick forests of pine, chestnut, maple, and ash. In them lives a quiet farmer popula- tion much like that of many other of these United States. In them are numerous busy little towns with their inevitable Main Streets like thousands of other towns but saved from the hide- ousness of Gopher Prairie by their very lovely natural surround- ings. Agriculture is important throughout the State. The lumber industry once thrived and is still important. Oil and gas, two important products of the State, are not mentioned by Mr. Cain. Around Wheeling is a flourishing iron and steel section. Glass factories dot the State. Coal may be king, but there are royal princes. Nor are all West Virginians mountaineers. The men work- ing in the mines in the Fairmont and Clarksburg coal section, and many in the southern counties, too, are Italians, Slovaks, or Austrians. I have lived for thirteen years in the central and northern parts of the State and I have yet to see my first moun- taineer. West Virginia has been known for years as the Switzerland of America, but the unpaved roads which become bogs of mud in rainy or snowy weather make the State almost impassable for tourists. Moreover farmers from the outlying agricultural regions find it impossible to get to town for shipping their

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 355 Nees produce and for laying in supplies. Therefore the $50,000,000 good roads appropriation is not “futile.” The State university on the beautiful Monongahela River with its more than 2,000 students should not be dismissed as giving “innocuous and pointless” courses because it has not been able to settle or prevent the coal war. If subjected to such a test where are the successful universities? Nor are the “summer camps for girls” and the “farmer’s short courses,” extension activities, the main work of an institution which is indeed to be praised highly for trying to build up a grade A university in what is after all a pioneer State. The University of West Virginia has much the same courses of study as any other State university and gives them with much the same degree of merit. In short, though Mr. Cain’s essay is admirable in the field it covers, it is a picture not of West Virginia but of one section of it—the sinister outstanding section, it is true, but still a part and not the whole. Chicago, September 11 FRANCES KLEIN VINER Books for Germany To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: May I have space in The Nation to voice the plea of Dr. Hertha Krauss, at the recent conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, for reading matter for the people of Germany, where the intellectual hunger is as hard to bear as is the physi- cal hunger? Magazines, no matter how old, are urgently requested, read- ing matter for children, also scientific papers or books for people financially unable to buy such. Packages may be sent to her address: Cologne, Germany, care Wohlfahrtsamt. Let them be sent right away and at in- tervals during the months to come! New York, September 12 BLANCHE WATSON : TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: As professor of English literature and culture at the University of Kénigsberg I desire to foster here in East Prussia an understanding of American culture, but I cannot do much for lack of books and periodicals. The collapse of the mark raises a high wall not only around the industrial but also around the intellectual life of Germany. In the name of my students I should be very thankful if you could help me with some books or periodicals concerning present-day America. The Nation is kept here both at the university library and in our English seminar. We get it through the World Association for Adult Education. And it is a great consolation for a German heart to read so useful a guide to American culture. Chiefly I get the impression that American culture is now trying to abandon the exclusively utilitarian and materialistic point of view and to become more broad and liberal. I am very much inter- ested, for instance, in the attitude of Mencken, Lewis, Sinclair; in the philosophical movement which goes under the name of the New Realism, as well as in the American labor movement. But you see, we have no book by any of these authors in our library and are obliged to depend on hints and occasional men- tion in short essays. We would be most grateful if you could help to break the wall around Germany. Konigsberg, Germany, September 1 Nation Clubs To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: We who are earnest readers of The Nation well know that the present age is given over too much to the grossly material side of life, producing thereby a drab and soulless life, and tending to kill the intellectual part of human society, without which even Mr. Bryan couldn’t perceive the differences between the man and the monkey. In a recent article in The Nation, Bertrand Russell goes as far as to suggest that he G. HUEBENER would rather see European civilization perish than to have the materialistic machine-age of America govern the people of Europe. Knowing that Pittsburgh has many young men and women who are zealous readers of The Nation, I think that it would be a good idea to organize a club whose aim would be to further the progressive ideas brought out by the able writers of The Nation. Young men and women of Pittsburgh, can we not be as in- terested in the vital things of life as the materialistic majority is interested in its trifles? I shall be glad to hear from those who are interested in forming such an organization. 215 Devilliers Street, Pittsburgh, August 27 BEN CHASS Questions for Birth Controllers To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of May 16, in discussing infant and maternal mortality rates, you say: “Only in regard to birth control do we show no signs of a modern scientific attitude.” May I ask what is a modern scientific attitude as to birth con- trol, “voluntary motherhood” as Margaret Sanger prefers to call it, or “voluntary parenthood” as Mary Ware Dennett puts the idea before the world with apparently some grudging recog- nition of the male as a factor in reproduction? In my opinion the most we can mean by “scientific attitude” in regard to “voluntary motherhood” is a patient willingness to keep on hopefully experimenting. That “voluntary motherhood” will cause some of the fundamental changes in racial or social con- ditions claimed by its advocates may be true; but nothing that these advocates have yet put forth in the way of facts proves that their contentions are founded on anything more than an earnest wish to see those conditions brought about. 5 “Voluntary motherhood” as a principle is very far from be- ing generally applied the world over. But even if complete control were possible and were universal as a practice, no one (so far as I know) is in a position to say what its biological and social effects would be. Such little evidence as is at hand indicates, to my mind at least, that the world would decline considerably in population if propagation were left to a pure “parental instinct.” That hard-headed sage of an earlier gen- eration, William Graham Sumner, saw this clearly enough when he wrote in “Folkways” some twenty years ago: Children add to the weight of the struggle for existence of their parents. The relation of parent to child is one of sacrifice. The interests of parents and children are antagonistic. The fact that there are or may be compensations does not affect the primary relation between the two. It may well be believed that, if pro- creation had not been put under the dominion of a great passion, it would have been caused to cease by the burdens it entails. “Voluntary motherhood” by contraception furnishes the condi- tions where the passion may be satisfied without entailing bur- dens, and hence we might confidently look for a tremendous decline in the birth-rate were this kind of knowledge univer- sally available and the means at hand to use it. From such data as are furnished by the birth-rate among American college women there is some slight ground to believe that population would diminish rapidly. It may be doubted if women with even a moderate amount of inborn intelligence are equipped with a sufficiently powerful and overwhelming “ma- ternal instinct” (a term convenient but inexact) to make pos- sible a perpetuation of present economic and cultural values under a system of “voluntary motherhood.” At any rate I should like to see birth control advocates give us more explicit evidence to prove the point. As it is we are forced to believe that our present civilization is upheld in large measure by the careless and the “accidents.” Perhaps it may never be other- wise. If so, it will be another illustration of the mystic saying of William Blake: “The Tigers of Wrath are wiser than the Horses of Instruction.” Portland, Oregon, May 26 H. C. DEKKER

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t) 356 The Nation - Books The Process of Government Legislative Procedure. By Robert Luce. Houghton Mifflin Company. $5. The Leadership of Congress. By George Rothwell Brown. The Bobbs Merrill Company. $2.50. oT must themselves be governed by law, else they would in confusion worse confounded quickly come to grief.” Therefore we have rules of procedure, a set of offi- cials with symbols of authority wherewith to keep peace if not harmony in legislative assemblies, and, most important of all, the unofficial but no less effective sanctions imposed by party discipline. To an analysis, explanation, criticism of these forces in “the art of governing by parties” Robert Luce, an able Congressman with a distinguished record in the Massachusetts Legislature and the Constitutional Convention of 1917-1918, has set himself. The first of four volumes on “the science of legislation” has appeared under the title “Legislative Procedure.” It deals with “parliamentary practices and the course of business in the framing of statutes,” and explores the history and present practice of procedure with extraordinary thoroughness. Take, for instance, Chapter Ill, which deals with “the beginning of business.” There are references to the practice in this mat- ter of Athens, England (Parliament in three different periods), France, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and to both houses of Congress, four colonial and eleven State legislatures in this country. On the single question of time limits for the intro- duction of bills at the beginning of legislative sessions the rules of twenty-six State legislatures are noted. A similar variety of material is used in almost every chapter of the book. Nor is it all gathered from permanent records, or the pages of Hatsell or Hines, where procedural precedents have been pre- ‘served; Mr. Luce has gathered his store of incident and argu- ment from the obscure and ephemeral literature of newspapers, magazines, and unrecorded speeches. Besides tracing the intricacies of legislative mechanics, Mr. Luce devotes several chapters to the more elusive elements of party discipline and partisan control of procedure. Of the caucus, he says: “The most serious of the objections to caucus rule, from the viewpoint of political theory, is that it tends to shut out the minority from all share in legislation. That is the result toward which the Cabinet system of England marches and already its ominous cloud hangs over Congress, when now and then we see vical problems of the most serious import handled under special rules permitting preposterous limita- tions of debate. ... That is why he who believes in free speech, in argument, in deliberation, may well question the wisdom of the caucus system.” It is no small achievement to make the explanation of the dry detail of legislative formalities interesting reading; Mr. Luce has succeeded in making a reference work in bulk and range an unusually exciting exploration of the mysteries of quorums and motions, filibusters and caucuses. Layman and legislator alike will look eagerly for the succeeding volumes for which the first has set so high a standard. One criticism may perhaps be leveled at Mr. Luce’s work in those chapters which deal with the hidden things of partisan control of legislatures. He rarely goes behind the externals of the system; one could wish that he had, from his wide store of experience, brought forth a more searching interpretation in terms of psychology and sociology. It is something to be hoped for in a future volume. If it be said that Mr. Luce has merely shown us the marion- ettes at work, Mr. Brown has in his “Leadership of Congress” given us a peep behind the scenes at the showman himself. For twenty years on the staff of the Washington Post, Mr. Brown [Vol. 117, No. 3039 has an intimate knowledge of the mechanics of congressional control, and a quick sense of the realities of partisanship on Capitol Hill. Mr. Brown deals chiefly with the metamorphosis of the Speakership since the days of Clay. He paints in vivid colors the “revolution of 1910” and the successive depletions of the Speaker’s power with the consequent dispersal and dimming of “visible” responsibility. Out of this “obliteration” of the Speakership, since authority could not follow catastrophe into oblivion, there has evolved a curious partisan system of control, wielded not by individuals but by groups. While the exact organization of the steering committee and the choice of floor leader differ in the two parties, the purpose is the same, and the result. A small group of influential men, indirectly chosen through the party caucus, but often beyond its direct influence, or even defying it, are the wielders of power. They sit outside the formal organiza- tion of the House and operate it according to their will or whim. Nothing better indicates the change in relative signifi- cance among the intangible forces of party government than the fact that “on the invitation of Mr. Mondell, the Floor Leader, the Speaker, Mr. Gillett, was invited to attend the meetings of the (Republican) Steering Committee” in the 66th Congress. In The Senate in Evolution Mr. Brown traces the develop- ment of “leadership” there, and the shattering of concentrated control by the impact of the agricultural bloc upon traditional ideas of party discipline. He considers that “the destruction of the party system and government by groups would be con- trary to basic principles of American government.” Whether one believes with Henry Jones Ford in the two-party system as the cornerstone of our political system and the fount of political virtue, or with Ostrogorski in his analysis of its break- down in practice, depends on one’s sectional and other social traditions, but it would be hard to convince “the richest man in Kansas” that he is a socialist, and we do not generally put anarchists on the Federal bench. Perhaps we are erecting a shibboleth into a symbol when we indict the emergence of political realities under the leadership of Senator Capper and Judge Kenyon. PHILLIPS BRADLEY Some Editorial Reminiscences From McKinley to Harding. By H. H. Kohlsaat. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3. People and Politics: Observed by a Massachusetts Editor. By Solomon Buckley Griffin. Little, Brown and Company. $5. Vi fun has been poked at this book of reminiscences by 4 Herman Kohlsaat, one of the very finest examples of the now passing type of proprietor and editor we have had. Some have felt that it was a case of ‘Me and the President,” with the particular President it might happen to be acting solely on Mr. Kohlsaat’s advice and suggestion. Since these are avow- edly random recollections of his friendships with the presidents of latter years, it is but natural that Mr. Kohlsaat should have dwelt upon his personal relations with them and emphasized the successes he achieved thereby. That it is all tinged with a harmless vanity is unquestionably true; but the fact is that editors in America have influenced politicians behind the scenes to no little degree. Even those who differed politically from My. Kohlsaat, particularly in his adoration of McKinley (whom he and Mark Hanna and others helped to foist upon the Ameri- can people by paying his debts as governor and thereby creating such an obligation as, whether utilized or not, no president should suffer), have admired Mr. Kohlsaat’s unselfishness, his refusal to take office, and his genuine desire to serve the coun- try according to his best light. There are no deep or weighty judgments to be found in this volume, but many sidelights upon happenings which the historian of the period under considera-

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Oct. 3, 1923] tion will have to take note of. Mr. Kohlsaat writes very frankly and correctly about a number of lesser personages than presi- dents, though chiefly of the latter. His book will not appeal to the society which has been formed for the glorification of Theodore Roosevelt and the professional extolling of his virtues, for Mr. Kohlsaat puts on record some of the falsehoods which, as every informed newspaperman knows, Mr. Roosevelt was constantly guilty of perpetrating. Particularly interesting is the light thrown by Mr. Kohlsaat upon the breaches between Taft and Roosevelt, and Wilson and Colonel House—the two warmest friendships in our recent political history, both of which ended abruptly. Mr. Griffin’s volume is much more solid, but not of greater historical value. It is disappointing in that he does not give us more of a picture of the inside workings of the Springfield Republican, that remarkable newspaper to which the senior and junior Bowles brought such high character, superb Ameri- canism, and true idealism. It would have been extremely valu- able for students of journalism if Mr. Griffin had omitted some of his recollections of local political worthies and devoted several chapters at least to a longer portrayal of the inner life of a great newspaper. Particularly scanty seem to us the references to the younger Bowles, to whom, however, Mr. Griffin pays in a short space a glowing and well-deserved tribute. For the fraternity it would have been interesting, too, to have Mr. Griffin’s reflections upon the more recent decadence of what is still, in many respects, the foremost New England newspaper. In the cleanliness of its columns and in service to its locality it is one of our best American dailies, though without that noble internationalism, that breadth of spirit and mugwump idealism, which once made it the inspiration of liberals and anti-imperialists the country over. For the rest, Mr. Griffin’s comments upon presidents and governors and other politicians are worth having, though there is nothing new or startling or original in his judgments, or in his presentation of many striking happenings. He, too, is aware of the glaring excep- tions Mr. Roosevelt made in his application of the doctrine of the square deal, and he explains them as “due to tempera- mental intensities.” For the late Senator William Murray Crane Mr. Griffin has a tremendous admiration which is shared by many who knew and loved the Senator personally, but there is a sad lack of discrimination between Crane the man and Crane the politician. For the local Massachusetts historian Mr. Griffin’s estimate of Massachusetts governors will have some but not great value. OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD America and Asia Americans in Eastern Asia. A Critical Study of the Policy of the United States with Reference to China, Japan, and Korea in the 19th Century. By Tyler Dennett. The Macmillan Company. $5. VEN if there may be some disagreement concerning the in- terpretation by Tyler Dennett of the events that had taken place in the Far East during the last century, one has to admit that the wealth of historical data contained in his most recent book testifies to indefatigable industry and zealous accurateness which turn the balance in his favor. Praise is due him not only because the field he covers is immense but also because he forces his way through the iron doors of diplomatic secrecy and pre- sents to the American public a clear survey of the American relations with the Far East. The author distinguishes between two concurrent, but at the same time antipodal policies in the dealings of America with Asia. One of them can be described as resting on moral coercion while the other one is footing on a more or less cleverly veiled material coercion, or, at least, on its demonstration performed with an intimidating purpose. The representative man of the first policy in America’s Far Eastern relations was Caleb Cushing, pioneer, and father of The Nation 307 the policy of the “open door.” His idea of keeping the Chinese Empire intact in face of the aggressiveness of the European Powers was upheld by Humphrey Marshall and Anson Burlin- game, two outstanding figures in the Far East who in their zeal to preserve the unity of China were chiefly responsible for the failure of the Taiping Rebellion, the greatest democratic move- ment of the East in the nineteenth century, coated in an un- seemly religious bigotry. The policy of material coercion found its energetic advocate in Commodore Perry, who opened up Japan for the Western Powers. Perry dreamed of an un- challenged American supremacy in the Pacific region achieved by sheer force of arms. Dr. Peter Parker, the only American minister to China who spoke the language of the country, went even farther than dreaming when he submitted his plan to the Department of State for the occupation of Formosa. The dis- tance between his policy and that of William H. Seward, Secre- tary of State at that time, was only one step but this one step is called common sense. In principle Seward was an adherent of the “gun-boat policy.”” He warned Japan that “the policy of forbearance and encouragement which the treaty Powers have hitherto practiced in Japan shall be reversed.” To understand the language used by Seward which seems so antiquated today it must be borne in mind that this was the time when, according to a report of Townsend Harris, France, in concert with Great Britain, was seriously contemplating the partition of Japan. The island empire was at that time in the fetters of the treaties of the Western Powers granting extra- territoriality to their nationals and reducing Japan in many other respects as well to the status of a slave state. The same double-faced policy made its appearance when McKinley and John Hay had charge of the American foreign affairs. McKinley went so far as to suggest the dismemberment of the Chinese Empire while John Hay became the champion of the territorial integrity of China. With masterly skill he managed to “keep the door open” in the most troublous times without resort to either force or alliance. The question of a cooperative policy of the American ad- ministrations with the European Powers in the affairs of the Far East is another broadly discussed problem. Proceeding from event to event Mr. Dennett points out the absence or pres- ence of cooperation with an apparent sympathy for the latter and thus tries to reach conclusions and to explain symptoms for which—in the opinion of many of his readers—it would be difficult to find any other satisfactory justification. The an- nexation of Hawaii and of the Philippines as a necessarily re- sulting natural consequence of the lack of cooperation is one of the many instances which might be cited here. In addition to this main narrative there are episodes in the book which prove not inferior in dramatic value to the most popular ‘‘thrillers.” Here is the account of the breathless struggle of Japan for recognition. After their “discovery” by Commodore Perry, the Japanese had no greater ambition than to be treated by the Powers as the equals of the Chinese. And, lo! in a marvelously short time they are sitting at the table of the white man treated as his equal. The struggle of the Chinese against the white opium trader is another dramatic piece of the book. The Chinese protested against the import of opium, but the white opium dealer came, backed up by men-of-war and cannon, and loudly proclaimed his inalienable human right to do business wherever he chooses, even if it meant the miserable death of hundreds of thousands. The regulation by America of the Asiatic immigration, depre- cated by Dennett, is commented upon as being the only problem in connection with the Far East in the solution of which the American Congress took the initiative. A picturesque descrip- tion of the Boxer Insurrection and of the events that followed it heighten the value of the book as an interesting contribution to a rather dry topic. Summing up the results of his investigation, Dennett finds that the fundamental principle of the United States in its re- lations with the Far East can be condensed in a short sentence:

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I eee “The American government demands most-favored-nation treat- ment.” Unlike the European governments, insists the author, the United States wanted a strong East. The question was whether the United States should follow an isolated or coopera- tive policy to secure the open door. Dennett finds that the iso- lated policy is necessarily belligerent. It would inevitably lead the United States into a conflict not only with the European Powers but also with the Asiatic states, although, in the opin- ion of the author, the probability of such a conflict in the near future had been lessened by the agreements of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments and the Problems of the Pacific. EMIL LENGYEL Honest Pastorals The Village. By Ivan Bunin. Translated by Isabel F. Hap- good. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. The Sentry and Other Stories. By Nicolai Lyeskov. Trans- lated by A. E. Chamot. With an Introduction by Edward Garnett. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. The Left Leg. By T. F. Powys. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. T. is the same thing and yet it is always different. Every book from Russia is another document demonstrating the viciousness of Czarist rule; it is additional evidence of the tor- tures suffered by the people under that medieval and oriental autocracy; it is a new indictment on fresh counts; it is both explanation and vindication for the excesses of the revolution. This time we view the unbelievable poverty, bestiality, and abnormality of Russian life through even stronger glasses. I find these two Russian volumes singularly supplementary; together they furnish an all-inclusive description of cause and effect in the existence of Russia’s millions. The novel confines itself to the village and its mujiks. In its pages we are given the very essence of “Holy Russia.” Here and there are over- tones in which we hear faint sounds from city and church, prison and palace, but no official, no stranger, appears on the scene. None but sylvan characters act in this pastoral, and the villain of the piece is never seen. For here tragedy comes from the fact that the village is a perfect product of stupid governmental oppression exercised on a primitive folk. Gorki has recently pointed out that the Russian revels in a diabolic cruelty and that Ivan Bunin’s novels disclose this quality in the peasants’ daily relationships. In this respect “The Village” is undoubtedly the most significant of these novels. Kuzma, its raisonneur, makes cruelty his theme and his key to the interpretation of the mujik. “Just think it over: is there any nation more ferocious than ours? In town, if a petty thief snatches from a hawker’s tray a pancake worth a farthing, the whole population of the eating-house section pur- sues him, and when they catch him they force him to eat soap. The whole town turns out for a fire, or a fight, and how sorry they are that the fire or the fight is soon ended! ... And how they revel in it when some one beats his wife to death, or thrashes a small boy within an inch of his life, or jeers at him! That’s the most amusing thing in the world.” It is the cruelty of those who neither value their lives nor respect their persons. Lyeskov shows why. He shows the martinet army which demands that the soldier divest himself of reason and pity. He presents Russia during the days of serfdom—drunken, ignorant autocrats madly tormenting thousands of helpless beings. He tears away the cloak of holiness from the church showing its bureaucracy, stupidity, and worldliness. He depicts, in short, the background, the institutions, and the machinery whereby Russia has dehumanized her peasantry. Let none get the im- pression that these stories are less interesting as fiction because they contain so much of truth. Quite the contrary! The four tales in this volume are equal to the best of Chekhov or Tur- genev, and they are better rendered into English. Mr. Chamot has achieved a remarkable translation. It is The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3089 smooth and compact and, in addition to being good English, it brings back a tang of the Russian. Miss Hapgood’s work, though it carries on the spirit of the original, is technically less admirable in that it is often far-fetched and almost always verbose. The quality of Bunin’s prose is more nearly ap- proached in the volume “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” There, too, in the title story one has a basis for comparison with our own detached short-story writers. M. Bunin is more deli- cate, more ironic, and also more macabre. Both he and Lyeskov treat a spade as an unadorned farm im- plement. Mr. Powys ties ribbons around it and puts it in the hands of a fool to use as a baton for some weird, cacophonous troll-danse. That’s his manner of escaping brutal and ugly realities. For he, too, has found the harsh and the bestial in peasant life. His Dorset villagers are no more idealized than Ivan Bunin’s mujiks though they are fantastically garbed. Their cupidity and ambition, passion and cruelty are real enough, but the characters themselves flap like scarecrows in the wind, dancing an awkward jig. The trick works, for it is hard to associate tragedy with the carnival spirit of a mas- querade. At times it is more than a trick. There is an individual charm and piquancy in the imagery and in the cast of expres- sion; occasionally there is great beauty. On the other hand, Mr. Powys’s mannerism is often confusing and, after a space, becomes monotonous. His country themes are kin to Mr. Hardy’s treatment of rural life. He might well emulate the master’s strong simplicity. At present—in contrast to both Russian authors—he is worth reading for what he has to say rather than for the way he says it. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Christian History A Short History of Christianity. By Salomon Reinach. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2.75. IKE the compiler of an anthology, the writer of a “short history” can hope to satisfy but few. His sense of selection is so bound up with his own personality and point of view that there will always be found good grounds for caviling at the relative value of the facts which he includes in his résumé and those which he omits from it. And this is particularly true of theological history. Therefore, despite the structural shortcom- ings of Dr. Reinach’s “Short History of Christianity,” it is no difficult matter to accept a nolle prosequi at the outset. But it may still be necessary to insist that what he has given us is not a history of the Christian religion, as one might expect from the learned author of “Orpheus,” but a history of the Christian church. Only in spots does he deal with the religion of Christen- dom, as distinguished from the organized forms of its worship and the dogmas of its creed. As a brief history of these his book is interesting, serviceable, and at times significant on its own ground. The first of its five chapters is an adequate and de- pendable presentation not only of the recoverable facts of Chris- tian origins but also of the valid interpretations of those facts which commend themselves to that higher criticism so little understood by the average “counsel for creeds.” A reading of the second chapter will make any average outsider realize how hard a task it is to tell, from the point of view of dogma, what Christianity really is. The story which Dr. Reinach re-tells covers nineteen cen- turies, and it was to be expected that the wealth of source- material alone between the Reformation and our own day should make his account of that period seem sketchy and fragmen- tary. The task of marshaling the materials selected without losing perspective is a difficult one at best. Yet it has been done; e. g., by the late George Park Fisher in his “Short History of the Christian Church.” Dr. Reinach’s gifts would seem to ap- pear to better advantage when exhibited on a higher level of

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Oct. 3, 1923] The Nation 359 scholarship. It is a far cry from “Le Mirage Oriental,” or even from “Orpheus,” to this barely respectable performance, in which a reputable scholar prunes his talents to the proportions of a popular handbook. In the days of Buffon it was perhaps excusable for a natural- ist to trim his evolutionary interpretations to the gusts of popular passion. But such a procedure on the part of a scholar in our day deserves condemnation. It is to be regretted that Dr. Reinach has seen fit to throw dust in the eyes of the educated mob by his post-mortem praises of a Christianity whose his- torical origins and supports he has so carefully undermined. The militant skeptic and the ruffling apologetic have driven many of us to turn our backs on both with “a plague on both your houses!” But even we are somewhat non-plussed at the easy virtue of Reinach’s preface, wherein he maintains that “Christianity . . . has taught and teaches the only moral les- sons accessible to everyone.” And he repeats this sort of thing in the first and last chapters, in the face of Asiatic Buddhism of the present and Mithraism of the past. Certainly these are singular pronouncements to come from an historian of religions, and we look askance at this suspicious terminal glorification of a creed which he has just torpedoed. But perhaps it is well that a history of Christianity should give us furiously to think; and this book of Dr. Reinach does accomplish that very desirable end. HUBERT HARRISON Castile’s Darkest Hour Le Roi Sauvage. Par J. Lucas-Dubreton. Académique Perrin. Paris: Librairie OME ten years ago M. Lucas-Dubreton published a study of sixteenth-century Florence, under the title “La Disgrace de Nicolas Machiavel.” The volume, which was unique in the vividness with which it reconstituted an epoch about one of its commanding characters, was favorably received and was crowned by the French Academy. Now the historian has done a similar service for the Castile of the middle fifteenth century. The random, baffled life of poor Henry the Impotent is here only the occasion for a study of Henry’s country and his coun- trymen. If Henry IV had one constant passion it was his love for the somber hill-city of Segovia; and the first and best chap- ter of M. Lucas-Dubreton’s book is a lively description of the city and the region, every corner of which the conscientious author has explored. He has been so caught by the desolate charm of Castile and the gloomy fascination of the period that he has written an absorbing book, if not a cheerful one. The title-page carries for a motto the comment on poor Henry’s musical turn, “Tout chant triste le délectait,” and the author remarks as he leads his reader along the dreary way from Burgos to Toledo: “L’histoire d’un peuple, ce sont les phases de ses maladies.” This study in folly and misery has no place for Henry’s vigor- ous half-sister and successor, Isabella, or her shrewd and enter- prising husband, Ferdinand of Aragon. They appear occas- ionally in the last pages, but M. Lucas-Dubreton has set him- self to deal for the most part with brutality, wantonness, de- cay, and failure. His period is the dark hour before the dawn, and he only hints at the relief which is coming. He does, how- ever, leave the reader with a kinder feeling toward Henry than one gets from the summary estimates of him in most of the histories. This unclean and futile idler-monarch was not, it appears, wholly bad after all. His tolerance for Jews and Moors was the fruit of a kind heart and not simply of perversity; and most of the misdeeds of his reign were the misdeeds of un- scrupulous favorites who molded him like wax. If it is true that Isabella and her clever consort poisoned him, they did Spain a service; but we can feel more sympathy for him, per- haps, than if M. Lucas-Dubreton had not called our attention to his amiable qualities. Roy TEMPLE HOUSE Books in Brief William Hemminge’s Elegy on Randolph’s Finger, Containing the Well-Known Lines on the Time-Poets. Now first pub- lished with an Introduction and Notes by G. C. Moore Smith. D. Appleton and Company. $1. An amusing excursion into a very small corner of seven- teenth-century English poetry. Thomas Randolph lost his little finger about 1630, and this was the subject of some clever versifying by him and his young contemporaries. Hemminge’s poem of 268 lines is very bad, but it contains many interesting references to living writers. A portion of it has been known for years. Ein Zweig vom Schlehdorn. Irische Dichtungen ausgewdéhlt und ibertragen von Hans Trausil. Mit einer Einleitung von Padraic Colum. Miinchen-Pasing. Roland-Verlag. In this most interesting and significant little book Ireland introduces herself to Germany through her ablest spokesmen, the ancient Gaelic bards and the poets of the modern Renais- sance, the latter including Yeats, A. E., Dora Sigerson, Pearse, MacDonagh, and Mr. Colum himself. The Principles of English Metre. By Egerton Smith. Oxford University Press. $4.20. A wise and liberal treatment of the claims now of regularity and now of variety in verse. But its three hundred pages only add to the thousands now being produced in England upon is- sues which are almost purely the creation of metrical theorists, and which, if they mattered, could be settled in a minute by a poet. A Concise Bibliography of the Works of Walt Whitman, with a Supplement of Fifty Books About Whitman. By Carolyn Wells and Alfred F. Goldsmith. Houghton Mifflin Com- pany. $5. Convenient as far aw it goes, and useful for what it pretends to be, a check-list for collectors and librarians. An exhaustive bibliography continues to be desired, not only of the various editions of “Leaves of Grass” but of the books and articles written about Whitman, so that his influence can for once be estimated. Proserpine and Midas. Two Mythological Dramas by Mary Shelley. Edited with Introduction by A. Koszul. Oxford University Press. $1.20. Verse plays of little interest other than as they are con- nected with the life of a remarkable woman. Four lyrics by Shelley appear here for the first time in their original setting. Drama First Fruits a fee who want plays of native authorship will be con- soled by several successive recent openings; those who want good plays will not be quite so happy in their minds. For these American playwrights seem to be primarily “fellows whom it hurts to think.” Yet they are somehow aware of the necessity of thinking in art; they do not want to be or to be thought quite frivolous and empty. So they go through the gestures of having reflected on life as well as observed it. But the gesture is false and the dramatic reasoning obviously specious, and in the conscience of Mr. Lee Wilson Dodd, at least, there must be, however smothered and disregarded, a little aching core of discomfort and regret. Mr. Dodd’s play, “The Changelings” (Henry Miller’s Thea- ter), is brilliantly cast. But it is more than a personal im- pression that neither Blanche Bates nor Henry Miller nor Ruth Chatterton nor the admirable Laura Hope Crews had either their accustomed elegance or fire. In spite of the wit and verve

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360 of not a few passages, the play lacks essential life. It lacks such life on purpose. Mr. Dodd dramatizes the conflict of moral concepts—the method of the great playwrights from Euripides to Shaw. But he takes as his motto the saying of Talleyrand: “Plus ca change, plus c’est le méme chose.” Now that weary and unveracious cynicism is the flat denial of the drama of moral concepts. For it is change in the moral world which makes that drama dramatic. In a perfectly static moral world there would be no stuff for drama. Since Mr. Dodd is a scholar I point out to him those memorable essays of Hebbel in which it is explained that great drama arises at the precise periods when one order of moral concepts is beginning gradu- ally to yield to another. No, this is not breaking a butterfly upon a wheel. Mr. Dodd is a gifted man of letters. His struc- ture and texture are accomplished. At the end of his play the starched and ermined resisters of change will go away com- forted: “Aha, I always said, didn’t I, that all this talk about freedom and flexibility and a new cleanness and abundance of life was only the babble of parlor Bolsheviks and silly Bohe- mians. Naw, human nature doesn’t change, and so long as it doesn’t—well, what was good enough for my ancestors is good enough for me. We’ll just put down these people who want to be indecent and call their indecency by highfalutin names.” That not only will happen; it has happened. So I am afraid . that I must, strictly speaking, call Mr. Dodd’s play an immoral one. “The Lullaby” (Knickerbocker Theater), by Mr. Edward Knoblock, would need no mention save for its author’s reputa- tion. It is unbelievably meretricious and rancid. The scene is laid in France. But not in any country that exists under the sky. It is the France of Georges Ohnet. But to compare “The Lullaby” to the works of Ohnet—even that is doing it too much honor. It is one of the half-dozen worst plays in the world. Whoever has any kindness for Mr. Knoblock will try to forget it. Miss Florence Reed has versatility and power. Both are wasted here. Mr. Jules Eckert Goodman’s “Chains” (The Playhouse) is the best of these American plays. It is neatly written; it is honest; it is intelligent. It is the reverse of original. Mr. Goodman must remember that famous or, at least, once famous Magda Schwartze who, though she had a child, would not let her father force her to become an “honest woman,” but preferred to remain a self-sustaining and honorable one. He must also remember a certain young person named Violet who appears and very formidably states her case in the first act of “Man and Superman.” His restatement of the case in the terms of con- temporary American life, however, has freshness and‘: sin- cerity. You can tell that here is no dry imitation but that the case and its significance have been a real inner experience to Mr. Goodman. The result is that “Chains” is palatable to the intelligent and likely to be helpful to those whose ambition it is to be intelligent. A very engaging performance is given by Miss Helen Gahagen and others scarcely less agreeable by Miss Katherine Alexander and Mr. Gilbert Emery. A play almost equally praiseworthy in intention is “Peter Weston” (Sam H. Harris Theater), by Frank Dazey and Leighton Osmun. But its idea is worked out in terms of quite scandalous melodrama which not even the excellent acting of Frank Keenan can render credible. I feel it a matter of duty and justice to call attention to the production of “Sabatai Zevi” at the Jewish Art Theater. The play, based upon a half legendary, half historical event in the post-exilic history of Israel, is hardly of the first order. The production by Mr. Maurice Schwartz and all his associates, down to the humblest super, has a splendor, a nobility, har- mony, power, and expressiveness that it would be hard to praise too highly. Those who took such delight and such just delight in the Moscow Players’ production of “Czar Fyodor” should pay a visit to the Garden Theater. LUDWIG LEWISOHN The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3039 AN INTRODUCTION TO REFLECTIVE THINKING By Columbia Associates in Philosophy Written partly in the interest of students, a work like this, well nigh unique in its plan, in large measure a guide to correct thinking, should also be welcomed by general readers who like to survey the achievements of the human mind and be themselves stimulated to a more fruitful exercise of its powers——Boston Transcript. $2.00 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Beginning RAND Oct. 3, 8:40 P.M.Alex. A. Goldenweiser “Psychoanalysis” Oct. 18, 1:30 P.M.......Scott Nearing “Current History” Oct. 18, 8:40 P.M...Ludwig Lewisohn “Modern Poetry and Modern Life” SCHOOL 7 East 15th Street Write for bulletin for complete schedule of courses. Intensive four months’ SHORT STORY WRITING. course of professional training in fictional tech- nique, evening sessions, beginning Oct. 8th, will be given at address below by Thomas H. Uzzell, fiction writer, formerly Fiction Editor of Collier’s Weekly and author of “Narrative Technique.’’ Special feature: lectures on “Psychology of Character for Writers,’’ by Professor Walter B. Pitkin, leading university authority. Applications for enrollment now ready. Vanderbilt 1245 THOMAS H. UZZELL 342 Madison Avenue fi Sy Tee a = ee S ae ee SSS SRT — ee SSS 4 Practically immediate = relief of pain follows a dose of = =3 ee _ —— Le LCLOL = I =a It is equally efficacious for = = HEADACHE aaa = TOOTHACHE == = =—=y NEURALGIA SS —and in addition to being eS pS absolutely safe to take SSS Ss - SSS eS «—it has no undesirable J ———= = . after effects. Y SS : In aluminum boxes ; Z2sizes. Atall druggists ey SI General Drug Co. B= i 94N, Moore Street, New York === Re ENT . ‘ ROLLE RIES Ss ENS SS j ————

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Japan and the United States HE following open letter and its inclosure, sent by Vis- count Shibusawa to friends in the United States, ex- presses the attitude of liberal Japanese toward American- Japanese relations. Viscount Shibusawa, who is now eighty- three years old, is Japan’s leading merchant, and one of her wisest and most prominent publicists. More than a year has now passed since the Washington Con- ference on the Limitation of Armament. Many considerations render it desirable that the peoples of our two countries should take stock of what has already been accomplished and what remains to be done in achieving the desire of the great majority of us on both sides of the Pacific, that the best possible under- standing and even the kindliest feelings shall prevail and con- tinue indefinitely. I inclose a statement in regard to the present situation, just issued by the Japanese-American Relations Committee of Tokio, in which I am sure you will be interested. And I am also venturing to write you somewhat fully on this matter, in order that you may know quite accurately what we on this side of the Pacific are thinking... . That our countries have entered into new relations of a highly hopeful character can be disputed only by those who have not sufficient knowledge to appreciate what has been done and by those who are determined, for reasons of prejudice or per- sonal interest, to promote suspicions and distrust. It is obvious that whatever militaristic disposition prevailed in Japan has definitely and irrevocably passed, and it is equally clear that the intentions of the United States to take advantage of her power and create an overwhelming navy are no longer to be regarded as a potential menace to us. These are both causes of great and widespread relief to the Japanese people; and it would now be impossible to revive the old condition, with its concomitants of anxiety and resentment toward the United States and the anticipation of possible con- flict between us.... It may be even that a great entente, better in its mutually free understanding than in any binding commitment, has de- veloped among the greater naval Powers of the world. That is a great and incalculable stride forward toward permanent peace, at least upon the seas. It is a basis upon which we can build new and nobler things, truer to the purposes of God and of en- lightened human beings. As far as Japan is concerned a great load has been lifted from our hearts, and we are turning with new vigor to the solu- tion of pressing social, economic, and industrial problems. Al- ready, though the naval treaty is not yet fully ratified, we have been relieved to the extent of more than $58,000,000 in the ap- propriations for a single year for our naval budget; such is the reduction of 1923 below that of 1922. A relief of similar and possibly greater sums, which might otherwise have been spent, can be expected for as many years as the naval agreement lasts. Likewise due to the understandings that have been reached, though not required by their terms, we have reduced our mili- tary force and have thereby saved many million dollars more; and this again is only the savings of the first year. As a result of this notable relief, our Government has been able to add $15,000,000 to our annual national grant to the prefectures for the promotion of primary education. And, as an indication of the spirit that has come over us as a result of the relief, I might cite the significant fact that our Government intends to set aside as a permanent fund the remaining $22,- 000,000, due us from China in the Boxer indemnity, together with $10,200,000 from the payments on the Shantung railway and other properties and received in Shantung for the develop- International Relations Section ment of educational, medical, and other institutions that are so sadly needed in that unfortunate country and for the sup- port of Chinese students in Japan. I may add that it is our hope that this and similar acts of consideration for our afflicted neighbor will, in the course of time, remove whatever suspicions may prevail that we harbor territorial or political designs that are incompatible with China’s independence or integrity. I am gratified to say that a great step forward has been made already in reassuring the Chinese, for, as is well known, the small garrison that we maintained at Hankow, about one thousand men, was withdrawn from that port last summer; in the autumn the 2,500 troops that we had in Shantung were all brought back to Japan; and northern Manchuria was evacuated by the thousand or more that we had stationed there. Mean- time, the Japanese and Chinese delegations that met at Peking in the summer and autumn succeeded in agreeing upon terms for the transfer of the Tsingtao Tsinan-fu Railway to Chinese authority, and the port of Kiaochow was handed over in due course to Chinese administration; by January first all of the Japanese post offices in China proper were closed; and the new customs tariff, providing an effective 5 per cent, as agreed upon in Washington, was put into effect. In October of last year the garrison that we had been maintaining in and around Vladivos- tok was also brought home, leaving no further Japanese forces in Siberia. Our Government, moreover, has stated that it is also its intention, at the proper time, to withdraw the force that now occupies the northern half of Sakhalin Island. Unless the will and spirit of the people supported the policies of the Government, it would have been impossible for such definite actions to have taken place, and it is, therefore, evident that whatever Government may come into power, there will be no radical change or retrogression from this far-seeing DOLICY.! 5's With this basis of peace and security assured, we ought to be able to work out the minor difficulties and disagreements that exist between our two countries. To do this, patience and a consideration each for the other’s point of view are essential. It is natural that some irritation and suspicion will continue to exist among some of our people, for we hear constantly of proposals for the increase of fortifications and naval accommo- dations in Hawaii, calling for the expenditure of scores of mil- lions of dollar; we are informed of efforts to obtain appropria- tions for great naval bases in California; and we are even told that suggestions to fortify Guam, in spite of the Washington agreement, are made by men of some standing. Serious and well-informed Japanese, of course, realize that no American Government can view such proposals as in any sense necessary. Nevertheless, the discussions of such needless projects by American newspapers and politicians naturally create a certain measure of distrust in our country. Is it not natural that our people are also deeply disturbed by reports from the United States of fresh plans for State legislation essentially humiliating to our race, proposals, for instance, to deny to American-born children of Japanese par- entage the right to American citizenship, and proposals to rescind citizenship papers already given to Japanese young men who served in the American army during the Great War, citi- zenship which they secured, along with tens of thousands of young men of other nations who volunteered to meet the call of the President of the United States to serve the cause of America and the Allies in Europe? We Japanese find it difficult to understand such proposals. They seem carping and mean and not in xeeping with the character that we have come to respect as American. We find it difficult, moreover, to understand the persistence of the anti-Japanese agitation. In recognition of the desires of certain Western States for the limitation of Japanese labor immigration, the Japanese Government entered into what is

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called the Gentlemen’s Agreement, which got into full operation by the summer of 1908 and by which, since that date, all such immigration to the United States has been effectively stopped. Our Government has been administering the agreement with scrupulous care and fidelity. As a result of all this, Japanese males in America (including Hawaii) have actually decreased in number by nearly 20,000 since the summer of 1908. In order that no charge could be launched fairly against us, we have even restricted emigration to Mexico. It is, therefore, hard for us to understand the recent proposal to annul that agreement by a mere act of Congress, without conference with our Govern- ment, and, therefore, in a manner unusually arbitrary in the customary dealings between nations. Not unnaturally we re- gard such proposals as unfair and unfriendly and would con- sider the enactment of such a law as a decidedly wanton affront. For, if in any respect adjustments in the Gentlemen’s Agree- ment are desired, it will not be difficult to secure them by friendly conference. In order that there shall be no possible apprehension in America in regard to the nature of our ideas and desires, let me assure all Americans that we have no thought of asking for our labor people any privileges of free immigration to the United States. We distinguish quite clearly between the ques- tions of immigration and those of discriminatory legislation against Japanese already lawfully residing in your country. Your discriminatory legislation seems to us to be contrary to the principles of humanity and of the great Christian faith which so many of you profess. We ask for nothing from the people and Government of the United States, in their dealings with members of our race in your land, except that which is fair and honorable. We seek no special privileges or favors. We ask only, and we ask earnestly, that nothing be done in respect to our people that is essentially humiliating to them, nothing that discriminates between them and other races in the United States merely on the ground of color or difference of facial contour and expression. It may not be amiss to state in this connection that since the adoption by Japan, in the last half of the last century, of the main principles of Occidental government, we have no discriminatory laws based on differences of race or nationality or religion. This principle we learned from the West, chiefly from your own country. Americans in Japan enjoy the same privi- leges and rights of land-ownership, naturalization, and every- thing else that we. grant to individuals of any other nation or race. It may be also well for me to state in the clearest terms that we do not have the least objection to the deportation of indi- vidual Japanese who are found to be unlawfully in the United States; nor do we object to the rejection of Japanese travelers who may be lawless or who do not conform to general standards of moral character, literacy, and the like, such as are applied generally to all travelers from every race and people. But I think you will easily understand why we as Japanese cannot but resent proposals and laws that discriminate against Jap- anese merely as Japanese, regardless of their individual and personal qualifications. ... Our Tokio Committee on Japanese-American Relations has been doing all that is possible to promote mutual understanding, appreciation, and good-will; but so long as anti-Japanese legis- lation and unfair discrimination is constantly reported from your Western States, it is very difficult for us to eradicate the feelings of irritation that exist among a people of sensitive dis- position and of natural pride in their own achievement in cul- ture and civilization It has long seemed to us on the committee that a Joint High Commission appointed by our two governments for the thorough study of all questions tending to complicate and irritate our mutual relations might well be established. It would seem as though such a commission could throw much light on the facts, and give, each side to the other, the information that is evi- dently needed; and the commission might ultimately find a 262 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3039 thoroughgoing solution for the various questions that are now the causes of frequent agitation and more or less of irritation. Again let me say that in case the present Gentlemen’s Agree- ment is not, in the judgment of the American Government, working satisfactorily, I am confident that our Japanese Goy- ernment would be more than ready to confer upon the matter with a view to mutually satisfactory adjustments. This would seem to be the gentlemanly way of securing the desired changes, rather than by ea parte legislation. The recent Washington Conference has taught us how to settle difficult international questions. I am venturing to write thus frankly because of my earnest desire to promote the mutual friendship and good-will of our two countries and to place our relations on such a basis of mutual consideration and appreciation that all difficulties may be effectively and completely removed. Tokio The statement of the Japanese-American Relations Com- mittee, mentioned by Viscount Shibusawa in his open letter, follows: ElIcHI SHIBUSAWA The Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament constituted a happy turning-point in the relations of Japan and America. Dark clouds were rolled away from our common hori- zon and a great load of anxiety was removed from our hearts. A new era of mutual good-will and confidence has begun which we trust may ever remain unbroken. There is, however, one remaining matter that threatens our future friendship, the matter, namely, of the treatment of Japanese residents in the United States. The early and mu- tually satisfactory solution of this question is an urgent neces- sity. The Tokio Committee on Japanese-American Relations, availing itself of the friendly attitude now existing as a result of the Washington Conference, ventures to make the following statement and to suggest a definite plan looking to a funda- mental solution. When the news reached Japan in the summer of 1921 that President Harding had invited the Powers to send delegates to a Conference on the Limitation of Armament and Far Eastern Questions, some of our people misconstrued the intention of the American Government; but the majority took an entirely different view of the President’s note and insisted that Japan should heartily welcome the invitation as an opportunity in which she could express herself frankly and openly, because America, whose national ideal is justice and humanity, must have conceived her proposed plan on no other ground but her ardent desire for promoting the permanent peace of the world. The Japanese-American Relations Committee unequivocally ad- vocated this view. We were rejoiced when the Japanese Government accepted the invitation from America. The Japanese Delegation at Washington consistently carried out the government policy of hearty cooperation with the United States in its epoch-making program, with the outcome already referred to. The Japanese public was highly pleased with the glad tidings of the restora- tion of the happy relations that had for decades been main- tained between the two countries. The Japanese attitude toward the Washington Conference was expressed through the acts of her delegation and proved to be fair and square. To mention a few instances of her readiness to cooperate with other Powers in the interest of world peace, attention may be called to her agreement to abol- ish the time-honored Anglo-Japanese Alliance. She likewise agreed to the return of Kiaochow to China, in harmony with her repeated statements before, during, and after the Paris Peace Conference. She consented to do away with her post- office system in China, although it meant to her great incon- venience. She had withdrawn her garrison from Hankow, not- withstanding her knowledge of the unrest and disorder in that country. She has also withdrawn her troops from Siberia, although the Siberian situation was far from safe. And she ee >,

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Oct. 3, 1923] conceded to America much more than any other Power in deal- ing with the mandatory right over the island of Yap and with the disposition of its cable lines. In addition to so great and numerous manifestations of her policy of fair and friendly relations, Japan whole-heartedly agreed to the decisions of the Conference concerning the future ratio of naval armament and the limitation of the defense meas- ures of the Pacific islands, and has been resolutely and faith- fully carrying them out, in spite of the opposition of certain groups which hold that those decisions were derogatory to Japan’s national dignity. But here again the great majority of our countrymen unwaveringly held to the view that it was appropriate for Japan to make these sacrifices for the sake of friendship with America and the welfare of humanity. The people of Japan, having thus done their very best for conciliation, naturally entertained the thought that America would appreciatively reciprocate the course pursued by them and, waking to the unfairness of discriminatory treatment of Japanese immigrants lawfully residing in America, would solve the question in a fair and friendly fashion. So far as the number of Japanese in America is concerned, it is small, only about 115,000, of whom some 30,000 are Amer- ican-born children, who are therefore American citizens. But the nature of the treatment to which they are being increas- ingly subjected is so grave that it may endanger our interna- tional relations and welfare. Originally our immigrants went to America in response to the invitation of American capitalists when the Chinese exclusion law drove the Chinese laborers from the West coast of America, thereby causing shortage of labor. Those immigrants diligently applied themselves to agriculture _ and other forms of hard labor, to the great advantage of those Western States and greatly increasing their agricultural products. But in spite of their industry, fidelity, and law-abiding char- acter, the Japanese immigrants in those States have been de- prived of the right of owning and leasing land and it has been made as difficult as possible for them to get married. It is also planned to close up the Japanese-language schools. Not only does the present Federal law refuse, on the mere ground of race, the right of naturalization to fully qualified Japanese, but certain groups are even proposing by the unilateral act of Congress to abrogate the Gentlemen’s Agreement and also to deprive American-born Japanese of their constitutional birth- right of being American citizens. Those conditions, activities, and proposals deprive Japanese, who have lawfully entered and have long been residing in the United States, of the ordinary civil rights and economic oppor- tunities freely granted to aliens from many other lands. They are in themselves real hardships and are naturally regarded as invidious and unjust, and as not in keeping with the general character of American ideals and practice. And they are also inevitably regarded as racially humiliating, and in marked conflict with the principles of international comity and good- will expressed in all our treaties and upon which alone can right international relations be maintained for the decades and centuries ahead. The Japanese-American Relations Committee of Tokio has been studying the situation for several years and is well aware of the many diverse views and arguments that have been urged in connection with this matter. The foregoing very brief statements are not regarded as a full and adequate discussion of the whole question; they present merely certain aspects that are deeply felt by our people. In its efforts to get at all the facts, this committee has repeatedly conferred with the Japanese-Relations Committee of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and has exchanged views with other leaders of both countries. As a result of these conferences, in view of the highly complex character of the many conflicting interests and diverse factors, economic, racial, and political, and in the light of Washington Conference as disclosing a method for the solution of well-nigh insoluble questions, this committee sug- The Nation 363 It Makes You Think and Act ! Second, enlarged edition of THE CHILD AND THE HOME, by B. Liber. Most modern ideas on the bringing-up of children, by a physician and teacher.—Common Errors—Practical Advice—lInstances from Life—Sex, Health and Food Prob- lems.—For parents and all interested in children. Praised and discussed by Anatole France, G. Stanley Hall, Upton Sinclair, Bolton Hall, Heywood Broun; by many educators, teachers, intelligent parents; by the lib- eral, radical, conservative, white and colored, medical and lay press in U. §., Europe, Australia, Japan. Cloth, $2.50, paper, $1.50. ‘Together with subscription to RATIONAL LIVING, a magazine devoted to health conservation and exposing dishonesty in all healing pro- fessions, cloth, $4.00, instead of $4.50; paper, $3.00, instead of $3.50.—Address: RATIONAL LIVING, Hamilton Grange P. O., Box 43, New York. MONTE CARLO 200 Sheets +222 STATIONERY 100 Envelopes Name and address or monogram. Relief engraving, any color. Sheet 51% x 8, white, grey, cafe, blue. 100 double sheets or 200 single sheets (100 marked—100 plain). For marking entire 200 single sheets add 50c. FRINT plainly. Enclose check or money order. West of Miss. add 20c. Comparison urged. Samples submitted. DE LUXE STATIONERY CO., 505 Fifth Ave., New York NEWS FROM NOWHERE ¥ WILLIAM Morris : : the most charming Utopia ever written, picturing a society in which everybody does pleasant work, and profiteers and politicians are extinct. New edition, cloth, $1.25 by mail or at bookstores. Catalog free. Charles H. Kerr & Company, 347 East Ohio Street, Chicago When you write to an advertiser, please say that you saw his ee onent im The Nation. It will help you, him, and The ation. SMU = SSAA THE NEXT WAR NEAR? Crisis has followed crisis in Europe in the past twelve- month—first Turkey, then the Ruhr, then Italy and Greece. | —- WL The next crisis may be the final spark leading to another European. conflagration into which America may be un- wittingly drawn. Che Manchester Guardian WEEKLY enables the thinking American to view the present Euro- pean turmoil in its full significance, by presenting news without coloring it and getting at the facts of a situation instead of accepting misleading official propaganda. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY also pro- vides a review of the best in the current literature of all countries and a discussion of music, art and the drama. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY is, there- fore, indispensable to every intelligent American who de- sires unbiased information, enabling him to form for him- self a balanced judgment on what is going on abroad. Bn era eere omens TWA Ty COUPON) BESTOW) sem ncnennnnrcerworeteeneeee THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY, 220 West 42nd St., New York City. I enclose three dollars for a year’s subscription to THE MAN- CHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY, to be mailed to me direct from Manchester, England, commencing with the current issue. S| TUCO SaVIMMLIUINNANN NNUAL TULL in

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264 The Nation gests, for the consideration of leaders in both countries who desire a complete solution of the one remaining problem that is disturbing our mutual relations, the following concrete pro- posal: “Let the two governments of Japan and America appoint a Joint High Commission consisting of a certain number of rep- resentatives of the two nations to study the question of Japa- nese immigrants in America. It shall be the duty of the com- mission to examine the whole question with the utmost care and frankly to exchange their views; to investigate the real causes of misunderstanding and discord; to consider methods for the fundamental and permanent solution of the entire ques- tion; and to report their findings and specific recommendations to the respective governments, and also to the public of both countries.” ... Making Friends in the Pacific CCORDING to the Peking bulletin of the Rosta News Agency of August 20 Mr. L. M. Karakhan, Russian Plenipotentiary Envoy to China, has given the following interview to the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese press: ...If in Europe, after the defeat of Germany and the humiliation of the German people which we see at present, the danger of a new general battle of European nations is post- poned for some time, on the Pacific we see quite a different pic- ture. ... The attempt at the Washington Conference to limit somewhat the feverish progress of armaments could not of course give any serious results. . . . When we came back to the Pacific we had to watch very carefully these events. We must not be suddenly caught, we must be prepared so that peace and order within our.territories may not be disturbed. Our interests lie not in participating in the solution of the Pacific problems by those methods which are natural for the imperialistic countries, but we must have sufficient force to pro- tect ourselves from entanglement in this struggle. From this point of view peace and friendship with our closest neighbors, China and Japan, acquire a first-rate importance. Our representative in the Far East, Mr. Joffe, was intrusted with the task of establishing and regulating relations with China and Japan. He has done a great and difficult work because he was the first to bridge the breach, and to take first steps is always difficult. . . . I can tell you that the suspension of further negotiations between Mr. Joffe and Mr. Kavakami took place only because both sides had sufficiently elucidated their respective attitudes. There appeared certain points on which Japan insisted and which were unacceptable to Russia. Under such conditions it was found expedient to stop further private negotiations which were not binding on either party. The Russian Government believes that the time has come for open- ing official negotiations, at which each step will be responsible. We are not going to propose them, but we hope that Japan will understand herself what she ought to do. ... China and our- selves are on one side of the front in international politics. We have just emerged from a difficult struggle against the im- perialistic countries which wanted to turn Russia into their [ Vol. 117, No. 3039 colony. China has not yet finished this struggle and is still fighting for her complete liberation. ... We should like to see China strong and united, because only on this condition can she withstand those who allow themselves to act in her territory as if they were at home... . In my policy I shall be guided by this idea and on this I shall build the friendship between China and the Union whith I represent. We have no such questions at issue with China on which it will be impossible to reach an agreement. ... The reception accorded me by Chinese authorities and the Chinese public testifies that’ not only the Government but also the people desire to have friendly relations with us, and this gives me force and courage for my difficult work in China. ... One of the principal questions is that of the Chinese Eastern Railway. I have no doubt that here we shall find a common language. The Chinese Eastern Railway was built by the means and energy of the Russian people. As a commercial enterprise it belongs to the Russian people, but it runs through Chinese territory and plays an enormous economic part in Northern Manchuria. . . . These interests—our rights on the C. E. R. and the sov- ereign rights of China on the territory through which the rail- way passes—can be easily solved and settled without the just interests of any party being infringed... . No third party has any right to interfere in the affairs of the railway. I am sure that this question as well as all other Russo-Chinese affairs will be safely settled very soon... . The reception which was accorded me by the Manchurian authorities makes me think that I shall meet an especially strong desire on behalf of Manchuria to settle this affair quickly. From Manchuria I shall go to Peking and only on my arrival there I shall be able to say anything definite regarding the time and form of the Russo-Chinese conference. Unfortunately some statesmen in Peking do not exhibit such an attitude as I have seen here in Manchuria and such as naturally ought to have resulted from a right understanding of their national interests. But I still hope that in Peking also I shall be able to find a common language which will help me to settle all outstanding questions... . I have said already that we are ready at any moment to open official negotiations with Japan. . . . Of course at the moment we can talk only of a treaty covering not only trade but also juridical relations between both countries. The time for bastard trade agreements has passed forever. Japan understands that since the Dairen Conference through the stages of Chang-chung and Tokio, Japan has gone a long way toward the place where agreement with Russia is no longer an impossibility. I wel- come this change, but I do not want to be understood in a sense that I wholly approve the present attitude of Japan.... We can wait until other states understand the necessity of establishing normal relations with Russia. We have passed already through a difficult time and now we have entered into a period of gradual reconstruction of our industry and healing of our wounds. Even without contact with the world outside we are improving our economic situation. Normal relations with other countries would certainly accelerate that process, but they cannot have any other influence. Therefore, we are not going to pay a special price for them. ; ‘Be intelligent, a college graduate, an expert stenographer and typist. I want interesting work. Address Apt. 2 L, 731 West 183rd Street. also A la Carte. GERMAN BOOKS “Ww 2rd Large Representative Stock at BEYER’S BOOKSHOP 207 FULTON ST., Opp. Terminal, Upsteirs, NEW YORK @ oe Tin ene ae ————————— THE RUSSIAN 33 West 37th St., nr. 5th Ave., New York Table d’Hote Luncheon and Dinner Music by the Russian Inn Trio “BELL SYSTEM” AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES \\) One Policy, One System, Universal Service, My and all directed toward Better Service OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER A BEAUTIFUL PLACE ..- BERKSHIRE HILLS FOR a WEEK-END or an EXTENDED VISIT Among our guests such persons as Mr. Louis Untermeyer, E. E. Robinson, F. Luis Mora, Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn, Mme. Helen Teschner Tas, Sara Teasdale, Jessie B. Rittenhouse, B. W. Huebsch, C. Bertram Hartman, Suzanne La Follette, William and Marguerite Zorach and Mary Ellis have found this mountain farm an ideal spot for a week-end or an extended visit. Rates $7 a day and $35 a week. Ad- dress E. G. Ohmer, Western View Farm, New Milford, Conn, 2% hours from New York. | Telephone Connection. INN Open till 1 A. M.

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1923 No. 3040 Cc tents cast 3,000 votes for a Farmer-Labor candidate. Mr. Hill onte will adhere to the farm bloc in Congress, but will he con- CTRUNT, /PADAGRA DES: i. 5. cgiMene dice maaan sveiduscgtesseses. 365 tribute sanity or wisdom to its political counsels? EDITORIALS: ane DGath Of A) NGUOD as cccie Ucislc seine sicieiss cemiisislsc cciwicaiaiseise seen 868 ‘ : $ Amarchy in) Oklahoma. ...c. cc ccccie ccc c cece cece wie sserneccccncecce ae IRACY is not dead. Five armed men boarded a ship Cie eerie ac eines Oe coe a ee tan ada ode as eee ee ees i ; Pe gk Siccam,, Ca SA RES 370 in the East River, off Brooklyn, the other day, gagged THE ONLY HOPE. By Oswald Garrison Villard...........s.seeeeeees aoe the crew, and made off with $11,000 worth of platinum; and HEYWOOD BROUN. By Heywood Broun.............-. reeset eee ee ees 372 . , ‘ 1 1 She h ted Corf MRS. GLADFELTER’S REVOLT. By Helen R. Martin.............. ae Italy is pirating on a larger scale. e has evacuated Corfu COUNT ALBERT APPONYI. By Oscar Jaszi.........-sseeeeeeeeeees eas e a . INSIDE A COOPERATIVE COLONY: AN AMERICAN EXPERI- pirates seldom care to hold on to the ships they seize o MENT WITH WAGELESS WORK. By Ernest S. Wooster........ 378 the lands they terrorize; but she has evacuated at a cost of COOLIDGE’S COUNTRY. By William Hard...............eseeeeeeeee 380 : ‘ Saar TA. HS TICH Lobb ety. Ohashi: OAL OI fos otedea ess... 331 90,000,000 liras and her own honor. The world will not IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter... .....cccccccrceseccsccncceces s soon forget that because unidentified brigands killed an MM TRIN IVINS. Lc hate tee, he tocd scales fee ctessSce cece eeeee ’ ae _ INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Italian mission on Greek territory Italy bombarded an al The pited Beales of Europe. By Fridtjof Toksvig................ ane most undefended port, killing women and children, and held Revolution i UN TCI STE Sl cha sicees sees. : re CSS Seg ee 2 er 389 it for ransom. Nor will it soon forget that the League of FALL BOOK SECTION Nations pusillanimously permitted Italy to override it and PiEe Maat AWRENCM).f.002.0s0she. i losGed. ces ece eee seg that the Western Powers did no more than save their faces. FRANCIS eos wie See re eaiine Ge pees ss >= ‘tae they persuaded Greece to deposit in a Swiss bank THE PROMIS y Padraic Colum............ " Ee POETASTER. By Basil Thompson ...........sscececeececceceeeeeees 397 the sum Italy demanded, to be paid to Italy only if it were BOOKS: proved that Greece had not done her best to capture the Short for Buncombe. By Carl Van Doren.............+seeeeeeees 398 : 3 a The American Spirit. By 3): Aa Oe eee ag are ee ee 398 assassins; then, without waiting for such proof, they des. re em ee ee .... : aie ‘ Poca and. Wits. By Bese Wea Doren +a esage yee ones 400 yielded to Mussolini’s threat and delivered the swag—a fifth A Great Anti-Imperialist. y Herber OL WA eeieticisiciels\oje;c.s:00 : : 5 Can Germany ana ay R. es acount pie a eieeteraiatebsteidinieiesatejslelais/e: e's « ave cf which he has since returned for the relief of the orphans Giovanni Verga. MEIER EME OU Cl epetetelayicte aie oie kale levers slsherielolalere see's se . History of Painting. By Temple Scott SPS ene Sea ateelsiale@ olsen ee 408 he bombarded. Some Say that the League, or the Council An Italian Humorist. By Ben Lucien Burman..............+eeeee00: 408 of Ambassadors, prevented European war—but war be- DRIES PETA UOERYN@ Cs fate eta oiaic piston earela.tlalntele. stoleisiere) stlcvcisisic ea clacles'seeces 410 tecan Italy Pern. wancabout. as likely Sa aoe MUSIC: . a em themuMour:) By Plenrietta Stalls. «ccc siccccacccccsrccecce 410 tween Haiti and the United States; and Italy left Corfu Miscellany. By Ludwig Lewisohn............ssseeeseeeeeeeeeeees 412 not because of the League, but because of the strategic CRIP RP PAGE e PALI, BOOKS. .........c0sccsccceenccssccssscsccess 414 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpiTor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ERNEST H. GRUENING ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY JOHN MACY MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR IRITA VAN DOREN, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON ANATOLE FRANCE FRIEDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER CARL VAN DOREN H. L. MENCKEN ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS SUBSCRIPTION RATES—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HE Coolidge Administration seems to be faring no better when it comes to the approval of the voters than did that of Mr. Harding. In the first Congressional elec- tion under the new President a Democrat, Sam B. Hill, has been sent to the House from the Fifth District of Wash- ington, a bailiwick that in 1920 elected a Republican by a majority of 10,000 and in 1922 selected a member of the ‘same party by 2,000. Nor was Charles E. Myers, Mr. Hill’s opponent, any Old Guardsman; he was a Roosevelt Repub- lican with a fairly progressive record. But he ran on the Harding-Coolidge policies, and that killed him. On the other hand, discontent rather than Democracy elected Mr. Hill. His platform contained an economically absurd and practically impossible declaration in favor of a government- fixed price of $1.75 a bushel for wheat, which probably gave him support from the group which two years previously interests of France and Britain in the Mediterranean. HE Latin American republics continue to poke their heads into the noose of Wall Street control. The lat- est announcement is that Salvador has negotiated with a New York Stock Exchange house for $6,000,000 for twenty- five years at 8 per cent. The conditions are not yet an- nounced, in advance of which one can only surmise what measure of political control Salvador is ceding. At the same time the Minister from Nicaragua leaves Washington to return home, it is said, for a conference with his Govern- ment in regard to an American loan, while agents of Presi- dent Orellana of Guatemala are reported to be in this coun- try to ascertain the possibilities of a bond issue, the last proposal of that nature having been rejected by the Guate- malan Congress after everything seemed to have been sewed up for pushing it through. Well, every man and doubtless every nation has a right to choose its own kind of bondage. Only, we would feel better about these Latin American loans if it were not for evidence that a few self- constituted and self-seeking “leaders,” natives of those countries working hand in glove with our own citizens, gen- erally manage to choose the bondage which thousands of simple-minded “followers” have thenceforward to endure. HE official inquiry into the disaster on the California coast in which twenty-three sailors were drowned and seven destroyers totally wrecked has done nothing to increase public confidence in the personnel of the Navy. The officers on trial stuck to one story and by one another

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366 The Nation © with a tenacity characteristic of the service, denying the presence of liquor or any other breach of discipline. The commander of the squadron, Captain Watson, magnanl- mously took upon himself all blame for the tragedy, saying that in disregarding the position of the destroyers as given by the radio compass from Point Arguello and in assuming the correctness of his bearings as indicated by dead reck- oning he had acted upon his best judgment developed after many years of sea service. The radio compass is not yet a wholly proved device and Captain Watson may have been justified in suspecting it (although in fact it turned out to have been right), but what excuse is there for other, and greater, negligence? How explain the fact that no sound- ings were taken, although this is admittedly the navigator’s best check on his position when near shore? And, still worse, what possible palliation is there for dashing through a fog at twenty miles an hour, a speed which would have been foolhardy and illegal under the international code even if the squadron had been hundreds of miles from a rockbound coast? HE strike of the pressmen of the New York City dailies is over, and a public dazed and disturbed by abbrevi- ated newspapers has gone back to the oblivion of the fire- side story, the slapstick comics, and Aunt Jenny’s beauty hints while riding back and forth to work. The joint pres- sure of the publishers and the international union was too much for the New York local. It lost its fight and its charter, although most of the individual members have regained their jobs upon considerably improved conditions. As soon as they abandoned the pretense of a “combined” newspaper and began to increase their size the various dailies resumed their editorial pages, whereupon the New York Times proceeded to lecture the irreverent critics— The Nation was one—who had suggested that in this omis- sion the publishers had tacitly recognized and dropped out the least important of their features. No, said the Times, the reason for the omission was that as “combined” news- papers they could not have an editorial policy. This, as Mr. Dooley would say, is interesting if true. But how true is it? The fact is that all the newspapers maintained their characteristic style of heads and make-up and did their best to retain their individual features. Even a casual reader could tell them apart at a glance, and if he had any doubt it was dissipated by such explanatory lines as “Copyright, 1923, by the New York Times Company.” PARTICULARLY disgraceful case of judicial perse- cution neared its end the other day when all but two of the series of indictments brought against members of the Kuzbas Organization Committee in New York City were dismissed. This committee sponsored in the United States the effort at industrial pioneering with whose history read- ers of The Nation are familiar. A group of disgruntled colonists who resented the fact that they found themselves privates instead of generals in Siberia returned to this country last spring and discovered that newspapers and propaganda groups such as the National Civic Federation were ready to record them as heroes in return for elabora- tion of their personal woes into a general condemnation of the soviet system. Naturally their woes grew apace, and all the members of the Kuzbas committee were soon in- dicted for larceny—the colonists complained that they had [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 accepted money on false pretenses. The newspapers made it a front-page story; the defendants were held in $7,500 bail each, an absurdly high figure. The efforts of the de- fense attorneys to force a trial for the remaining two in- dictments will doubtless be vain. The damage has been done; the effect has been gained. HEN the warden of one of the world’s greatest prisons declares his opposition to capital punish- ment it is clearly not the opinion of a theorist but the view of what we like to call a “practical” man. Hence we are glad to see Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing taking a stand against this survival of barbarism, because his words may appeal to persons who attach no weight to similar declara- tions from other quarters. Mr. Lawes, speaking from a wide experience with criminals and from a knowledge of conditions in those of our States which do not as well as those which do have the death penalty, has come to the con- clusion that it is no deterrent to crime. He goes on to say that if there is any merit in capital punishment as a deterrent, then we ought to make executions public spec- tacles—as in earlier days—and so reap the widest benefit possible. The argument is logical, but of course we shall not act upon it. The question is how soon we are going to adopt the only logical alternative and abolish the death penalty throughout the Union. HEN death has come into the house it is well to for- get old scores and put aside suspicion of people who seek to help you. Japan in her time of tragedy and terror was offered the help and the pity of the whole world, and accepted that of everyone but her neighbor, Russia. On September 15 the Russian ship Lenin sailed into the harbor at Yokohama‘carrying sixty-nine doctors and nurses and a load of medical supplies for the relief of Japanese workers; the authorities refused to allow it to dock. The Japanese Embassy at Washington explained that “the assistance brought was intended for laborers only” and that “the re- lief mission looked upon the disaster as a providential op- portunity for furthering the revolutionary movement.” Thus, on the basis of a suspicion of motives that could not possibly be proved, and without even attempting to impose conditions which would eliminate danger of discrimination or propaganda, the Japanese Government refused assistance that might have saved some thousands of her people. What if it was limited to workers? There were enough lives to be saved so that a little extra aid for the poorest and most helpless should hardly have been scorned. And what if propaganda.were to be distributed with the medicine and the care? Did the Japanese Government prefer to have its workers dead rather than let them read a communist tract? INCE citizenship in the United States may be extended only to “free white persons” and “aliens of African nativity” and “persons of African descent’? the Supreme Court probably could not do otherwise than refuse naturali- zation to a high-caste Hindu of Indian blood. Even in India this decision was received with sorrow but with little pro- test. It is plain that according to the common meaning of the wholly unscientific term “white person,” a native East Indian must be ruled out. It is equally plain that he cannot qualify as a Negro. Nor would it be reasonable or just to grant citizenship to Indians while denying it to Japanese, £ ‘ . $ C8 ees © of i> oa pp te

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Oct. 10, 1923] Chinese, Siamese, Koreans, and other Orientals with skin darker than our own. Protests must be directed against a law which shuts out from the fellowship of Americans all persons, however desirable, who happen to be neither white nor—ironical exception !—black. ROTESTS should also be directed against the probable effects of a decision like this. The Government has already prepared petitions asking for the cancelation of naturalization papers of Indians who came to the United States and became citizens years before the Naturalization Act became law. The constitutionality of such proceedings will certainly have to be tested in the courts; it seems to us unthinkable that the law can be used retroactively to dis- franchise persons who met the existing citizenship re- quirements and were naturalized in good faith according to the law as it then stood. Even more serious is the possi- bility of applying the California Anti-Alien Land Law to Indians owning property in that State and dispossessing them on the basis of their ineligibility for citizenship. The United States has protested loudly enough against the en- actment of retroactive confiscatory legislation against for- eigners—when we happened to be the foreigners. Will we guard with equal fidelity the property rights of foreigners on our own shores? OT many town councils get a chance to figure in the religious history of mankind, but the Bombay Munici- pal Corporation may now claim that distinction. According to the Indian newspapers the Bombay Municipal Corpora- tion “after a three days’ heated debate” has squelched the Parsee “reformers” who sought to substitute cremation for the historic Parsee method—that of leaving the dead to be consumed by vultures in their Towers of Silence. The bom- bay papers are curiously reticent about the theological arguments, pro and con, but state the issue clearly enough. The “reformers” who had organized the Parsee Cremation Society asked for a plot of municipal ground on Love Grove Road on which to erect “a crematorium and fire temple for the use of such Parsees as favor this method of disposal of the dead.” Against this suggestion the majority threw itself with passion; crowds attended the debates in the cor- poration and the chairman “had the greatest difficulty in preserving order.” Finally, when the corporation rejected the plea of the “reformers” the majority “threw umbrellas and hats in the air” and “carried their champion from the hall on their shoulders.” It sounds very much like stories which we have heard from some Christian countries. R. STANLEY ROWLAND, writing in the Nineteenth Century, complains that London has become a very inferno of noise; besides the ordinary door-slamming, shoe- squeaking, and newspaper rattling that infest any house- hold, Mr. Rowland, evidently a sensitive man, hates jazz and motor horns and the clump of horses’ feet on pave- ments. To the New Yorker, whose nerves are no longer able to jump at anything, attuned as they are to five-ton trucks tearing over cobblestones at three o’clock in the morning, this complaint comes as something of a surprise. London has always seemed to him a soothing and gentle spot—as soothing and gentle, say, as White Plains or New Rochelle. And yet, alas, White Plains, that placid hamlet, is no longer gentle; for several years it has been the stop- The Nation 367 over for thousands of grackles on their way South. They roost on the trees and make a ridgepole along the top of the City Hall; and being vigorous birds that do not know fatigue, they emit and keep on emitting a noise somewhat like that generated when heavy brown paper is torn in two. In vain the Mayor and the nerve-racked citizens have fired rockets and sent up flares; the birds refuse to be dislodged or quieted. The latest remedy suggested is to import hoot owls to scare them away. This, of course, is ample proof that while the White Plainers have heard grackles cackle they have never been favored with a hoot owl’s hoot. Any New Yorker who has would smile and drop to sleep, soothed by the thought that he had only a truck to listen to. ON discovers that willows grow to a man’s height and that vegetables can be grown in Greenland with some- thing of the same shock with which one learns that most of the Sahara is high, mountainous country. Most of us will be even more surprised on learning, from the fascinating story told in the American Scandinavian Review, that Greenland has ruins of eleventh-century churches, and that a Danish commission two years ago dug out of the frozen soil there fifteenth-century costumes very like the Paris and Florentine fashions of the period. No European mu- seum, Poul Norlund tells us, possesses a single secular cos- tume dating from the Middle Ages; the polar climate of Greenland saved these garments from decomposition. There was not wood enough in Greenland for coffins; so the Norse colonists wrapped their dead in their old clothes, laid carved wood or walrus-tusk crosses upon their breasts, and low- ered them into the cold ground. Men and women both wore skirted dresses in those days, but the men’s were shorter and the women’s fuller—some four yards full at the feet. T was Eric the Red, father of that Leif Ericson who discovered “Vinland” somewhere in present-day Canada or New England nearly half a millennium before Columbus sighted American soil, who first settled Greenland, in 986. Twenty-five ships set sail with him from Iceland—long Viking ships, open amidships to the sky, and loaded down with cattle and grainsacks as well as humans—but only fourteen of them ever reached Greenland. For five hun- dred years—a longer period than that between Columbus’s discovery and our own day—Norsemen lived in Greenland. During most of that time Greenland had its own Christian bishop and a republican form of government. At one time 5,000 Norsemen lived there. But the Greenland trade be- came a monopoly of the King of Norway, and ships sailed thither more and more rarely. The last recorded voyage was in 1410. For perhaps a century more the Norse Green- landers lived on, staring their eyes out looking for the ship that never came—they had no wood to build their own— and, as the skeletons in their graveyards show, becoming physically degenerate by intermarriage and undernourish- ment, stunted and hunchbacked. A Norwegian missionary who searched for them in 1721 found only small brown Kayak men in possession of the land. The Norse houses were already in ruins. A whole civilization had died—yet today we are thrilled by the death of one man on Wrangel Island, no further north than these Norsemen penetrated. Our ships are better and our knowledge greater; but where are the men today to match those Norsemen who sailed without compass on an uncharted sea?

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368 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3040 The Death of a Nation OINCARE has his way; Germania delenda est. Repa- rations are not being paid; reconstruction is delayed ; anger and hatred, the seeds of future war, are scattered broadcast. But Germany is being destroyed. Bavaria already stands apart from Northern Germany, defying federal legislation, obeying a monarchist dictator who only waits the moment to proclaim Prince Rupprecht king. A Saxon minister has announced that when that proclamation comes Saxony will proclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat, and invite neighboring states to join her. East Prussia is already separated from the mass of Ger- many by the Polish corridor, “made in France.” Monarchists are in revolt in Kiistrin in the heart of old Prussia. And in the Rhineland the French, allied with starvation, are goading the inhabitants into establishing an “independent Rhineland Republic,” which would have French currency and be as little independent as were the states created by Napoleon, the master-wrecker of Europe, whose dreams still dominate French policy. The German Reich, which withstood four years of war against the world, is crumbling in the prolonged battle of the peace. The editor of The Nation, telegraphing from Geneva, reports almost unmitigated gloom at the capital of the League of Nations. Americans may be surprised, because the apostles of American participation in the League have filled our newspapers with their unquenchable faith in the messianic destiny of that organization. But to those who read the news and ponder upon it without such a super- rational mysticism to comfort them, the gloom at Geneva is only too well justified, and the days which have elapsed since Mr. Villard filed his message must only have deepened it. While the League has been prating principles the ugly cancer in the heart of Europe, which the League has refused to face, has been spreading its poison. The Franco-German melee gives the keynote to all Europe. What France can do untrammeled by the League Italy, Poland, Lithuania also have done, and Hungary, Serbia, Rumania feel they may do. And as a sample of what France is doing, reflect upon a paragraph in a dispatch to the generally Gallophile London Times. The French provided free trains for the 15,000 Separat- ists who met at Diisseldorf on the Rhine on that Red Sun- day which closed the month of September. They had financed this Separatist movement throughout; its chief, Dr. Dorten, was in Paris conferring with the French Gov- ernment when the bloodshed occurred. Another Separatist leader, Josef Matthes, had just proclaimed that the Separat- ists wanted only peace and tranquillity when shots were fired, no one knew whence. Pandemonium ensued, and the German police advanced, firing, and broke up the Separatist demonstration—which German officials had prohibited and the French encouraged. After the German police had dis- persed the crowd French cavalry and tanks arrived upon the scene. This is what followed, as recounted by the. corre- spondent of the Times: Twenty French cavalrymen, led by a dozen men of the Rhein- wehr [the Separatist unofficial police organization], galloped up to a green [German] policeman on duty close to the hotel, sur- rounding and disarming him. When this was done the Separat- ists turned on the disarmed man and beat him to death with leaden pipes. The policeman covered his face with his hands and sank to the ground. A score or more blows were rained on him during the half-minute it took to kill him. The French remained impassive, and when it was over the Separatists shook hands with them. A few yards away the hideous scene was reenacted, although this time the green policeman appeared not to be killed outright. Both bodies were left where they were. Separatists who tried to repeat these murders on another already wounded German policeman with a different group of French cavalry were foiled. ... It is not merely that the German state is being broken into pieces; in that process the soul of a great nation is keing corrupted and a poison as deadly as any poison gas which Wellsian romancers can conceive is being injected into Europe. No spiritual regeneration is issuing out of this decay of Germany. Visitors to that miserable country in 1919 recall that out of the ashes of military defeat a new and nobler Germany seemed to be rising, a Germany that hated war and faced toward the future rather than the past. All that is changed. The new Germany found no new Entente to welcome it. It met only suspicion and rebuke. The Entente which had so bitterly denounced German mili- tarism adopted its worst features. The League of Nations which was to have developed a new world following the war turned out to be an instrument of Entente policy, excluding the Central Powers and Russia. The new spirit in Ger- many, meeting only rebuff abroad, lost force at home. Cyn- icism replaced hope; Poincaré has reconvinced those who had abandoned faith in brute force. So Germany is today a kind of madhouse of embittered men and women, where monarchist fights republican, and both fight the Communist, and all are only too ready to turn their miscellaneous weapons upon the invader. The final collapse of the magnificent campaign of passive resistance with which a disciplined disarmed people met the over- whelming armed force of the French has seemingly brought with it a sort of collapse in general morale. When men despair, and see no escape from the terrific burden of daily life, they turn upon each other in irrational anger, and put their faith in myths. Dictatorships feed upon such hope- lessness and such myths, and we may expect to see petty little dictatorships springing up on various programs in various parts of Germany. The myth of French stability is one of these deceptive mirages, which may for a time lead some of the discouraged population of the Rhineland, ap- palled at the careening of the German mark, to espouse the Separatist cause which in their hearts they despise. Some readers of this paper are continually writing its editors begging that they be more optimistic. They are a little like Mr. Bryan, who denies the principle of evolution because, as he puts it, he prefers not to believe it. These people demand optimism because they prefer optimism. So do we. But we believe in facing facts, and the fact is that through these post-war years Europe has been steadily sinking. Only in much-despised Soviet Russia is there reason to believe that things are definitely on the up-grade. Poincaré can kill the German republic. He can destroy German unity. He can starve Germans. In that sense we may witness the death of Germany. In a larger sense he can kill only his own nation. France won the hearts of the world when she stood in mourning on the Marne. The France we loved then is dead; Poincaré has killed it.

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Oct. 10, 1923] Anarchy in Oklahoma EADERS who have felt that The Nation has been too harsh with Governor Walton of Oklahoma will prob- ably find justification for its position in more recent events. No one is more opposed to the lawless methods of the Ku Klux Klan than The Nation, nor is it without admiration for the courage, the directness, and the democratic instincts of Governor Walton. But although his instincts may be democratic, his methods are the reverse of that, and at this writing seem to be leading the State of Oklahoma further and further into the civic anarchy which is the inevitable consequence of trying to meet one kind of lawlessness with another. Governor Walton initiated military rule not because the existence of the State government was threatened by an extraordinary emergency—about the only justification for such a proceeding—but because civil government was not working properly in certain regions on account of Klan in- fluence. In other words, the Governor suppressed civil gov- ernment as a method of civil reform. But reform did not follow—indeed, could not do so as long as military rule pre- vailed. And the Governor found that although it was not hard to begin martial law it became increasingly difficult to end it. His action divided Oklahoma more than ever into two camps, more concerned with smashing each other than with preserving the State. It became, as the Governor’s Executive Counselor described it in The Nation last week, a case of “dog eat dog.” From a comparatively mild dicta- torship Governor Walton was driven, in order to save him- self from impeachment, into declaring that a referendum, which the State Supreme Court had just decided had been legally called, should not take place. “This is my election,” the Governor is quoted as saying. “T called it and I certainly have the right to postpone it.” Wholly untrue! It is not the Governor’s election but that of the State of Oklahoma. His calling it gives him no right of subsequent recall any more than he could veto a bill of the legislature after once approving it. The Governor’s assumption of a dictatorship simply forced him from one extreme to another in order to maintain himself. From an original professed desire to restore civil government in Tulsa the Governor was led to ordering the mobilization of 100,000 persons and talking seriously of bloodshed. What, some will be asking, should Governor Walton have done in the face of the outrages of the Klan in his State? It was reported to him, probably correctly, that the prose- cuting officers of a certain county were all Klansmen and that they refused to proceed against individuals who were organizing and conducting floggings. Not a happy situa- tion, to be sure. But the derelict officers were put there by the votes of their fellow-citizens. If a majority of the voters wanted that kind of thing, it was their affair. If they had simply blundered into it through carelessness— which is more likely—they deserved to fry in their own fat until they could make a change. What about protecting the minority, someone asks? Ah, but minorities are never pro- tected except through the operation of law or self-restraint. Consideration for them is the finest flower of peaceful and disciplined democracy—a bloom that is first to perish in any rule of sheer force. To preserve civil process, how- ever imperfect, is generally more important than to remedy abuses through setting it aside. The Nation 369 The Deadly Grade Crossing N express train from a popular inland resort to New York is speeding through a region where Nature spreads before the eyes of the passengers one of her finest panoramas of river, mountain, and woodland scenery. Sud- denly there is an abrupt jar, almost violent enough to throw down anyone who happens to be on his feet. It is followed at a brief interval by another shock, and the train is at a standstill. The call sounds through the cars: “Is there a doctor on board?” But the emergency which prompted the summons is already over. In the middle of the highway a few yards distant lies a twisted mass of metal, from which the train crew extricate the lifeless bodies of a man and a woman who only a few moments ago were in buoyant health and vigor. The corpses are quickly covered by a sheet, from beneath which trickle small streams of blood. The blinds of the dining-car are lowered lest the sight provoke nausea among passengers just sitting down to their midday meal. From conductors and porters one soon picks up the out- line of the story. The road by which the automobile was traveling runs for a considerable distance almost parallel to the railway track, and the train must have been clearly visible to its occupants. But some demon of foolhardiness must have inspired its driver with the ambition of chal- lenging the express to a racing contest. With his own speedometer registering sixty miles an hour might he not hope to reach the crossing ahead of the locomotive? Indeed, he does reach it first, and he almost clears the danger-point —almost; but not quite. The engine strikes the rear wheel of the automobile and hurls the whole machine fifty feet along the highway. The scene just described is of such poignant tragedy as to haunt even the waking thoughts of the train passengers for many days afterward. The memory of that ghastly heap in the road comes back to them unbidden again and again. But an incident of this kind is so much a common- place of railway travel nowadays that it has not even a news value. The next morning it is recorded in the press of the district, but outside that area it finds no mention at all. It lacks that attribute of the exceptional which attracts the attention of the journalistic newsgatherer. It happens today in New Hampshire. It will happen tomorrow in New Jer- sey and the day after in Illinois and so on through the cal- endar. For every day in the year, on an average, three persons are killed and twelve injured at grade crossings in the United States. De mortuis—yes, but only the plainest language befits such a mad freak if it is to serve as a warning to the living. There may be rare occasions when a motorist is justified in taking great risks, but it is inconceivable that on a country road with a grade crossing just ahead and a train in actual sight there can be any adequate reason for running an automobile at the speed of a fast express. The line is very thin that separates such conduct from suicide. It might easily bring with it manslaughter also. And all for the satisfaction of a depraved sporting instinct and the saving of a few seconds on a holiday tour through a region so delightful that most travelers would wish to prolong rather than abbreviate their savoring of its charm! But granted the reasonable obligation to stop, look, and listen when approaching a grade crossing, a heavy respon- sibility lies upon the railroad companies for permitting the

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370 The Nation - existence of so many points of danger. In England one seldom hears of a grade-crossing accident. The annual toll in the British Isles from this cause is forty killed and six- teen injured, as against 1,259 killed and 4,493 injured in the United States. The difference is not to be explained by our greater railway mileage. The British railways carry over their shorter tracks half as many passengers again as the American, which must mean that the number of their train journeys is much greater in proportion to the length of tracks. The reason of so striking a contrast is obvious to any American visitor on his first railway or, automobile journey in England. He will notice everywhere how the building of bridges has almost eliminated the grade cross- ing, and how, even where it is allowed to exist, the precau- tion is taken of providing a gate or bar operated by a neigh- boring signalman. In the United States, on the other hand, according to an estimate by the American Railway Associa- tion, there are no less than 250,000 grade crossings—vir- tually one for every mile of track. Our railways, moreover, afford in many places the spectacle of trains running through the streets of a city without the slightest fence to separate them from the ordinary traffic. When he was over here some years ago Arnold Bennett was amazed to see trains making their way in this fashion along the thorough- fares of Syracuse. That city, with a population of over 170,000, can still offer its foreign visitors a spectacle which would seem incredible in Europe, even if presented on a movie film, Cap’n Josh Slocum LAIN J. GERBAULT, the Frenchman who recently reached New York after 142 days spent in crossing the Atlantic Ocean alone in a thirty-foot sail-boat, hopes soon to start on a voyage by himself around the world, which he expects will take him three years. A great ad- venture! Indeed, yes—but not a new one. Probably he may have heard of (and others will recall) Captain Joshua Slocum, who returned from such a voyage twenty-five years ago. Captain Slocum set out from Boston on April 24, 1895, and after sailing 46,000 miles, in the course of which he circumnavigated the globe, this doughty skipper dropped anchor in the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island, on June 27, 1898. Captain Slocum’s boat, the Spray, was about the same size as that of Mr. Gerbault. The Spray was a bit more than thirty-six feet over all, and twelve tons gross. Mr. Gerbault’s vessel was thirty feet in length and measured about ten tons. There was no similarity in build, however, between the craft. The French boat was laid down on yachting and racing lines, and much of the trouble that her skipper had in his voyage across the Atlantic was perhaps due to this consideration. The Spray was a fishing boat model and an admirable rough-water sailer. Captain Slocum has told the story of her building and her voyage in his book “Sailing Alone Around the World.” And a fine sailor-like yarn it is! By origin Captain Josh was a Nova Scotian, coming of a long line of seafaring forebears, although by some accident his father happened to have turned farmer. The boy had his choice between the sea and the rockbound farm on which he grew up. Perhaps there wasn’t much choice. Anyhow young Slocum early decided not to become a Nova Scotian [Vol. 117, No. 3040 farmer. Eventually Captain Josh was naturalized as a Yankee and became a skipper in the old-time American sail- ing fleet. In the eighties he skipped the full-rigged ship Northern Light, but finally was the victim of a shipwreck on the coast of Brazil, after which—with the demand for sail- ing-ship skippers on the wane—he found himself back in ‘New England “on the beach.” Somebody offered him an old sloop as a joke. He took the gift seriously, and after spending thirteen months of his labor and $553.62 in vir- tually rebuilding the craft, he was ready to start out— where? As there seemed to be no other trip especially worth taking, he decided on a single-handed journey around the world. Perhaps the thing from which ordinary people would shrink most in a voyage like that of Mr. Gerbault or Cap- tain Slocum would be the loneliness. This does not so much concern a born sailor. The sea is a lonely place in the best of circumstances, and nobody can qualify as a true lover of it who does not love loneliness too. Yet it can be over- done. Captain Slocum confesses to an unpleasant degree of loneliness during the first few days of his voyage, but after that it disappeared, not to reappear. The first leg of his course was to Gibraltar, by way of the Azores. Thence he headed for Brazil, following the coast down to the Strait of Magellan. When Captain Josh set out on his voyage the Spray was sloop-rigged, as was the craft in which Mr. Gerbault crossed the Atlantic. After some ex- perience, however, Captain Slocum rigged the Spray as a yawl, thus making it easier—as most sailors would testify —for one man to handle. Also Captain Josh found the Spray so well behaved that he could set the course, lash the wheel, and in ordinary circumstances his good ship would jog along by herself with little or no attention from him. This relieved the skipper of a vast amount of tedium - at the wheel, allowed him to put in hours reading, and permitted him even to roll over in his bunk and go to sleep at night while the Spray forged on. Captain Josh went through the Strait of Magellan, spent months in the South Seas, visited Australia, traversed the Indian Ocean, rounded what sailors call “the Cape of Storms” or just “the Cape” (Good Hope), laid his course across the South Atlantic for Brazil, and then sailed up through the West Indies and home. Of course he met many dangers, surmounted many difficulties. Time and again he was close to shipwreck and death, but his account shows that he was not only cool-headed and resourceful but a capital practical seaman also. And those qualities pulled him through. His own comment on himself and his boat at the end of the voyage runs thus: Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life was turned back till my friends all said: ‘Slocum is young again.” And so I was, at least ten years younger than the day I felled the first tree for the con- struction of the Spray. My ship was also in better condition than when she sailed from Boston on her long voyage. She was still as sound as a nut and as tight as the best ship afloat. She did not leak a drop —not one drop! The pump, which had been little used before reaching Australia, had not been rigged since then at all. But for all that, Gentle Reader, do not imagine that such an adventure is too easy or too safe. Captain Slocum came back—yes, that time. Some years later he set out on another such voyage, and has never been heard from since.

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' Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 371 The Only Hope (Special Radiogram to The Nation) By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Geneva, September 30 NDER the darkest skies Europe has seen since 1914 the fourth League Assembly comes to an end. The facts that the trouble between the Serbs and Italians is blowing over, that a Greco-Italian war has been averted, that the Ruhr resistance is at an end do not affect the intense depression among the Assembly delegates. “Over all of us,” said one of the ablest and most influential Eng- lishmen, speaking today, “hangs the shadow of the French army and the fact that their airplanes outnumber the Brit- ish four or five to one. We have but substituted one mili- tarism for another.” And he agreed with one listener that the French today are more dangerous than was the old Germany because they are abler, more subtle, and less stupid. There lies the stumbling-block to European progress and the greatest danger to the League itself. Throughout this session the French have tried to block every forward move- ment, have done their best to end the Temporary Mixed Commission on Disarmament, have opposed the effort to refer really important points to the World Court, have stood in the way of every hopeful suggestion. Not over reparations only are the English and the French utterly opposed. Here they disagree at every turn. It is perfectly plain that the French do not wish the League to gain prestige though they are willing to use it for their own purposes. Since the Ruhr collapse all talk about French security, never in my opinion sincere, has stopped, and the French strength has been thrown into the effort to block disarmament. When one recalls the historic opposition of these two nations and beholds the present situation one can only tremble for the future. England and France now lock horns at every point. Today wherever one looks the gravest dangers confront one. France is rejoicing over her great victory over the completely abased Germans, but all advices here foretell catastrophic events in Germany. Even French cispatches admit that Paris is anxiously watching, and is welcoming the Bavarian dictatorship and the state of siege there. The Communists are delighted over the German prospect. Most economists here do not believe that the French will have an easy task to reorganize and operate the Ruhr. They feel that Germany is too far gone to fail to collapse. This may be postponed. Watched-for revolu- tions rarely boil on time, but the fact is that the situation is so grave that the soberest men shake their heads in despair. Nation readers would be amazed if I could tell the names of those who have said to me that the situation is absolutely hopeless. Fear of Mussolini is general. He is called a crazy man here—also a great man. No one can tell where he will erupt next, now that the Council of Ambassadors has given him the Greek liras so unreasonably. This is called downright robbery here; Englishmen are hanging their heads because the British Ambassador voted for this screaming injustice. Indeed, the way the League has been duped in this matter by the Council of Ambassadors is one of the hardest blows it has received. Mussolini can now claim that he has the complete approval of the Great Powers for his every act, including the Corfu murders. Liberals here utterly deplore the fact that two great nations have now upheld the prin- ciple that they can grab where they please and compel pay- ments and submission. France and Italy, both members of the League, have thus deliberately violated the very spirit of the Covenant. The principle that force is supreme, charged to the Germans, is now triumphant again. It is a victory for the brute side of human nature. Then, too, France may have made the dangerous discovery that whole masses of industrial populations, whole peoples can be starved into slavery and submission—which is a terrible lesson to teach imperialists and big industrialists the world over. Meanwhile, the League trembles in the balance. Five years after the war to safeguard democracy Europe rushes to economic disaster. One dictatorship follows another— Russia, Italy, Spain, Bavaria. Probably soon the whole of Germany will be subject to a dictator, but observers here feel that even so he could not hold himself in power long and that the Allies may be compelled to undertake the ruin- ous task of governing more portions of Germany than the Ruhr. . It is not time to despair yet. Information from a Lon- don source hitherto reliable reaches me that Mr. Baldwin is considering a new offer of startling importance, to buy off the French and get them out of the Ruhr and Germany altogether by assuming the position of guarantor of Ger- many at Poincaré’s terms—fifty billion gold marks. If this should be accepted it would save Germany, give France her pieces of silver, and perhaps rescue Europe at a tremendous sacrifice to England. There is no other possibility in sight of immediate rescue, no other way quickly to restore Eng- land’s lost prestige and rehabilitate her shattered influence since Mr. Baldwin assumed conduct of affairs. Even this solution would leave bitter rancor and festering hatreds, the inescapable legacy of the worst of wars, and would not remove the danger of future wars. It certainly would make inevitable a British-German alliance, as England would have intrusted her financial future to Germany’s good faith. England would run a tremendous risk if the expected Com- munist rebellion should sweep Germany or, what is more likely, if an exhausting, bloody, planless civil war should ensue. Over all broods the sinister spirit of French-Italian chauvinism, acting in the manner of pre-war diplomacy and greed and lust for power. No wonder people despair. Geneva feels intensely the failure of the Americans to aid spiritually and morally. They no longer expect our entrance to the League, but if no unexpected help such as the pro- posed British move just outlined comes, they feel that only America can save Europe from the bloody-handed, base- minded diplomats and the spineless prime ministers who are leading her to destruction. Liberals feel, like the edi- tor of The Nation, that America has thrown away a glori- ous opportunity to lead the world, a leadership which was possible without war guaranties, without entering the League, and without entangling alliances.

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372 be The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 Heywood Broun By HEYWOOD BROUN (Mr. Broun’s account of himself as a critic is the first of a series of articles by critics about themselves which will appear in The Nation during the coming winter. Arrange- ments have been made with Ludwig Lewisohn, H. Lb. Mencken, and Carl Van Doren for similar articles, and fur- ther announcements will be made as the series develops. Heywood Broun went from the New York Tribune to the New York World in 1921 and since that time his column “Tt Seems to Me” has been one of the World’s chief features. Mr. Broun’s criticism is always a frankly personal reaction, so that his opinion of himself carries with it added literary significance.) NE of the things in which I used to take pride was the fact that I never lost sight of the fallibility of my opinions. But I ought not to take pride in this for it is among the factors which limit my usefulness as a critic. Humility ill becomes those who sit in judgment. The taste of American readers improves, and it has been developed almost entirely by mentors who never had a doubt as to the utter rightness of every decision which they handed down. People hereabouts have been shamed into appreciation. Perhaps there is some reason to doubt the value of rearing up browbeaten aesthetes. The tyranny has developed to such an extent that 90 per cent (this is an estimate, since the statistics have not yet been issued) of all the reading done in this country today is motivated by a sense of duty. People read so that they may converse more intelligently, get better jobs, develop a powerful will and a magnetic per- sonality. Only a few read for fun, which seems to me the best of all possible reasons. In a bookstore the other day I was horrified to stumble upon something which was called “A Reading Ladder.” The books in it were carefully sorted into “Books for chil- dren less than five,” “Between five and nine,” “Between nine and thirteen,” and “More than thirteen,’ at which age I suppose the wide horizons might be expected to open. But of course they don’t. Even after the reader outgrows his status of having books handed down to him from graduated shelfs he enlists in some new subserviency. Probably he becomes a follower of Mencken and what Mencken says is good becomes good and also necessary to that particular reader. People insist upon getting the best books just as rigidly as they demand the best butter. We have then the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of Americans buying “Main Street” and reading some of it. Now, I happen to think that “Main Street” was a significant achievement, but it was one of the most disliked books published within my time and I can hardly forbear shuddering at the thought of the pain and boredom which it caused among the mil- lions of the devoted and unhappy seekers after good litera- ture. However, I must change the tack or my attempt at con- fession will become too nearly an enthusiastic defense of Heywood Broun, the undogmatic. The fact of the matter is that there is no virtue in this lack of positiveness. Here, too, is a weakness. The weasel qualifier, it seems to me, is inserted merely because I don’t know whether or not a book is as bad or as fine as I believe it to be. I have never been able to learn the reasons for my enthusiasms. At first I was content not to know. My method upon encountering what seemed to me fine work was to turn a few hand- springs and froth.a little at the mouth. Perhaps I might have gone on to the end in that way, but the somersaults strained my wrists and I froth less easily than a few years ago. Accordingly, I have almost abandoned any pretensions to belonging among the critics of literature as an art, or drama either. I belong among the Puritans, for instinct- ively I judge a book by first asking myself, Is this a story which tends to uphold conduct, which seems to me admira- ble, or is it not? You see I happen to have very definite standards about shrewd conduct and foolish conduct, and so I find it much easier to function as an ethical than as an artistic arbiter. And America, for the sake of its sins, deserves such a critic, or commentator, or call him what you will. Somebody must do his best to atone in part for William Winter, and that is my effort, although the motiva- tion is largely unconscious. For forty years, for instance, Mr. Winter kept on hammering away at “Camille” because he felt it to be a play which condoned immorality. That was reasonable enough because he was so ethically minded that he couldn’t enjoy “Camille.” The fact that it was theatrically adroit meant nothing to him. Nor would it mean anything to me. The most perfect piece of work about a good wife and mother is never going to seem any- thing but a bad play or a bad novel to me, because I don’t like good wives and mothers. This sort of criticism is fun- damentally wrong-headed, but what can I do about it? Certainly there is no satisfaction in searching for reasons to applaud work which you don’t like. There are those who can, without strain, shout “Rah, rah, rah, Technique,” but I would choke upon such a cry. Willa Cather’s novel “One of Ours” won the Pulitzer Prize, and to me it was a bad novel. It was a bad novel because Miss Cather found the war romantically appealing and I did not. That is just as good a subject to quarrel about as her sentence struc- ture. After all the establishment of definite critical standards serves to hamper rather than foster literature. No matter how broad you make the rules something will come along which will make it necessary to stretch them to the break- ing-point. There are many diets more pleasant than eating your own standards, and the easiest way to avoid that diffi- culty is to have no standards. Still, it is false for me to pretend that I have no precon- ceptions. I have a very definite idea of what is generally wrong with the novel. At any rate it is a fault in twenty out of every twenty-five. The failing which I find is ex- cessive bulk. There are not a handful of writers who know enough to begin at the beginning and stop at the end. In- variably there is a prologue in which the stage-hands come out and set the scene before the characters do anything of interest and importance. Even more common is the prac- tice of hanging on to a situation and squeezing it after all the vitality has been exhausted. There is then a definite platform for which I am willing to stand. I want shorter and more immoral novels. SB ns ee eS Naas Me te le Ne ks

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 373 Mrs. Gladfelter’s Revolt By HELEN R. MARTIN I LTHOUGH Jacob Gladfelter’s four robust sons had come out from under the rule of his heavy hand as strong, self-reliant young men, his wife and his only daugh- ter had become, year after year, more and more submissive and cowed. To be sure, Jacob had always been a little more tolerant of self-assertion on the part of males of the household, seeing that they would, in the end, have to be their own masters; but as a woman must always, according to the Pennsylvania Dutch standard of what was “womanly,” acquiesce in the dominance of a man, either her father or her “mister,” there was not the same reason for relaxing one’s sway over them as in the case of the boys. It had never occurred to Meely, Jacob’s wife, to question her man’s right to rule his own household. She would have thought him less than a man and would not have respected him if he had not governed her and their children with a firm hand. From that night when, meeting her for the first time at a barn dance, he had boldly snatched her from her partner, carried her bodily to his own sleigh and driven away with her under the very eyes of her dumfounded and indignant escort, she had been his abject slave. Her sons loved and petted their little mother and their comely young sister Weezy—and walked over them rough- shod. In this they only followed the example of their father. Although Jacob Gladfelter, prosperous proprietor of the only general store in Virginsville, had always been, according to his lights, a kind, indulgent husband and father, he was first and foremost a man of strict consci- entious scruples and he would have considered himself just as sadly lacking in his duty if he had ever let his women folks get out of hand as if he had failed to be a “good pur- vider” or had neglected to engage the best procurable mid- wife for his wife’s many confinements, keeping her on the job for as much as two weeks—which in Virginsville was almost going to the ragged edge of sentimentality. Jacob’s contempt for the few men of his acquaintance who were so weak as to “leave the women boss” was unutterable. Be- sides this, in spite of his reputedly amiable disposition, there was a streak of obstinacy in his character that, once he had taken a stand, would not let him yield. So jealously did Jacob guard his prerogative to decide all household matters that for his wife and daughter to make a suggestion was only to invite a sure denial of what they wanted. If he indulged them it must be in his own way, at his own convenience, and in what he considered pleasant for them. Was a new carpet to be bought, Mr. Gladfelter selected it. He would see no point in consulting his wife’s taste in the matter because if she did not share his decided preferences as to carpets her preference would, of course, have to be sacrificed; and if she did share them, no use to consult her. Did the kitchen range wear out, it was Jacob who said whether it should be replaced by a gas-cooking stove. And on such questions as the higher schooling of the children Jacob simply announced to her what he in- tended to do. When suffrage was given to women the four Gladfelter boys were hilarious at the idea of “Mom’s wotin’.” Jacob, considering the Amendment unscriptural and subversive of a stable social order, laid down the law for his family: “I won’t give you the dare to wote, Mom! As fur Weesy, till she’s at the wotin’ age, I guess she’ll be married and it’ll be fur her mister to say dare she wote or not.” “It wonders me how a man ever knows who to wote fur,” said Mrs. Gladfelter. “The candidates all seems all right till they’re in oncet—and then—” “Yes, and then! You said it!” blustered her son Elmer. “And then it’s hell! Ain’t?” “Yes, ain’t!”” responded all the men. When Weezy reached the age for “settin’ up Sa’rdays and keepin’ comp’ny with a Steady-Regular,” her father magnanimously told her one evening at supper that he would now get a new suite of furniture for the parlor. He had expected this news to be received with gratitude and pleasure by Weezy and her mother, and he was surprised at the awkward silence that answered him. The truth was Meely and Weezy had come to dread Jacob’s taste in house- hold furnishings. “Please, Pop,” Weezy ventured, “don’t get yellow!” Mrs. Gladfelter looked anxiously across the supper table to note the effect upon her husband of such boldness. Jacob, eating sausage and fried potatoes, did not reply. “Yellow kreistles me!’ Weezy shuddered. No reply from Jacob. “T like red better or such dark blue.” Jacob noisily sipped his coffee. “Sooner’n have yellow, I’d let the parlor.” “So would I!” Mrs. Gladfelter, unexpectedly though tim- idly, spoke in. “It’s going on twenty years that I lived with our parlor furniture and I’m used to it a little. I’d sooner let it be than get new.” “You always were so much for yellow, Pop!’ pleaded Weezy. “I wouldn’t like to keep comp’ny with a fellow with yellow furniture!” “And it’s Weezy would use the room, not us,” Mrs. Glad- felter reasoned, taking refuge in addressing her son Albert rather than her husband. “If Weezy don’t favor yellow, I think it’s a pity to get yel e “Be peaceable, Mom!” Jacob quietly ordered her, with that look of deadly obstinacy on his face which she and Weezy knew to be the stone wall to any further advance- ment of their side of a question. But something in her daughter’s wistful, worried eyes made her, this evening, strangely persistent. “Us we might as well get what Weezy would like and yellow ain’t just to say so tasty in parlor furniture—it’s not so bad in wallpaper or carpet, though I’d sooner purfur red or blue, like Weezy says, but yellow furniture, yet - “Be peaceable, Mom!” “But Weezy’s gettin’ full-growed now, and if she don’t take to yellow, it’s her has to set in the parlor, we never do, and it’s her. a “Mom! Be peaceable!” And Mrs. Gladfelter, with a long sigh, subsided. Mr. Gladfelter felt it to be his clear duty, in view of this incipient insubordination of his wife and daughter, to es- tablish his rightful authority by getting a parlor suite of the yellowest yellow plush he could find.

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374 | The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 It was when her father announced, upon Weezy’s having finished the village school course, that she was now “done school,” and must henceforth stop at home and help with the housework and the general store, that Mrs. Gladfelter, for the first time in her married life, was jolted into a real protest. “Weezy not go to Millersville Normal!” she almost gasped, “like all our boys have went! But Pop! Me I always con- ceited you’d leave Weezy have schoolage, too, like our boys!” Jacob did not think it necessary to offer any explanation of his decision. “But Weezy she was always smarter’n any of our boys, Pop—her teachers all sayed she was smart! And she’s always counted on goin’ to Millersville Normal. She’s planned all her life to be a school teacher!” Jacob paid less attention to her plaints than he would have paid to a fly’s buzzing. “IT always missed it so myself, not having no schoolage, Pop, I did think now my dotter was to have it! Why, look, Pop, how much better she could marry, too, if she got good educated !” Weezy, during this monologue of her zag was silently weeping over her untasted supper. Jacob, rising from the table, took a clothes- Sek from a shelf, brushed first his clothes, then his hair with the same brush, and then, still without replying, turned away and walked into his store in the front of the house. Mrs. Gladfelter regarded her weeping daughter in an agony of sympathy. That Weezy, so very much “smarter at the books” than her big brothers, should be denied an edu- cation for no other reason than that she was not a boy— for the first time in her life the bald unreasonableness and injustice of such a philosophy cut deep into her soul. She loved this daughter, her only girl, with a passionate devo- tion such as her rowdy, unmanageable boys had not called forth from her. Weezy, always so tender and thoughtful for her, was the poetry and romance of her life. It seemed to her that she could not calmly submit to this ruthless destruction of her child’s dearest hopes. She suddenly rose, went to Weezy and put her arms about her. ‘Never you mind, Weezy, I’ve always counted on your getting’ a good education and you’re a-goin’ to get it! Don’t cry! Yow’re not stoppin’ your schoolage!”’ Weezy dried her eyes and looked at her mother incredu- lously. “But, Mom, what can we do if Pop says no? The more we coax, the more stubborn-headed he’ll get!” “T know that. We won’t coax. But you’re a-goin’ to get your nice education all the same!” “But how, Mom? How will you get round Pop?” “You know I got my interest money?” “But Pop never gives it to you.” “T’ve never ast it off of him. But it comes in sich little pieces of paper called cupons. Pop keeps ’em in the safe. They give six hundred dollars a year. They’re mine. My pop inherited ’em to me. That’ll be enough to keep you at school.” “But, Mom, what would Pop say if you took them cu- pons?” “TI don’t mind what he says compared to how I mind your not goin’ to school. I got to just choose between them two things—Pop bein’ cross at me or you losin’ your schoolin,’ ” “I never saw Pop really cross at you, Mom!” “I have never gave him no reason to be. He can’t rightly have cross at me fur takin’ what’s my own. Your Pop’s a awful honest man, Weezy. Why, here this morning, Sally Bergstresser come in our store to buy a spool of thread off of Pop, and Pop he reminded her she owed him a cent on the last spool she got—her not having knew thread had went up a cent and having only five cents along that time. Pop tol’ her, ‘It ain’t that I want that cent, Sally, but there’s my income tax, you see. I got to be wery honest about that, you understand.’ Sally she: laughed till I thought she’d bust! She sayed ‘Now, Jake Gladfelter, if that ain’t like you! Takin’ the trouble to get your income tax right to the penny !—where some wouldn’t bother none if they was off a dollar or more!’ Yes, Weezy, your Pop is that per- tikkler that folks laughs at him yet! So I can’t see that he could get cross at me fur takin’ my own.” “Does he think it is yours, Mom, when you’re married to him?” “Well, the law calls it mine.” “The law gives you dare to wote, too, and Pop won’t leave you.” “It makes me nothing, Weezy, if Pop is cross, so long as I can get you a good education.” Weezy shook her head hopelessly. could fetch me home from Normal.” Her mother’s eyes gleamed with an adventurous daring that made her look to Weezy like a stranger. “Could he? Then I’ll put you to a school that he won’t know where you’re at!” “Why, Mom, you don’t sound like yourself!”” Weezy softly exclaimed, almost alarmed. “Where could I find out about another school, Weezy?” “Uriah Bergstresser mebby could tell you, Mom.” “Yi Bergstresser! Him!” Her mother was skeptical. “Why, him he was that dumb at Millersville Normal that they shed him at the end of the term!” “TI know, but he’s traveled ’round a good bit.” “Yes, that’s so, too. I mind that time he was to New York over, with his Pop. You mind how he tol’ us New York’s so big they couldn’t find the end of it!” “You mind, Mom, how he told us about the nice things they’re got in that Metropolitan Mu-zeem in New York? Och, me, I’d like now to see that Mu-zeem! Ain’t, Mom? You mind Yi said that as far as he could see, they didn’t seem to use that great big building for a thing ’ceptin’ to store all them things!” “Tf you think, Weezy, Yi could tell us the name of an- other ooo than Millersville Normal, 2 ast him right aways.” “All right, Mom.” “T’m under age. Pop II On Sunday morning early in September, when Weezy and her mother started out as usual for church, the girl sur- prised her father by kissing him goodby. Demonstrations of family affection being rare among the Pennsylvania Dutch, kissing being scarcely ever indulged in even when parting for a long time, Jake was puzzled—and pleased. He was very fond of little Weezy. “Ain’t you some early startin’?” he asked. “It gives such a nice day, we thought we’d walk a piece- ways,” answered his wife. When the mother and daughter reached the church, they did not go in, but walked on to the Square where you took the trolley to the near-by city of Lancaster. From Lan- caster, Mrs. Gladfelter sent a telegram to her husband: “Taking Weezy to Normal School. Be home Wednesday.”

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Oct. 10, 1923] They stopped in Lancaster with Mrs. Gladfelter’s brother Sam, who had recently moved there from Columbia un- known to Jacob. On Monday Sam helped his sister procure money on her bond and Mrs. Sam went with her and Weezy to outfit the girl for school. For the first time in her life Weezy was permitted to choose her own clothes, never having presumed to object to wear whatever her father had seen fit to buy for her. Not even to her brother and his wife would Mrs. Glad- felter trust her secret—the name of the Normal School to which she was taking her daughter. ‘Millersville Normal,” the only one they had ever heard of, being just four miles from Lancaster, she knew that they (and her husband too) would assume that that was where Weezy was going. “It wonders me, Meely, that Jake leaves you tend to all this business for Weezy—the money and buyin’ and all! It ain’t like him! Is he sick or whatever, and how’s your Monday washin’ gettin’ done?” asked her sister-in-law. “Fur oncet I’m just lettin’ the washin’, Mame! I’m let- tin’ everything! Fur oncet I don’t care! I feel that light- headed and indiff’runt, I don’t har’ly know what’s over me!” “Mebby you better see a doctor—not? What does Jake say at your bein’ so light-headed and indiff’runt?” “Tt makes me nothing what he says!” laughed Meely. “My souls, Meely, you better see a doctor—it must be some serious!” But Meely only laughed. She doubted not that Jacob, immediately upon receiving her telegram on Sunday, had gone to “Millersville Normal” to force her and Weezy to come home. She marveled at her own unruffled calmness in contemplating his amaze- ment at not finding them there. “Do you think, Mom, you can keep it from Pop where I’m at?” Weezy wondered. “Weezy, your Pop will never get it out of me!” When the time came to part with her daughter and re- turn home, Mrs. Gladfelter’s high spirits suddenly dropped. “Och, Mom, I hate for you to go back home and face Pop!” Weezy mourned. “It ain’t facin’ your Pop, I mind. It’s—it’s the thought of what home will be without you, Weezy.” Weezy clasped her close. “Mom! I love you so But on her homeward trip, Mrs. Gladfelter’s sadness at leaving her daughter lifted somewhat and the uncon- querable buoyancy that had possessed her ever since her flight was again in the ascendancy. This first and only adventure of her whole life, this first taste of freedom, had seemed to re-create her into a new being—she was almost a stranger to herself. When at four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon she walked blithely through the general store where her husband and two of her sons were at the moment waiting on customers, she greeted them gaily as she passed on out to the sitting- room back of the store. “Well, Jake! Well, boys!” The boys stared at her, too bewildered to reply. But her husband did not look up. Not until she called them all to supper did Jake deign to come near her, and even then he did not speak to her or even look at her as he sat down and at once began to help himself to fried ‘“ponhaus” and “smear case.” Meely suddenly realized that however strong she might be to meet reproaches, his holding himself silently and icily aloof from her would be more than she could live with! If this was to be the weapon with which he would try to wrest her secret from her and regain his dominance 1 The Nation 375 “TI was talkin’ to such a lady educator here the other day,” she smilingly told them as she poured their coffee, “and she explained me the arguments how it’s my dooty now to use the wote. So at the next election, Pop, I’m wotin’,” she cheerfully stated. Her husband made no sign. But the boys who, affected by their father’s grim mood, had been discreetly ‘silent, sent up a shout of laughter at the huge joke of their timid little mother’s going to the polls to vote. “Here’s the new woman!” “Have a cig-arette, Mom?” “It wonders me you didn’t have your hair so bobbed while you was to Lancaster over!” After supper Jake at once went back into the store, still without speaking to her. She had expected him to demand, the moment she appeared at home, what she had done with Weezy; and she had been fully prepared to resist his in- sisting upon knowing. But when that night he went to sleep at her side without having spoken to her, she saw that until she voluntarily offered him the explanations and apologies he considered due him, he meant to hold himself thus aloof. She knew how stubbornly he could hold out in a course like this. She could not live with him in such alienation. It would kill her in a month! They had never quarreled be- fore in all the twenty years of their married life. The next morning she stopped him as he was about to go into the store. ‘Please, Pop, leave Al tend store till I speak somethin’ to you.” Jake, directing Albert with a backward motion of his thumb to go into the store, stood still and waited for his wife to speak. “T’ve made up my mind, Jake, fur our Weezy to have a nice education like you gev our boys—and, Jake, you bet- ter know right aways that if I have to die fur it, I’m a-goin’ to see that she gets it!” “Where’s she at?” “T’ll tell you when you pass me your promise you won’t go and fetch her home.” “Where’s she at?” he repeated, bringing his knuckles down upon the table with a shock that rattled the dishes. Meely’s answer was to meet his cold eyes with such un- flinching determination in her own that in his utter aston- ishment at its unfamiliarity, he relaxed, his jaw dropped, and he stared at her in confusion. “Jake, I want fur my dotter to be somepin’ more’n I al- Way was—a cabbage-head. Our Weezy’s a-goin’ to have her chanct to get more out of livin’ than I ever had a’ready.” Jake stared at her stupidly, incredulously. “I don’t fa- vor females bein’ book-learnt! It’s agin Nature!” “An awful lot of females is goin’ agin Nature then, fur there’s a thousand girls at that there Normal School Weezy’s at. If I’d been a little book-learnt myself, I guess I wouldn’t 0’ waited this long till I took my own mind fur somepin’ oncet!” “Where is that Normal School where Weezy’s at?” “Do you pass your promise like I sayed?” “Answer to me Meely!” “When you pass your promise!” Again their eyes met and Jake, with a strange pang of fear in his heart, saw, in the straight, fearless gaze of the little woman whom, up to this hour, he had always regarded with a queer mingling of affection and contempt, that for once in his life he had encountered his match in obstinacy. Deep down in his soul he knew that he was beaten.

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376 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 Count Albert Apponyi By OSCAR JASZI (The author of this article is a noted Hungarian scholar, editor, and statesman. During the Karolyi regime in 1 918 he acted as Minister of National Minorities. The coming to power of the Bolsheviki forced Dr. Jaszi to take refuge im Vienna, and the subsequent years of the White Terror have kept him there. He has published a newspaper devoted to the cause of freedom in Hungary and of reconciliation be- tween Hungary and the neighboring countries. He is now in the United States, having arrived shortly before Count Apponyi, who is at present lecturing under the auspices of the Institute of International Education.) OUNT APPONYI is undoubtedly one of the most re- markable statesmen of Hungary. For half a century he has been a leading figure in the public life of his coun- try. Even those who fought him and his policies bitterly admit that he is a man of whom any parliament in the world would be proud because of his intellectual gifts as well as for his oratorical ability and moral qualities. There can be no doubt that Count Apponyi is a man of extraordinary brilliance and culture. He is a powerful speaker; not only in his mother tongue but in five or six foreign languages he can stir an audience to tears. But the eminence of this man is perhaps greater in the moral sphere. He has been clean and disinterested in a political milieu where corruption and graft, business greed and nepotism play a very important role. In his private life, too, Count Apponyi has been an example of civic virtue; he has lived a modest, even ascetic, life in surroundings of splendor and luxury. Though a fanatical devotee of his Jesuit teachers, his religion, in spite of its dogmatism, is not without kindness, benevolence, and a spirit of helpful- ness for his fellow-men. The nobility and independence of his personality was especially evident when, in the worst months of the “white bolshevism” of Horthy and his gang, Count Apponyi was the only man of the Hungarian aris- tocracy who made a sincere, audacious, and sometimes very dangerous fight against the murders and robberies of the armed bands. He not only took a lofty spiritual stand- point but he busied himself day and night in the interest of wretched Jews and other victims of white militarism. In spite of these extraordinary qualities his public ac- tivity did not benefit the country which he adored, but on the contrary, his spirit and influence were in a high degree responsible for the catastrophe which dismembered and destroyed Hungary, economically as well as morally. This may seem paradoxical. I must give a little more detailed analysis of the factors and forces which have counterbal- anced Count Apponyi’s high moral qualities. Count Apponyi’s political and economic milieu was not the democratic arena of Western civilization but a country which remained, and is still, entirely feudal in structure and spirit. The political and economic preponderance of the large estates, of the feudal lords, and the Roman Catho- lic high clergy is almost exclusive. There was, and still is, no country in the world where the distribution of landed property was as unjust and unfortunate as in Hungary. Some thousand noblemen and capitalists retained about one-third of the entire arable land, and the great majority of the Hungarian population was deprived of landed prop- erty at all, or its property was so small that a farmer’s family could not live on it. This disastrous distribution of landed property was accentuated by the post-war revo- lution, so that Hungary has now the largest landless peas- ant proletariat in the world. This unwholesome agricul- tural structure was responsible for the failure of Hun- garian industry and commerce to develop. It explains why no bourgeoisie worthy of the name ever arose, why the democratic forces—both in the cities and in the rural dis- tricts—were extremely feeble, why the whole intelligentsia was at the service of the big feudal landowners. (I say feudal intentionally because the landed property was used only to exploit an exceedingly uncultivated landless prole- tariat.) Really productive forces cannot develop where press, legislature, the civil administration, and the courts are at the exclusive service of the big feudal magnates and of their intellectual and political servants. A restricted and corrupted franchise (the whole country was, and still is, a single “rotten borough”) did the rest. In Hungary there never was a real “public opinion.” The landed aris- tocracy—allied with the largely Jewish haute finance and the intellectual upper class—controlled all manifestations of so-called public opinion. No wonder if in such an atmos- phere Count Apponyi failed to discriminate between real public opinion and the political whims of the aristocracy. The danger of this situation was augmented by the fact that Count Apponyi represents an intellectual type which is in contrast with the present-day public mind. Count Apponyi is an abstract idealist; he has never understood the driving forces of social evolution. He has been a kind of a noble political Don Quixote who often saw in the wind- mills of his historical imagination veritable giants. The Hungarian orator is the greatest contrast imaginable to the intellectual type of our day which blindly swears to the exclusive domination of economic factors and sees all his- tory and politics as an economic class struggle. Both types —the pure idealist and the pure materialist—are incapable of grasping political and social realities, but the danger is greater for the Apponyi type, which, fighting in a vacuum, sees only the phosphorescence of its own favorite ideas. Count Apponyi, like a very fine political seismometer, registers with a real impressionist intuition the rapidly changing currents of the political atmosphere. He becomes rapidly intoxicated with each new idealistic movement which stirs public opinion, but he seldom seizes upon the real social and economic significance of these ideas. In consequence he frequently abandoned or subconsciously fal- sified the ideas which he advocated. The subconscious—in its broader Freudian meaning—plays a fundamental role in his public activity. His conscious self is liberal, demo- cratic, pacifist; his subconscious self is the soul of his feudal ancestors, attached to the Roman church and the Hapsburg dynasty. His entire political career demonstrates the correctness of this psychological hypothesis. He abandoned his first political platform—that of the dual constitution for Aus- tria and Hungary—and joined the Party of Independence, based on the deeply democratic and social ideas of Louis Kossuth, which later found ardent and noble leaders in

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Oct. 10,1923] The Nation Julius Justh and Count Michael Karolyi. (It is charac- teristic of Hungarian public life that its leaders have al- most always been members of the great landowning class.) Apponyi made brilliant speeches for the Independent Party, but he soon transformed its real democratic and revolu- tionary spirit into a rhetorical fight for formulas, titles, military emblems which, he thought, would demonstrate the national independence of Hungary. Whole decades were wasted in this chivalrous but useless fight with the windmills of a formal and verbal constitutionalism; Count Apponyi never understood the real teachings of Louis Kos- suth, which were so powerfully developed by Iranyi, Mocsary, and later by Justh and Karolyi. These men in- sisted that Hungarian independence could not be the fruit of constitutional formulas but must grow out of complete democratization of the Hungarian state, with universal suf- rage and expropriation of the large estates. I will not say that Count Apponyi was an adversary on principle of universal suffrage. He always sympathized with this fundamental reform and he delivered excellent speeches in its favor. But when the time came for its realization, Count Apponyi dropped back, approaching the conservatives under the leadership of Count Julius An- drassy, thus postponing the struggle for universal suffrage for other things which he thought more important. Simi- lar was his attitude toward the greatest problem of modern Hungary, the agrarian question. Here, too, he held liberal views and advocated peasant proprietorship for the land- less, but when times became serious and the great propa- ganda of Karolyi for land reform began, Apponyi with- drew and contented himself with platonic declarations. Hungarian independence endangered the interests of the Hapsburgs, and their dethronement by Louis Kossuth was an inevitable consequence of his policy. Until Apponyi’s turn to the Independent Party it was in its spirit a rather Calvinist group which rallied the masses of the small peas- antry and the small bourgeoisie. But with Count Apponyi a feudal jeunesse dorée brought into the ancient party of the Kwruc peasants (this was the name of the anti-Haps- burg battalions) a marked Catholic, conservative, and Haps- burg tendency. There is a similar contrast in his international policy and in his attitude toward the non-Magyar races of Hun- gary. The classical independent doctrine was this: The dualistic state, with its artificial and unnatural hegemony of the Germans in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary, could only be upheld by the force of German imperialism. To guarantee this predominance of the two races, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy became a vassal state fol- lowing Bismarck’s policy. To create an independent Hun- gary separated from Austria, two things were necessary: to dissolve the German treaty and substitute for the Ger- man a French and Slav orientation. Such a policy could not be realized as long as Hungary was surrounded by hostile Czech, Rumanian, and Serb states. These states were hostile, partly because of the tariff policy of the monarchy, which impeded agricultural importation from the smaller states, partly because of the policy of Ger- manization in Austria and Magyarization in Hungary. The greatest creative thought of Louis Kossuth in his years of exile was his scheme of the so-called Danube- Confederation. In this vast structure independent Hun- gary was to become the intimate ally of the Czech, the Rumanian, and the Serb states on a basis of free trade 377 and with a common international policy. Such a scheme was impossible as long as Hungary refused complete na- tional autonomy to the kindred races of the neighboring states living within the boundaries of Hungary. During the war, when the shipwreck of the dualistic scheme was evident, Count Karolyi openly propagated and developed Kossuth’s plan with a rare logical force and moral courage, but Count Apponyi, because of his subcon- scious moral motivation, understood it not at all and saw in it only an aberration of Kossuth’s during the sad years of his exile. Count Apponyi, therefore, remained the staunchest champion of the Hapsburgs and of German im- perialism because his subconscious self felt that the sov- ereignty of the Kaiser was the only possible way to main- tain the political and racial supremacy of the so-called “historical classes” of Hungary over the non-Magyar races, the Magyar landless peasantry, and the city proletariat. This explains Count Apponyi’s role before and during the war. While his conscious self was ardently pacifist, he never remarked that the policy of his class—high agra- rian customs duties, the German alliance, oppression of the other nationalities—was one of the chief causes which operated in Europe to prepare the World War. And when the bomb of Sarajevo exploded as a conse- quence of the brutal economic and racial system of Aus- tro-Hungarian feudalism this strange pacifist forgot his pacifist orations and greeted in parliament the hazardous decision of the Vienna camarilla for war with an emphatic enfin! which remained historic. This standpoint he maintained from the beginning to the end of the war. While Count Karolyi and the other real Independents, risking their lives, were denouncing the war and German imperialism, and pleading for a sepa- rate peace (seeing the inevitable catastrophe which the World War meant for Hungary) Count Apponyi urged con- tinuance of the war “to the last man.” The October revolution of 1918 closed for a time the public career of Count Apponyi. He loyally abstained from counter-revolutionary propaganda. But the blind- ness and cruelty of the Entente, the intrigues of the Haps- burg aristocracy, and the tremendous Russian propaganda overthrew the democratic and republican regime and thrust the unfortunate country into bolshevism. In those days it was only the personal courage and sac- rifice of Count Karolyi—himself a refugee—which saved the life of his great political adversary. During the hectic nights of the Soviet regime, when Count Karolyi was living in a suburb of Budapest under the closest bolshevik super- vision, guarded day and night by Red detectives, Count Apponyi one evening knocked at his window, seeking refuge, his life being in danger. Karolyi let him come in and kept him hidden for days, subsequently assisting him to escape over the border. Yet Apponyi has never uttered a word in defense of Karolyi’s immaculate character—this although the Horthy regime has confiscated not only Karolyi’s but even his children’s property, and has beggared him and his family in exile. Apart from this, the culmination of the career of this remarkable man was his role as leader of the Hungarian Peace Delegation in Paris, when he represented the cause of our unfortunate and humiliated nation with the thrilling pathos of his unrivaled eloquence. Even his most embit- tered political enemies dipped their flags before him for his brilliant fight for a lost cause.

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Sie oS Se eer > 378 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 Inside a Cooperative Colony An American Experiment with Wageless Work By ERNEST S. WOOSTER 6s HY don’t you Socialists get off somewhere by your- W selves and try out your theories if they are so good?” Probably every Socialist has been met by this question at least once in his career. Most Socialists. have either evaded it or attempted to explain it away. Job Harriman considered it seriously, and decided it was a fair question to ask people who were trying to change the world’s methods of doing business. In 1914 Job Harriman founded the Llano Cooperative Colony in the parched soil of the Antelope Valley in southern California. Because of the aridity of the region and the lack of a dependable source of irrigation not menaced by interminable lawsuits, the colony and its inhabitants were moved in December, 1917, to the abandoned lumber town of Stables, near Leesville, in western Louisiana. This vil- lage had been but recently vacated, and when the colony acquired it, many large sheds and buildings, a store, hotel, and possibly 100 houses were available for immediate use. The colony was established in 1914 with one family, a team, wagon, cow, and a few implements, and with $5 paid down on the land. Its plans were ambitious, its hopes high. In the nine years of its existence it has not amassed amaz- ing wealth, but it has demonstrated indisputably certain things about social sciences and human beings. An enter- prise so novel in its general scheme, so rich in its apparent possibilities, and so unhampered by traditions drew more than its fair share of impractical visionaries, loquacious theorists, and social experimenters, with some true ideal- ists and practical men and women. A few were obviously desirous of becoming parasites. The Llano Cooperative Colony accepted the fundamental theory that we are chiefly animated by selfish desires. This is the essence of the economic determinist philosophy. Necessarily it attracted those who espouse this belief. First of the social institutions was the General Assembly. It met twice a menth. On the face of it, this seemed to be a genuine democracy. In practice it soon degenerated into a cruel mass dictatorship, without conscience or even a very high degree of intelligence as a group. It was a monstrous invention which compelled attendance at its meetings hbe- cause none knew when he might be ferociously attacked and forced to make a defense. It was a sinister organization that became a veritable Frankenstein, an irresponsible, fickle body ideally constituted for the purpose of scheming politicians, hired spies, volunteer trouble-makers, and too voluble though well-intentioned visionaries. It permitted the widest range of free speech, which omitted nothing of a personal nature and spared none. It was a prolific legis- lative body, but lacked respect for its own laws. But this intense democracy did not satisfy all. A com- mission was formed which died of malnutrition when the novelty had worn off. It, too, produced laws in quantity to which nobody paid the least attention. A constitution was drafted, a perfect gem of an instrument which pro- vided for almost anything and everything, but which soon became a confusing network of inharmonious patches, with more patches ready to be put on. It absorbed so much attention that finally it was abolished by unanimous vote in order to permit the transaction of other business in the General Assembly. But pure democracy was so unable to do anything effi- ciently, or even make up its own public mind, that an indus- trial government composed of heads of departments began meeting in the interests of efficiency and order. Gradually this body usurped power because it got results and got them quickly. Interested chiefly in facts and results, it passed little legislation. Lastly there was the legal board of directors of the cor- poration and the general manager or superintendent. The board of directors was far from inactive, and was the court of last resort. These various systems of government ran concurrently, a plethora of government which has possibly never been equaled. Llano Colony as an experiment station in govern- ment can honestly claim to have carried on the most thor- ough and complete series of experiments ever conducted by an interested, intelligent, and voluntary group. The present system is a board of directors roughly rep- resentative of the industries. It is elected politically, but is in effect industrial. Represented on it are the wood- working, clerical, farming, merchandising, live-stock, legal, and miscellaneous departments. The general manager has full control, as in any corporation, subject to the board of directors. But always there is the right of recall, and stronger than that public opinion, which acting quickly and efficiently and without form or formality is a greater pro- tection than any mere law or regulation. It is probable that the industrial representation will become more perfect, with organized groups back of each industrial representa- tive. This will come with the closer organization, stabili- zation, and growth of the industries. It is the logical sys- tem in a community where all are workers and where pro- fessional politicians can have no place. Llano has discarded cemocratic management, but retains complete democratic control. Creating a self-contained community is not a simple thing when there are handicaps of insufficient capital, the lure of high wages on the outside, privations incident to pioneer- ing, and no successful and tested recipes, but on the con- trary many glittering formulas largely untried and likely to be disappointing. This becomes further complicated when those engaged in the demonstration are not equipped by years of managerial experience or commercial training, and when there are no traditions of procedure established. Many a meal has consisted almost solely of beans, nutritious probably but not appetizing after a few days. Ideals which can survive such conditions and handicaps are surely well anchored. Many who responded to the call for volunteers to carry on the demonstration did not have the required powers of endurance. Some were temperamentally or other- wise unfitted. The overcoming of employee-and-employer psychology is one of the tasks which has confronted the colony. It has ee SoS BE ert weit 4 a J | a, c SES i:

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Oct. 10, 1923] led to a more intensive study of psychology than is com- mon in most communities. The psychological problem is the most serious that the colony must deal with. Those who have, most of their lives, worked under orders some- times react strangely when the restraint is removed. The colony plan is that all who are able to work must do so. When this rule is applied to the women it sometimes causes friction, for the average American woman (and foreign women seem to be no exception to this rule) is reared to expect to marry a man who will provide for her. She does not expect to work. This, however, is only occasionally a serious problem. — “What’ll you do with the lazy under Socialism?” This is another of the stock questions which the Socialist propagandist is called on to answer. In the colony it is a practical problem. Yet it has been found that many of the so-called lazy are only those who have been forced to labor at wholly distasteful tasks. By changing them from one job to another they usually find places into which they fit. The colony has had a few misfits. When industry after industry has tried them and has failed to work a reform, they must finally be eliminated. Public opinion usually attends to this, though the board of directors may be called on to back the general manager on occasion. Rarely, though, has official action been necessary. There was one man whose pretext of illness seemed to be merely an excuse for idleness. Public opinion became quite outspoken. This was enough to put him to work again. Another member who seemed almost worthless finally found his niche in the hardest job on the ranch and remained with it month after month, earning the respect of all. Some are specialists with but little versatility, and if their specialty can not absorb them they drift away. Others—and the colony has many such—are extremely versatile. Promoting workers is not always attended with the hap- piest results. One man, a farmer and timber-worker, was elevated to the position of solicitor for a colony industry, and provided by the colony with clothing suitable to wear when meeting the public. Few would have considered this much of a promotion, but it was the first job he had ever had which permitted him to wear a white collar while at work. He became insufferably vain and egotistical, and finally earned the downfall which usually comes to those who become puffed with self-importance. But others have been removed from positions of authority and have stayed on and worked willingly in other capacities. They have the spirit of the colony. The chief concern of many persons who term themselves radicals has been with wages. This was true in the colony, for it drew its membership largely if not wholly from among those calling themselves radicals. The colony began business with an erroneous conception which almost proved fatal. It offered $4 a day wages. Back in 1914 this was pretty alluring bait. It was this comparatively high wage promise which attracted many who had little conception of principle not visualized in wages. But it was soon demonstrated that to offer wages was a mistake, and the elimination of this error began at once. The wage system was not immediately wiped out. But it was gradually modified until it finally vanished entirely, and today the members of the colony are employed by it in much the same way that members of a family operate a The Nation 379 farm. Their housing, food, clothing, entertainment, in- struction, and other desires and needs are provided by co- operative group effort, just as the farm family, working cooperatively as a group, provides the living for the family but does not do it by the head of the family guaranteeing set wages to the sons and daughters. This parallel of the farm family is a good one. It illus- trates the social and essentially human side of colony life. Only those who believe thoroughly and unreservedly in the principles of genuine Christianity (without worship, form, ceremony, church, priest, or prayer) and are willing to live their beliefs will participate in this practical application cf brotherhood. The eliminating of wages is more than the wiping out of a symbol: it means the changing of thought currents. The colony is more than a demonstration of cooperation; it is a demonstration of brotherhood. Rent, interest, and profit will separate the members of a family; the tokens of rent, interest, and profit have a like tendency, though attenuated. -Rent, interest, and profit, according to the be- lief of the colonists, thrive upon underpaid labor, for only the margin withheld can make such unearned increment possible. Therefore wages are suggestive if not emblem- atic of withheld earnings of labor. To abolish them, there- fore, is to abolish even the taint; and to make still more easy the complete enthronement of brotherhood. The practical application of this is not so difficult as it might seem. Every dwelling is owned by the community. The entire community is owned and controlled by its citi- zens. No rents are charged for these, which in the last analysis would merely be book accounts. To charge for food or clothing would be to open further useless accounts. To pay wages and then make charges and collect from the wages would be—and was—to compel a system of account- ing really unnecessary. The colony owns its commissary, and this is stocked at colony expense. It is true that limits are at present placed on what each family or individual may draw from the common store, but here again the re- semblance to the family life is seen. Many a father and mother have to restrain a son or daughter from depriving other sons or daughters of what is equitably due them. Firewood is furnished by the colony. So are laundry service, meals at the hotel, lumber, brooms, bread, and shoes. These are colony products. The colony, operated on the family system, must provide its members with the neces- sities of life, and will provide such luxuries as become pos- sible with increasing prosperity. Many colonists have their own gardens and prepare part of their meals at home. There is little necessity for the use of money, for elaborate accounting, or for more than a mere checking of expenses. Even at the hotel no records are kept with individuals. Let us return for a moment to the solicitor with the white collar. The colony clothes its members as workers. The solicitor had to be suitably dressed, and he was. The suit rade for him was a part of his equipment, just as was the automobile he used. Had he remained on the farm or in the colony timber, he would have been provided with over- alls as his daily costume. The colony provides “good” clothes to be worn on its many festive occasions—its thea- tricals, dances, picnics, parties, outings, etc. One of the greatest problems has of course been the eco- nomic, second only in importance to the psychological one. Anyone who has watched the development of a homestead

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Ee eS 380 The Nation ~ will understand without much explanation. Land must be cleared and brought to productiveness; houses must be built, other buildings erected. Trees must be cut, hauled, sawed into lumber, the lumber seasoned. It means a vast amount of preparatory work, immense labor in getting ready to begin really productive operations. The colony problem is the homesteader’s problem of accomplishing all of these and many other things when handicapped by in- sufficient capital. It is estimated that 50 per cent of in- dividual homesteaders fail when within sight of their goal, their resources more than exhausted, their credit strained to the limit. Only a small percentage ever reap the rewards of their long, hard fight. The colony must develop industries and is doing so. It is selling some lumber, bricks, and agricultural products and services. It sells sweet potatoes, rice, peanut butter, sugar- cane syrup. It has a blacksmith-shop and machine-shop, and a woodworking department, all of which do a good local business with neighbors. It manufactures sweet- potato shipping crates. Gradually it is becoming self-sup- porting by its own efforts. The elimination of many profits within the group tremendously reduces costs. Meals cost less than ten cents each, for instance. Electric lights are a part of the colony service to the individual without charge being made. When water is piped from the springs west of the colony, this service will also be free. The timber products will be converted into finished products, probably furniture. The exploitation of the soil resources is under way, and this year an effort is to be made to develop large Northern markets. The pioneering work has reached the point where profitable production becomes possible. Let it not be misunderstood, this matter of the daily living. It is not a luxurious one. While there are no acute discomforts, yet such semi-luxuries as butter, ice cream, imported fruits, and similar articles are not on the daily menu, nor are they in evidence even on important occasions. But with the development of pasture lands and forage crops to permit a larger dairy, butter and cheese and ice cream will be manufactured for the use of colonists. Meanwhile, the colonists must live largely on what they can produce, which is what the pioneering homesteader does. When the colony can develop its recently acquired citrus lands in Cuba, and operate its own boat—it has one—it can supply its residents with citrus fruits in abundance. But this enforced frugality has its advantages. It is stamping itself on the characters of the colonists, and thrift and economy are ingrained in every enterprise and under- taking. The Llano Cooperative Colony is a community of demon- stration and experimentation where American workers are engaged in creating new ideals and reducing them to a prac- tical working basis, where the most complete form of co- operation is being organized to function without friction, and where theory is discarded as soon as it is found imprac- tical. The Llano ideals as practiced by the colonists con- stitute a religion, a genuine one, though without priest or preacher, pulpit or church, sermon or prayer, form or ceére- mony, worship or protestation. It is a religion which the early Christians could easily understand, for it closely fol- lows the teachings of Christ. Llano Colony without a church is also without a saloon, bootlegger, immoral sec- tion, jail, or peace officer. Its churchless religion is uni- versally observed by its citizens. [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 ° ’ Coolidge’s Country (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD E come to the shore of Lake Champlain. We are on the New York side. We come, and we stop, and we await a ferry. We think we see it approaching across the water from the Vermont side. Ahead of us there is a car with a Vermont license on it. We pull up beside this car and look at its occupant. He is manifestly a country- side person. We address him. We say: “‘Are you waiting for a ferry?” We gaze at him companionably. He gazes at us with no apparent hostility, with no apparent cordial- ity, and with no apparent curiosity. He opens his lips. He says “Yes.” He closes his lips and ceases from further garrulousness. ‘Have you been waiting long?” “No.” We climb a very long hill and turn into a valley which stretches before us for several miles with appealing alter- nations of wild woods and soft meadows. To our left there rises a considerable mountain. Pastures have been pushed up its side almost to its top at certain places and only to a short distance from its base at other places. It is in part a wilderness and in part a habitation. It, for some reason which we do not know and never have known, has what so many Vermont mountains have—a magical mingling of harshness and of aching eeriness. It says something very poignant, and it is mute. . We climb an extraordinarily high and steep hill and descend into a valley all of stillness and come to a country store and across the road from it see the Coolidge house. Many cars are standing in front of it. They bear license tags from Vermont, from New York, from Illinois, from other States. One of them, with a New York tag, is a very large car. A large and luxurious woman gets out of Tes stands on the edge of the road, looks at the Coolidge house, and says: “To think that the family of the President would live in a house like that!” ... It is a better house than some families in some Vermont . villages have. It is a worse house than some other families have. The village is charming. Almost all the villages that we have seen on our way are neat and sweet and charming. This one has more charm than some of them. It has less charm than some others of them. If all the villages that we have seen, and if all the houses that we have seen in them, were minced and lumped, and if then a slice was taken off them, it would be this village and this house... . The clerk in the large hotel in the little near-by metropo- lis had said: “Yes, Coolidge often came in here. He would walk up to the desk and sign the register. Then he would walk into the dining-room. He never looked around the lobby. He would walk into the dining-room and sit down and eat his dinner. Then he would get up and walk out of the dining- room and come to the desk and pay his bill. Then he would walk out into the street and go away. He never looked around. He never tried to pick up any votes in the lobby. He ate his dinner and never said anything and went away. I know him well.” ... In a road-side farmhouse where tourists were accommo- dated we had mentioned a statesman who had declared for Coolidge for President in 1924. Our host said: “We noticed him declaring himself that way so soon.

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Oct. 10, 1923] What do you think he wants? And if he doesn’t want any- thing, why does he talk so much?” “Are you for Coolidge?” said we. “Coolidge is a good man,” said he. “Are you for him?” said we. “Well, everybody here knows Calvin,” said he... . The elder Coolidge stands in his little low-ceilinged par- lor and greets the pilgrims to the scene of his son’s boy- hood. A woman pilgrim seats herself at a table and lifts a girl child to her lap and guides the child’s hand in tracing her name in the Coolidge guest-book. This book was des- tined by its manufacturers to be a school notebook. Since so many pilgrims would like to sign their names, it is now a guest-book. The elder Coolidge chats with the child while the child’s hand is moved along in its unsteady scrawl. He turns to chat with a pilgrim who has just come in. He turns to chat with a third arrival, and then with a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, endlessly. His manner is oddly like that of President Masaryk of Czecho-Slovakia. There is the same deliberateness, the same imperturbability, the same engaging gentleness, and the same disengaged, essentially unapproachable inward aloofness. One is at ease with him. One cannot be familiar with him. He has in simple truth the same democracy that the Pyrrhic ambassadors saw at Rome when they reported that in Rome there were no kings and everybody was regal... . A few miles to the southward we come upon Park Pol- lard, Calvin Coolidge’s first cousin, Democratic candidate for United States Senator; and he remarks: ‘No, there is no farm bloc here. Our farmers are not asking the Federal Government for anything. They have been having a hard time making a living for two hundred years, let alone twenty months.” ... We cross the Connecticut River and arrive in New Hamp- shire and meet an old friend who knows everything about everything in the public life of New Hampshire and who tells us about New Hampshire’s new Governor Fred Brown. “Brown is a Yankee,” says he. ‘He is very Yankee. Of course he is not quite so Yankee as Coolidge.” ... We begin to pass increasing numbers of fruit stores and restaurants manned by Greeks and mills peopled heavily by French Canadians. We leave them behind and pass into the town of Sharon. Here are clearings that are ceasing te be clearings and becoming wild woods once more. Here are houses that once were habitations and are now histories. Yankee life once filled these roads—these twisting, inter- lacing roads—with busy exchanges of Yankee trade. Now few are the wheels that these roads know except from afar; and now to the speech and to the manner which so few years since were this town’s commonplace the admiring tourist exclaims as in a museum: “How Yankee!” We come to a great city and we hold converse with a statesman of a race not Yankee and he remarks: “It has been brought about that here in this New England com- munity it is a virtual disbarment from local office to be a Waskee.” .).. We talk to a statesman of Yankee descent. He says: “Coolidge does not simply come from New England. He represents and is New England.” ... For Coolidge’s country, says the roving reporter, it is as if in imperial Rome, amid Gauls and Spaniards and en- croaching Illyrians, and amid un-Roman Romans, the city had suddenly seen on the throne of the Emperor a Cato the Censor. The Nation 381 Pennsylvania Justice (The text below is the greater part of a report submitted to Governor Pinchot regarding the arrests in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, of speakers representing the Workers Party and of Robert W. Dunn of the Civil Liberties Union. In the name of the Governor the Attorney General of Penn- sylvania urged the defendants to appeal the case. A peti- tion for appeal has already been filed.) FENHE McKeesport meeting of Sunday evening, September 9, had been advertised in advance by the use of cards which were passed around among the workers. Slovak Hall, a moderate-sized building on White Street, had been secured by a citizen of McKeesport, a barber and a mem- ber of the Workers Party. He had paid $5 in advance to the director of the hall, and had applied for it in the name of the Workers Party. Sunday evening J. Lovestone, Fred Merrick, Tom Meyerscough, Attorney Shaffer of Pitts- burgh, Robert Dunn, and a number of others went to Mc- Keesport and to the hall. There they found the director of the hall standing in the doorway and refusing to let them come in. They were informed that the hall could not be obtained because no permit had been secured from the mayor. The director of the hall said that it was a part of the by-laws of his association that a permit must first be secured. Attorney Shaffer and the others challenged the statement_and asked him to produce the by-laws, which he refused to do. Then Police Captain Mermelheim appeared and instructed the speakers that ‘“‘no meetin’ would be held,” and that they would have to have a permit from the mayor. He enforced his statement by locking the door of the hall, after the speakers had withdrawn from the steps. The speakers then conferred and decided to tell the crowd to follow them to a private lot at Walnut and 13th Streets, some three-quarters of a mile away, which had been rented for this very emergency, full price being paid and the re- ceipt being made out to the Workers Party. Representa- tives circulated quietly among the crowd and told the people to follow them to the lot. The crowd followed in an orderly manner, walking on the sidewalk in twos and threes. The motor-cycle police began rushing up and down the street as though preparing for war. The speakers proceeded to the lot which is surrounded by a wooden fence with a gate at the side. Walking to the middle of the grass plot, Thomas Meyerscough, secretary of the Progressive Miners’ Organization, introduced Fred Merrick. As the police had not yet arrived in any numbers, Meyerscough was not ar- rested, and Merrick began his speech. He stopped after about two minutes to tell the crowd not to push against the fence but to come inside, which they did. A considerable number remained standing on the sidewalk outside. Mer- rick had spoken probably a minute more when he saw the police captain and his force pushing through the crowd from the back. He asked the crowd to make way without resist- ance, which it immediately did, the police pushing in, and the captain shouting “I told you you couldn’t meet without a permit,” and placing Merrick under arrest. Dunn then opened his mouth and raised his arm, declar- ing “I am here to speak about the Constitution,” where- upon the officers released Merrick and went for him. He was arrested, and Lovestone repeated substantially the same remark and was also arrested. William Makadis, a barber, was arrested for holding an American flag behind

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oO the speakers, and Patrick Toohey, Jr., was taken in custody for having a bundle of literature in his possession which he had not yet distributed or attempted to sell. Lieutenant H. Fred Kreilings was active in helping Captain Mermel- heim during the arrests. The five were taken to the police station, locked up, and thoroughly searched. The charge of disorderly conduct and desecrating the Sabbath was placed and bail set at $25 each. Attorney Shaffer, who had been on the grounds at the time of the arrests, asked one of the policemen why he too had not been given a free ride to the station, and was informed that if he had addressed the audience or even said “My fel- low-citizens” he would have been taken in with the others. Next morning, ours was the first case called before Magis- trate Langsdorf. Captain Mermelheim told the story of the arrests, stating, among other things, that a crowd of over a thousand persons had gathered on the street outside the lot and had obstructed traffic. He gave an exaggerated fig- ure of the number of persons who had followed us from the hall to the lot. Attorney Shaffer asked for the charge, and the magistrate informed us it was not only for dis- orderly conduct and desecrating the Sabbath, but also for holding a meeting without a permit. When the lieutenant was asked why Makadis had been taken, he said he had been holding an American flag and had been talking in Greek. Makadis declared that he had said nothing until after they had arrested him. Patrick Toohey was taken, not for speaking, but for having in his possession the bundle of literature. The policeman who ar- rested him admitted he had not seen Toohey selling or dis- tributing any of the pamphlets. Another policeman, when asked what Dunn had said, replied ‘““He got as far as the Constitution, and I stopped him.” The contents of the pamphlet seemed to have got under the skin of the magistrate, for holding it in his hand he exclaimed “What right have you fellows got to come in here and say a thing like this?” referring to a paragraph in the pamphlet containing the statement that Mayor Lysle was reported to own stock in the McKeesport Tin Plate Company. The magistrate vigorously affirmed that the statement was not true, whereupon Attorney Shaffer in- quired what the truth or falseness of this statement had to do with the charges against the five. Attorney Shaffer then inquired if there was an ordinance prohibiting political meetings on Sunday. He was in- formed by the magistrate that there was. He asked to see the ordinance, but was told that they didn’t have it there but that he could see it later. Shaffer then pointed out that he had been reliably informed that almost at the same hour that the arrests were made Mayor Lysle, together with J. Denny O’Neil, candidate for county commissioner, had been addressing a meeting at the Hungarian Club three doors away from the police station. The magistrate re- plied that this was on private property of the club. Shaffer retorted that the Workers Party meeting was held on pri- vate property, rented and paid for by the party. One of the associate justices broke in to say: “Aw, that was only a social affair at the club.” The handbills announcing the meeting, however, said nothing about a social affair but advertised it as a meeting at which Republican candidates would be heard. After a series of arguments Attorney Shaffer said he had nothing more to say and the magistrate fined each of the defendants $25 and costs ($2.50 each). After a con- 882 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3040 ference in one of the cells, it was agreed to pay the fine under protest and appeal the case. Later in the morning Shaffer, Lovestone, and Dunn called on the mayor to get a copy of the ordinance which the police officials informed them was in the mayor’s office. Mayor Lysle curtly informed us that there was no such ordinance, that permits were granted by him on his own authority, and that the arrests had been made on his order. He claimed that the local police regulations gave him discretion to “regulate meetings.” He was asked: “When the meetings are held on private property?” He replied: “I’m not going to discuss this with you. If you want to carry the matter any farther, get a transcript and appeal.” When asked why the men had been fined under an ordinance which he admitted did not exist, he rejoined gruffly: “I refuse to talk about it with you men.” It was also discovered that no ordinance existed cover- ing Sabbath desecration, but that the charges had been brought under some ancient blue law of Pennsylvania. It is interesting to note that the same speakers who were arrested at McKeesport addressed a free-speech rally in Pittsburgh on the same afternoon. They intended to de- liver the same addresses at McKeesport, and Mr. Lovestone had presented a copy of his to Governor Pinchot and to Senator Pepper. The meeting in Pittsburgh was held with- out any interference,. and police protection was given by Mayor Magee. In the Driftway NE of the Drifter’s young friends has become the owner of a farm in the Berkshires, and recently the Drifter was prevailed upon to visit him. He duly admired the brook and the spring; he gasped over the view from the back windows; and the fine, simple proportions of a house built the year George Washington died were not lost upon him. This purchase of the soil of the Puritans, he decided, had many things to recommend it. To be sure, a farm, in any location, was something of a responsibility. What, he was moved to wonder, would the young man do with the fields that lay in front and alongside the house; they were clean and short-grassed; cows grazed in them quietly. Would a gentleman from the city, who planned to spend summers and some week-ends at his farm, be able to milk his cows by telephone, or would he be content to let the weeds and thistles crowd out the pasture? * * * * * OT his friend but a neighbor who was likewise a city importation explained the difficulty. “Oh, well,’’ she said, “we tried at first to keep them down, but it was too much work. We are planting our fields in pines now and they are no more trouble at all.” The Drifter said nothing, but in his mind’s eye he saw many things: a band of intrepid souls progressing along the Connecticut River, over the banks of which the primeval forest leaned darkly; a small stockade settlement named Hartford from which the forest had retreated only a little and that painfully; clearings in the timber made with immeasurable sweat and sore muscles and dulled ax blades; fields made fit to plow by countless backs lame from lifting stones and possibly not a few bent crowbars when a big rock was too much for them; and, finally, the hills that rose around him as he turned wore a different aspect: to their very tops, even of that sharp,

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Oct. 10, 1923] high, cone-shaped one yonder, the tillers had gone relent- lessly, and the young corn sprang from the hillsides, nearer the sky than it had ever been. * * * * * * HE Drifter sighed. Times had changed indeed. Now these Very fields were being planted in pines so that they would no longer give trouble. Well, they had given trouble enough. It was the end of a cycle, and the forest was to have its chance again. The Drifter wondered if the time would come when it would again have to be conquered with sweat and with blood. He was recalled from his mus- ings by the neighbor’s voice: “Are you not tempted, too?” she asked. “Would not your driftings end pleasantly at a little farm up in these hills?” Even a drifter realizes that he must give up his job sometime, but it took the Drifter almost five minutes to explain why, in such an event, it would be quite impossible for him to become the owner of any property. “Think, madam,” he said, “what would hap- pen: Imagine that I have signed and sealed a contract never to drift any more. the fields give me any trouble; I am engaged in planting a pine in the northwest corner of my farthest field; to all appearances my life is at last orderly and full of labor; and suddenly a blackbird on the bough of a pine which I, unfortunately, did not arrive early enough to plant, ad- dresses a remark to me which I cannot but think imperti- nent and then with a flirt of his tail flies out of my sight. Do you think, madam, that any self-respecting drifter would hesitate a single second? Such a challenge could not be ignored. Does that blackbird have to spend his days in planting pines? Does he consider himself bound by any petty hundred and fifty acres of responsibility to remain in one spot? No, no. He can drift where he will and the last person to deprive himself of a like privilege would be THE DRIFTER” Correspondence The Etiquette of Big Business TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I did not chance to be among the fortunate who saw the late unpleasantness between Messrs. Dempsey and Firpo, so, as befits a good American, I hastened to repair the loss at the nearest moving-picture emporium. It is the middle of the first round. The Wild Bull of the Pampas is on his back uncertain whether it is today or the week after next. Mr. Dempsey crosses his prostrate body and takes up a nonchalant position in the corner of the ring, lean- ing against the post with arms flung along the ropes. Non- chalant enough, but, as we shall presently see, not without a certain element of watchful waiting. The Wild Bull throws out an arm, turns over, and slowly struggles to his feet as the count creeps up. He rises, still dreaming, hands harmless at his sides, head forward, like a child who stumbles from his nap. Mr. Dempsey becomes anything but nonchalant. He steps forward like a spring unbent, and slams that inquiring head a quite dreadful right, fair on the kisser. Why it was not the end of Mr. Firpo only an inscrutable Providence knows. As Dempsey struck, the audience almost to a man hissed and groaned its disapproval, and it is probable that many in the Polo Ground audience did the same. The ethical aspects of that wallop detain us. A friend who The Nation I follow your advice about not letting. was with me declared hotly that Dempsey was entirely in the right, and that, to put it baldly, the protestants were boobs. My friend said that it was a fight for the heavyweight cham- pionship of the world. It was a serious affair. Everything that either man could do, provided it lay within the rules, was not only his right but his duty. Firpo was on his feet. Firpo was a dangerous man as subsequent history disclosed. When you drive a man out of position in a tennis championship, do you return his weak lob where he can make a recovery? You do not; you kill it, and properly so. Dempsey, as a good sports- man, had no other choice but to take this fair chance to end the fight and defend his championship. For the crowd to howl him down was sentimental nonsense. All this I granted, except the premise—the premise being that this was a sporting event. It seemed to me, after giving consideration to all the facts involved, that it was not so much a sport we had witnessed as a business enterprise, and thus it fell under the sanction not of athletic rules but of commercial etiquette. The affair, I argued, was on all fours with a major industry. Its legal contracts, percentages, capitalization, ad- vertising methods, balance sheets, profit-and-loss accounts, utilization of by-products (its moving-picture rights, radio rights, training-camp rights, serial and story rights would shame the Chicago packers) placed it in a category of which even Mr. Veblen himself could afford to take notice. And granting that the enterprise was a duly qualified industry and not a sporting event, it followed inevitably that the consumer had a certain place in the premises. Not, God knows, because industry has ever cast a sympathetic eye in his direction, but simply and solely because of the unfortunate law of diminish- ing returns. Adulterate all that you can get away with, but do not adulterate your market out of existence. Is there any- thing in modern business more cardinal than this axiom? Good. If Mr. Dempsey wallops a helpless Mr. Firpo a right to the kisser within seventy seconds of the opening gong, thereby removing him a few light-years from space and time, what has a ringside consumer got for his $21.75? A torn collar and a grouch. Consumers have their place, modest though it may be. The sum of money which had been saved against a new winter overcoat is, after all, essential to the continuation of a sound business policy and reasonable levels of profit in this par- ticular industry. Mr. Dempsey as a sporting champion had a right and a duty to paste the dreaming Mr. Firpo, but as a business man, mindful of his market, rights and duties lay elsewhere. It is therefore difficult to compose too great a stricture upon Mr. Dempsey’s breach of faith with his cus- tomers, and with all the sturdy canons of American pep, sales- manship, and business enterprise. In an unforgivable moment he jeopardized an industry with all its balance sheets, marred capital and by-products combined, and we did well—excellently well—to hiss and groan as the Wild Bull steered for Paradiso. What, sir, is your mature judgment as to the merits of this controversy? New York, September 25 STUART CHASE Hugo Stinnes Denies It TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: We received a copy of The Nation of August 29, in which Mr. Jerome Lachenbruch claims that Herr Stinnes con- trols from 40 to 90 per cent of the press of Germany. As manager of the newspaper owned by Herr Stinnes I am in a position to assure you that he owns but the Deutsche Allge- meine Zeitung (published in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main), the Industrie- und Handelszeitung, and the Frankfurter Nach- richten. Herr Stinnes neither owns nor controls any other daily newspaper. OFFICE OF Huco STINNES, Berlin, Germany, September 11 HuMANN

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384 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3040 reer ee rere errr, ee On Criticizing the President To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: ... May I say how thoroughly I approve the editorial in The Nation of August 29, On Exalting the President. When- ever we reach the point where the President or any other public official cannot be criticized, democratic institutions will be in jeopardy. Criticism of public officials is essential to the pres- ervation of our form of government. When it degenerates into calumny and slander it is quite a different thing, but we have laws to reach that. The remedy is not suppression of criticism nor suppression of free speech nor suppression or censorship of the press. WituiAmM G. McApboo Los Angeles, September 7 The Spectator and Mr. Massingham TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: It may seem ungrateful and niggardly to complain of a detail in connection with so charming a compliment as you paid the Spectator in an editorial note in your issue of August 1, but since you are so ardent a crusader for the truth, perhaps you will pardon me. In praising the editor of the Spectator for his broadmindedness in publishing articles by Mr. Massingham on “The Other Side,” you say, “There is also, of course, the chance, not mentioned by Mr. Strachey, that the enlistment of so brilliant a writer among the Spectator’s regular staff may attract new readers.” And yet you yourself quoted just above that, Mr. Strachey’s introductory remarks to Mr. Massingham’s first article where he said: “This is not virtue on our part, but common sense and good business.” What else in the newspaper world does “good business” mean if not more readers? Your implication was, I am afraid, slightly typical and certainly un- necessary, as Mr. Strachey would always be the first to admit any mercenary motives. And in fact, he was! The Spectator, London, September 5 JOSEPH BREWER, Private Secretary Student Government Grows Up TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The readers of The Nation will undoubtedly be inter- ested to learn of the new and significant role that the students of the New School for Social Research—an institution for adult education—have assumed in the work of education. With the sanction of the board of directors and the faculty they have arranged through their organization, the Students’ Cooperative Association, for a course in Nineteenth Century Thought to be given by Morris Cohen, Professor of Philosophy in C. C. N. Y. at the New School this fall. In every respect the giving of this course represents purely a students’ activity. The whole re- sponsibility—arranging the course, choosing the instructor, se- curing the students, and paying the costs—is theirs. This stud- ents’ course will be supplementary to the regular schedule offered by the school itself. The students’ movement at the New School has arisen out of the idea held by the students and faculty alike that if education is to be a living and creative force in the lives of men and women it must first become the common business and vital con- cern of both student and instructor. The first step in giving this idea embodiment was, obviously, the formation of a student organization. This was accomplished several months ago with the definite purpose in view of bring- ing the students into intimate contact with their subject, in- structor, and school activity and also of giving them a voice in the management of their own affairs, or in other words, in their education. How far such a work will advance depends entirely on our ability to extend the membership of the school among such men and women as are alert to the advantages of the opportunity afforded by the New School. Given a sufficient number of students well organized, their activity can be constantly en- larged until it at last assumes the entire management of the whole business of education. This surely is a high and remote aim. But one closer to hand and hence more important is the recruiting of other students in sympathy with the work that the Students’ Cooperative Association of the New School has begun. Therefore, any reader of The Nation who is interested is asked to send his name to the secretary of the Students’ Cooperative Association of the New School, 465 West 23rd Street, who will mail him the necessary literature. New York, September 10 GusTAV PECK, Chairman of the Students’ Cooperative Ass’n Against Gorki TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: To Gorki’s testimony on the cruelty of the Russian peasant and your editorial welcoming the truth as a counter- ‘irritant to the “sugar-coated romanticism” to which we have been treated, I wish to add a word. When the priest Butchkavich was executed in Moscow last spring, the correspondent of a New York paper who had been refused the renewal of his visa, wrote from beyond the border a story of torture preceding the execution which the papers in America copied with avidity. There was, of course, no foun- dation for the story. But it was many weeks before the real story—the fact that the prisoner was treated with every con- sideration—was published at all in America. In Moscow last June I met an American woman who had been at some pains to ascertain the exact facts about the exe- cution. She is the wife of an engineer; together they had spent a year and a half in remote sections of Siberia, traveling by sledge and living for the whole of that time in peasants’ houses. Her comment on the false newspaper story comes back to me as I read Gorki’s article. She said: “In the first place, it was stupid. One cannot have lived as I have close to these people and believe that it is in their nature to inflict gratuitous cruelties. They are the gentlest people in the world.” She has but two years of residence and observation to offer against Gorki’s lifetime. Yet I cannot think her testimony is negligible, especially as it coincides exactly with my own im- pressions gathered in two brief weeks. I shall not readily for- get the way our train was delayed and searched by conductor, brakeman, and customs officials, all evidently peasant boys, not for liquor, guns, or counter-revolutionary literature but for our children who were safe in Paris. Their pictures were on the passport, which was enough, even in view of the parents’ composure, to upset the schedule until a bilingual passenger made everything clear. I wondered what chance a Russian immigrant would have had of the same consideration in America. I cannot feel that Gorki’s article has added material light where light is badly needed. Houlgate, France, September 16 CONSTANCE L. Topp About Art To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Srr: Perhaps you will accord an occasional contributor to your columns the privilege of replying in them to what seem to be misconceptions in your editorial of August 22 entitled Confession and Photography. Permit me to confine myself to four points which seem to me to represent the confusion of the editorial in question. You say (1) that “detached observa- tion in the scientific sense” is “a thing impossible in the life of art”; (2) that “the most delicately made photograph gives

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation . McDevitt-Wilson’s, Inc. Booksellers SCC 30 CHURCH STREET (Hudson Terminal) Lending Library SUC OOOO 54 DEY STREET NEW YORK Reviewed or Adver- tised in this issue can be obtained at our ARCADE BOOK SHOP 50 Broadway, New York Tel. Broad 4670 New Books—Second Hand Books Circulating Library HENRY BEE COMPANY Booksellers—Publishers Write for Our Bargain Catalogue The D rama — Sa Book Shop A new department—Old costume books and plates. Out of print and rare plays and books on the theatre. All Modern Plays 29 West 47th Street New York City the quantitative equivalent of that upon which the lens is turned”; (3) that “neither the lens of the camera nor of the eye can omit some things and give the essence of others”; (4) that “art” is “confession and abbreviation,” a statement which is followed by the no less dogmatic ones that “all art is symbolic” and that “realistic art symbolizes by essences.” 1. Observation is itself detached, unless you mean that the artist’s observation is directed toward the particular in an effort to attain to some phase of the object’s “whatness,” and that the scientist’s observation is motivated by the desire to discover laws—also ultimately directed toward the object’s “whatness”—your distinction is without meaning. On the ground of relative detachedness, no distinction is to be made between artist and scientist. 2. I don’t know what that sentence about the “quantitative equivalent” means, and challenge your writer to show that it means anything. 3. Both the lenses, of the eye and of the camera, can omit some things by the simple expedient of choosing what they shall look at. Or rather, the man with eyes selects what he shall include in his camera’s field of vision. This is a very old If you wish new books and personal service FIND The Hidden Book Shop 74 Broadway 9 New St. New York City Bowling Green Also 1318 Circulating Library The Dominant Sex By Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting new and startling view of society and of the times when women ruled and were “mascu- line” in manner. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul At Bookshops $3.00 : ) u process, which used to be known by the name of composition— one used by all intelligent photcgraphers, as you could have discovered by inquiring. As for “giving the essence” of things, you make the old mistake of preferring one medium to another. A work gives the essence of a thing, according as the crafts- man has intensity and mastery. But, taking you on your own ground, it is unquestionable that the camera can instantaneously record greater detail in a briefer space of time than the hand of any draftsman who ever lived. So if the master photog- rapher comes along, as I believe he has in the person of Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, he can give at least as much of the “essence of things” in his work as a worker in any other plastic medium. 4. As against your statement that art is confession and abbreviation, I have the word of Mr. Gaston Lachaise that art begins with “amplification” (see Manuscripts, No. 4). I don’t pretend to judge between your writer and Mr. Lachaise who, I suppose, you will concede is an artist. As to the rest of the muddle about what art is and is not, that may be amusing, if not enlightening, for people who have never looked at a paint- ing or listened to music. New York, September 1 HERBERT J. SELIGMANN

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International Relations Section The United States of Europe By FRIDTJOF TOKSVIG HE dull air of the conference was tense for a moment. The delegates had ceased their subdued conversation and were now crowded about a speaker: Theodore E. Bur- ton from the United States. He leaned loosely against the speaker’s stand and turned his gray face toward a tall, thin man who might have been a clergyman or a school teacher. He began to speak in a characteristic American voice, with marked accent and unexpected volume. If the honorable gentleman from Sweden had wished to embarrass the United States he could hardly have chosen a better method. But perhaps the gentleman from Sweden would withdraw his motion? The tall thin man came forward slowly. The conversation rose again. M. Lindhagen of Stockholm had moved that the conference request the United States to join the League of Nations and aid in the reconstruction of Europe. It was a significant challenge; would Europe risk a break with America, would the delegate from Sweden withdraw his motion? Someone raised a point of order. The chairman conferred with the secretary general. Then all eyes were turned to the rostrum again. M. Lindhagen was speaking, not in his own melodious Swedish but in the harsher language of Germany, more suited to the obstinate set of his mouth. M. Lindhagen refused to withdraw his motion; the conference was trying to compromise; it was a matter of great principles; you could not compromise on great principles. The distinguished chairman said that the motion could not be placed on the agenda without first peing accepted by the Council. How many were in favor of bringing it before the Council? M. Lindhagen raised his hand; a few others followed his example. Six in all. Against? A sea of hands. The American delegation re- laxed in their seats, and Mr. Burton caressed his gold watch chain. Another conference! Genoa, Cannes, Lausanne, and now in August, 1923—Copenhagen. But this was not a confer- ence of Premiers, with the United States as an enigmatic factor. It was the twenty-first Interparliamentary Confer- ence, and all the countries of Europe except Russia and Greece were represented. The United States, Germany, and France met on an equal footing. And two new groups, Esthonia and Ireland, were represented for the first time. The League of Nations has not made the Interparlia- mentary Union superfluous, at least not for the time being. The old Union was formed during the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, and when it was reconstructed after the war the question of its relation to the League was discussed, first at a Council meeting in Geneva in 1919 and later at the first post-war conference in Stockholm in 1921. It was found that there were practical political reasons for main- taining the Union. The Interparliamentary Union in¢ludes countries which are not members of the League; it gives a fuller expression of public opinion than the government representatives at Geneva; it has a strong influence on the work of the League; and finally, it furnishes a free and neutral meeting place for the parliamentarians of the world. Even Italy was represented. The actual proceedings were uninteresting. As the Dan- ish chairman, Dr. Moltesen, made the opening speech an observer from the press gallery could have looked down on a gathering of over seven hundred European, Asiatic, and American delegates. He would have seen the professorial face of Dembinski, the leader of the Polish group; La Fon- taine from Belgium, with his great white walrus mustache and bald head like yellow ivory; the bearded face of Albert Thomas from the International Labor Office; Lord Treowen of the English delegation, tall, spare, hook-nosed—a pillar of the Empire; Count Apponyi, a Continental edition of Bernard Shaw without the Shavian insouciance; the ex- pressive features of Senator Douglas from Ireland. Then he would have seen the members of the conference rise to their feet as the chairman mentioned the names of the members who had died, and would have heard him continue in his clear, fluent French: Most people shake their heads at statesmen with high ideals . . . but despite the shaking of heads and ironical remarks, idealism shows its power in that both parliamentarians and diplomats must bow before it to get the peoples to follow them. ~ i Despite all treason against it, it lives on from generation to generation and is that which ennobles our work. ... And as IT close with the old wish “pax in terra et in hominibus bona voluntas” I declare the twenty-first conference open. But peace on earth and good-will are often jeopardized when such resolutions as parliamentary control of foreign policy, the treatment of colonial mandates, the question of disarmament, and the position of national minorities are on the agenda. And the conference had not been sitting long before the deadlock in the Ruhr reechoed in a clash between German and French delegates. It was during the discussion of a disarmament resolution proposed by Munch of Denmark that Dr. Berzeviczy of Austria arose and with an arresting cast of his hand declared: “The Allied Powers are arming, but against whom? Surely not against the nations who were beaten in the last war. No, they fear one another!” The stream of feeling rose. The French were not very fully represented at the conference. Indeed, the French and Belgian ambassadors in Copenhagen had refused to take part in the opening festivities. They had feared a clash with the numerous German delegation. But fear of a clash was not enough to prevent it; now the clash came. Hitherto the members had listened more or less casually and had carried on conversations with each other. But suddenly there was a dead silence, and that mysterious something which in parliaments tells members in the cor- ridors that “something is going on” had collected the dele- gates in an expectant mass about the speaker’s stand. A German member flung the first brand into the assembly. Dr. Ludwig Quidde, author of the anti-Kaiser book ‘“Cali- gula” and a delegate from Germany, was given the floor. He began in a slow, even voice; an old man with a high bald head and a thin neck inclosed by a three-inch collar. ‘But his voice soon trembled with passion. The occupation of the Ruhr is a misfortune for Germany, a misfortune for Europe, a misfortune for the world. I entreat the world to guard against this danger. The League of Nations should be the great fire-engine for extinguishing the danger of fire and violence. Now the house is blazing but the firemen can- not agree sufficiently to put out the fire. There are no war- like tendencies in Germany. Even if Ludendorff and Hinden-

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 387 burg regained power, they would not think of war. Every German would regard such a thought as madness. The German delegation applauded and Dr. Quidde con- tinued: If a strong French delegation had been here today, Germans and Frenchmen could have discussed the questions which lie between them. But there are only two representatives for France and their words can bind no one. I am opposed to German sabotage and German violence in the Ruhr, but believe me, even more frightful things will happen in the Ruhr if France continues her present policy. The conference was in dignified uproar. Only Lord Treowen and the wooden-faced Japanese seemed unaffected. It was long since the Danish parliament-hall had experi- enced such commotion; this was more vital than the fall of the price of butter on the English market. A score of different languages blended and rose to meet the ears of the listeners in the galleries. The chairman seemed to have forgotten his “pax in terra et in hominibus bona voluntas” as he tapped the gavel and announced that Sena- tor Merlin had the floor. This Frenchman flamed in his eloquence. He spoke in a way foreign to a German, a Scandinavian, or an Anglo- Saxon. The smooth French syllables rose to heights of tense excitement, slid down to persuasive entreaty, rolled in threatening sentences. Senator Merlin did not mention the Ruhr. He talked of the policy of France. No country in the world loves peace more than France. We have shown that time and time again. I shall name two exam- ples. When the war broke out in 1914, the French army re- mained ten miles back of its own frontier, and it was not France that entered German territory, but Germany which attacked France. And in 1918 France agreed to make peace with a beaten foe at a time when the. French army could have entered the enemy’s territory without difficulty. ... The goal to strive for was a United States of Europe on the Swiss or the American model by means of mutual treaties of an economic and political nature. M. Merlin ended his speech with a passionate appeal: France must have reparations. Over two millions of the flower of French youth have died on the battlefield or as a result of the war. That loss can never be replaced. But when the Germans were driven out of northern France, it was a completely devastated country. Everything above ground was razed and only dust remained. That loss can be replaced. All treaties must be kept and that of Versailles also. Senator Merlin’s speech met with even more applause than the words of Dr. Quidde. And after a few concilia- tory remarks by another member, he was answered by Herr Wilhelm Heile. Heile would have delighted the Allied cartoonists during the war. There is a straight line from the back of his head to his shoulders; he is short and stocky and close-cropped. He did not gesture but there was much directness about him. His voice, like the whir of a projectile, compelled silence. He turned toward Sena- tor Merlin: The federative idea has long been carried into practice in Germany. German organization bears within itself the funda- mental idea of the United States of Europe, and it is this funda- mental idea in Germany which is threatened with destruction. Yes, we signed the Treaty of Versailles, but we signed it be- zause we had to, we signed under protest. And with that instinct for the dramatic ending which like hunger is international, he closed by saying: Europe. When the French have withdrawn from German soil, we Germans will be the first to extend to them the hand of friend- ship. But little by little as the conference went on, the seem- ing confusion cleared and lines of national policy stood out sharply. And though often only one man spoke from a group his voice was the voice of a nation. The spokesman for the American group said not “I” but “the people of the United States.” Some of the nations made no spectacular contribution to the proceedings, though their work in the committee rooms and in the corridors was perhaps none the less effective for that. Such was the English delegation, calm, cool, and reticent. During the Ruhr episode, Lord Treowen was busily occupied in looking for his glasses under a chair. The Japanese said nothing at all during the sittings, but listened very carefully and made many notes. The attitude of three other great Powers could, however, not be mistaken. Germany has many demands. She wants her minorities in other countries placed on an equal footing with the national population. Said Loebe, President of the German Reichstag: Germany is willing to pay. The German people not only want to pay because they have signed the Treaty of Versailles, but because they consider it a moral obligation to pay. However, Germany can only pay within the limit of the possible, and where is that limit? I am in favor of Germany joining the League of Nations. And it is my hope that this conference may help to lift the murk of hate which hangs over the repara- tions question, and that the day is not far distant when the German people can take the hands of the French people in friendship. France, said Senator Merlin, stands by the Treaty of Versailles. The war is over. In 1871 we paid the five milliards we owed before the expiration of the time stated. Now it is the other way round, and France is in financial straits. There is no talk of wanting to punish Germany but we need reparations, we cannot do without them. Therefore, we have to demand that the Treaty of Versailles be held to. He regretted that America’s attitude was such as it was, but hoped that an arrangement of the American debt would be arrived at. That which France owed she must pay. He appealed once more to America to help Europe. The United States does not wish to be involved in the difficulties of Europe. Said Mr. Burton: There must be a differentiation between debt and repara- tions for damage. Reparations is a punishment laid upon a beaten enemy, while debt is a voluntary obligation which must be carried out. The United States wishes to help Europe, but cannot as long as these two questions are viewed from the same angle. The conference closed with a banquet given by the Dan- ish Government. There was no visible international mis- understanding. Wine, good food, and many new friends. Difficulties which are hidden away fester and rot; talking it over is like hanging them out in the air. And the inter- national machinery is becoming stronger. Copenhagen had, for a moment, felt the breath of both the old and the new It bade the conference farewell with reluctance, and the next morning awoke to greet a new one. Andrew J. Volstead and five hundred anti-alcoholists had come to town,

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age pe =. * a [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 388 SESS The Nation - Revolution in Bulgaria HE following discussion of the Bulgarian situation, T printed in the International Press Correspondence of August 30, reveals some of the circumstances which lie back of the present revolutionary upheavals in that country. The Government which seized power by the coup of June 9, and the irresponsible factors acting in its service, have flung themselves, with all the forces at the disposal of white terror and reaction, upon the Communist Party, and especially upon those workers and poor peasants forced to defend themselves on the day of the coup d’etat. It is an established fact that the Government places outside the law the working masses of town and country who support the Communist Party, calculating that in this manner it will be able to keep power in its hand. For it is only too well aware that it has not come into power at the wish and with the confidence of the masses of the working people, but has seized power solely by means of a Putsch. Thus the first step taken by this new government of “aw,” “order,” and “liberty” was to introduce the prohibitive press censorship in the face of the express terms of the constitution of the state, to abolish the right of holding meetings, to throw workers and poor peasants arbitrarily into prison, to torture them there with all the instruments of the inquisition, to mur- der them with the aid of all the unconstitutional exceptional laws created by Stambuliisky’s government for the destruction of the Communist Party. One of these laws is the so-called Robbery law, which permits any man declared a robber to be outlawed, when anyone may kill him and go unpunished. The legal proceedings against anyone accused of “robbery” do not differ in any way from those of the most brutal military “justice.” In Tirnovo over one hundred Communists, workers, and peas- ants were arrested, and are imprisoned on remand on indict- ments of insurrection and robbery. In order to extort state- ments desired by the authorities, the prisoners are bestially ill treated and tortured. At the same time a large number of the leading active party comrades were arrested without any rea- son, mercilessly beaten in the barracks by the enraged soldiery, and then released at night, so that nobody might see the fright- ful condition in which they left the barrack yard. In the village of Kilifarevo about 150 Communist workers and peasants were arrested and shared the same fate. In the industrial town of Gabrovo over 100 Communist work- ers were also arrested and ill treated; thirty-six of these have been taken to the town of Sevlievo, in order to be sentenced there for alleged insurrection and robbery. The Communist Workers’ Homes, as well as the stores owned by the workers’ cooperative society of Osvobojdenje in that town and other places, have been closed by the police and then looted by the mob under police protection. On the day of the putsch five Communist leaders were mur- dered; among these were two local party leaders: Trifon Sara- lieff, former parliamentary deputy, and Banaiot Zwikeff. In the town of Garlovo 126 Communist workers and peasants were arrested, and are also still imprisoned on remand for “robbery and insurrection.” The imprisoned comrades are in- carcerated in rooms absolutely murderous to the health, and they are not permitted to go out during the day for a breath of fresh air. They are cruelly ill treated, and many of them, as for instance Comrade P. Dvorianoff, a former member of Parliament, have been exposed to open insult, being harnessed like beasts of burden to carts and driven through the town. Sixty-two Communists were arrested in the town of Kazanlik, and have been taken to Stara Zagora. Over 100 poor peasants were arrested in Orchanje, in the village of Moldava twenty- three, and in many other small places all over the country com- rades have been arrested, and all share the same unhappy fate. But it is in Plevna that the white terror holds most brutal sway. There even the most criminal sadism is surpassed. In the town alone as many as 400 Communist working men and women, many of them young comrades, were arrested. In order to extort from them admissions desired by the court of inquiry, they have been subjected for weeks to the most inhuman tor- ture. One of them, Comrade Assen Halatscheff, was done to death by these means. In order to conceal this murder, a clumsy report was officially issued to the effect that the Com- munists had abducted Halatscheff from the prison during the night, and that he had vanished without leaving a trace! Many of the comrades arrested at Plevna have been so frightfully ill treated that they will be cripples for the rest of their lives, and will never recover their health. Among the arrested was M. W. Schelpugin, a collaborator in the Red Cross mission in Bulgaria. One morning his dead body was found in a vineyard outside the town, covered with more than twenty wounds. On July 23, the first trial of the accused took place. Ninety- five Communists had to answer the indictment of “robbery” and “insurrection.” The accusation of robbery is entirely without foundation, and was obviously made for the sole purpose of enabling the accused to be condemned under Stambuliisky’s exceptional laws. The public prosecutor demanded capital pun- ishment for five of the accused and many years’ imprisonment for the others. The comrade murdered in so dastardly a man- ner by the authorities, Assen Halatscheff, has also been included among the accused, and is to be sentenced for “escaping.” The depth of the class hate and class vengeance of the bour- geoisie may be judged from the fact that the barristers’ council at Plevna—including the social democrats—passed a resolution denying the accused legal defense during their trial, and not per- mitting such defense in any circumstances whatever. Supported by the authorities and the reaction, they demanded that this decision be carried out at all costs, and be made valid for the whole country. An organization was formed by which counsel defending the accused were to be prevented from fulfilling their duty; this organization was joined by the prefect of the Plevna district, Colonel Narezoff, by the public prosecutor Popoff, who participated, revolver in hand, in the coup of June 9, by the social-democratic lawyer, G. Markoff, and by others. On July 21, a part of the counsel for the defense of the ac- cused consisting of eight Communist lawyers, succeeded in reach- ing Plevna. They were, however, at once confronted by a dele- gation of the Plevna barristers’ council, headed by the social democrat, G. Markoff, who declared that they must renounce all idea of defending the accused, and threatened to employ force in the event of their insisting. The defending counsel indig- nantly refused to listen to this impudent piece of presumption on the part of this revengeful band of lawyers. But the attempt to influence them enabled them to inform the president of the court and the public prosecutor in Plevna of this unheard-of impudence, and to protest against it. They demanded the pro- tection of their liberty and of their right to fulfil their legal obligations at the trial. The public prosecutor took no steps in this direction, but the president of the court promised to permit them to plead “freely” at the trial. But immediately after this, while counsel for the defense were consulting together upon the trial, a police captain forced his way into their room revolver in hand, and, with the aid of a troop of police, arrested them, and took them on foot to the sta- tion, whence they were sent under a powerful police escort to Mezdra. Here they were kept shut up in a shed for a day and a night, and then taken to Sofia by a strong escort, to be deliv- ered over to the security police. The arrested counsel for the defense, carrying their own trunks and surrounded by armed policemen, were conducted on foot through the busiest streets of Sofia. This unexampled scandal called forth great indignation, even among many of the adherents of the Government. The Govern- ment found itself obliged to release the lawyers; apologies were even offered for what had taken place, and they were promised

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Oct. 10, 1923] that their return to Plevna would be facilitated, as well as the exercise of their right to participate in the trial as counsel for the defense. The trial at Plevna began on July 28, the whole of the defend- ing counsel being absent. For not only had the eight lawyers in Plevna been arrested, but several other Communist barristers on their way to Plevna had been stopped, locked up, and sent back. Under these circumstances the accused made an oral request, and their counsel a telegraphic one, on July 23, that the trial be postponed until it was possible for counsel for the de- fense to be present. The court declined to accede to this, and continued proceedings in the absence of the defense! It was not until two days later that counsel for the defense, after being released, were able to return to Plevna and undertake the de- fense of the accused. About 400 witnesses have been called up for this trial, 150 of these being subpoenaed by the public prosecutor. The proceed- ings are likely to last several weeks. This is the first trial in connection with the putsch of June 9; several others will follow. It is clear to the whole world that in Plevna the proceedings of the court are completely dominated by the class justice of an enraged bourgeoisie, which is preparing the brutal murder of a number of Communists, and severe terms of imprisonment for many other brave men. The verdict of the Plevna court will serve as a precedent for the verdicts to follow in many other towns of Bulgaria against the victims of June 9. The working class and the working peasants of the whole world must raise a mighty protest, and prevent raging Fascist justice from giving barbarous sentences of murder and imprison- ment to the accused workers and peasants in Plevna and all over Bulgaria, and from executing such barbarous sentences. Pow- erful expressions of protest and indignation must be directed, from all civilized countries in the world, against the executioners of the accused workers and peasants, in order that these execu- tioners and those inspiring them may be forced to desist from their: premeditated crime, and restore their innocent victims to liberty. For the Central Committee of the C. P. of Bulgaria, Secretary: B. LENKOFF Sofia, July 30, 1923 Germany’s Capital N another column of this issue we publish a review by the noted German economist and statistician, Dr. Kuc- zynski, of the book on “Germany’s Capacity to Pay” by H. G. Moulton and C. E. McGuire. In this connection it is interesting to study Dr. Kuczynski’s own proposals for a reform of German finance as outlined in the Manchester Guardian of July 14. Dr. Stresemann’s advocacy of a “seizure of real values” in Germany—that is, in fact, a capital levy—for the purpose of paying reparations shows how German opinion even on the right is at last coming round to the solution proposed more than a year ago by the eminent German statistician and econo- mist Dr. R. Kuczynski. At a meeting held in Paris last year Dr. Kuczynski suggested that he should meet some French economists to formulate proposals in common on these lines. The suggestion was adopted and the conference took place in Paris last November, the Frenchmen present being the well- known economists Professors Charles Gide, Géze, and Roger Picard, MM. Léon Blum and Renaudel, of the French Socialist party, and MM. Ferdinand Buisson and Gernut, representing the Ligue des Droits de Homme. Unanimous agreement was arrived at on a scheme for the payment of reparations by a capital levy on German real and personal property, initiated by Dr. Kuczynski. Details of the scheme were given by Dr. Kuczynski in his Finanzpolitische Korrespondenz of December 12, but it then The Nation 389 passed almost unnoticed, and even the Socialist Party did not take it up or seriously discuss it. Now that the necessity of a capital levy is beginning to be generally recognized, it would seem opportune to call attention to a scheme which, in addition to its intrinsic merits, has the advantage of having been ac- cepted by three of the leading French economists and by repre- sentatives of the French political parties of the left. Its main lines are as follows. The German Government would with the smallest possible delay impose a capital levy to the extent of one-half of all German private fortunes. The levy would be made on all bank-notes, whether issued by the Reichs- bank or by the banks of the federated states, government stock, and exchequer bills, by exchanging them for new issues of half their value. The stock of loans issued by the federated states, municipalities, and private enterprises in the interior of Ger- many would be stamped to the extent of half their value, which would thus be appropriated by the Reich. For every existing share in a company a new share would be issued in favor of the Reich. Half of all deposits in savings banks and other banks would be expropriated, as would half of all mortgages and rent charges. A new rent charge in favor of the Reich would be levied on all real property to the half of its value. Half the proceeds of the levy would be retained by the German Government for the stabilization of the mark and for putting the national finances on a sound basis. The other half would be handed over to the Allies. Since, however, it was considered by those present at the conference in November that German paper money and government stock would be of little value to the Allies, they suggested that reparations in kind should be substituted for these categories of the levy. Dr. Kuczynski has explained why it is not proposed to gradu- ate the levy. The first and most important reason is that the system of taking half of every fortune, however small, would greatly facilitate collection, make it possible to realize the levy very rapidly, and not give time for people to transfer capital to other countries. For the levy would thus be impersonal; it would be imposed, not on individuals, but on the various cate- gories of property, and no individual declarations or similar formalities would be necessary. Dr. Kuczynski’s opinion is that small fortunes in Germany are now of such trivial value that it makes very little difference in practice to their owners whether the state takes half or less. For instance, a fortune of a million marks (£50,000) was not a small fortune before the war, but now nbbody could possibly live on the interest of it, or even on an income of a million marks a year.* . . . Most of the former owners of small fortunes have spent their capital long ago and are now earning their living or existing on char- ity. Moreover, the persons subjected to the capital levy will ultimately lose nothing, but are rather likely to gain, for when the reparations question is settled, the mark is stabilized, and normal conditions are restored the half of their property that is left to them will be worth much more than the whole is worth at present. Foreigners owning property in Germany . . . would of course be subjected to the levy, since their exclusion would cause tire- some complications. The conference held in Paris in November reluctantly came to the conclusion that there is no practical means of making the levy on property owned by Germans abroad. It is impossible, for example, to compel foreign banks to disclose the amount of the deposits of their German cus- tomers. The sum that could be immediately realized by the levy would not be very large—certainly not large enough to satisfy even a minimum claim for reparations—for the gold value of German property has been enormously diminished. A recent inquiry made by Dr. Kuczynski into the present gold value of the shares in the German limited liability companies has led to the con- clusion that it is on an average about one-tenth of their pre- war value. The value of house property has been still more diminished in consequence of the rent restriction law, which * A million marks is now worth about 6 cents.

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390 The Nation | - has reduced the gold value of rents to less than 1 per cent of the pre-war rates. . . . Agricultural land and houses not let to tenants are, however, more valuable than tenanted house prop- erty, and the value of house property in general has not been diminished so much as the rents, because everybody recognizes that it will eventually recover its value, and house property is being bought up by speculators at rates that make it imme- diately unproductive. Mr. Stinnes, for instance, has acquired a large amount of house property in Berlin, which at present yields no return worth speaking of. As a future asset, however, this charge of 25 per cent on German property would be of great value, and it would be an ample guaranty for an international loan, which would give the Allies immediate cash. Meanwhile they could hold the vari- ous shares and securities until the stabilization of the mark and the return of normal conditions had restored them to their pre-war value, as would inevitably happen. The value of real property, in particular, which is artificially kept down, would rapidly recover when the stabilization of the mark had made the repeal of the rent-restriction law possible. As for the mines, they are still worth as much as before the war, and the fourth share in them would be an immediately valuable asset. The great advantages of this scheme are in the first place that it would ultimately cost the German people nothing, since they, like the Allies, would benefit by the increased value of property that would result from it, and in the second place that it would give the Allies an interest in German prosperity. As Professor Roger Picard has said, it would produce, instead of the present conflict of interests between Germany and the Allies, “an economic and financial solidarity between them which would be the strongest guaranty of good understanding and peace.” Contributors to This Issue HELEN R. MartTIN is the author of “Tillie, a Mennonite Maid” and other novels and stories of the Pennsylvania Dutch. FRIDTJOF TOKSviIG is a member of the staff of the Baltic- Scandinavian Trade Review, published in Copenhagen. ERNEST WOOSTER, since joining the Llano Cooperative Colony in 1916, has served in various capacities—as cook, editor of publications, acting manager, ranch man- ager, and general correspondent. He has also held the offices of treasurer, vice-president, and assistant secre- tary of the colony. CLARENCE WALWORTH ALVoRD is professor of history at the University of Minnesota and a contributor to nu- merous historical publications. His interest lies chiefly in the record of the early exploration and settlement of what is now the Middle West. PADRAIC COLUM is a poet and dramatist who came to this country from Ireland in 1914. Since that time he has published poems, plays, and charming tales for children, and has lectured on poetry and Irish literature. His latest book is a novel, “Castle Conquer.” R. R. KuczyNnsk1 is a noted German economist who has been lecturing at the University of Chicago during the past summer. ERNEST Boyp is a well-known translator and critic of con- temporary European literature. His “Irish Literary Renaissance” was reissued in 1922. TEMPLE Scott is the author of “Silver Age and Other Dramatic Memories,” and a regular reviewer for The Nation. BASIL THOMPSON wrote the article on Louisiana in the series These United States. McBRIDE BOOKS FOR EARLY AUTUMN SELECTIONS FROM THE FALL LIST OF ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO. PUBLISHERS NEW YORK q Phe Puppet Master by Robert Nathan Author of Autumn, Youth Grows Old, ete. The rich promise of Autumn is more than fulfilled in this delicate but profoundly moving tale of Papa Jonas, the puppet-master, of the for- lorn braggart Mr. Aristotle, and of Anabelle Lee, with that one fasci- nating eye of hers. It is a book, slight in proportion, but very big, indeed, in merit: a fantasy at once playful and exquisite, which definitely places Robert Nathan among the most important of the younger American writers. $1.75 net Compromise by Jay Gelzer Mrs. Gelzer’s first novel is a far more considerable performance than her popular book of short stories The Street of a Thousand Delights. The scene is St. Louis of today, and the central character is a woman who, in her desire for happiness without the sacrifice of the fine tra- ditions of the past, typifies a large number of the women of this generation. $2.00 net @ Those Who Return by Maurice Level A translation of Mr. Level’s masterpiece of horror, L’Ombre. It is a book of astounding power, which will provide a new shudder for any reader. $2.00 net @ The Eagle's Shadow by James Branch Cabell A revised edition of Mr. Cabell’s first novel; long out of print and eagerly sought by collectors. With an introduction by Edwin Bjork- man. $2.00 net Barnabe and His Whale by René Thévenin Translated by Ben Ray Redman Readers who enjoyed Hilaire Belloe’s Green Overcoat will welcome this fantastic tale of Barnabé Tignol, his whale, the beautiful Blanche Marie, Sosthenes and the redoubtable Sewer Rat Gang. It is a combination of whimsy, adventure and sheer non- sense whose like is not to be found among any other recent books. $2.00 net @ Random Studies in the Romaniic Chaos by F. A. Waterhouse Essays on the art of music and the art of war, the work of Kipling and O. Henry and a variety of other sub- jects, including A Short History of the Piilistine. $2.50 net Jurgen, price $7.50 net. q Body of this Death Subsequent editions will by Louise Bogan be unillustrated, price $2.50 net. We urge all @ Masquerade persons interested in se- by Ben Ray Redman curing copies of the first edition to subscribe now First books of poems by two highly gifted young Americans. through their booksellers. Ashes of Vengeance by H. B. Somerville A glorious romance of old France, of the age-old feud between the houses of Vrieac and La Roche, and how, out of bondage, arose a great friendship and a greater love. The screen version of this story, in which Norma Talmadge is star- ring, is now enthralling audiences throughout the country. Here in its original form, it will open the door of romance to every one who delights in the books of Sabatini, Farnol and the great writers of romance of the past. $2.00 net. Postage extra. At all Bookstores A NEW BOOK BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL _ The High Place: A com- edy of Disenchantment will appear late in Oc- tober in an elaborate edi- tion limited to two thou- sand copies, with illus- trations and decorations by France C. Pape, il- lustrator of the English [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 0 ee

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Oct. 10, 1923] “TOILET LANOLINE” —the year-round skin treatment This wonderful emollient is used with great success by noted skin specialists for pimples, blotches, facia! eruptions, roughness, abrasions and chapped lips and hands. It protects the delicate skin surfaces against trying weather conditions and by supplying nourish- ment to the facial nerves and skin cells, effaces wrinkles and restores the bloom of youthful health. “Toilet Lanoline” is especially recommended for cuts and burns and for relief of pain after exposure. “Toilet Lanoline” is a remarkable skin softener and preserver. A delicately scented preparation that is safe for SMALL CHILDREN. PREPARED BY PLEXO PREPARATIONS, Inc. NEW YORK Sole Agents and Distributors General Drug Co., N. Y., 94 N. Moore Street JOSEPH DIETZGEN’S PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS have just been re-issued in an attractive library edition with por- trait. Dietzgen was an intimate associate of Karl Marx, and was recognized by him as the philosopher of the proletarian revolu- tion. His works are a refreshing contrast to the pseudo-scientific psychology now widely advertised. ‘‘Philosophical Essays’? con- tains his shorter and simpler writings, ‘“‘The Positive Outcome of Philosophy” contains his longer works. Each volume $1.50, by insured mail. Ask for book catalog. CHARLES H. KERR & CO., 347 Hast Ohio Street, Chicago. The New Education in Europe An account of recent fundamental changes in the educational philosophy of Great Britain, France and Germany which record distinct progress. By Dr. FREDERICK W. ROMAN Price, $5.00 E. P. Datton & Co. NOTICE TO FOREIGN SUBSCRIBERS Subscribers residing in foreign countries are requested to make remittance by international money-order, or draft, payable in New York, so that subscriptions may be entered promptly. Circulation Department THe Nation oe Pe PE Diodvish Art Theatre Wsswss” | MAURICE SCHWARTZ in “‘Shabbethai Zeri” | by ZHULAWSKI Every Friday Eve. Sat. and Sun., Mat. and Eve. TE Se ee De MONTE CARLO STATIONERY 200 Sheets SD Go 100 Envelopes Name and address or monogram. Relief engraving, any color. Sheet 56% x 8, white, grey, cafe, blue. 100 double sheets or 200 single sheets (100 marked—100 plain). For marking entire 200 single sheets add 50c. FRINT plainly. Enclose check or money order. West of Miss. add 20c. Comparison urged. Samples submitted. DE LUXE STATIONERY CO., 505 Fifth Ave., New York The Nation Your New Evening Paper THE NEW YORK LEADER Three hundred thousand organized workeis of New York City have embarked upon a glorious ad- venture. Just as they have gone into the business of bank- ing and succeeded, just as they have gone into large- scale co-operative and educational enterprises, so now they enter the evening newspaper field in New York with a daily of their own. They have named their paper THE NEW YORK LEADER and they look upon it as the first step towards a free press in a city notorious for its spe- cial-privilege press. THE NEW YORK LEADER takes over the property and organization of THE CALL and the good will of the former owners of THE CALL as well. It is the hope of the new management that THE LEADER will be a complete paper, an interesting paper and most important of all an honest paper, faithful to no interests other than the interest of its worker owners in a free press, spokesman for no dogmatic ism but always the resolute champion of labor’s struggle for spiritual and economic freedom. We believe that there will be found a public for such a paper, a public tired of the fiction that passes for news, of the trivialities that fill the old-line papers. If you want a daily paper that attempts to present the significant news of the day in a manner that is neither dull nor frivolous; if you want a paper that is neither cynical nor hopeless but still believes in the capacity of mankind to shape a better world, you will want THE NEW YORK LEADER —every evening. Will you come with us toward a free press? NORMAN THOMAS, editor-in-chief. THE NEW YORK LEADER Ask Your Dealer for The Leader—Send Mail Sub- scriptions to 112 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

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Fall Book Section | Poems by D. Bare Almond Trees Wet almond trees, in the rain Like iron sticking grimly out of earth; Black almond trunks, in the rain Like iron implements twisted, hideous, out of the earth, Out of the deep, soft fledge of Sicilian winter-green Earth-grass uneatable, Almond trunks curving blackly, iron-dark, climbing the slopes. Almond tree, beneath the terrace rail, Black, rusted, iron trunk You have welded your thin stems finer, Like steel, like sensitive steel in the air; Gray, lavender, sensitive steel, curving thinly and brittly up in a parabola. What are you doing in the December rain? Have you a strange electric sensitiveness in your steel tips? Do you feel the air for electric influences Like some strange magnetic apparatus? Do you take in messages, in some strange code, From heaven’s wolfish, wandering electricity, that prowls so constantly round Etna? Do you take the whisper of sulphur from the air? Do you hear the chemical accents of the sun? Do you telephone the roar of the waters-over-the-earth? And from all this, do you make calculations? Sicily, December’s Sicily in a mass of rain With iron branching blackly, rusted like old, twisted imple- ments And brandishing and stooping over earth’s wintry fledge, climbing the slopes Of uneatable soft green! Tropic Sun, dark sun Sun of black void heat Sun of the torrid mid-day’s horrific darkness Behold my hair twisting and going black. Behold my eyes turn tawny yellow Negroid; See the milk of northern spume Soagulating and going black in my veins Aromatic as ‘frankincense. Columns dark and soft Sunblack men Soft shafts, sunbreathing mouths Eyes of yellow, golden sand As frictional as perilous, explosive brimstone. Rock, waves of dark heat; Waves of dark heat, rock, sway upwards Waver perpendicular. H. Lawrence What is the horizontal rolling of water Compared to the flood of black heat that rolls upward past my eyes? Humming: Bird I can imagine, in some other world Primeval-dumb, far back In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed, Humming-birds raced down the avenues. Before anything had a soul, While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate, This little bit chipped off in brilliance And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems. I believe there were no flowers, then, In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation. I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak. Probably he was big As mosses, and little lizards, they say were once big. Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster. We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time, Luckily for us. Peace Peace is written on the doorstep In lava, Peace, black peace congealed. My heart will know no peace Till the hill bursts. Brilliant, intolerable lava Brilliant as a powerful burning-glass Walking like a royal snake down the mountain towards the sea. Forests, cities, bridges Gone again in the bright trail of lava. Naxos thousands of feet below the olive-roots, And now the olive leaves thousands of feet below the lava fire. Peace congealed in black lava on the doorstep. Within, white-hot lava, never at peace Till it burst forth blinding, withering the earth; To set again into rock Gray-black rock. Call it Peace?

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394 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 Francis Parkman By CLARENCE WALWORTH ALVORD OME twenty years ago Arthur G. Doughty, the new archivist of the Dominion of Canada, and I, the new entrant into the field of Western history, were talking of the doleful condition of history studies in our respective territories. Doughty declared that no real study of Cana- dian history had been done since Parkman’s death, and that the new works appearing were only a rehash of his books. Dejectedly and dishearteningly I admitted that the same was true in the schools of the great American West. Of course both knew of exceptions to our generalization, but on the whole the study of the history of the vast area watered by the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi was, and had been, apparently in a parlous condition. The genius of one man had raised the shadow of forgetfulness from the past and then darkness seemed to have settled over the subject forever. The general opinion was that further study would yield only diminishing returns. John Fiske voiced the opinion of historians in declaring that Parkman had performed a work which would never need to be done over. So firmly established had the tradition of Parkman’s per- fections become, that in writing a eulogy in honor of his centenary, thirty years after his death, I find it difficult to emancipate my own mind from the stereotyped opinion and view objectively this man of genius. Time has, however, passed, and it is now possible to obtain a truer perspective than had his contemporaries. Francis Parkman, by the dates of his birth and death, 1823-1893, belongs in what is known as the “Middle Group of American historians,” which occupied the stage from after the War of 1812 to about 1884 when the new critical spirit in historical studies, largely a product of the Ger- man seminars and nurtured by our graduate schools, seized the leadership in the field of historical research. In the year 1884 this new spirit, gathering up what was worth preserving of the older school, expressed itself through the formation of the American Historical Association, soon to be controlled by the professional historians of our uni- versities. Professor John Bassett, who has written learn- edly and interestingly of the middle group, prefers to assign Parkman to this new school, because, “while he wrote with that fine appreciation of style which was characteristic of Bancroft and the literary historians, his industry, his re- search among documents, and especially his detachment seem to place him among the men of today.” This opinion of Professor Bassett is a weighty one and should not be lightly disregarded, yet with some mental reservations it seems better to place Parkman squarely within the period wherein he passed his life and explain any superiority over his contemporaries he may have possessed as emanations from his genius and not as anticipations of a period to which he did not belong and within which he would have found himself very uncomfortable. In the year that Parkman died, 1893, there was pub- lished in the Report of the American Historical Associa- tion an article by Frederick J. Turner on the Significance of the Frontier in American History. That article was the trumpet call of the new recruits to the army of American historians, A new era had begun. Turner was the chosen prophet to announce its advent. The full force of the new movement required many years to unfold; not even yet has the power of it reached its apogee. To locate the metes and bounds of the field plowed and planted by Parkman, it is necessary to survey the tracks cleared by these later comers. They are pugnacious of their rights, these Westerners, and are not ready to admit any claim that Parkman, in spite of the Western character of his subject, discovered their particular territory. That territory is the Western interpretation of American his- tory. So overpowering has been the influence of the west- ward push of population, they claim, that it should form the central theme of our national history. Events such as the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War between the States are but mere episodes in the history of the conquest of a continent by men of English speech. In this new viewpoint the economic forces underlying the historical events are stressed as they never were by members of the Middle Group of historians. At times the Westerners are almost economic determinists. A third line of development in historical studies is q product of the new viewpoint. The wider interpretation of history has given importance to many classes of source material. Furthermore a public interest in the collecting and preservation of historical documents has been awak- ened. Instead of placing the onus of the work upon private individuals, public institutions in the United States and Canada, supported by State appropriations, have undertaken comprehensive searching for historical material. Viewed under the light of modern research with its greater understanding of the fundamental forces of society, its wider field of interpretation, and its more comprehen- sive search for information Parkman’s histories seem very sketchy, his understanding of past events very superficial. Before him as he worked lay hundreds of problems which he never even saw and other hundreds of which he touched only the fringes. A few years ago my own investigations forced me to read all his volumes in rapid succession, on an average one every two days. It was, I acknowledge, a severe test and therefore my immediate reaction was not trustworthy. Still I give it for what it is worth. After the test was completed, my thought was: “This is not his- tory, this is romance, pageantry, story writing.” What was it in Parkman’s writing which produced this result? First of all the events which interested him no longer play so important a part in the historical viewpoint of the present day. After reading Monro’s “Seignorial System in Canada,” it is difficult to understand the con- temporary enthusiasm over Parkman’s “Ancient Regime.” It is really surprising how relatively few pages of the volume are devoted to an analysis of Canadian society un- der the French. Or, consider how few of the subjects discussed in Beer’s “British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765,” are to be found even mentioned in Parkman’s “Montcalm and Wolfe.” Parkman devotes many pages to Sir William Johnson as general and leader of the Indians in war, but only a line in two places to remind the reader that this same Johnson held the more important newly created im- perial office of superintendent of Indians in the northern department. Parkman quotes two letters from Governor

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 395 en SEK Dinwiddie of Virginia to his friend the financier Hanbury of London, but fails to picture in high light the land specu- lations of these two worthies and their associates which were the immediate occasion of the French and Indian War. George Washington in his first romantic mission to the West to protest against the French occupation of the Up- per Ohio Valley is not so much the representative of im- perial Britain as the voice of the land speculators of the Old Dominion. Parkman’s detailed description of that journey does not leave such an impression on the mind of the reader.. The enthusiastic study of Western American history of late years has revealed many gaps in the narrative of the discovery and occupation of the Mississippi Valley as re- lated by Parkman; yet the discovery of new documents and the more careful examination of known ones do not explain satisfactorily the spotted thinness of his story. This must be attributed in part to his New Englandism, a disease not easily cured even by absence for many years, even genera- tions, from the charmed territory. To Parkman as to the many other New England historians the happenings in their home land, so well known, so carefully studied, loom large on their horizon hiding a view of more distant scenes. The massacre of Deerfield becomes for Parkman an event of such stupendous importance that all the gory details even to the tomahawking and scalping of Tom, Dick, and Harry, and the daily sufferings of Susan on her forced excursion to Canada must be narrated at the expense of curtailing the story of more important but distant events. The truth of the matter is that Parkman knew inti- mately only two short periods of Western history, that of the explorations and business enterprise of La Salle and that of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, the Alpha and Omega of his whole work. Of what falls between these his knowledge was not intensive or comprehensive. Of Louisiana he knew relatively little outside of its romantic beginnings; he never understood the importance, and his successors have also missed it, to the southern English colonies that their traders had cemented friendly relations with the Indians of the Old Southwest before the French, thus preventing a control by the latter in this region. There is one further limitation to Parkman’s historical interpretation which should be mentioned. He did his re- search in the generation which created the religion of Anglo-Saxonism, whose high priest, Edward A. Freeman, traced the apostolic succession of the Anglo-Saxon institu- tions from their German origin—God save the mark! for the doctrine was a Hun atrocity and was “made in Ger- many’—down through the ages of English history. It was these same Teutonic institutions that were brought to America and laid the foundations of glorious freedom. Compared with the states founded upon this solid rock of the Anglo-Saxon faith, all other states are like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. This Anglo-Saxon superiority complex forms the warp and woof of Parkman’s thought, and also that of his read- ers of that time, whose hearts beat responsively to these words of Parkman’s announcement of his purpose to write a series of histories devoted to “the attempt of Feudalism, Monarchy, and Rome to master a continent, where at this hour (1865) half a million bayonets are vindicating the ascendancy of a regulated freedom.” Many modern Ameri- can historians may still cling to the belief thus voiced by Parkman fifty years ago, but no one of them would dare be so candidly chauvinistic. Parkman has been universally praised by Protestants, frequently but not universally by Catholics, for his impartial treatment of an alien race with an alien religion; and I think from the religious viewpoint the praise is merited. Being a consistent and conscientious agnostic he strove to be impartial in his attitude toward both Catholic and Puritan; but from the beginning to the end of his career as an historian he clung to his faith in the Anglo-Saxon cult, and thus impaired his own achieve- ment. But enough of this negative discussion. In celebration of his centenary we want to know what Francis Parkman did accomplish which called from Henry Adams, a much more profound historian than I, the following encomium: “Your book (“Montcalm and Wolfe’) is a model of thor- ough and impartial study and clear statement. Of its style and narrative the highest praise is that they are on a level with its thoroughness of study. Taken as a whole, your works are now dignified by proportions and completeness which can be hardly paralleled by the literary baggage of any older historical writer in the language known to me today.” The development of the American school of history which is called the ‘““Middle Group” would appear inexplic- able in consideration of the barrenness of research in kin- | dred fields, were it not that a similar phenomenon was taking place in Europe. It was the natural consequence there as here of the literary and artistic movement known as Romanticism. The same idealistic view of the past which produced Scott’s novels inspired Cooper in America. The same forces underlying the work of Von Ranke, Thierry, and Freeman moved the literary and scientific circles in America and drove to their labors Bancroft, Irv- ing, Prescott, Ticknor and was still effective in the lives of their younger friends, Motley and Parkman. The romantic school, whether German, English, or ! American, visualized its subject as did the contemporary sculptors or painters; it must be grand in character, a particular event of stupendous import in the history of humanity, wherein were displayed all the complex forces of human nature working themselves out to a dramatic de- nouement. Thus the inherent artistic possibilities of the subject to be chosen were a matter of deep consideration. Prescott in his conquests of Mexico and Peru, Motley in the struggle of the Dutch against the tyranny of Spain had made happy choices. All the elements of historical drama suited to literary treatment lay in their subjects. The genius of Parkman consisted in perceiving when still in college that the same qualities existed in the strug- gle between England and France for the ‘North American continent. And the still greater genius of perseverance was exhibited in continuing his work under the severest handicaps of ill health until it was completed in his sixty- ninth year. Never has subject been so well fitted to the genius of an historian. Parkman was one of those happy artists chosen by Nature to perform a particular piece of work. He does it as naturally as his garden produced its roses, as a bird sings, or a Raphael paints a Madonna. This naturalness, this production without evidence of effort, is one of the signs of a supreme artist and Parkman was certainly that. He may be happily compared to the ideal Greek who looked out upon his environment, uncontaminated by the thought or products of older artists or philosophers, and joyfully

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396 The Nation- [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 attacked with the freshness of youth the knotty problems of life. The freshness of youth remained with Parkman until the end and gives to all his books charm. In boyhood he loved the woods and field; to him the Mid- dlesex Fells contained mystery and charm, and the love of nature therein awakened never ceased to be a strong impulse. While he was at Harvard the great outdoors still exercised its attraction over him, and when in his sophomore year the idea of writing a history of the French and Indian War occurred to him, he directed this love of nature in directions to serve his life’s work. Following the old trails of New England became his vacation sport. In 1846, when twenty-three years old, he went West to study life on the frontier and in Indian camps along the Oregon and Santa Fe trail. His five months’ experience in the Far West he embodied in his first book, “The Oregon Trail,” which appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1847 and two years later in book form. At this time began the tragedy of his life. His health broke down and never again was he to enjoy a day free from pain. At times he could not use his eyes, at times he could not even use his mind for study. He started the composition of his first history, “The Conspiracy of Pon- tiac,” when five minutes was the maximum of concentra- tion. Under such conditions composition proceeded at the rate of five or six lines a day. Most of his study through- out life was done with the eyes of others; the endless search for documentary material, for which he is so de- servedly noted, was frequently carried out by others. All his later books were dictated. Cut off at an early age from active life Parkman lived in the memories of his youth, and I believe this fact ex- plains the freshness, the youthful exuberance of even the latest work. His ill health made it possible for him to con- centrate his mind upon his great subject. He could not afford, nor did he afford, time for diversified reading. “The Conspiracy of Pontiac” appeared in 1851, and then ill health forbade historical composition for half a genera- tion during which time Parkman found a vent for his ceaseless energy in raising roses and lilies. The Lillium Parkmanni is a monument to the earnestness with which he followed his new calling. His “Book of Roses,” which appeared in 1866, is still worthy to be read by the lover of flowers. From 1865 began the steady flow from the press of those histories which remain even today the greatest achieve- ment of any American historian. First came “The Pio- neers of France,” then “The Jesuits in America,” followed by the other volumes at a rapid rate until his task was completed in 1892. The story of the French occupation of Canada and the Mississippi Valley, the conception of which took place in his college days, was completed after fifty years. What a picture they present! How they grip the imagi- nation! You may acknowledge, as you must, that there is too much of the fife and the drum, of the tomahawk and the scalping knife, too little of other human activities; you may concede that there is no organic connection between the beautiful scenes he depicts and the participants in the battle: concede all this and still the artistry of it remains; his books have all the force of a Grecian drama. The story is told, and the means he employs are fitted to the end he has in view. It is great literature and within its limits it is great history. The Promise of Irish Letters By PADRAIC COLUM HE great discovery for the last generation of Irish writers was drama; the great discovery for the gen- eration previous was the personal lyric. It seems to me that the discovery for the present generation is the novel and the short story, and that the Irish writers will begin to reveal Ireland in the narrative. It has been said that a tradition passes with the accep- tance of the Free State—the tradition of Kathleen ni Houlihan—and that until another tradition arises there will be a silence in Ireland. This I do not believe. The prestige of the literary movement recruited a great number of young men to literature. For the one who wanted to come to Dublin and write twenty years ago there are three now. They have learned the technique of play-writing, verse- writing, story-writing. They will not go into silence be- cause a Free State has been set up. They will go on writ- ing. And I venture to think that when their writings come to be examined it will be found that they have been perpetuating another Irish tradition, even though the tra- dition of Kathleen ni Houlihan has lapsed. I think they will express themselves mainly in the novel — and the short story. Novel and short story will come to them as fresh forms, as the drama came to the writers of the previous generation, as the personal lyric came to the writers of the generation before. The reason why the novel in the form it is assuming is new in Ireland can be explained only by a reference to Irish literary history. The Irish novel had its start in the inauspicious year 1800—the year of the Union. It had its start with the publication of Maria Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent.” In this masterpiece, in which genius of all sorts is shown, a fine start was made. Had Maria Edgeworth herself, had the Irish writers who followed her, been free to exploit this | form, Irish literary history, as regards the novel, would not j be—as it is—a record of unsuccess. We Walter Scott came along. He wanted, as he declared in the general introduction to the Waverley Novels, to do for another country what Maria Edgeworth had done for Ire- land. But he did for the Irish novelists what the elephant in the Indian story did for the nest of partridge that he had come upon. ‘Poor little motherless things,” said he, “T will mother you.” And the elephant lay down upon them. Walter Scott created the novel for Europe. It was a novel removed from the raciness and the compactness of “Castle Rackrent’”—it was a novel of description, expo- sition, extended form. The Irish writers immediately came under its influence. They too, going against the racial genius that is for compactness and brilliancy, wrote extended novels full of description and exposition. They had to fall in with the Scott method to get published at all. Carleton did this after the publication of his most original and his only abiding work, the “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,” written under the influence of “Gil Blas’; the Banims and Gerald Griffin used Walter Scott’s form, too, but in the case of the Banims there was a French influence—the young Victor Hugo, the Balzac of the fantasies, and perhaps Eugene Sue—these influences are shown in the memorable trains of beggars and wan- derers that are in the Banim books. And so “Castle Rack- rent,” which might have stood in Irish literary history as

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 397 a “Dead Souls” stands in Russian literary history, missed having an influence. It was discovered abroad by Turge- nev. He once said in an interview that his “Sportsman’s Sketches” were written with Maria Edgeworth’s Irish sto- ries in mind. I suppose I should include George Moore’s Irish novels like “A Drama in Muslin” and the Irish stories in “The Untilled Field” as among the influences on the Irish novel and the Irish short story in the form it is now assuming. I cannot bring myself to do so: I find in these novels and stories, fine as they are, a curiously alien mind. They were written in a tradition that was passing, and I do not think they had an influence on the Irish who were pre- paring themselves for the business of writing. The first Irish novel, as I think, whose form is in har- mony with the racial genius is James Stephens’s “Mary Mary.” With something that seems like the spontaneous invention of the folk-tale James Stephens wrote the first story of Dublin life; then there came “The Crock of Gold,” in which he wove together a fresh humor and a fresh poetry, making a story as extravagant as the heart of any story-teller might desire. Then came James Joyce with “The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’”—a book that is the equivalent of one of Synge’s dramas, with the stories in “Dubliners” that are equivalent to Synge’s short plays, and now with “Ulysses” that is no less than a portent. In the meantime James Stephens publishes a book that has a misnomer for title—“Irish Fairy Tales”’—in which, in an astonishing way, he recovers the tradition of tenth- century Irish story-telling. Other writers have arisen who use a form that is in harmony with the racial genius—Brinsley MacNamara, Seumas O’Kelly, Daniel Corkery. Brinsley MacNamara has blown sky-high the tradition of the lovable Irish peasant; he shows you the men and women of the fields and villages in all the harshness and craftiness of men and women who have to wring a living from the soil. Seumas O’Kelly, whose early death is to be deplored, also discovered a dis- tinctive form, and in his books “The Golden Barque” and “Hillsiders” he gives us types opposite to those of Brinsley MacNamara—the quaint lovableness of isolated old men, the quaint charm of forgotten places. His description of Cloon-na-moray in “The Weaver’s Grave” and of the two old men who go grave-searching is among the very best pieces of Irish writing. Daniel Corkery, too, has a dis- tinctive form. In his work there is a tendency toward over-writing—not the extravagant heaping-up that there is in James Stephens’s work, but deliberate effects. He has written the novel of Irish Catholic mysticism in “The Threshold of Quiet,” he has written a book of fine short stories in “A Munster Twilight,” and he has written the stories of the war of independence in “The Hounds of Banba.” It seems to me that there will be a new movement in Irish literature—a beginning all over again. The founders are still with us, Yeats and “40” and Douglas Hyde. But I think the new writers—novelists, as I hold, most of them will be—will produce work on another plane from theirs. The Free State will affect literature, most directly, through the protection it will give to Gaelic. A great deal of writing will be done in Gaelic from this time forward. Gaelic has really come back, and the Free State will insure that it stays and spreads through instruction in the schools and through many sorts of state patronage. An Irish government will now take up what societies like the Irish Texts Society have been doing—the publication of poetry, history, and romance from unedited manuscripts. Perhaps we will soon have the anthology of Gaelic poetry that Padraic Pearse projected and in part completed. Such a publication would be a real literary event, and it would have an effect both on the Gaelic and the Anglo-Irish poetry that is being written. But will there be a modern literature in Gaelic? I am sure there will be. The other day I read in a New York newspaper that the new journal that supports the repub- lican idea in Ireland appears with a watchword in Gaelic. It gave the translation “Rouse up your courage, O Ireland.” The watchword came back to me in Gaelic, and I wondered what spell there is in the language that makes the words so different from any literal translation—“Muscail do mhis- neach, A Bhanba!” He who cannot hear Geoffrey Keating’s line, if he is an Irishman, has missed a great part in the Irish heritage. And so much of the heritage is contained in the very syllables of Gaelic (“Celtic syllables like the rat- tling of war chariots” as Flaubert noted in “Salammbdé”) that free Ireland cannot but love and labor in that language. We may expect the publication of a deal of work in Gaelic. Perhaps among a great deal that will be turgid and naive there will be a little sheaf of verse like Padraic Pearse’s “Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe.” We may even have at this moment a notable writer in Gaelic. However, I think that the writer who will produce great work in Gaelic will have to remake the language; he will have to fuse the Munster and the Connacht idioms; he will have to accept and use boldly the “‘Beurlachas”—the Englishisms—that have come in; he will have to draw from Middle Irish and perhaps from Scots Gaelic. Such a writer might be able to give us what has never been given to us in Anglo-Irish literature— the strange and tragical Irish landscape, the spiritual his- tory of the man whom an unknown sculptor once revealed as The Dying Gaul or The Dying Gael. Only in the book the man with the face on which hard winds have blown, with the eyes that have followed the herds while his hand held the sword—this man, whether in ancient or in modern surroundings, will be shown standing upright. Poetaster By BASIL THOMPSON Born out of time he blundered down the years, A laugher in a world of solemn folk He thought it all some monstrous bitter joke And scorned a fool’s abandonment to tears. The chorus of the singing of the spheres, The rhythms that the deities evoke From winds and waters, mountains, moons, and smoke Sang in his heart and rang, rang in his ears. He gathered up these nothings they put by And fashioned them to somethings of his own, His symbols were the symbols of the sky, His cadences the fugues the waves intone. He plumbed the riddle of eternity And braved an old impertinence alone.

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3040 Books Short for Buncombe Bunk. By W. E. Woodward. Harper and Brothers. $2. UNCOMBE was the seed from which bunk has grown. Once it may have been a mere gesture of the politician, talking for his constituents in language which would appeal to them whether it meant anything much or not. Now, however, bunk has gone beyond that. It includes the nonsense that mothers tell their children because it is easier to tell than the truth; it includes the windy periods in prayer, the bland pre- tences of secretaries of state, the hoary platitudes of moralists and educators, the customary assumptions of all the learned trades; it includes, particularly, the claims of advertisers and publicity men and the ideas which they pour into the long ears ° open to them. What rumor was to the ancients, bunk is to the modern world. It runs like fire among the people, waving the torch of propaganda. When it has ceased to be active, it settles down to a powerful inertia, to the faith that keeps mountains from moving. Sooner or later, bunk was bound to have its special satirist, and it now has him in the person of W. E. Woodward. His training has been the happiest possible. Immune from birth to the infection of bunk, he has moved habitually among its, disciples. He is a business man who can promote a company or charm a Rotary Club. He turns to authorship only after he has got out of an industrial society what he wanted from it: the financial sinews to sustain him while he laughs in public, as he has always laughed in private. “Bunk,” his first book, initiates a career which it will be well to watch. There is now a new novelist for intelligent persons to keep up with. Mr. Woodward is by no means a solemn fellow who has re- formed and is smugly advising others to be careful. He is almost as high-spirited as, say, Sinclair Lewis, with a merrier fancy. When he decided to write a novel, he says, he first invented his principal character, Michael Webb, and then turned him loose to gather experience. Michael, after drifting round the globe, becomes a de-bunking expert, a pricker of bubbles, a devastating intellect among contented morons. He writes “The Importance of Being Second-Rate,” a philosophical treatise which leads to the organization of Second-Rate clubs all over the country, sees Timothy Bray, who has suppressed “Jurgen,” elected Chief Second-Rater of the United States, and is him- self expelled from the organization for being no better than first-rate himself. Thereafter Michael has such adventures as a man of his mental girth could have in and about New York, only in the end to get married and thus to get out of the story. It may be inexperience which has kept Mr. Woodward from telling as straight a story as he might have told. More prob- ably it is his universal curiosity about ideas. Not much con- cerned with “plot” in any ordinary sense of the term, he has his fling in any direction in which his curiosity takes him. His flings are his strength. How acutely he reasons that William J. Burns is only a character of fiction! How con- vineingly he reports the dreadful battle in which the Boston Evening Transcript exterminates bolshevism by using the word psittacism! How neatly he sets up his minor characters and then tumbles them over by bringing ideas into play! In- deed, he has nearly as sure a touch with characters as with ideas. No captain of industry in American fiction has been drawn with more insight than here goes into the making of Richard Ellerman. Most magnates in novels are either mag- nified Babbitts or else stuffed giants. Ellerman has credible dimensions. Around him, at Dobbs Ferry, most of the action of “Bunk” takes place. There he has gathered a diverse group to amuse him while men sweat in his Illinois factories to make him rich. There he extinguishes poor Thomas Houghton Hun- ter, who has come on with a plan to make Ellerman richer. There he sees through almost everything except himself. Mr. Woodward sees through that. Mr. Woodward sees, it seems, through everything. Yet he is not merely brash, not merely knowing. He understands pity; he feels beauty. “Bunk” is satire seasoned with wisdom. It is, in its robust way, mellow and learned. And it comes at a happy moment, when bunk, long eminent, is being suspected as it has hardly been for a century. Perhaps not many people will find themselves at home in this novel. It mocks too many idols for that, and it wanders through too many by-paths. But for all those who look twice and think three times before be- lieving, “Bunk” will be a delight. CARL VAN DOREN The American Spirit Studies in Classic American Literature. By D. H. Lawrence. Thomas Seltzer. $3. A Son at the Front. Sons. $2. M®é: LAWRENCE announces himself as the daughter of Pharaoh who is to rescue the Moses of American litera- ture from the bulrushes of ignorance and neglect. He strips the swaddling clouts from eight American writers and in the pro- cess he exposes himself in a most penetrating fashion. His book is honest, independent, and eccentric, a thousand miles, or a million light-days, away from most books of critical es- says. Mr. Lawrence’s philosophy contains strange and ap- parently unrelated things, though to him the connections are profound and self-evident. His central theme seems to be an attempt to discover in a few American books and American history some characteristics peculiar to the inhabitants of These States. It is an inquiry which has been undertaken by many investigators, foreign and domestic. The result is almost always the same, that is, no final result at all, no conclusion; and the only value of the quest is the interesting observation here and there on the way. America is not homogeneous enough, and was not in the good old days, for any generalization to hold true. And if a generalization holds good for American charac- ter, is it anything but a sweeping idea which is more or less true of the whole human race? I am puzzled by the asser- tions found on almost every page that “this is American,” “especially in America,” “the essential American soul,” “the best Americans,” “as in all Americans,” “so typically Ameri- can,” “real American logic,” in most cases the characteristic in question being more or less universally human. One is tempted to fall back on Mark Twain’s dictum that the only distinctively American peculiarity is a liking for ice-water. Mr. Lawrence despises democracy as it is manifested in America, and many of us who have lived and suffered under it will bitterly agree that our democracy is not liberty. But there seems to be no liberty anywhere from Ireland to China; our bondage differs in no important respect, not an ounce in the weight of the chains, from the bondage of the rest of the world. And Mr. Lawrence’s conclusion, his interpretation of Whit- man’s democracy, “‘of souls in the Open Road, full of glad recog- nition, full of fierce readiness, full of the joy of worship, when one soul sees a greater soul,” is a rhetorical climax to which the rest of the book does not clearly conduce. The core of the book is its tinglingly vital challenge not only to America but to all manner of human quackery and puffery. Because it will offend the patriotic and baffle the stupid, I am inclined to insist on its merits, on its essential: wisdom, on its insolent courage, and to leave to others the many quarrels which it provokes. But because I feel its strength I feel all the more keenly its weaknesses, many of which the puniest re- viewer can light upon and ridicule, or simply misunderstand, as I do. I do not understand the Laurentian physics and anatomy. What in the world is a “polarized circuit” or a “polarized flow” as applied to a storm in the skies or to a By Edith Wharton. Charles Scribner’s bs

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 399 storm in the brain? In what other physiology than Mr. Law- rence’s is it written that “the poles of the will are the great ganglia of the voluntary nerve system, located beside the spinal column in the back,” or that love is the “prime cause of tu- berculosis”’? Mr. Lawrence’s history is shaky. The motives of migration are complicated and may include a spiritual revul- sion against political or religious authority and even some mysterious IT (Mr. Lawrence’s mystical capitals outdo Whit- man or a Hearst editorial). But the main motive for coloniza- tion is economic, the desire to get a better living, to exploit new lands, when life is hard in the old ones. It is that desire which has sent races and individuals across continents and seas. The economic motive is the cause also of revolutions. When the colonies rebelled against the mother country they did indulge in oratory and pamphlets, some of them, including Thomas Paine (not “Tom Payne’), eloquent and idealistic. But the motive was simply practical: to kick out a foreign landlord and tax-collector. Let us alone to manage and ex- ploit this country ourselves. To say that Franklin at the court of France was “contriving the first steps of the overthrow of all Europe, France included,” that he was “making a small but very dangerous hole in the side of England, through which Europe has by now almost bled to death,” is to rewrite history beyond the legitimate limits of individual interpretation. Mr. Lawrence is not more successful with the earlier history of Europe. “Mastery, kingship, fatherhood had their power de- stroyed at the time of the Renaissance.” Nothing like that happened in Europe. In France, for example, the power of kingship was at its height long after the Renaissance. Mr. Lawrence’s modern history is equally whimsical. - “The pat- tern American, this dry, moral utilitarian little democrat has done more to ruin the old Europe than any Russian nihilist.” Which is true only in the sense that the Russian nihilist has done exactly nothing to ruin the old Europe. But Mr. Lawrence is a literary man, not an historian, and his observations on writers and books are exhilarating. His sub- versions of the highly moral maxims of Benjamin Franklin would have delighted A. Ward, an American writer of the old American stock. The remarks on Cooper are illuminating and wise, especially the paragraphs about Natty Bumppo as myth. Dana and Melville Mr. Lawrence heartily appreciates. Poe he but dimly understands, and he wraps that already vexed soul in more confusion and mystery. If Poe “told us plainly how it was, so that we should know,” why muddle his story with baseless conjecture? “Love killed him.” So? That is a purely original contribution on Mr. Lawrence’s part to Poe’s biog- raphy. The two studies of Hawthorne are subtle and mainly just, though marred by irritating trivialities: why should Haw- thorne, whose gray eyes were so deeply shadowed that several of his contemporaries called them black, appear in Mr. Law- rence’s portrait as “a blue-eyed darling’? The essay on Whit- man is least satisfactory, and begins with the strangest of Mr. Lawrence’s perversities, that Whitman’s effects are “post mortem,” like the rest of American literature since 1851 when “Moby Dick” was published, and “the Great White Whale sank the ship of the Great White Soul.” Whitman is the poet of “the soul’s last shout and shriek, on the confines of death.” Let who can make sense of that. Mr. Lawrence deals only with American classics, with the “old people,” and does not mention the living by name, except Sherwood Anderson, “who is so Russian”! But it would be interesting, if we could, to turn upon an important living American writer one or two reflections from Mr. Lawrence’s glancing and erratic lights. Mrs. Edith Wharton was born in New York. Her father’s name was Jones and her mother’s name was Rhinelander. She is as authentically American as anybody can be. Like some other Americans she is cosmo- politan in her experience. The knowledge of eighteenth-century Italy which she shows in “The Valley of Decision” is somewhat deeper than that of the American tourists who arouse Mr. Lawrence’s wrath, who “have done more to kill the sacredness of old European beauty and aspiration than multitudes of bombs.” She is sufficiently familiar with French literature and American history to recognize the irrelevance of this from Mr. Lawrence: “America was not taught by France—by Baudelaire, for example. Baudelaire learned his lesson from America.” Why pick out Baudelaire for an example, the most untranslat- able poet, who did not learn “his lesson” from America, but did find a kindred spirit in Poe? Mrs. Wharton has studied Ameri- can people intimately, presumably white people, the moderately aristocratic society of New York, with its tragedies, as in the story of Lily Bart, and in “Ethan Frome,” the tragedy of the little New Englander of our time, a tragedy as terrible as that of Hester Prynne. Mrs. Wharton’s latest book, “A Son at the Front,” is not her best. It is the story of an American painter in Paris whose French-born son is killed in the war. The boy’s mother is di- vorced from the father and is married to an American banker. Lawrence would love the banker as an occasion to swear about American gold. But what difference is there between American gold and other gold, between a French banker and an American banker? Between a French painter and an American painter? Is the American boy who must have had an “essential American soul” “hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer’—in a time when all Europe was bent on the business of killing? Is not the period after the war, when the whole world went into a bigger and hotter melting-pot than America, precisely the time for phi- losophers like Mr. Lawrence to distrust generalizations about national characteristics, or at least keep them safely in the past—as for the most part he does—and not extend them into the doubtful indicative present? There is one phrase of Mr. Lawrence’s which applies to Mrs. Wharton’s book in a way quite different from anything he in- tended. Her story is out of date. She evidently began it five years ago and laid it aside until last year. It need never have been finished. The war story with little love intrigues and per- sonal sorrows plotted against that disaster is dead. Perhaps many years from now one greater than Hardy or Tolstoi will make an epic of it. For the present the love story with “news from the front” is staler than the Kaiser’s memoirs. And that is why, much as I admire Mrs. Wharton’s skill in character- drawing and her impeccable style, I find in her book, as prob- ably Mr. Lawrence would: “Post-mortem effects. Ghosts.” JOHN Macy Georg Brandes Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Literature... By Georg Brandes. Six volumes. Boni and Liveright. $18. Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century. By Georg Brandes. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $3. Hellas Hinst und Jetzt. Von Georg Brandes. Gottschalk Verlag. EORG BRANDES is one of the great humanists of the age. Born in a small country, his mind embraced the world. Stern and yet warm, incorruptible by friendship or favor, that mind has watched the varying and tragic fortunes of Europe with a profound understanding, a high and saddened benignity. Brandes has always been a good European. In 1870 he watched with Renan the inevitable downfall of the Third Empire; in 1914 he stood not loosely but critically above the battles; today, in his extreme old age, he proclaims with strong but tempered indignation the sordid machinations by which a group of Powers plunged Greece into disaster and stood by in brutal inaction while Smyrna became crimson with blood and flame. Yet this man has been neither politician nor even publicist. He has been a critic and an historian of literature. But his art or craft or science has not meant to him the exploitation of technical scholarship, vast and accurate as his learning is, nor has it been an exercise in aesthetic appreciation despite his sensitiveness to the color of prose, the magic of landscape, the Berlin: Elena

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3 =< —— 400 The Nation . [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 nen cadence of verse. Long before the days of the Croceans he declared all art to be expression, significant and concentrated expression of the entire inner process of civilization. Hence to him the history of literature has been the history, first of fiery and articulate souls, then of the dumb but feeling masses for whom the poets spoke, and so the essential history of man- kind itself. His work, then, it is clear, differs wholly from that of the Saintsburys to whom literature consists of a loose series of delightful exercises in mere writing; nor, on the other hand, has Brandes, like Taine or Villemain or even Scherer, permitted himself to be ensnared by a theory, whether pseudo-scientific or nationalistic, that is antecedent to the literary and human fact. The very function of criticism has seemed to him indeed incom- patible with such or any prejudgment. “For it is criticism,” he declares, “which removes mountains—the mountains of belief in authority, of prejudice, of thoughtless power and dead tra- dition.” It is well to give his theory of the writing of literary history in his own words. The libraries and universities of the world are crowded with men ambitious to add to the history of liter- ature and quite forgetful of the fact that their labors produce no more than the raw material from which the true historian will some day weave the texture of his work. “I shall endeavor, on the one hand,” Brandes wrote long ago, “to treat the his- tory of literature as humanly as possible, to go as deep down as I can, to seize upon the remotest, innermost psychological movements which prepared for and produced the various liter- ary phenomena; and, on the other hand, I shall try to present the result in as plastic and tangible a form as possible... . First and foremost, therefore, I shall trace everywhere the con- nection between literature and life. . . . I go down to the foun- dations of real life and show how the emotions which find their expression in literature arise in the human heart.” He has not, I must add, deceived himself as to the scientific or objective accuracy of the result. He knows with Anatole France that history and criticism, like poetry and music, are but a part of that visionary pageantry by which man makes human and beau- tiful the naked and unhuman world. Thus at the end of his chief work Brandes makes the crucial admission: “The power which has grouped, contrasted, thrown into relief or suppressed, lengthened or shortened, placed in full light, in half light, or in shadow, is none other than that never entirely conscious power to which we usually give the name of art.” No better time than this could have been chosen to reissue the famous “Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Literature.” The work is fresh and strong; it burns with its own fire and light. It does more than that. It illuminates the troubled present. Revolution and devastating war have come over Europe once more. And we find there once more many of the psychological and so literary phenomena that Brandes chronicles of an earlier period. Once more we have the psychology of the émigré, once more the rhetoric of reaction, as in Papini, once more the flight from reality, once called romanticism, now expressionism, once more as in Shelley or the later writers of the Young Germany group, valiant fighters in humanity’s long war of liberation. But I must not give the impression, long as this book has been famous, that Brandes is exclusively kulturgeschichtlich or neglects the vital matter of beauty which is eternal and tran- scends both the squabbles and the disasters of history. He knows that “nothing formless or only half-formed endures.” And he does not hesitate to apply this criterion to so massive a figure as that of Balzac. No English-speaking critic, on the other hand, could show himself more profoundly thrilled by the music of Shelley. And with this blending of sagacity and sensitiveness he produces passage after passage which exemplify the fact*which he restates in the preface to his latest collection of essays: “Criticism is an art, though it is not usually mentioned as one of the fine arts.” Among such passages in the “Main Currents” it is worth while pointing out the exquisite description of Thor- waldsen’s Night and its alienation from the gloom and splendor of the Greek vision, the direct appeal to experience in the analysis of the romantic attitude to nature, the brief but stirring parallel between Shelley and Novalis, the serene appreciation of Landor’s Attic prose, the human warmth, sympathy, insight of the account of George Sand, the lucid and unfaltering discrimination be- tween what is meretricious and what is for all time in the poetry of Heine. It must be remembered finally that the works of this humanist and critic come to us under the heaviest of all literary disadvan- tages. From the point of view of vision and wisdom, of toler- ance and breadth, it has, no doubt, been of the highest service to him to be a Jew and a Dane. But who, as he once asked not without a touch of bitterness, reads Danish? The English trans- lations are accurate enough, but both slack and pedestrian. There can be little doubt but that, in their original tongue, his books display in style and structure a measure of that creative beauty which he has seen so clearly in the works of others, with which, in the books of so many poets in so many lands he has lived so closely and so long. LupWiGc LEWISOHN Poets and Wits Harmonium. By Wallace Stevens. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. Less Lonely. By Alfred Kreymborg. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2. Whipperginny. By Robert Graves. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. Me STEVENS’S most famous poem, Peter Quince at the Clavier, appeared in “Others” as long as seven years ago, and he has continued ever since to dance like a tantalizing star through magazines and anthologies. But there was no volume until now. While some of his admirers called for one rather loudly, the rest were content that Mr. Stevens should exist in bright fragments, being afraid, perhaps, that he might not glitter in the bulk. “Harmonium” will dissolve their doubt, for it places its author high among those wits of today who are also poets—T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Maxwell Bodenheim, Alfred Kreymborg, William Carlos Williams, Aldous Huxley, Sacheverell Sitwell, and Robert Graves. His wit, of course, has nothing of the Augustan about it. It is not clear; it is not the expression of common sense. It is tentative, perverse, and superfine; and it will never be popular. What public will care for a poet who strains every nerve every moment to be unlike anyone else who ever wrote; who writes a remarkable spiritual biography no line of which is transparent and calls it The Comedian as the Letter C; who writes not about a blackbird but about Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird; who gives his pieces such titles as Le Monocle de Mon Oncle, Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores, Homunculus et la Belle Etoile, The Emperor of Ice-Cream, Exposition of the Con- tents of a Cab; and who offers this under Bantams in Pine- Woods? Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan Of tan with henna hackles, halt! Damned universal cock, as if the sun Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail. _ Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal. Your world is you. I am my world. You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat! Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines, Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs, And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos. Mr. Stevens will never be much read. But some day there will be a monograph on him and his twentieth-century kin who ranged their restless faculties over all the deserts and hill-tops of the world to inaugurate a new era of what Dryden once called “wit-writing’—an era which may be short and may be long.

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 401 ere eee eee rere ere Houghton aU —Lompany Announces TENNYSON Harold Nicolson “Solid enjoyment in this well-knit nar- rative for all who like good biog- raphy.”—N. Y. Tribune. $4.00 “The most vital portrayal of the great Victorian Laureate.’—London Tele- graph. $4.00 THE NATION S OF TODAY Edited by John Buchan A new and unique history of the world written under the direction of Mr. Buchan by more than one hundred and twenty distinguished contributors. Especial attention has been given to social, economic, and post-war tendencies, and by discarding non-essential and con- centrating on vital realities—the conditions that determine the daily lives of this genera- tion—the authors have produced a history unlike any that has hitherto been written, and HANDEL George Newman Flowers Filled with vivid glimpses of the Eng- lish court and of life in the eighteenth century, this definite biography is of extraordinary interest and fascination. $7.50 of the widest practical value to men and women of today. Twelve volumes will be pub- — lished this fall. Each $5.00 Send to 2 Park Street, Boston, for prospectus. COSTS AND PROFITS Hudson Bridge Hastings A new and important analysis of the causes of business depressions. Pollak Foundation Series. $2.50 A THEORY OF CONSUMPTION Hazel Kyrk Analyzes our present economic arrangements and formulates a new theory of choice and valuation. Hart Schaffner and Marx Prize Essay. REGULATION AND MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES Charles S. Morgan A study of public utility profits and the relation of returns to efficiency. Hart Schaffner and Marx Prize Essay. $2.50 MY GARDEN OF MEMORY Kate Douglas Wiggin | The life story of one of America’s most famous liter- ary women, told with rare charm. $5.00 CIVILIZATION AND THE MICROBE Arthur I. Kendall An eminent bacteriologist illuminates, in non-technical language, the most fascinating realm that modern science has yet discovered. SOCIAL LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT W. M. Flinders Petrie The daily life of the Egyptian is vividly set forth in this book by the greatest living Egyptologist. 2.00 MY RHINELAND JOURNAL General Henry T. Allen This intimate diary of the general in command of the American forces on the Rhine is a unique document of the first historical importance illuminating from within the politi- cal situation in Europe. [llustrated. OLDER UNIVERSITIES OF ENGLAND Albert Mansbridge A history and interpretation of Oxford and Cambridge written primarily for American readers. $2.50 (Ready Nov. 2) MEMOIRS OF LI HUNG CHANG W. F. Mannix This amazing fabrication (written in a Hawaiian jail) has been re-issued with an introduction by Ralph D. Paine. $2.50 $6.00

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402 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3040 That monograph will pay particular tribute to the pure phras- ing of Mr. Stevens, to his delicately enunciated melody, his economy, his clipped cleanliness of line, his gentle excellence. And it will not be wrong if it finds him more durable, even with all his obscurity, than much of the perfect sense and the perfect rhyme that passed for poetry in his day; if it repre- sents his work as drifting permanently, like frozen chords, through certain memories—the overtone of our droll, creedless time. It was Mr. Kreymborg who introduced Mr. Stevens into “Others,” and the two names are often mentioned together. But Mr. Kreymborg is not the poet that Mr. Stevens is, what- ever else he may genuinely be. Both men write nonsense, but the pages of Mr. Kreymborg lack tension and vibrancy, and so cannot appeal to the ear. Nothing shapes itself in the memory; we do not recall one line. Mr. Kreymborg is naive and charm- ing, and he is an agreeable satirist in prose. In the first and fourth poems here he has recognized some pretty identities be- tween fish and men, between needles and rain. But he de- velops them with a drawl that has nothing to do with poetry, however characteristic of himself it may be. The new sonnets from Italy have a modicum of melody inescapable in the form; they are not otherwise distinguished. “Whipperginny” is the fourth volume of Mr. Graves’s warm and witty verse to appear in America, and it is one of the best. It represents no marked advance in ability, perhaps; yet it con- vinces us that Mr. Graves is continuing to experiment and therefore to grow. He does not intend to die like the Unfortu- nate Artist for whom he writes an epitaph: He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits: This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid, So in the end he could not change the tragic habits This formula for drawing comic rabbits made. He meant what he said in his recent book, “On English Poetry”; he will never publish a poem which has not grown from some psychological experience, which in a way does not write itself out of some twist in his own mind. His mind has many twists. It is a curious mind. And the possessor of it knows how to write. Not a few poems in “Whipperginny” are very bad, but not one of them is dull. Mr. Graves is best at quatrains, which he keeps piquant and surprising because he keeps them full of ideas. “The General Elliott” will be familiar to those who read the analysis of it in “On English Poetry.” The Technique of Perfection is a complete commentary on the Christian ideal in thirteen quaintly ironic quatrains. And there is a funny epigram on one of the poet’s ancestors, not to speak of half a dozen touching and beautiful love-poems. Mr. Graves is estab- lishing himself. MARK VAN DOREN A Great Anti-Imperialist The Life of Sir William Harcourt. By A. G. Gardiner. George H. Doran Company. $12. HAT gives Harcourt’s career its special significance today is his attitude to imperialism. British Liberalism is sick —in the opinion of many, sick unto death. Whatever may be the regimen needed to restore it to sound health, there can be no dif- ficulty in the diagnosis. It is clear enough now that the malady began when the party gave hospitality to the imperialist germ. If it had remained faithful to its old motto of “Peace, retrench- ment, and reform” it would have been spared the ills of which it has lately been the victim, and the history not only of the party but of the nation itself would have been very different. In the light of what has happened since his day Harcourt’s career shines with a brighter luster. This biography shows that his failure to attain to the premiership was due not, as frequently alleged, to the difficulty of his temper but to his tak- ing what was at the time the unpopular side on the issue that was rending the Liberal party at its center. At the moment, Rosebery and his followers triumphed, but their success meant the temporary disappearance of the old Liberal traditions and the committal of the party to the disastrous policy of balance of power and continental entanglements. The event has already amply vindicated the wisdom of Harcourt’s judgment. These volumes tell for the first time the full story of the strug- gle unceasingly waged by Harcourt within the cabinet against the new and fashionable cult. “Ever since the Crimean days,” says Mr. Gardiner, Harcourt was “unfaltering in his attachment to the policy of peace as the chief interest of the country. He opposed intervention in continental affairs, except when that intervention was directed toward the attainment of a common European policy, thought that the country already had more colonial responsibilities than was good for it, resisted provoca- tive expenditure on armaments, which he rightly regarded as one of the roots of international distrust, had long ago nailed his colors to the mast of the Blue Water School, and hated jingoism and its ‘prancing pro-consuls’ in all their manifesta- tions.”” He belonged to the old school of Cobden and Gladstone, and never succumbed to the fascination of Rosebery’s “glitter- ing personality.” During his leadership of the House of Com- mons his chief anxieties arose from the persistent attempts of the Foreign Office to carry out, without even advising him that they were in train, policies of which he heartily disapproved. “The cornerstone of Harcourt’s Liberal faith,” says his biog- rapher, “was the love of peace. Himself the most gladiatorial of men in the sphere of intellectual combat, he loathed war as the denial of the sanity of human relationships. It offended him both by its unreason and its inhumanity.” Though ham- pered by advancing years and failing health, he did what he could to avert the Boer War, and in his last days in Parliament he offered a strenuous resistance to what he regarded as “the great back-wash of post-war reaction.” Closely allied to his anti-imperialism was his devotion to the cause of sound finance. Few chancellors of the exchequer have deserved as well of their country. His death duties budget opened a new era in financial reform. He exercised the whole- some tradition of Treasury control over the spending depart- ments with merciless and masterful insistence, and conducted his controversies with their chiefs with consummate skill and unwearied industry. His last great speech in the House of Commons, a fitting epilogue to his career, was an exposition of his favorite text that “a spendthrift nation means a miserable people.” If only for the light it casts on these two great questions— imperialism and public finance—this biography might easily claim to make a valuable contribution to the history of the period. But what makes this biography most attractive is its picture of the man himself. The big, burly, commanding figure so familiar to his contemporaries lives again in its pages. We are reminded that Harcourt’s earliest reputation was gained not as a politician but as an expert in constitutional and inter- national law. He came first into national prominence through the powerful series of letters he wrote to the Times, over the pseudonym of “Historicus,” on the various delicate juristic questions arising out of the American Civil War, from the rec- ognition of the belligerency of the South to the launching and equipment of the Alabama. One rises from a study of the chapters on this subject with a conviction that Harcourt’s ser- vices to a good Anglo-American understanding have not yet received adequate recognition on either side of the Atlantic. While, however, his eminence as a jurist impressed the mem- bers of his chosen profession—it was attested not only by his successes at the Parliamentary Bar but by his appointment as the first Whewell Professor of International Law at Cam- bridge—it was as a parliamentary debater and leader and a speaker on the public platform that Harcourt became most widely known to his fellow-countrymen. Before everything else he was “a House of Commons man,” and his devotion to that House was largely responsible for his refusal of an offer of a peerage on the occasion of King Edward’s coronation. It was — Ss Rees

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 403 Jo Ellen By Alexander Black Authorof The “Great Desire” ae story of Jo Ellen Rewer, k secretary—of her adven- ventures in Manhattan’s last for- est and longest street—of the High Place that was Promise and the High Place that was Prison— of figures that move in Triangle Alley—of Jo Ellen’s marriage that was not marriage—of look- ing for love and liberty in the same world. $2.00 The By Able Wilson Hi fA Istory of Art By Elie Faure The third volume of this famous. work, Renaissance Art, is now to be had at your bookseller, and the fourth, and last volume, Modern Art, will be ready in November. “For both breadth and depth Mr. Faure’s survey of man the artist is much more impressive than the ‘Outline of History’ or ‘The Story of Mankind.’ ’—Lewis Mumford in the New Re- public. Over 200 illustrations in each volume. $7.50 each Harper & Brothers Fstablished 1817 Margaret McLaughlins Lummox By Fannie Hurst o AN extraordinarily fine achieve- ment, Miss Hurst’s portrait of. ‘Bertha’ in, “Wammaex.* . This girl, unexpressed, groping, simple- minded, is a true and powerful sym- bol of the peasant type the world over. In a style that is realistic, al- most naturalistic at times, Miss Hurst strikes a new note for herself and brings from it a characteriza- tion of power and beauty.’+—John Farrar, Editor of the Bookman. $2.00 ay A9 Fast 55" Street New York, N. Y. Undertow By Henry K. Marks Author of Peter “Middleton” cl HAVE rarely come across an author who could so rap- idly and with such absolute sure- ness transport the reader into the surroundings willed by him. I try to recall but I search in vain for dialogues of such furious in- tensity as these; they are of the whole human animal fighting for his need.”’—René Boylesve of the Academie Francaise. $2.00 ae judges of the Harper Prize Novel Contest, Carl Van Doren, Henry Seidel Canby and Jesse Lynch Williams are unanimous in their choice of Mar- garet Wilson’s “The Able McLaughlins” as winner of the $2,000 prize, from over seven hundred other manu- scripts submitted. It is a novel of the pioneer middle- west. Harper & Brothers present it, confident that the public will say, with the judges—‘‘Here is a very fine novel, indeed.” Winner of the Harper $2,000 Prize Novel Contest $2.00 Erasmus By Preserved Smith, Ph. D. Prof. of History at Cornell University A Story of his Life, of his Ideals, and of his Place in History. Here in the study of the brilliant and versa- tile mind of Erasmus, new light is cast upon the intellectual, religious, and political history of his time, and on the relation of the Renais- sance to the Reformation. $4.00 Foundations of the Modern Commonwealth By Professor Arthur N. Holcombe, Harvard University W HAT is justice? And what is liberty? Is there any real freedom in a state where men are compelled to obey laws which they dislike? These are some of the questions which Dr. Holcombe takes up. nature of the state and the purposes of its existence, with particular reference to popular government at the present time. Collected Poems Second Series By W. H. Davies Author of “The Hour of Magic” W. H. Davies was first notorious as a tramp poet, then famous. For those who came to him out of curiosity, remained to praise. He is one of the major English poets in the lyric vein of our times, and this is his best and most revealing book. $2.00 He also discusses the $3.00

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as a great House of Commons man—“one of the greatest par- liamentary figures we have known in our experience”—that his memory was especially honored by Lord Balfour. After exalt- ing his great powers in debate, his unequaled knowledge of par- liamentary procedure, and his rare intellectual gifts, this dis- tinguished leader of the opposite party declared that he pos- sessed also in a supereminent degree the quality which can only be described as “personality.” ‘Whether Sir William spoke or was silent,” said Balfour, “no one could forget for a moment that he was present.” “His vigor and vitality were extraordinary,” testifies Sir Laurence Guillemard, who was for ten years Harcourt’s private secretary at the Treasury. “They were to scale with his enor- mous frame. When he was in the vein, his talk was burgundy to other people’s claret; when he was well, he made other people seem feeble and anemic; when he was ill, he was ill with all his might, and resorted to Gargantuan remedies.” Indeed, if one wished to describe Harcourt concisely, one would need only to say of him that in every sense he was a big man. “The vast contours of his personality,” says his biographer, “‘did not fit themselves easily into the small conventions of things. He needed a free air and ample room for his large movements. He bulged over enormously into the world of considered etiquette. He was himself, Harcourt, large, arrogant, joyous, ebullient as a gale from the West, and as hard to confine within the narrow limits of artificial decorums.” It was characteristic of him that he smoked only fat cigars, and that he consumed them in vast quantities. Mr. Gardiner successfully meets the common charge that Har- court was consumed with ambition and jealousy. If so, he would not have exerted himself, as he did in 1886, to keep within the ranks of the Liberal party his most dangerous rival to the succession, nor would it have been possible to say of him that “he was never more industrious in his parliamentary labors, or more tireless in service for the causes to which he was devoted, than when, grown old and with heavy private burdens suddenly thrust upon him, he had no reward to look for except the satis- faction of his sense of what was due from him to his country.” English Liberals have had good reason to lament the ill fate which recently removed Mr. Gardiner from the editorship of the London Daily News, where for so many years he had given such brilliant evidence of his journalistic ability. It is some compensation that the leisure he has thus acquired has given him the opportunity of writing this admirable memoir—a book which easily stands in the front rank of the biographies of the year. HERBERT W. HORWILL Can Germany Pay? Germany’s Capacity to Pay. By H. G. Moulton and C. E. Mc- Guire, with the aid of the Council and Staff of the Institute of Economics. McGraw-Hill Book Company. $2.50. a establishing the Institute of Economics, the Carnegie Cor- poration declared that “in committing to the trustees the ad- ministration of the endowment of the Institute of Economics, over which the corporation will have no control whatsoever, it has in mind a single purpose—namely, that the institute shall be conducted with the sole object of ascertaining the facts about current economic problems and of interpreting these facts for the people of the United States in the most simple and under- standable form.” In preparing the first volume of the institute’s publications, Moulton and McGuire have perfectly lived up to the standard proclaimed by the Carnegie Corporation. Their sole object evi- dently was to ascertain the facts and after having done so they wrote the first thorough study on the reparation problem, in the most simple and understandable form. What has Germany paid? Allied and German estimates or calculations of the reparation payments already made are widely divergent. The Reparation Commission acknowledged receipts 404 The Nation | [Vol. 117, No. 3040 to the amount of 8 billion gold marks while the German Gov- ernment contends that it should be credited with 44 billion gold marks. Moulton and McGuire, after an impartial analysis of the available data, arrive at the conclusion that the tangible values surrendered by Germany to the Reparation Commission aggregate between 25 and 26 billion gold marks. In making this estimate they do not credit to Germany, for instance, the 11.6 billion gold marks which Germany claims to have “paid” to the Reparation Commission by ceding, on the request of the Allies, the loans she had made to her war-time associates, Aus- tria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Moulton and McGuire do not credit these securities to Germany because they are not tangible values, but they think that, while these securities are not much worth at present, “they ought in fairness to be re- corded now at a nominal value of at least 1 gold mark, subject to such ultimate revision as the future may warrant.” Another big item which Germany includes and the Reparation Commis- sion excludes consists of 11.7 billion gold marks of property of German citizens in foreign countries which has been seized and liquidated by the Allied governments. In this case, Moulton and McGuire share the viewpoint of Germany, since at the time of its seizure this property was yielding interest and profits to German citizens and its loss undeniably means a net reduction in the income of the German people. As, however, there is a possibility that Germany will get credit for as much as 1.5 billion gold marks for property returned by the Alien Property Custodian of the United States, they conclude that Germany’s ultimate loss in this connection will be about 10 billion gold marks and therefore credit Germany with this sum. They also approach the German viewpoint as to the principles of valua- tion which should be used for the deliveries in kind. In gen- eral, it appears that the Allies have taken, as the value of a commodity, the lowest estimate of its worth from the point of view of immediate marketability—that is, the price at which it could be liquidated at forced sale. The German principle, on the other hand, appears to be one which considers each piece of property as part of a going concern, with a value much in excess of what could be realized at auction. Moulton and Mc- Guire say that the German principle is obviously more nearly in accordance with accepted fiscal, commercial, and legal prac- tice. The British and French governments valued the ships destroyed by Germany at a figure representing their actual worth in the carrying trade; and they computed the values at war-time prices. It is not consistent, therefore, to contend at the time of the shipping depression of 1920-21, when the Repa- ration Commission made its valuation, “that ships delivered dur- ing the boom period of 1919 were not worth much.” Germany had estimated the value of the merchant marine surrendered by her at 5% billion gold marks; the Reparation Commission had credited her with only % billion gold marks. Moulton and McGuire consider “3.5 billions as the very least value to Ger- many which these ships could have had at the time of delivery.” How has Germany paid? A nation cannot pay foreign obli- gations unless that nation is able to muster an excess of exports of goods and services over imports of goods and services. Ger- many, however, had at no time since the war an exportable surplus available for reparations, but instead a cumulative deficit of approximately 10 billion gold marks. She could tem- porarily make reparation payments in spite of this huge deficit in her international trade and financial account (1) by the sale of the remnants of German foreign investments; (2) by the sale of paper marks to speculators in foreign countries; and (3) by the sale to foreigners of shares of stock and property in Germany. Moulton and McGuire accept the official German estimate according to which 1 billion gold marks have been derived from the liquidation of foreign investments still held at the end of the war; they accept the estimate of Keynes that paper marks to the extent of 8 billion gold marks have been sold to foreigners since the war, but they reject his erroneous estimate that only 1 billion gold marks have been realized from the sale to foreigners of domestic property within Germany and

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 405

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show that these investments amounted in reality to at least 8 billion gold marks—one-half of which may have been paid with paper marks. What can Germany pay? The liquidation of former German investments abroad is practically complete; the sale of paper marks to foreign speculators and of German securities and Ger- man property to foreign investors does not yield any more essential returns; in the future, Germany could meet reparation payments only by an excess of exports of goods and services over imports. Moulton and McGuire are pessimistic as to the possibilities of such an excess, because, according to their esti- mate, Germany’s imports must amount (at present prices) to not less than 14 billion gold marks, if the present German popu- lation is to be permitted to survive and to work at pre-war efficiency, if Germany is to regain her export trade. Moulton and McGuire are certainly right. Germany can in the long run pay reparations only by exporting more than she imports and she will not export more than she imports—if every farmer, every manufacturer, every merchant continues to carry on his business as he pleases, just as he did in pre-war times and ever since. But the productive efficiency of the German people and the surplus of exportable goods might be greatly increased by replacing anarchic through regulated production. This possibility, which has not been considered by Moulton and McGuire, would, it is true, not have very much effect as long as the export markets for German goods are curtailed by the gen- eral impoverishment of Europe, and still more so by the erection everywhere of tariff barriers. “One can find no more striking illustration of human fatuity than the demand on the part of the Allied countries that Ger- many must make vast reparation payments and the simulta- neous erection of tariff barriers, the result of which is to make such payments impossible. The tragedy is that even yet few people realize that any inconsistency is involved.” It is to be hoped that the courageous book of Moulton and McGuire will have the result that the statesmen of the Allied countries at last will realize this inconsistency. The World War has not yet been followed by a World Peace. There can be no World Peace without a fair solution of the reparation problem. There can be no fair solution of the reparation prob- lem unless German goods are welcome on all the markets of the world. R. R. KuczyNnskI ait ae Giovanni Verga Mastro-Don Gesualdo. By Giovanni Verga. Translated by D. H. Lawrence. Thomas Seltzer. $2.50. W HEN Giovanni Verga died in 1922, aged eighty-two years, he was the most famous and least-read novelist in Italy. Indeed, it is probable that he had more admirers and fewer read- ers than any famous writer of his time. His career was unique, for in the first ten years, from 1866 to 1876, he was a successful and popular author of novels in the manner of Octave Feuillet, which, to this day, far exceed in sales the later and important works on which his permanent fame must rest. Then he pub- lished the volume of short stories containing “Cavalleria Rusti- cana,” and had the sardonic pleasure of seeing that work become known all over the world as the more or less anonymous libretto of Mascagni’s opera. The following year his masterpiece ap- peared, “I Malavoglia,” and seven years later, in 1888, came “Mastro-Don Gesualdo.” These were announced as the first two volumes of a pentalogy with the general title of “The Defeated,” but the third was never finished, and the fourth and fifth vol- umes, so far as is known, were never written. Verga’s literary life may be said to have ceased thirty-four years before his death. During that time his youthful novels were in every book- store and railway newsstand, but the two greatest works of fic- tion in Italian literature since Manzoni lay neglected, except for the praise of the critics, beginning with Croce, who recognized what their predecessors in the eighties had been too blind to see. Verga’s fame abroad has followed very much the same course. 406 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3040 In spite of the efforts of Edouard Rod, who translated “I Mala- voglia,” the book had no success in France. In America the novel appeared in 1890, under the title of “The House by the Medlar Tree,” with an introduction by Howells. This English version is far from satisfactory, but according to Verga it sold well enough to induce an English publisher to make an agree- ment for “Mastro-Don Gesualdo.” I can find no record of that translation, so it seems the honors go to Mr. D. H. Lawrence for introducing this novel to the English-speaking public—thirty-five years after its first publication! Yet, in those mid-Victorian (metaphorically speaking) American eighteen-nineties, “I Mala- voglia” was available in English nine years after its appearance in Italy. Some day, when we have recovered from our delight in our own progressiveness, someone will point out all that was done in that benighted era to bring the literature of continental Europe within the reach of the American public. Meanwhile it is interesting to note the parallel between the fate of Verga’s work in his own country and in this. One thing, however, must be said at the outset: the translation of ‘‘Mastro-Don Gesualdo” is far superior to that of “I Malavoglia.” Verga is an exceed- ingly difficult author to “get” in another language. His use of Sicilian dialect is discreet and effective, but he adapted Italian to the rhythms of Sicilian, its turns of speech, very much in the way Synge gave English the flavor and tang of Irish. Nothing of this was in “The House by the Medlar Tree,” which was also prettified and bowdlerized; there is a great deal of it in this version of “Mastro-Don Gesualdo,” which is one of the best translations I have seen for some time. We have too many translations by translators and not enough by men of letters. The second volume of “The Defeated,” like the first, is a vast picture of Sicilian life, but now it is not the ruin of a peasant family, as in “The Malavoglia,” but the disintegration of the middle class that Verga has studied, destroyed, when it emerges as wealthy peasantry, by contact with the ruined nobility. Gesualdo Motta is a self-made man who has accumulated his fortune slowly and painfully, with all the pertinacity of those who are close to the soil and who struggle with the forces of nature. The time has come for him to move definitely out of the sphere which has been his for generations, so he marries the daughter of a penniless family of nobles, who thus acquire his wealth and get rid of the problem presented by a girl who has given herself to a man of her own class but cannot marry him because she has no dowry. The marriage, naturally, is a failure, and the child that is born to this ill-matched couple does not redeem it. Gesualdo concentrates upon Isabella his frustrated hopes, but the more he gives her the less she is his, for he pro- vides the education, the luxuries, the ease, which are the essence of her aristocratic being. She is her mother’s child not his. She marries into her own class, moves off to the city, and lives in ducal splendor remote from this rugged old man. Her mother dies and Gesualdo is left alone to witness the crumbling away of his own fortune, and the disruption of the whole social order which had seemed as immutable and eternal as the land and the succession of the seasons. His own life is bound up with that of the period, which is the middle of the nineteenth century, and the political movements of the time, the revolutions of 1820 and 1848, have their strange repercussions in that remote Sicilian village where the scene is laid. The peasants are in revolt against him; he is old and sick and has no bond of affection with a living soul except Diodata, once his servant and the mother of his children, whom he had to dismiss in order to make his way in the world. Like a wounded animal he bears his sufferings, suspecting those who would help him, filled with atavistic superstitions concerning the wiles of doctors and the peasant’s distrust of medicines be- cause of the money they cost. Finally he sets off for Palermo to live with his child. The magnificence of the palace over- whelms him, the extravagance and luxury break his heart, as he thinks of the good land that is being squandered, the insolence and number of the servants terrify him. He takes refuge in an isolated apartment in that great house, watches from his window

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Oct. 10, 1923] Sood FICTION Theodore Dreiser’s THE “GENIUS” Reissue of the withdrawn 1915 edi- tion. 4th printing. $3.00 Edgar Lee Masters’ THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT Woman as the human Queen ae Ben Hecht’s THE FLORENTINE DAGGER A mystery story written by a genius. $2.00 Ludwig Lewisohn’s DON JUAN The author of “Up Stream” writes a novel of divorce. $2.00 7 Waldo Frank’s HOLIDAY A tense dramatic story of the Young South, Black and White. $2.00 Leonora Eyles’ HIDDEN LIVES The most highly praised novel of the season. $2.50 Ernita Lascelles’ THE SACRIFICIAL GOAT “A novel as clever as the devil.’’— N. Y. Eve. Post. $2.00 Frederick Niven’s fos LCE OF THE PEACE Hugh Walpole and Christopher Mor- ley introduce this brilliantly good novel from England. $2.50 Djuna Barnes’ A BOOK Ranks with writers like Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Wolff, and Mary Butts. $2.50 Gordon King’s HORATIO’S STORY A novel of Harvard’s academic cir- cles. 2.00 Sarah G. Millin’s THE JORDANS A “better than Olive Schreiner” ‘tale of South African life.’ ” $2.00 Sood MYSTERY THE RED AND:GREEN MYSTERY-DETECTIVE SERIES Nation readers who have kept from indulging the universal taste for mys- tery literature, can do so now without fear of intellectual insult in this new series. Carolyn Wells, one of the most noted writers in this field, helps us to select them. Three are ready, the first by Joe Gollomb, well known to Nation readers. $2.00 each Joseph Gollomb’s THE GIRL IN THE FOG Jeanette Helm’s WITHOUT CLUES Carolyn Wells’ MORE LIVES THAN ONE BONI € LIVERIGHT The Nation Van Loon’s great successor to THE STORY OF MANKIND THE STORY OF THE BIBLE For those who have read the Bible and those who haven’t, for men and women of all faiths, this great work, which has been called the Spiritual “Story of Mankind,” is an indispen- sable book. Made uniform with ‘The Story of Mankind” and even more fully illustrated, 16 full pages in full color, etching tone and over 150 illus- trations in black and white. The Bible as history, folk lore, literature and law, as well as a Holv Writ, is here beautifully revealed. $5.00 C. M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta “One of the greatest prose works of our time, and one of the greatest travel books of any time.” —London Mercury. One of the rarest of modern mas- terpieces, this edition (limited to 750 copies) is the first to reach America. The original Cambridge Edition to which the present edition, except for the binding and the insertion of a special preface by Col. T. E. Law- rence, is exactly similar, cost $50.00, but is obtainable now only at a much higher price. Two volumes, boxed, large 8vo. black buckram binding. $17.50 New MODERN LIBRARY Titles To the more than 100 titles now in the Modern Library a new title is be- ing added monthly: September, Oc- tober and November titles are: Ouida’s IN A WINTER CITY, The LE GALLIENNE ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN POETRY, and Cabell’s BEYOND LIFE. 95c. each GOOD BOOKS good ‘AUTOBIOGRAPHY Anonymous HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL High court judge tells of his rise from gangster life. $3.00 Edwin Justus Mayer’s Py PREDACE TO, LLBE “A Modern Pilgrim’s Progress.”’ $2.50 Maxim Gorky’s MY INTELLECTUAL LIFE The candid, robust, almost Rabelai- sian record of the intellectual develon- ment of our greatest Russian contem- porary. Octavo, $3.00 Elisabeth Marbury’s MY CRYSTAL BALL Miss Marbury fascinatingly records her experiences with the intellectual nobility of two generations. $3.00 Sood PLAYSandPOETRY Eugene O’Neill’s THE FOUNTAIN, and WELDED Two new plays from America’s greatest dramatist. $2.00 Zoe Akins’ DECLASSEE AND OTHER PLAYS Contains Déclassée, Daddy’s gone a Hunting, and Greatness. $2.00 RAIN The triumph of the year dramatised from Somerset Maugham’s great story. $2.00 John Cournos’ IN EXILE ' The poems of a great novelist who in his sensitive prose manifested great poetic powers. $1.50 Maxwell Bodenheim’s AGAINST THIS AGE A profound criticism of our times, following upon the author’s great suc- cess, “Introducing Irony.” $1.75 OTHER Yood bavks Sheldon Cheney’s A PRIMER OF MODERN ART The first complete book on modern art tendencies, fully illustrated. $5.00 Charles Fort’s NEW LANDS An amazing expose of astronomical “certainties.’ $3.00 THE THOMAS JEFFERSON BIBLE Jefferson revealed as the forerunner of Modern Ethical movements. 2.50 aie eam TE ACL a RA

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408 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 the frittering away of all that his labors built up, reads in his daughter’s eyes a misery comparable to his own, and knows that her marriage and life have been defeats as surely as his. The final pages in which the death of Mastro-Don Gesualdo is described are among the most powerful in modern literature. Balzac never surpasse dthem in “Pére Goriot,” and it is argu- able that, on the whole, Gesualdo is a finer, a more complete con- ception of the type than Balzac’s. Verga succeeds in conveying the tragedy of this central character with marvelous poignancy, but, at the same time, he never loses sight of the vast social drama of which he is an infinitesimal part. Mastro-Don Gesualdo is the peasant in his relation to the land, man the acquisitive animal in relation to property, and within these two limits Verga shows us the whole gamut of human experience. Verga was born in the same year as Daudet and Zola, his best work was contemporary with that of Maupassant, and with all three he has been compared by the historians of naturalism. He is not dwarfed by the comparison, for his short stories hold their own even with “Boule de Suif,” and neither “L’Assommoir” nor “Le Nabab” equal their Italian counterparts, “I Mala- voglia” and ““Mastro-Don Gesualdo.” ERNEST BoyD History of Painting The Early Northern Painters. Their Art and Times as Illus- trated from Examples of Their Work in the National Gallery, London. By Mrs. C. R. Peers. The Medici Society. A History of Italian Painting. By Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. Henry Holt and Company. $3.50. S a guidebook for a casual visitor who is not an art student to a particular section of the English National Gallery Mrs. Peers’s book is as good a companion as one could wish to have. It is chatty, informing, and pleasantly discursive. It makes no pretense to any critical estimates of the works of the early Flemish, Dutch, and German painters with which it deals, because that was not the intention of the author in writing the book. As with her previous volume on “The Early Italian Painters,” Mrs. Peers deals with the Northern primitives for the purpose of using their paintings as illustrating the life and times in which they worked. From the pictures in this gallery by Jan van Eyck, Robert Campion, Roger van der Weyden, Peter Christus, Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling, Gerard David, Joachim Patinis, Quinten Matsys, Jan Gossart de Marbuse, Lucas Cra- nach, Albrecht Diirer, and Hans Holbein she selects the material for reconstructing the social life of their times and ingeniously suggesting their points of view. At the same time she takes occasion to relate the more important facts in the lives of the artists and the historic events which form the subject matters of their paintings. Of the sitters for the portraits executed by these painters she gives interesting biographical information and anecdotes. The book is a book of facts, not of values. It is a book of information, primarily, and only secondarily of education. As such it is both well written and well illustrated. Professor Mather’s book on Italian painting is of an entirely different character, both in matter and manner. It is a book for the art student and the art connoisseur. It is criticism in the constructive sense of the word, founded on an estimate of per- sonal acquaintance with the works of the artists and a really sane independence of judgment. It is especially to be com- mended in that it develops the progress of painting in Italy as an expression of its national life and as a flowering of its aspira- tions. Students who may find the works of Crowe and Cavalca- selle and Berenson somewhat difficult reading will weleome.Pro- fessor Mather’s most helpful and illuminating analyses, which are the ripe fruits of a sympathetic appreciation of the artists as well as of a vital understanding of the times in which they lived and labored. His treatment of Masaccio is as fine an exposition as has been written of this original force in the world of art, which brought about an entire change in the artist’s expression of his relation between the world of his imagination and the world of reality. Professor Mather modestly claims that his book is for the beginner. While it is true that he omits, as he says, whatever might confuse the novice, and avoids controversial problems which might puzzle the reader unacquainted with the originals, he does set down judgments which demand for their acceptance a knowledge which few beginners possess. Had the illustrations in the book been as fulfilling as his descriptions, even the be- ginner could have followed the reasoning and embraced the con- clusions. Unfortunately the reproductions of the paintings described are of so poor a quality both as photographs and printed work that many of them fail to respond to the author’s demands on them. The moral may be pointed, but the tale is not adorned. They fail to make good the enthusiasm of his descriptions. Apart from this defect, for which Professor Mather cannot be blamed, the book as a handy guide to the study of Italian painters from Giotto to Domenichino, is indispensable to every student of their art. A valuable feature is the infor- mation given in notes as to the best authorities to be consulted for further reading and study. TEMPLE SCOTT An Italian Humorist The Late Mattia Pascal. By Luigi Pirandello. Translated by Arthur Livingston. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2.50. JOCOSE Italian comic opera, sung by the uproariously drunken inmates of a madhouse. Such is not Mattia Pascal in plot; it is certainly Mattia Pascal in spirit. The fevered Pirandellians never talk—they mutter, they hiss, they scream; they never walk—they bolt, they gallop, they spin. True, the burrowing thief Malagna, the acrid Aunt Scolastica, the frantic mother-in-law Pescatore have their rational intervals. But it is the rationality of the bedlam Epicurus, who loudly pro- testing that his diet will be only melted pearls, nevertheless ravenously devours his dinner of plebeian pot-roast. In a long preface the author proves, by a series of newspaper clippings, how the human beings of fact sometimes act as do his creatures of fiction. Granted. Yet does that prove them any the less insane? It is superfluous labor. No excuse is needed for mad- ness so droll, so merry, so exhilarating. Poor haphazard, philosophic Mattia of the cock-eye! Tor- tured by a mooning wife and a screeching mother-in-law, he reads on a train the fervid story of his own tragic suicide in a mill-flume. The erroneous identification is the key to his freedom. The barber shaves him close, he buys a pair of thick blue glasses; thus simply he buries Mattia Pascal, and a new entity, Adriano Meis, is born. Too soon Adriano finds. absolute freedom to exist only in the lying tomes of the schol-- ars. If his money is stolen, he cannot complain to the police: Adriano is not a man legalized by a birth certificate. He can- not buy a plaintive shivering puppy: the philanthropic pur-- chase would necessitate reporting his name and ancestry to the collector of dog taxes. Nor can he fall in love; love would mean confidences and ultimate discovery. Months of misery elapse: the despairing Adriano, automaton born of a news- paper, goes back into nothingness. Out of his hat, cane, and a farewell note left lying on the Margharita Bridge, Mattia Pascal, a waggish phoenix, arises reborn, to return to the- white-faced village of his nativity, and reverently lay flowers upon his own grave. Mattia the Don Quixote, Mattia the Don Juan, Mattia the Unexpected. His code the reader never knows. One hour the trifler, the next the pious knight; one moment beguiling the feminine, the next windmilling its attackers. Always attrac- tive, except when abstruse philosophy dulls his bantering dis-. course. Dramatic as any of the Pirandellian plays is this Pirandel- lian novel. A ribald vigor sweeps through its pages; no chap--

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation Shall Science and Knowledge Perish in the Central Powers? EMERGENCY SOCIETY for GERMAN and AUSTRIAN SCIENCE and ART TO THE READERS OF THE NATION: NEW YORK, September, 1923. It is well known that universities and scientists in Austria and Germany are in dire need. They are suffering not only physically, but also intellectually. Appeals without number reach us, setting forth the distress of scientific institutions and societies whose activities are important for the scientific achievements of the future. To alleviate this situation, the Emergency Society for German and Austrian Science and Art has been organ- ized. Since 1920 it has contributed to the maintenance of scientific work in Austria and Germany by assisting institutions and by furnishing means for research and publication. The Society is working in close cooperation with the ““Notgemeinschaften oesterreichischer und deutscher Wissenschaft’? which embrace all Austrian and German uni- versities and scientific institutions of importance. All funds received by this society are transmitted and distributed without delay and enable scholars and scientists to carry on their studies. ‘The need of such help is acknowledged by the League of Nations whose appeal has been widely published. We sincerely hope that everyone will help us in our work by joining the Society or by a contribution and by the encouragement which cooperation will give to those in distress in these afflicted countries. During 1922 about $12,000 was sent abroad by the Committee for this work. Since January, 1923, $11,000 has been sent. If any member or subscriber desires that his contribution be allotted to a particular branch of science or a par- ticular institution, his wishes will be carried out. J. A. BEWER Union Theological Seminary, New York FRANZ BOAS Columbia University, New York L. D. COFFMAN President University of Minnesota, Minnesota, Minn. JOHN DEWEY Columbia University, New York H. H. DONALDSON Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pa. STEPHEN P. DUGGAN Institute of International Education, New York ROBERT H. FIFE Columbia University, New York ROSS G. HARRISON Yale University, New Haven, Conn. JOHN GRIER HIBBEN President Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. A. R. HOHLFELD University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. ERNEST MARTIN HOPKINS President Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hamp. CARL F. KAYSER Hunter College, New York Yours very truly, CAMILLO VON KLENZE College of the City of New York FRANK R. LILLIE University of Chicago, Chicago, III. GEORGE F. MOORE Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. W. A. NEILSON President Smith College, Northampton, Mass. W. A. OLDFATHER University of Illinois, Urbana, III. THOMAS A. OLIVER University of Illinois, Urbana, II. WILLIAM F. OSGOOD Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. EDWARD L. THORNDIKE Columbia University, New York EDWARD UHLENHUTH Rockefeller Institute, New York WILLIAM H. WELCH Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. WILLIAM WHEELER Bussey Institute, Harvard University, Boston, Mass. Checks should be made payable to JAMES SPEYER, Treasurer. JAMES SPEYER, Care The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, N. Y. C. Enclosed please find $............ ,-my contribution to the Emergency Society for German and Austrian Science and Art, (Please state if for any particular branch of science or a par- ticular institution.) Ira tS AR UN ae ESARECOR TNS ATs TE TE ie atte cis cc case des eee eee ee eee eee eee reese eeeeeeseesreseseresrseeeneseeeererere Please send me particulars about membership in your Emer- gency Society for German and Austrian Science and Art. CC Se lWiaEGLain le © 5)0 Mc else 86. 0.0)0 0 06. 4)6 0 cee 6 > 0.0 6.0 6 8 06 8 2 e Ke =

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410 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3040 ter lacks its impassioned arguments, its blustering combats, its frenzies at the gaming table. Action is everywhere: action gained through a glowing, almost curt dialogue. Perhaps Charles Chaplin is a reader of Italian. Perhaps he chanced to come upon Mattia Pascal published in the original twenty years ago. Assuredly the Rabelaisian climax of the war between the two Amazons, Scolastica and the Widow Pescatore, might well have furnished the inspiration for his early Pie Arma- geddons. Every character, momentary though his appearance may be, is invested with droll individuality. Don Eligio, the recondite Bocecamazza librarian, who spends an entire forenoon divorcing a pair of books which have embraced each other by the bind- ings; Guendolina, the gourmand wife with her petulant ral wish the Lord would give you one good cramp like those I have”; the amiable Roman drunkard who beholding Mattia’s woebegone face, squats down to look up at him in bewilder- ment and exclaim optimistically, “Cheer up, brother! Let’s see you crack a smile!” The spirited, sympathetic translator remarks that the vol- ume is the most important novel of the New Italy. It seems rather a pity that the book should be thus damned to the death of a classic. Had he declared it the most merry and the most diverting, he would have been very near the truth. BEN LUCIEN BURMAN Books in Brief The Manuscript of Youth. By Diana Patrick. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2. A patience of finer texture than the average is indispensable to a faithful perusal of Miss Patrick’s involved paragraphs. Nearly every sentence carries the ballast of three or more thoughts—good thoughts, all of them—but it’s rather slow work untangling them from the commas. For the rest, a more or less conventional love story, of English setting. Deep Channel. By Margaret Prescott Montague. Atlantic Monthly Press. $1.90. A timid old maid falls in love with an equally timid married man, and by sinking their fears jointly in their emotion they generate sufficient courage to fortify a novelist. There is noth- ing notably new in this narrative, either in the theme or treat- ment. At the rate with which books of this type are being produced, it should not be long before all the starved souls of fiction are fed. Seven for a Secret. pany. $2. This novel by the author of ‘‘Gone to Earth” has substantial merits, even though they are of modest proportions. Mrs. Webb. demonstrates an ability to get beneath the surface of emotions. Thomas Hardy is her model and to him she dedi- cates her book. Hitching one’s wagon to a star is not for- bidden in the traffic regulations of literature, but Mrs. Webb by no means attains the celestial pace. “Seven for a Secret” travels with all four wheels on the ground. The Back Seat. By G. B. Stern. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. Books from the pen of G. B. Stern bear the stamp of a civi- lized mind. “The Back Seat” is no exception. Interesting human beings are placed in intelligible situations, and the re- sultant problems worked out with alert sympathy and an ample measure of philosophy. In this story, the situation develops around an actress and a wise husband who realizes the advan- tages of holding the back seat—a theme with Barriesque impli- cations, done very much in that mood. Hidden Lives. By Leonora Eyles. Boni and Liveright. $2.50. The author of this novel has expended a great deal of sin- cere effort, and maintained a good average of workmanship, but the story is such a pile of woe that it outbalances all other factors. Here is a narrative hoist by its own petard—the By Mary Webb. George H. Doran Com- A compound of social wel- fare and religious fanaticism is an explosive mixture at best, and Mrs. Eyles appears to lack either the humor or the dis- petard, in this case, being the plot. cretion to keep it within the bounds of plausibility. In ability to absorb disaster, Mrs. Eyles’s reader is apt to reach the saturation-point some little time before her heroine does. Bread. By Charles G. Norris. Dutton and Company. $2. The monosyllabic economy which prompts Mr. Norris in his selection of titles—‘“Salt,” “Bread,” “Brass’—seems to desert him completely when it comes to the actual writing. In his latest work, which runs well beyond 500 compact pages, he cherishes every crumb of detail, every dry crust of incident, and—like a frugal cook—makes today’s unconsumed bread the foundation of tomorrow’s pudding. Beyond a certain point, this ceases to be a dietetic virtue, and one wishes that the novelist had been willing to discard a little more, retaining only the essentials of his otherwise interesting and well-composed novel, which deals sanely with the problem of the woman in business and its bearing upon marriage. Music Striking the Hour E who live in New York are so apt to have our concep- tion of general conditions at large biased by those which prevail here that we often lose perspective of a movement. This is especially true of the musical situation in America which, at present, holds a unique place in the annals of our cultural progress. The war which recently ruined half the world enriched us in more ways than one; for it literally dumped the musical wealth of Europe upon our shores, much, it must be added, to our dismay. We were not ready to receive it because, for one reason, the tide had hitherto always flowed ‘toward Europe rather than from it; and, for another, the territory, as a whole, was still too virgin for ready distribution. Even New York, best prepared of all, perhaps, to handle it, grew increasingly helpless and bewildered at this unceasing bombardment of tone. Unexpectedly elevated from a relatively minor position to the foremost musical market in the world, with what seemed all the talent in the world clamoring for recognition, and her musical activities suddenly increased at least 50 per cent, she immediately lost her balance in judg- ment and taste. She became so jaded with perfection that only the super-normal pleased her; so weary from this impact with ambition that the hundreds of ensuing failures depressed her. What she did not realize was that what seemed to fail in New York was often not so much from lack of inherent worth as from absence of just those qualities which make an abnormal appeal. And that her continuous pessimism was more the re- sult of her own auditory fatigue and actual ignorance of what became of these so-called “failures” than of the truth of con- ditions as they are. The situation is, of course, serious, but more so to the Ameri- can musician than to the foreign. For the former has wel- comed the latter with open arms, and the latter has not always reciprocated in kind. Even so impartial an observer as Loudon Charlton admits this. Yet he also claims that sensationalism isnot the general creed of the country, and that artistic appre- ciation everywhere is “on the wpoward path, not downward.” And Mr. Charlton is in a position to know. For twenty-five years he has been a pioneer in managerial fields, and the artists. he has guided to success have, for the most part, been more distinguished for fine musical sensibilities than for purely vir- tuoso gifts. Among other interesting statements of Mr. Charl- ton, he asserts that this country has already assimilated, since the war, half of the musical influx from abroad. This, he adds, has, of course, necessitated the development of much new terri- tory; and the development itself, with its genuinely high stand- ards devoid of dross, is largely due, he declares, to the women’s

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Oct. 10, 1923] SELECTED TITLES Biography ISLES OF SELUSION Edited by Bohun Lynch An unusual biographical record which for stark reality and straightforwardness of revelation is unique. The development or retrogration of a man’s soul in brutalizing life and environment. “Will lie snugly on the bookshelf beside Stevenson’s ‘In the South Seas’—A perfect companionship.” Net, $3.00 SINGER’S PILGRIMAGE By Blanche Marchesi Probably the best book ever written by a singer by reason of the extraordinary amount of musical material—personalities, experi- ences, reflections. A great biography of special value to students of music. Net, $4.00 “H. B.” AND LAURENCE IRVING By Austin Brereton The official life of Sir Henry Irving’s two sons. An _ unusual record of stage history. Net, $3.00 Economics BIRTH CONTROL, WHAT IS IT? By Lydia Allen De Velbiss, M. D. The arguments for and against birth control, the first A. B. C. work on the subject written by an American, an authority on Health. A carefully considered and documented work. Net, $1.75 SOCIAL STRUGGLES IN ANTIQUITY By M. Beer A study of the ancient world in terms of economic development and the clash of social classes. Net, $1.50 SOCIAL LIFE AND THE CROWD By J. Lionel Tayler The most stimulating book on the Psychology of the Crowd in years, a Criticism rather than an attack on political theory in gen- eral and on the theory of democracy in particular. Net, $2.00 Drama THE BEST PLAYS OF 1922-1923 Edited by Burns Mantle The fourth issue of the standard yearbook of the theater in Amer- ica! A complete and valuable record by which it is apparent what plays were produced, by whom acted, by whom written, and by what number attended. Net, $2.00 Fiction THE BEST BRITISH SHORT STORIES of192 Edited by Edward J. O’Brien and John Cournos The second issue of the authoritative annual guide to English fiction in the short story form. Of even greater story interest than the first book, which received the unanimous approval of the critics here and abroad. Net, $2.00 NOBODY KNOWS By Douglas Goldring Modernism critical of itself. A great satire which the Mercure de France calls the antithesis of “La Garconne” and Burton Rascoe the most brilliant of recent books from London. Net, $1.90 STINGING NETTLES By Marjorie Bowen Has feminism come to an end? What is “This Freedom,” for which women have clamored and which they have gained, sup- posedly worth? Is it merely license in manners, a studied flouting of the opinions and ideals of other generations? Is to be rude, or noisy, or immodest, a sign of Liberty and Freedom? Net,. $2.00 Poetry THE BEST VERSE OF 1923 By L. A. G. Strong Author of “Dublin Days” The new annual of American and British verse in gift book form. Net, $2.00 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY STEPHEN: VINCENT BENET’S most impressive novel The Nation a cross-section of a woman’s soul—a drama of life and love. JEAN HUGUENOT One cannot read this novel without feeling an intense sympathy for Jean Huguenot. Im- petuous, wilful, gloriously alive, born for free- dom, for love, she knew only the extremes of happiness and tragedy. The story of her youth, her disappointing marriage, and her ultimate assertion of self are far from con- ventional, but none the less magnificent. HENRY The Mind of ‘The Spectator” Compiled by G. S. Streat- field and A. A. David What Addison and Steel thought and wrote about men, women and marriage, makes delightful reading. Their essays on these and kindred subjects are col- lected in a volume that truly represents ‘“‘the mind” of the Spectator Papers. $2.00 The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia By Henry K. Norton The author lived many months with the Russians of Siberia to secure first-hand information for this unbiased and thorough ac- count of what has been hap- pening in Siberia during the last four years. Illustrated. $2.50 $2.00 at all booksellers. HOLT: AND. COMPANY 19 West 44th Street New York American Poetry Since 1900 By Louis Untermeyer An impartial estimate of recent poetry, for booklover and stu- dent. It is based on Mr. Un- termyer’s well-known “New Era in American Poetry,’ although only a small part of the ma- terial in the older book has been retained. $3.50 The Happy Traveler By the Rev. Frank Tatchell, Vicar of Midhurst, London “Not only has the author writ- ten a very worthwhile guide to many lands, but he has written clearly, humanly, understand- ingly, an exceptionally engag- ing account of travels that cover a large portion of the globe. He has a keen sense of humor and he gives it scope in every chapter.’?— New York Times. $2.00 A Love Story by Violet Quirk DIFFEREN f GODS Sheila is the closest approach in modern fiction to the “dream girl,” a creation conceived in the minds of most men, the girl they seek, and sometimes think they have found, but never do. Her romance will rekindle the embers of many shattered ideals. $2.00 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 19 West 44th Street New York

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=a clubs and educational institutions now sprinkled so liberally throughout the country. To them must be given the real credit of encouraging, not only the finest in musical art, but also the gifted young artist in the straight and rocky path to a career. And so, many a musician flourishes without the approval of New York. There has been, perhaps, no greater proof of fallow soil and careful sowing than the solid growth of our symphony orches- tras. The fact that they are even maintained by our best mov- ing-picture houses is a sure indication of popular taste. That they are fast becoming so integral a part of our life is all the more reason why they should be sympathetic to that life. But as long as native conductors are barred from the baton, and native music is listed under “novelties,” conditions in this re- spect will be far from ideal. Yet with it all, the only obstacles to our growth that at pres- ent seem insurmountable are our two subsidized grand opera companies. In spite of the fact that American money supports them, they remain what they were when founded: European- ized institutions run for the exploitation of Europeans. If all the artists honored on their rostrums were far superior to any we could muster, then criticism would become chauvinism. But where we can match these artists with our own, then it seems about time to fight for our hearth rights. And that can be done in a very practical, yet dignified way. There are in this coun- try, available, at least thirty or forty singers who, if pre-war conditions prevailed, would be filling the finest opera houses in Europe. Let them band together with native musicians and conductors as their colleagues in England have done. There, the British artists have formed a cooperative organization, which, aided by private subscription from the public itself, has become a sound business as well as artistic enterprise. They give the standard repertory in English, take risks, that have not yet proved disastrous, on their own native composers, and by touring the provinces as well as visiting London twice annually, they not only keep themselves in work most of the year round, but uphold what is a really National Opera. There is no reason why the same thing could not be done here suc- cessfully, because Fortuno Gallo has already proved it can be done. Moreover, we have as beautiful native voices and initial talent as ever came from the opera houses of Europe. The same thing is beginning to be done in orchestral circles. And it is only when the American musician himself “gets out and hustles,” to use a classic American phrase, that he will be able to hear when his hour begins to strike. HENRIETTA STRAUS Drama Miscellany WE are promised great things and are fed on quite trivial ones. We hear that Signora Duse is coming and Max Reinhardt and it is hard to believe. The cheap theatrical theater seems so strong, so almost impregnable. Year after year the same claptrap, the same grimy moral fallacies, the same broken-backed last acts, the same tinsel, almost the same words. These things engulf you. You wonder: Is there a great theater? Does this fog ever end? It almost chokes you. Memory sustains you much more than hope... . I looked forward to “A Lesson in Love” (Thirty-ninth Street Theater) by Rudolf Besier and May Edgington. It proved to be but another of the innumerable progeny of “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.” The lady does not elope with the gentleman not because she has moral scruples, not because she doubts the quality of his feeling for her or hers for him, but because, because, wherever they go the wives of the resident Anglican clergymen will never, never come to tea. And unless the ladies come to tea life is a blunder and a shame. Thus lady number two, the lady who points the moral, though hers was a great love and The Nation - -translated by Sidney Howard. [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 she swears she would do it all over again, sobs most heart- breakingly over the memory of the fact that she had to send her gift to the baby of the Anglican clergyman and his wife anonymously. What a shattering misfortune! If she was secure in her righteousness why did she bother? What trivial people! The word is not mine. Somerset Maugham applied it in “The Circle” to people in this precise situation who took precisely this attitude. The fresh air that blows in the British novel of the better kind has not reached the drama. Here all is musty and stale like a house that hasn’t been opened and aired for years. The mildew is beginning to creep over things. There are moments of emotional power and truth. You must disallow even these in view of the preposterous ending. Mr. William Faversham is very persuasive; he has both elegance and emotional genuineness, a rare combination. Miss Emily Stevens is enormously resourceful, technically equipped and ready beyond one’s dreams, and leaves you icy. Miss Gilda Leary is unaffectedly moving; Mr. Edward Emery gives the best performance thus far of the season. He creates a char- acter; he does so with understanding, with zest, with convic- tion and inner delight. He communicates that understanding and delight. A really delectable bit of work. “Chicken Feed” (Little Theater) is the annual offering of John Golden and Winchell Smith, chief purveyors of the pure, sweet, clean, wholesome drama. The play is by Guy Bolton and is false and therefore the reverse of wholesome. But the very astute formula requires the salting of the concoction with a number of observations and incidents that have a superficial veracity. These the audience gulps down with unhesitating delight. How like you and me! Then it floats on upon the dream of successful business, happy married love, and a new ear. The happiness in love that it dreams of is a terrible thing. It is based on the fact that a man needs a housekeeper and that women being by nature “bossy” can best exercise that propensity in the “home.” This conclusion is felt by the audi- ence to be both elevating and just. The play will run through the season. Casanova! I thought of Schnitzler and of the glittering and pathetic old rogue himself. What I found at the Empire was a decoration seasoned with a romantic sentiment untrue to the man and to his age. The piece is by Lorenzo de Azertis and is The author of “Swords” is evidently tied to the panache made of imitation feathers. As a pantomime “Casanova” is very lovely. How entrancing the eighteenth century is! Its costumes and manners and gestures and interiors are, however rich, of so grave a beauty, so divine an elegance. You see them and think of an air of Handel, an aria of Gluck. You can do so at “Casanova” even while you are listening to the incidental music of Mr. Deems Taylor, who has a delicate and sensitive and almost poetic vein in writing of this kind. The fable of the play is fluff. The acting is mediocre. Mr. Lowell Sherman, escaped from a long stage career of dark and heavy villainy, hasn’t a moment of truth or nature; Miss Katherine Conell, that gifted and charming actress, does her best with the little that there is. The introductory ballet, devised by Fokine, is pleasing. But, after all, you get more ballet and ballet not strikingly inferior to this at the revues. The Greenwich Village Follies (Winter Garden) is not equal to last year’s. The spectacle is rather inchoate. There was no harmony, no “composition” at all. I missed all evening the exquisite Marjorie Petersen. The “Music Box Revue,” on the other hand, is charming. There is the salt of wit and satire furnished by Robert Benchley and a skit by George Kaufman; there are the quaintly engaging Brox Sisters; there is Florence O’Denishawn and a wonderful little dancer named Dorothy Dilley and Mme Dora Stroeva, a Russian diseuse who projects atmosphere and poetry and a kind of tragic humor, and dances and tableaux that delight the eye. Of the revues of the present season the most beautiful are the Vanities at the Earl Carroll theater and the Musie Box Revue. Lupwic LEWISOHN

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY’S Outstanding New Publications for the Autumn, 1922. OOKING over our list of Autumn publications we feel a thrill of pride because we believe that here is the finest all-around list that we have published in many seasons. In fiction, both adult and juvenile, biography, the drama, household and miscellaneous books we present a careful selection of worth-while titles. For the fiction lover our list contains such fine novels as CROATAN by Mary Johnston, SIR JOHN DERING by Jeffery Farnol, and an exceptionally striking first novel, FEET OF CLAY, by Margaretta Tuttle, a new novelist of rare promise. A. S. M. Hutchinson is represented by THE EIGHTH WONDER AND OTHER STORIES, and there are interesting new novels by E. Phillips Oppenheim, Cosmo Hamilton, Edison Marshall, B. M. Bower and Henry James Forman. Among the notable biographies there are Robert Underwood Johnson’s REMEMBERED YES- TERDAYS, Maud Howe Elliott’s THREE GENERATIONS and Sir George Buchanan’s MY MIS- SION TO RUSSIA AND OTHER DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES. Other outstanding volumes are Montrose J. Moses’s REPRESENTATIVE CONTINENTAL DRAMAS: REVOLUTIONARY AND TRANSITIONAL, Owen Davis’s ICEBOUND (awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the best American play of 1922), Stephen McKenna’s BY INTERVENTION OF PROVIDENCE, Professor Hector B. Toogood’s THE OUTLINE OF EVERYTHING, and THE PIO- NEER WEST; NARRATIVES OF THE WESTWARD MARCH OF EMPIRE, selected and edited by Joseph Lewis French. We have just issued an interesting “Announcement of New Books for the Autumn” and a catalogue of “Books for Boys and Girls of All Ages.” We shall be glad to send copies of either of these publications free of charge on request. Write for your copies at once! Boston LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY SULLA Publishers Dit wel,..O te 1S: AE Dp HULLNUIUUULTLUUUTAUUUTOUUTLUULTAEUUAUUT UU I The New Testament An American Translation By Edgar J. Goodspeed A new translation of the New Testament in the language of today. A dignified, scholarly version which retains the vigor, ease, and clarity of the original Greek and gives new meaning to the associations with older versions. Regular edition, $3.00, postpaid $3.12 Pocket edition, India paper, $2.50, postpaid $2.62 Paul, Son of Kish By Lyman I. Henry A vivid narrative reconstruction of the life of Paul that presents him as a very real personality. A skillful blending of history and romance into a biography that shows Paul as a youth, as father of a family, persecutor of the followers of the Way, militant herald of Christianity, and martyr to the faith. Illustrated, with frontispiece in color, $3.00, postpaid $3.12 THE MANLY ANNIVERSARY STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 442 pages, $5.00, postpaid $5.25 DUMPING: A PROBLEM IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE By Jacob Viner $3.00, postpaid $3.12 THE WORKER IN MODERN ECONOMIC SOCIETY By P. H. Douglas, C. N. Hitch- cock and W. E. Atkins 929 pages, $4.50, postpaid $4.65 THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY By Frederick O. Norton $2.25, postpaid $2.35 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 5807 ELLIS AVENUE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS IESE STERN ho neaege |

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414 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3040 es Some Notable Fall Books AMERICAN TOPICS Bostwick, Arthur E. The American Public Library. ton. $3. Burgess, John W. Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory. Columbia University. $1.75. Apple- Fuller, Raymond G. Child Labor and _ the Constitution. Crowell. $2.50. Schuyler, Robert Livingston. The Constitution of the United States. Macmillan. $1.50. Stimson, Frederick Jessup. The American Constitution. Serib- ner. $2.50. Taft, William Howard. Liberty Under Law. Yale University. $1. Thomas, Norman. American Objectors in the Great War. Huebsch. $2. BIOGRAPHY, MEMOIRS Abbott, Lyman. Reminiscences. Houghton Mifflin. $4. Akeley, Carl E. Men and Animals, an Autobiography. Double- day, Page. $5. Allen, Henry T. My Rhineland Journal. Houghton Mifflin. $7. Auer, Leopold. My Long Life in Music. Stokes. $5. Barton, F. R., ed. Letters of Edward Fitzgerald to Bernard Barton. Putnam. Beer, Thomas. Stephen Crane. Knopf. $2.50. Bicknell, Percy F. The Human Side of Fabre. Century. $2.50. Bishop, Joseph Bucklin. A. Barton Hepburn; His Life and Service to His Time. Scribner. $3. Boas, Frederick S. Shakespeare and the Universities. Apple- ton. $3.50. ‘ Brandes, Georg. Wolfgang Goethe. N. L. Brown. Two vols. $10. Braun, Otto. Diary and Letters. Knopf. $2.50. Buchanan, George. My Mission to Russia and Other Diplo- matic Memories. Little, Brown. Two vols. $8. Castellane, Boni de. My Memoirs. Knopf. $5. Charnwood, Lord. Theodore Roosevelt. Atlantic Monthly Press. $2.50. Cook, James H. Fifty Years on the Old Frontier. Yale Uni- versity. $4. Damrosch, Walter. My Musical Life. Scribner. $4. Douglas, Norman. Together. McBride. $2.50. Eckenrode, H. J. Jefferson Davis, President of the South. Macmillan. $2.50. Eliot, Charles W. Harvard Memories. Harvard University. $2. Elliott, Maude Howe. Three Generations. Little, Brown. $4. Finger, Charles J. Highwaymen. McBride. $3. Flower, Newman. George Frederic Handel. Houghton Mifflin. $7.50. Goldman, Emma. My Disillusionment in Russia. Page. $2. , Gorky, Maxim. My Intellectual Life. Boni and Liveright. $3. Gregory, Allene. John Milton Gregory. Covici-McGee. $3. Hale, Richard Lunt. The Log of a Forty-Niner. Brimmer. $4; $7.50. Hall, G. Stanley. Appleton. $5. Harriman, Mrs. J. Borden. From Pinafores to Politics. Holt. Hergesheimer, Joseph. The Presbyterian Child. Knopf. $7.50. James, Henry. Richard Olney. Houghton Mifflin. $5. Legouis, Emile. William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon. Dutton. $2. Levine, Isaac Don. Lynch, Bohun, ed. nard. $3. Macfall, Haldane. Doubleday, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist. The Man Lenin. Isles of Illusion. Seltzer. Anonymous. Small, May- The Book of Lovat. Dutton. $10. NEW STEWART KIDD BOOKS THREE MODERN JAPANESE PLAYS Translated by Yozan T. Iwasaki and Glenn Hughes With an introduction by Glenn Hughes These short plays are the direct result of Western influences and are representative of the new drama movement in Japan, which is not supplanting but very decidedly challenging the No, the Kabuki, and the Doll-play. The plays are: The Razor, one act, by Kichizo Nakamura. The Madman on the Roof, one act, by Kan Kikuchi. Nari-kin, one act, by Yozan T. Iwasaki. Decorated boards, $1.50 net ONE-ACT PLAYS FROM The YIDDISH Translated by Etta Block Champagne, by Isaac Loeb Perez. Mother and Son, by J. Halpern. The Stranger, by Perez Hirschbein. The Snow- storm, by Perez Hirschbein. When the Dew Falleth, by Perez Hirschbein. The Eternal Song, by Marc Arnstein. These plays are some of the finest examples of the one-act form in Yiddish, and Miss Block, the authorized translator, has lifted them over into English without losing their dis- tinctive Yiddish flavor. $2.00 net THE SEA-WOMAN’S CLOAK and NOVEMBER EVE By Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy) Amélie Rives is an American. These two 3-act plays are Irish. It has been said of her that she has a genius for all English forms. The Sea Woman’s Cloak and November Eve are evidence in part of this statement’s truth. They are as Irish as anything of Yeats’s, Synge’s, Lady Gregory’s. As individual. As enchanting. $2.50 net HUMBLE FOLK, By Bosworth Crocker Introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn One-act plays which have been produced by the Washington Square Players and other Little Theatre groups. They are: The Baby Carriage. The Dog. The Last Straw. The First Time. The Cost of a Hat. Alexander Woollcott calls them “sympathetic and lifelike to a degree.” $2.00 net SHAKESPEARE, University Society Edition Founded on the famous Cambridge text, this edition is com- plete in eight volumes and includes thirty-seven Plays, The Poems and Sonnets, and a Life of Shakespeare. Each play has a frontispiece and is prefaced with a critical account of the plot, its probable source, etc. The type is large and readable. Price for complete set, $12.00 ONE THOUSAND AND ONE PLAYS FOR THE LITTLE THEATRE Selected and compiled by Frank Shay A handbook of great value to those interested in the reading or producing of plays. The list is arranged alphabetically by authors and organizations and gives the title, nature of the play, number of men and women, and the publisher. Art Boards, $1.00 net New Editions Portmanteau and More Portmanteau Plays by Stuart Walker Each vol. $2.50 net Comedies of Words and Other Plays by Arthur Schnitzler $2.50 net by August Strindberg $2.50 net by Dr. James A. 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Oct. 10, 1923] Marbury, Elisabeth. My Crystal Ball: Reminiscences of a Busy Life. Boni and Liveright. $3. Meier-Graefe, Julius. Degas. Knopf. $20. Meier-Graefe, Julius. Vincent Van Gogh: A Biographical Study. Medici Society. Two vols. $17.50; $58.50. Monahan, Michael. Heinrich Heine. N. L. Brown. $2. Morris, Ira Nelson. From an American Legation. Knopf. $4. Northcliffe, Alfred, Viscount. My Journey Round the World. Lippincott. $4. Orpen, Sir William. An Onlooker in France. Holt. $8 (7). Pach, Walter. Georges Seurat. Duffield. $2. Page, Walter H. A Publisher’s Confession. Doubleday, Page. $1.50. Pupin, Michael. From Immigrant to Inventor. Scribner. $4. Raymond, E. T. Lord Rosebery: A Critical and Biographical Study. Doran. $3. Rimsky-Korsakoff, Nikolay. My Musical Life. Knopf. $5. Scott, Evelyn. Escapade: An Autobiography. Seltzer. $3. Scott, James Brown. Robert Bacon: Life and Some Letters. Doubleday, Page. $5. Scott, Robert Faleon. The Diary of Captain Scott. Dodd, Mead. $2.50. 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Crocker, Bosworth. Humble Folk. Stewart Kidd. $2; $7.50. Dane, Clemence. The Way Things Happen. Macmillan. Iwasaki, Yozan T., and Hughes, Glenn, tr. Three modern Japa- nese Plays. Stewart Kidd. $1.50; $6.50. Macgowan, Kenneth, and Rosse, Herman. Masks and Demons. Harcourt, Brace. $5 (7). Matthews, Brander. Playwrights on Play-Making. Scribner. $2. Moses, Montrose, J., ed. Representative Continental Dramas. Little, Brown. $4.50. O’Neill, Eugene. The Fountain, and Welded. Boni and Live- right. $2. Sayler, Oliver M. Our American Theatre. Brentano’s. $3.50. Sayler, Oliver M., and Macgowan, Kenneth. Max Reinhardt: His Art and Achievement. Brentano’s. $3.50. ECONOMICS, INDUSTRY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY Barnes, Harry Elmer. Sociology and Political Theory. Knopf. $2. Beals, Carleton. Rome or Death. Century. $2.50. Beer, M. Social Struggles in Antiquity. Small, Maynard. $1.50. Bell, Clive. On British Freedom. Harcourt, Brace. $1.50. (7?) DM DM The Nation a New DODD, MEAD Books The Woman of Knockaloe By HALL CAINE, Author of “The Woman Thou Gav- est Me,’ “The Christian,” etc. A poignantly beautiful novel of a great love frus- trated at every turn by humanity’s most acute prob- lem today. “In my opinion the most powerful and dramatic story he has written,” says one prominent cihitics (Ready October 20th) $1.75 The Lengthened Shadow By WILLIAM J. LOCKE, Author of “The Beloved Vagabond,” etc. “Tust as fine a book as ‘The Beloved Vagabond,’ ‘The Red Planet,’ ‘The Glory of Clementina,’ and any of the Locke’s you can remember.”—Piiladel- phia Public Ledger. $2.00 Anthony Dare By ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, Author of “The Squire’s Daughter,’ “The Honour of the Clin- tons,” etc. Mr. Marshall has created another of his charming characters and told the story of his early career, in London and rural England. 2.00 The Garden of God By H. 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Bigelow, Poultney. Japan and Her Colonies. Longmans. $5. Boeckel, Richard. Labor’s Money. Harcourt, Brace. $1.50. Commons, John R. Legal Foundations of Capitalism. Mac- millan. Drucker, S. and Hexter, M. B. Children Astray. Harvard University. $3.50. Henry, Alice. Women and the Labor Movement. Doran. $1.25. Hobhouse, L. T. Social Development. Holt. $3 (7). Kerr, Philip and Curtis, Lionel. The Prevention of War. Yale University. $2.50. Keynes, J. M. Money and the Exchanges. Harcourt, Brace. CPE Go).< Lovestone, J. The Government Strike-Breaker. Party of America. $1.50. Ludovici, Anthony M. Woman, a Vindication. Knopf. $3. Macdonald, J. Ramsay. A Policy for the Labor Party. Seltzer. $1.75. Monroe, Arthur E. Monetary Theory Before Adam Smith. Harvard University. $3. O’Hare, Kate Richards. In Prison. Knopf. $2. Patten, Simon Nelson. Essays in Economic Theory. Knopf. $5. Pound, Roscoe. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law. Yale University. $2.50. Rockefeller, John D., Jr. The Personal in Industry. Boni and Liveright. $2. Ross, Edward Alsworth. Outlines of Sociology. Century. $3.50. Russell, Bertrand and Doris. The Prospects of Industrial Civi- lization. Century. $2. Strachey, St. Loe. The Economics of the Hour. Putnam. $2. Taylor, P. S. The Sailors’ Union of the Pacific. Ronald Press. $2.50. Workers ESSAYS, CRITICISM Brandes, George. Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century. Crowell. $3. Brandes, George. Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Litera- ture. Boni and Liveright. Six vols. $18. Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Fancies Versus Fads. Dodd, Mead. $2. Crothers, Samuel McChord. The Cheerful Giver. Houghton Mifflin. $2. Dibble, Roy F. Strenuous Americans. Boni and Liveright. $2.50. Dreiser, Theodore. The Color of a Great City. Boni and Live- right. $3.50. France, Anatole. The Latin Genius. Dodd, Mead. $2.50. Gerhardi, William. Aaton Chekhov: a Critical Study. Duffield. $3. Gorman, Herbert S. The Procession of Masks. Brimmer. $2; $5. Guedalla, Philip. Masters and Men. Putnam. Hansen, Harry. Midwest Portraits. Harcourt, Brace. $2.50. (?). Harris, Frank. Contemporary Portraits. Vol. IV. Brentano’s. $2.50. Holt, L. H. and Chilton, A. W. English Analysis and Exposi- tion; Harper. “$2) (72): Houston, Percy H. Dr. Johnson: A Study in 18th Century Humanism. Harvard University. $3. Huxley, Julian. Essays of a Biologist. Knopf. $2.50. Kaun, Alexander. Leonid Andreyev: a Critical Study. Huebsch. $3.50 (?). Leacock, Stephen. Over the Footlights. Dodd, Mead. $1.50. Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature. Selt- zer. $3. Lawton, William Cranston. The Soul of the Anthology. Yale University. $2.50 (7). Macy, John. The Story of the World’s Literature. Boni and Liveright. $5. [ Vol. 117, No. 3040 Important New Books To Own and For Gifts Published by B. J. BRIMMER COMPANY EACH VOLUME BELOW IS RECOMMENDED FOR VALUES IN SUBSTANCE and GOOD BOOKMAKING

ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE VERSE FOR 1923 AND YEARBOOK OF AMERICAN POETRY Edited by William Stanley Braithwaite The standard work on contemporary American poetry now in its eleventh annual volume. There are some marked changes in the makeup of the volume intended to increase its usefulness and add a touch of distinction to its appearance. $3.00 Special Edition, 350 signed and numbered copies, printed on Deckle- edged Antique Normandy Vellum, an imported Hand Made rane i THE LOG OF A FORTY-NINER Being the Record of Adventures by Sea and Shore to the California Gold Fields in 1849-1854. Illustrated with Original Sketches by the Author. . By Richard Lunt Hale Edited by His Daughter, Carolyn Hale Russ A fascinating personal account by one of the Argonauts of 749. $4.00 Special Edition, 300 signed and numbered copies, printed on Hand Made Paper. $7.5 EDWARD LOOMIS DAVENPORT: A BIOGRAPHY By Edwin Francis Edgett This biography of the famous American actor, Edward Loomis Daven- port, is a revised and expanded version of a monograph written by Mr. Edgett and privately printed for the members of The Dunlap So- ciety twenty-two years ago. Profusely illustrated. $5.00 Special Edition, 125 signed and numbered copies, printed on Hand Made Paper. $7.50 BACKROADS: MAINE NARRATIVES — WITH LYRICS By Winifred Virginia Jackson With an introduction by William Stanley Braithwaite The Boston Transcript, in its Annual Survey of American Poetry for the current year 1921, proclaimed Miss Jackson as one of the discoveries of the year. ‘‘America has produced,’’ added another critic, ‘“‘two new poets of great significance in Winifred Virginia Jackson, with her stark disinterested portraits of a spiritually rotting New England, full of sterile tragedy and dusty death, and in Elinor Wylie with her dynamic gospel of Blake in a modern setting.” Into this volume Miss Jackson has gathered, in Part I, a group of poems, narrative in substance though often racy and impassioned with the ballad form, the very essence of that isolated tragic life in the backroads of Maine. Part II contains a group of very delicately imaginative and musical lyrical poems. $2.00 Special Edition, 115 signed and numbered copies, printed on Hand $5.00 Made Paper. f COLONIAL LIGHTING By Arthur H. Hayward The only book published devoted entirely to the development of light- ing devices in America from the crude iron “Betty” and ‘Phebe’ lamps of the Pilgrims to the stately astral lamps and elaborate cande- labra of our own grandparents’ time. Illustrated with 114 half-tone plates, showing over 400 specimens of lighting devices. $5.00 Special Edition, 110 signed and numbered copies, printed on Arches Cream Antique French Hand Made Paper and bound in Japanese Hand Made Vellum. $25.00 THE PROCESSION OF MASKS By Herbert S. Gorman A volume of brilliant essays by one of the younger generation. While distinctly a member of the younger group Mr. Gorman bases his judg- ments upon a sound knowledge of the great literatures of the past. In THE PROCESSION OF MASKS he considers such figures as Edwin Arlington Robinson, Max Beerbohm, Arthur Symons, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, Sholom Asch, Fyodor Dostoevski, Thomas Hardy and A. E. Housman. $2.00 Special ~Edition, 150 signed and numbered copies, printed on Hand Made Paper. $5.00 SIDELIGHTS ON NEGRO SOLDIERS By Charles H. Williams With an introduction by Benjamin Brawley First authentic account of the Negro soldier in the World War. Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War in the Wilson Cabinet, wrote to the author: ‘“‘I am glad your frank narrative has been written, of the record the race has rendered in a great emergency and may be called upon to render again in some future crisis.” $3.00 Special Edition, 125 signed and numbered copies, printed on Hand Made Paper. $6.00 B. J. BRIMMER COMPANY, Publishers Allen Hall Building 384 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation A417 Meiklejohn, Alexander. Essays and Addresses. Century. $1.75. Perry, Bliss. The Praise of Folly. Houghton Mifflin. $2. Rascoe, Burton. Fanfare. McBride. $2.50. Saintsbury, George. Collected Essays. Three vols. Dutton. Snyder, Edward D. The Celtic Revival in English Literature, 1760-1800. Harvard University. $2.50. Walkley, A. B. More Prejudice. Knopf. $3. White, William Allen. The Editor and His People. Macmillan. FICTION, HUMOR Anderson, Sherwood. Horses and Men. Huebsch. $2. Artzybasheff, Mikhail P. Jealousy; Enemies; The Law of the Savage. Boni and Liveright. $2. Artzybasheff. Mikhail P. The Savage. Boni and Liveright. $2. Aumonier, Stacy. Odd Fish. Doubleday, Page. $2. Austin, Mary. A Small Town Man. Harper. $2. Baroja, Pio. Weeds. Knopf. $2.50. Benchley, Robert C. The Conquest of Cornwall. Holt. $1.60. Benét, Stephen Vincent. Jean Hugenot. Holt. $2. Bennett, Arnold. Don Juan de Marana. Doran. $1.50. Bergengren, Ralph. Brimmer. $2. Gentlemen All and Merry Companions. Borden, Mary. Jane, Our Stranger. Knopf. $2.50. Broun, Heywood. The Sun Field. Putnam. $2. Buchan, John. Midwinter. Doran. $2. Bunin, Ivan. The Dreams of Chang. Knopf. $2.50. Byrne, Donn. Changeling, and Other Stories. Century. $2. Cabell, James Branch. The High Place. McBride. $2.50; il. ed. $7.50. Cannan, Gilbert. Sembal. Seltzer. $2. Cather, Willa. A Lost Lady. Knopf. $1.75. Clouston, J. Storer. The Lunatic at Large Again. Dutton. $2. Conrad, Joseph The Rover. Doubleday, Page. $2. Coppard, A. E. The Black Dog. Knopf. $2.50. Delafield, E. M. A Reversion to Type. Macmillan $2. Dell, Floyd Janet March. Knopf. $2.50. Dos Passos, John. Streets of Night. Doran. $2. Espina, Concha. The Maragatan Sphinx. Macmillan. $2. Estaunie, Edouard. The Call of the Road. Boni and Live- right. $2. Fletcher, J. S. The Markenmore Mystery. Knopf. $2. France, Anatole. The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche. Dodd, Mead. $3. Galsworthy, John. Captures. Scribner. $2. Glasgow, Ellen. The Shadowy Third. Doubleday, Page. $2. Gogol, Nikolay. The Overcoat and Other Stories. (Collected Works, vol. III.) Knopf. $2. ; Goldring, Douglas. Nobody Knows. Small, Maynard. $1.90. Hémon, Louis. My Fair Lady. Macmillan. $2. Henry, Lyman I. Paul, Son of Kish. University of Chicago. $3. Hudson, W. H. Fan: the Story of a Young Girl’s Life. Dut- ton. $3. Henry, O. Postscripts. Harper. $2 (7). Hume, Cyril. Wife of the Centaur. Doran. $2. Jensen, Johannes V. The Long Journey. Vol. II. $2.50. Johns, Orrick. Blindfold. Lieber and Lewis. $2. Johnston, Mary. Croatan. Little, Brown. $2. Kaye-Smith, Sheila. The End of the House of Alard. Dutton. $2. Lawrence, D. H. Kangaroo. Seltzer. $2. Leacock, Stephen. College Days. Dodd, Mead. $1.25. Lewisohn, Ludwig. Don Juan. Boni and Liveright. $2. Knopf. Machen, Arthur. The Three Impostors. Knopf. $2. Mann, Thomas. Bashan and I. Holt. $1.75 (2). Mansfield, Katherine. The Dove’s Nest. Knopf. $2.50. Merrick, Leonard. The Man Who Was Good. Dutton. Nathan, Robert. The Puppet Master. McBride. $1.75. Norris, Charles. Bread. Dutton. $2. $1.90. 1,200,000 Potential Book Buyers With its circulation of nearly 400,000, The Chicago Daily News is read every day by ap- proximately 1,200,000 people, who include the great majority of cultured, financially competent readers of English in Chicago and its immediate suburbs. The Wednesday Book Page of The Chicago Daily News has been for almost a decade the outstanding literary guide and book buying directory of this vast army of readers. Realizing the bookselling effectiveness of this medium, the leading publishers of Amer- ica consistently place more of their advertis- ing in The Daily News than in any other Chicago newspaper, daily or Sunday. The official figures* for the first eight months of 1923 are here given: TOTAL VOLUME OF BOOK ADVERTISING AS DISTRIBUTED AMONG CHICAGO NEWSPAPERS FROM JANUARY 1 TO AUGUST 31, 1923 Comparison Lines Lines The Chicago Daily News........ 80,476 80,476 ST a ae Ae !a a ata lind wie, ahs 53,755 53,755 ne ieaiy PrbUne ioe... 46,953 The Daily Herald-Examiner...... 5,521 Bae NMUAR ie isi 1c. san ik sm a te mn, «0 1,132 WIC UEMMOQICAM: 5... -1+,s sic-a 0.50: 5,137 SUNDAY PAPERS pie sunday Pribune../.2......'.. 6,176 The Sunday Herald-Examiner.... 11,825 The Daily News’ excess over the next highest score, that of the Pe ey 6 kw as we wi siave 26,721 Publishers who wish to sell MORE books in Chicago should INCREASE their adver- tising in THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS First in Chicago * Figures supplied by the Advertising Record Company, an inde- pendent audit service maintained by all the Chicago newspapers.

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Petronius. Satyricon. Dutton. $3. Pinski, David. King David and His Wives. Huebsch. $2 (?). Richardson, Dorothy. Revolving Lights. Knopf. $2.50. Rolland, Romain. Annette and Sylvie. Holt. $2. Rolland, Romain. The Montespan. Huebsch. $2. Sabatini, Rafael. Fortune’s Fool. Houghton Mifflin. $2. Schnitzler, Arthur. Dr. Graesler. Seltzer. $2.50. Sergel, Roger F. Arlie Gelston. Huebsch. $2. Sinclair, May. Uncanny Stories. Macmillan. $2. Stephens, James. Deirdre. Macmillan. $2.50 (?). Stewart, Donald Ogden. Perfect Behavior: a Parody Outline of Etiquette. New ed. Doran. $6. Strachey, Ray. Marching on. Harcourt, Brace. $2. Swinnerton, Frank. Young Felix. Doran. $2. Taber, Clarence Wilbur. Anna Kovalchuk. Covici-McGee. $2. Van Vechten, Carl. The Blind Bow-Boy. Knopf. $2.50. Verga, Giovanni. Mastro-Don Gesualdo. Seltzer. $2. Whitlock, Brand. J. Hardin & Son. Appleton. $2. Wilson, Margaret. The Able McLaughlins. Harper. $2. Woodward, W. E. Bunk. Harper. $2. Wylie, Elinor. Jennifer Lorn. Doran. $2.50. Wharton, Edith. A Son at the Front. <aats Seribner. $2. FINE ARTS Binyon, Laurence, and Sexton, J. J. O’Brien. Japanese Color- Prints. Scribner. $25 (?). Borenius, Tancred. Medici Society. $6 (7). Borenius, Tancred. Marcantonio. Medici Society. $6 (7). Capart, Jean. Egyptian Art. Stokes. $5. Cortissoz, Royal. American Artists. Scribner. $2 (?). Cotterill, H. B. A History of Art; From Raphael to Modern Times. Stokes. Two vols. $10. Faure, Elie. Modern Art. Harper. $7.50 (?). Furst, Herbert. The Modern Woodcut. Dodd, Mead. $10. Hamlin, A. D. F. A History of Ornament: Renaissance and Modern. Century. $5 (?). Henri, Robert. The Art Spirit. Lippincott. $2. Rutherston, Albert, ed. William Orpen. Scribner. $2. Rutherston, Albert, ed. Augustus John. Scribner. $2. Scheffauer, Herman George. Modern Movements in the Ger- man Arts. Huebsch. $2 (?). Szukalski, Stanislaus. The Works of. Covici-McGee. $25. Waley, Arthur. Chinese Painting. Scribner. $20 (?). Four Early Italian Engravers. HISTORY Adams, James Truslow. Revolutionary New England, 1691- 1776. Atlantic Monthly Press. $5. Andrews, Charles McLean. British Colonial Policy and the American Revolution. Yale University Press. $3 (7). Asquith, Herbert Henry. The Genesis of the War. Doran. $6. Barnouw, A. J. Holland Under Queen Wilhelmina. Scribner. $3. Bigham, Clive. Dutton. $8. Bury, J. B., ed., and others. The Chief Ministers of England, 920-1720. The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. I. Macmillan. Butler, Nicholas Murray. Building the American Nation. Scribner. $2.50. Chatterton, E. Keble. The Mercantile Marine. Little, Brown. $5. Egerton, H. E. The Causes and Character of the American Revolution. Oxford University. $2.85. Elliot-Smith, G. Tutankhamen and the Discovery of His Tomb. Dutton. Gibbons, Herbert Adams. Europe Since 1918. Century. $3. Gooch, G. P. History of Modern Europe, 1878 to 1919. Holt. $5 (2). Griffis, William E. The Story of the Walloons. Mifflin. $2. Houghton

CUCU OCC PUTNAM BOOKS AND AUTHORS Phillip Guedalla author of The Second Empire has proved one of the literary sensations of recent years—for the brilliance of his style, for his power of keen appraisal of human nature. There is dynamic stimulation in his new series of char- acter sketches. MASTERS AND MEN including “The Egoists,” “Masters of Arts,” “Ministers of States,” “A Grand Duchess,” etc. $2.50 , , % os oe Thirty Centuries of Life With Its Dreams and Struggles, Its Romance and Laughter Summarized in The Outline of Literature The Book of Books—the Story of Stories outlining three thousand years of literary achievement. Three magnificent volumes with over five hundred superb illustrations. The first volume is now on sale at all book stores. $4.50 The First Volume of The Outline of Art 1s Now Ready

Another great Outline furnishing a key to the art treasures of all time, making you acquainted with the world’s famous painters and their finest masterpieces. It reproduces hundreds of works of art, many in full colors. Edited by Sir William Orpen. Two volumes. $4.50 per vol. , ¥, % % Robert Lynd’s New Book SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY is a collection of kindly, witty, shrewd and brilliantly epigrammatic essays which “be- gin anywhere and everywhere; they take a topic of the moment, an object, a common experience, and relate them to the author’s whole vision of life.” $2.50 ve M, iv, et wt at \ St. Loe Strachey editor of the Spectator, brings idealism and common sense into a discussion of present day economic problems. THE ECONOMICS OF THE HOUR % % % LEW TYLER’s WIVES By Wallace Irwin $2.00 “As thoroughly an American story as one is likely to find... . Far and away above the average run of stories.”"—N. Y. Times. “Bet- ter than ‘If Winter Comes’ and much more interesting.’—Columbus Dispatch. $2.00 a *% oe Heywood Broun in his characteristically entertaining style tells the story of a baseball star who married a girl from the “high-brow” literary world. There is amusement and considerable philosophy in THE SUN FIELD $2.00 G Pir wate sr a VUE eee

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Oct. 10, 1923] Henderson, Archibald. Washington’s Southern Tour. Mifflin. $12.50. Jameson, J. Franklin, ed. Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period. Macmillan. $5. Kipling, Rudyard. The Irish Guards in the Great War. Double- day, Page. Two vols. $10. Melville, Lewis. The South Sea Bubble. Small, Maynard. $4. Mumby, Frank A. George III and the American Revolution. Houghton Mifflin. $5. Nevins, Allan, comp. and ed. American Social History as Recorded by British Chroniclers. Holt. $3.50 (?). Nevins, Allan. The American States, 1775-1789. Macmillan. $4. Nickerson, Hoffman. The Inquisition. Houghton Mifflin. Norton, Henry R. The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia. $2.50 (2). Osgood, Herbert Levi. Century. Columbia University. Four vols. Petrie, W. M. Flinders. Social Life in Ancient Egypt. ton Mifflin. $2. Quennell, Marjorie and C. H. B. The Roman, British, and Saxon Age. Putnam. $2.50. Ross, Edward Alsworth. The Russian Soviet Republic, 1918- 1922. Century. $3. Smith, G. Elliot. The Ancient Egyptians and the Origin of $4. Holt. The American Colonies in the 18th mOMed =) (uals Hough- Civilization. Harper. $2. Tarbell, Ida M. In the Footsteps of the Lincolns. Harper. $4 (7). Turner, Frederick J. $2.50 (7). The United States, 1830-1850. Holt. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Beer, George Louis. African Questions at the Paris Peace Conference, With Papers on Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Colonial Settlement. Macmillan. $6. Buchan, John, ed. Nations of Today. Twelve vols. $5. ea. Churchill, Winston. The World Crisis, 1915. Corbett, Sir Julian S. Naval Operations. Three vols. Cresson, W. P. Diplomatic Portraits: Europe and the Monroe Doctrine 100 Years Ago. Houghton Mifflin. $3.50. George, David Lloyd. Where Are We Going? Doran. Hughan, Jessie Wallace. A Study of International Govern- ment. Crowell. $2.75. Nitti, Francesco. The Decadence of Europe. Holt. Ravage, M. E. The Malady of Europe. Macmillan. Williams, Roth. The League of Nations Today. Holt. Wilson, Woodrow. Case for the League of Nations. University. $1.75. Houghton Mifflin. Scribner. $6.50. Longmans, Green. $3. $2. $2. Princeton JUVENILES Bonsels, Waldemer. Heaven Folk. Seltzer. $2; $2.50. Burlingame, Eugene Watson. The Grateful Elephant (trans- lated from the original Pali). Yale University. $3. Farrar, John. The Magic Sea Shell and Other Plays for Chil- dren. Doran. $1.50. Garrott, Hal. Snythergen. McBride. $2.50. Gates, Ethel M. Punch and Robinetta. Yale University. $2. Lofting, Hugh. Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office. Stokes. $2.50. Olcott, Frances Jenkins, ed. The Adventures of Haroun El Raschid. Holt. $2.50. Sandburg, Carl. Rootabaga Pigeons. Harcourt, Brace. $2. "Tae Louis, ed. This Singing World. Harcourt, Brace. $3. von Chamisso, Adalbert. The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl. Huebsch. $2. MISCELLANEOUS Armstrong, William. Lillian Nordica’s Hints to Singers. Dut- ton. $2.50.

New York The Nation 419

India in Ferment Claude H. Van Tyne, head of the Department of History in the University of Michigan, went to Ghandi, to Lord Reading, to the people of all opinions, high and low of India, to get first-hand information on the causes and conditions of India’s unrest. He learned many startling § things which he presents with simple directness. $2.00

“<" APPLETON BOOKS El Dorado By Stephen Graham. To Madrid, to Cadiz, thence to the Indies and New Mexico, journeyed the author, following the routes of the discoverers of the new world. He writes of his travels in the entertaining and informative manner that is characteristic of him. A record of the old search for gold and the modern search for power. $2.00

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Truth O’ Women Josephine Daskam Bacon has written a “Spoon River Anthol- ogy” of women—and a notable book of verse. Each poem is a dramatic monologue from _ the grave in which a woman tells the truth about herself at last. $1.50

Life and Confessions of a Psychologist G. Stanley Hall has done what no other great psychologist, with the exception of Herbert Spencer, has done—written the story of his own life from the psychologist’s view-point. This frank survey of a life full of distinguished achievements and important associations is unique in self-revelations and surely a rich store of wisdom on life and its most significant meanings. and experience of the author. It is an autobiography that reflects the power Illustrated. $5.00

ol Stories By Thirty and One Authors The peak of present-day story writing. All the greatest British story tellers are here—from Au- monier and Bennett to Wells and Zangwill. Stories of every kind, | for every taste and mood, and each the best work of a great modern writer. $2.50

Growth and Structure of the English Language By Otto Jesperson, Ph.D., Lit.D. How our language developed with our civilization, told in a fasci- nating story for student or gen- eral reader. $2.00 |

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Send for Illustrated Booklet D. Appleton and Company 35 West 32nd Street, New York Please send me your illustrated monthly bulletin about new books and authors to help me pick good books to read. weet eee merece rerreeeeseesen eee tices 3 010 owe e\e'e view elaelnevee D. APPLETON & COMPANY Publishers London

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420 The Nation . [Vol. 117, No. 3040 Cardozo, Benjamin N. The Nature of the Judicial Process. Yale University. $1.75. Flexner, Abraham. A Modern College and a Modern School. Doubleday, Page. $1 (?). Garland, Hamlin, and Remington, Frederic. The Book of the Indian. Harper. $7.50. Grinnell, George Bird. The Cheyenne Indians, Their History Free Catalogue of Books on and Ways of Life. Yale University. Two vols. $10. 2 Haskins, Charles H. The Rise of Universities. Holt. $1.50 (CONE Business and Finance Mansbridge, Albert. The Older Universities of England. Houghton Mifflin. $2.50. Salmon, Lucy Maynard. The Newspaper and the Historian. Oxford University. $7.50. Business, Efficiency, Bookkeep- Tetrazzini, Madam Louisa. How to Sing. Doran. $2.50. ing, Accounting, Credits, Collec- Villard, Oswald Garrison. Some Newspapers and Newspaper- tions, Business Law, Business men. Knopf. $2.50. English and Letter Writing, Ad- vertising, Retailing, and Sales- PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, RELIGION, manship, and _ Transportation, ANTHROPOLOGY Finance and Banking, Foreign Trade, Real Estate, Insurance, Economics, Industry, Labor and Statistics. Cable and Telegraph Codes. Periodical and Technical Knopf. $2. Dictionaries in Foreign Lan- guages. Alexander, H. B. Nature and Human Nature. Open Court Publishing Company. $3. Bennett, Charles A. A Philosophical Study of Mysticism. Yale University. $2.50 (7). Bragdon, Claude. A Primer of Higher Space. Brown, William Adams. Imperialistic Religion and the Religion of Democracy. Scribner. Butler, Dom Cuthbert. Western Mysticism. Dutton. $5. 9 Cadman, S. Parkes. Christianity and the State. Macmillan. B R HK N TA N O S Case, Shirley Jackson. The Social Origins of Christianity. University of Chicago. $2.50. Booksellers to the World Clay, Albert T. The Origin of Biblical Traditions. Yale Uni- FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK versity. $3 (7). : Washington - Chicago +* London - Paris Cornford, F. M. Greek Religious Thought. Dutton. $2. Damon, S. Foster. William Blake. His Philosophy and Sym- bols. Houghton Mifflin. $10. Einstein, Albert, and others. The Principle of Relativity. Dodd, Mead. $4. Einstein, Albert. Sidelights on Relativity. Dutton. Fuller, B. A. G. History of Greek Philosophy: Thales to Mr. Edmond Byrne Hackett Democritus. Holt. $3.50 (7). Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. His Religion and Hers. Mac- THE BRICK ROW BOOK SHOP . millan. $1.75. INCORPORATED oodspeed, Edgar J. The New Testament (American Transla- tion). University of Chicago. $2.50; $3. TONE. Rb Sty ee Haldane, J. S. Mechanism, Life and Personality. Dutton. 4 Hopkins, E. Washburn. Origin and Evolution of Religion. Announces the publication of | Yale University. $3. Kellogg, Vernon. Mind and Heredity. Princeton University. $1.50. LACKEYS OF THE MOON ‘aon agi Arthur C. The God of the Early Christians. Scrib- Marg (Cass Canfed | Moore, George Foot. The Birth and Growth of Religion. Scrib- Eighteenth Century Venice, with its wit, intrigue and | ner. $2 (2). sophistication peeping disturbingly through Longhi masks, | Obermaier, Hugo. Fossil Man in Spain. Yale University. $5. provides the background of this brilliant romantic play. Robinson, James Harvey. The Humanizing of Knowledge. The piece records a wistful episode in the life of a strolling Doran. $2. actor who wins the attention of an exquisite and capricious { Taylor, Henry Osborne. Freedom of the Mind in History. Mac- lady. Beautifully printed on hand-made paper. The first 2 millan. edition is limited to five hundred copies. $2.00 net Thomson, J. Arthur. Man and Nature. Putnam. Van Hook, LaRue. Greek Life and Thought. Columbia Uni- STORM IN HARVEST versity. Van Loon, Hendrik Willem. The Story of the Bible. Boni Edward Steese and Liveright. $5. A first book of distinguished verse by a Princeton under- Waite, Arthur Edward. Lamps of Western Mysticism. Knopf. graduate. Mr. Steese’s verse has won highly favorable com- $5. ment on its appearance in the better periodical journals. The present volume should establish his reputation. POETRY $1.50 net Bellows, Henry A., tr. The Poetic Edda. American-Scandi- Two hundred page catalogue “English Litreature before navian Foundation. $4. 1800, including Johnsoniana” sent wpon request. Binyon, Laurence. Arthur, a Tragedy. Small, Maynard. $1.50.

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Oct. 10, 1923] The Nation 421

Bodenheim, Maxwell. Against This Age. Boni and Liveright. $1.75. Braithwaite, William Stanley, ed. Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1923 and Year-Book of American Poetry. Brim- mer. $3; $7.50. Brown, Alice. Ellen Prior. Macmillan. $1.50. Cook, Howard Willard. Our Poets of Today. $2.50. Cournos, John. In Exile. Boni and Liveright. $1.50. Davies, W. H. Collected Poems. Harper. $2 (?). Doughty, Charles M. Mansoul, or the Riddle of the World. New ed. Medici Society. $6. Frost, Robert. New Hampshire; a Poem With Notes and Grace Notes. Holt. $2 (?); de luxe ed. $5 (7). Gorman, J. W., and H. S. The Peterborough Anthology. Theatre Arts. $2. Graves, Robert. Whipperginny. Knopf. $2. Ker, William Paton. The Art of Poetry. Oxford University. $2. Kreymborg, Alfred. Less Lonely. Harcourt, Brace. $2. Lawrence, D. H. Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Seltzer. $2.50. Leonard, W. E., tr. Beowulf. Stokes. $1. Page, Curtis Hidden. Japanese Poetry. Houghton Mifflin. $5. Palmer, George Herbert. A Catalogue of Rare Editions of English Poetry from Chaucer to Date. Houghton Mifflin. $25. Piper, Edwin Ford. Poems. Macmillan. $2. Poetry Club of Chicago. Poems. Covici-McGee. $2. Redman, Ben Ray. Masquerade. McBride. $1.50. Stevens, Wallace. Harmonium. Knopf. $2. Untermeyer, Louis. American Poetry Since 1900. Holt. $2.25. (?). Vildrac, Charles. A Book of Love. Trans. by Witter Bynner. Dutton. $2.50. Wylie, Elinor. The Lady Stuffed With Pistachio Nuts. Doran. $2.50. Moffat, Yard. SCIENCE Caldwell, Otis W. and Slosson, Edwin E., eds. making the World. Doubleday, Page. $3. Goldschmidt, Richard. The Mechanism and Physiology of Sex Determination. Doran. $6. Science Re- Kendall, Arthur I. Civilization and the Microbe. Houghton Mifflin. $2.50. Mitchell, S. A. Eclipses of the Sun. Columbia University. $3.85. Morgan, C. Lloyd. Emergent Evolution: Gifford Lectures De- livered at the University of St. Andrews, 1922. Holt. $3.25 (?). Osborn, Henry Fairfield. Teeth. Scribner. $2.75. Evolution of Mammalian Molar TRAVEL, NATURE, DESCRIPTION — Anburey, Thomas. Travel Through the Interior Parts of America. Houghton Mifflin. Two vols. $10. Beebe, William. Galapagos—World’s End. Putnam. Bone, David W. The Lookoutman. Harcourt, Brace. $2.50. Burroughs, John. Complete Works. Houghton Mifflin. Twelve vols. $24, Douglas, Norman. Siren Land. Moffat, Yard. $2.50. Doughty, Charles M. Travels in Arabia Deserta. Boni and Liveright. Two vols. $17.50. Elliot-Smith. G. Elephants and Ethnologists. Dutton. Graham, Stephen. In Quest of El Dorado. Appleton. $2. Kent, Rockwell. Voyaging. Putnam. Loti, Pierre. Siam. Stokes. $4. Thomson, J. Arthur. The Biology of Birds. Macmillan. Twain, Mark. Europe and Elsewhere. Harper. $2.25. William, Prince of Sweden. Among Pygmies and Gorillas. Dutton. New ed.

cA Treasure-trove from Sunny Italy EARLY ITALIAN SONGS AND AIRS Transcribed and Edited by PIETRO FLORIDIA (Two Volumes) ISSUED IN TWO EDITIONS For High Voice

For Low Voice PRICES : Each volume in heavy paper, cloth back $2.50 Each volume in full cloth, gilt $3.50 A veritable “Tut-ankh-amen” find from the buried treasures of the past. Eighty songs composed by the great melodists of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hitherto inaccessible in Libraries, and cumbered with archaic har- monies. The editor has written piano parts which are modern in sonority and color and which still retain and enhance the beauty of the original songs. Issued in the famous MusIcIANS Lrprary. Volume I (Forty Songs) ready October 1, 1923

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The book that Poincare and Stresemann are talking about! OTH Premiere Poincaré and Chancellor Stresemann in some of their recent speeches have made extended reference to the report of the INSTITUTE OF ECONOMICS on the capacity of Germany to make reparation payments. This report, which came off the press a few weeks ago, is exciting interest in all parts of the world. It is the first definite answer to one of the leading questions of the day. Germany’s Capacity to Pay By H. G. Moulton and C. E. McGuire With the aid of the Council and Staff of the Institute of Economics 384 pages, 5 x 8, $2.50 net, postpaid HIS book is the first of a series of studies from the INSTITUTE OF ECONOMICS, established in October, 1922, and endowed by the Carnegie Foundation, for the purpose of gathering and making available material on economic questions for the guidance of public opinion. The INSTITUTE has not been content with any superficial gather- ings of data and opinion. It has done its work thoroughly and its findings will be found as conclusive and as trustworthy as would be those of any commission especially appointed to the task. A Complete Diagnosis of Germany’s Economic Condition The aim has been to make as complete a diagnosis as possible of Germany’s economic condition and of her ability to continue making reparation payments. The volume clears away many of the prevalent misconceptions re- garding Germany’s ability to meet her reparation obligations and answers conclusively most of the questions about which there is so much controversy today. Examine it for 10 days FREE i McGRAW HILL BOOK CO., INC., i I 370 Seventh Ave., New York I You may send me for 10 days’ Free Examination Germany’s I Capacity to Pay, $2.50 net, postpaid. I agree to remit for the book [| J] or return it postpaid within 10 days of receipt. 1 SN CAMPERS Veeco ciate) Sie clevsie < aiviecc ee. Gia bles 16 # bieivie's sve bie « « daibteleldowrarm el I 1 eT eee 2s STU cnc cte CORE or CLS asshe eile welll mcieitaselyis mele 6 v's 0 athretiaveiees ay | I COTES BGG) SU eR 6 949 Ah ee i STEREO IGIE Selec tle ch cicteye tclsic leis! ciais.cle'e v sive sie Sis'vivie nt 0. ¥isreimelbie «ob eip a ole 1 ' I s Nation-10-10-23 Jf ee

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422 The Nation “ [Vol. 117, No. 83040 In The Wake Of: FAMINE BLOCKADE CIVIL WAR ORPHANS They hunger for: Elementary Education Cultural Education Industrial Education Help Send a Unit of Education ONE RUSSIAN CHILD ONE TERM OF SCHOOL Friends of Soviet Russia, 32 So. Wabash Avenue, Chicago, III. i . 1, Primar ae. Unit No. 1, Primary Schools. .$_.50 Enclosed find $ to help send Unit No. ...... of education to Russia. Unit No. 2, Grammar Schools. 1.00 Unit No. 3, Industrial Schools. 2.00 Friends of Soviet Russia 32 South Wabash Avenue CHICAGO

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1923 Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS .....ccccccccscccccccreereccecceccceeeces 423 economic forces. EDITORIALS: The Twilight of a Civilization..........ceeseeee rece ee re ence seen ecnes 426 Milova Georee, Piippel) acccedecsiec cs cases eccccccess eens ssecicsccsaces 427 Fem IOLON GA NTeK Iie clare aici cefalcisietelniers «,nya\e\e\e\00/s: vhs: s 00) (0/0,0/0 ste lols) ei eiaie’e oe 427 Wihatiis an “American Dinner’ 2. cc .cccccessc ccs cc este weer ecececnce 428 RAILROADS AND THE MECHANICS OF SOCIAL POWER: I. Can the Government Run Railroads? By Amos Pinchot........ 429 THESE UNITED STATES—XL. MISSOURI: DOESN’T WANT TO BE SHOWN. By Manley O. Hudson.........2--seeeceseeeesereeees 431 LITTLE OLD NEW ENGLAND. By William Hard....:.............. 435 “WHITE.” By Gustavus Adolphus Steward...........s.sseeeeeeeeeees 436 BILLERS. By Ann Hamilton... .........2ccecccccsccerccccreccecccces A437 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter............cee cece eee re eee ecees 437 GORRESPONDENGEE «onic cis cle nye coe 00's 0 oles ale clei se efeielaivies eves corieceeens 438 BOOKS: Confusing Psychology. By Irwin Edman............++sseeeeeeeeees 440 The Art of the Singer. By Pitts Sanborn.........-..-sseseeeeeeeee 440 Greek and Roman Classics. By A. H. Rice........-.eeeeeeeereeeee 441 Man and the Market. By Henry Raymond Mussey..............-+.+-- 442 After the “Peace.” By William MacDonald..............sesseeeeee 443 ER es cpp ERM ETE Veie reo eee eis a tatic a upubate ale,'aco,n)craVafeigeleleiere! cores" seers 0:'e leveneperciove ore 444 DRAMA: Opus I. By Ludwig Lewisohn.............-seeeeeeee creer eee ceeee 444 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: ee Raj Dethrones the Maharaja of Nabha. By Basanta Koomar we Reece esas es ees esc cree es eree esse esse esesereseoeseseseoere indie Rights PREM CIICEGUSEALES © clave cie/cicleleleieicieieielc\elc erica nvepeeceecs 447 Russia’ and the Bulgarian Reaction..............cccecccecceccsenses 447 Spanish Labor Limps .........cccccccccccercrecersersscsecscesssces 448 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpiTor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES :—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, London, N. W. 4. E had begun to think that the only stable and per- manent agencies of government in the world were the various occupying armies. Cabinets might be hurled from office, kingdoms might crash, but the occupations seemed to go on forever. They had no virtue but that of an enforced stability, but we had grown used to them as a part of the world’s landscape. And so it has been a pleasant shock to view, through the columns of the press, the depart- ing backs of the British, French, and Italian troops as they marched to the Constantinople quays and embarked for home. The Allied occupation has ended and for better or worse Constantinople is itself once more. So far the change seems to be for the better, for the Turkish Nationalist Government has announced, perhaps by way of celebrating the departure of Western democracy from the land, that a republic will be established “with a president, a premier, and a responsible cabinet.” We have already published articles discussing hopefully the chance of democracy in Turkey, and have been denounced for taking the fair words of the Nationalist leaders for actual deeds. In establishing the new form of their state, free from foreign interference or the threat of war, Turkey has an opportunity to show that those who have watched her progress with hopeful interest were not misled, and that the words of her leaders were not empty ones. No. 3041 ARTIES and individual ministers have become almost insignificant in Germany; behind them move powerful The working class, the raw-material in- dustries, the finishing industries have been the three pro- tagonists in the struggles which have appeared to the public as the fall of the Cuno Government and the reorganization of the Stresemann Government. Stresemann came into office pledged to radical financial reform and to a program of conference with France. His ministers elaborated an economic program, but it got nowhere—it met the opposi- tion of Hugo Stinnes and the raw-material industries. The Minister of Economics, Herr von Raumer, was a member of the same political party as Hugo Stinnes, but he repre- sented the finishing industries. In the interest of those industries and, as he believed, of Germany, he sought to put an end to profiteering in coal and to regulate the price of coal. He had to get out. Rudolph Hilferding, Socialist Minister of Finance, wanted to place taxes on a gold basis, to force the coal owners in particular to pay a tax propor- tionate to their profits. He had to get out. And so the same Stresemann who came into office with such high hopes and fine promises continues in office, supported by the same parties, with his hopes gone and his promises broken. OINCARE has expressed his contempt for Stresemann, and the order to abandon passive resistance has pro- duced no rapprochement of the French and German gov- ernments. Perhaps there is reason for this contempt for the nominal head of the German Government. Hugo Stinnes, without even consulting Stresemann about it, has gone to the Ruhr with a troop of his fellow-industrialists, and has there consulted with General Degoutte, Poincaré’s consul, apparently to the mutual satisfaction of all con- cerned. What is the result of this new form of secret diplomacy—secret even from the Government to which Stinnes seems to dictate—we do not yet know. We can be certain only that Stinnes and Poincaré will find a first point of agreement in contempt for the German workers, and that whatever freaty of alliance may be signed between the Ger- man and French steel interests will be made at the expense of the employees. The eight-hour day and the shop coun- ceils, first fruits of the revolution of 1918, seem doomed. RITAIN’S Imperial Conference and Imperial Economic Conference open at a low ebb of imperial prestige. Mr. Baldwin’s humiliating vacillations have left England for the time an almost negligible factor in Continental policy; the honorable debt settlement with the United States has had little effect on American opinion and has embittered France rather than encouraged her to do likewise; the re- turn of Zaglul to Egypt and the loans to Mr. Cosgrave’s Government in Ireland have not solved the problems of those trouble-spots; and unemployment and trade distress continue in the home country. Without German and Rus- sian markets Britain is hard put, and there seems little like- lihood of acceptance of any scheme of imperial preference which would substantially increase the colonial market for British goods. India is learning to make her own cotton

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424 into cloth; General Smuts, pressed by the Nationalist opposition, would not dream of advocating closer imperial ties and has recently asserted his independence in the Kenya affair; Canada has just insisted that the British Minister at Washington keep his signature off treaties which she makes with the United States. Mr. Bruce of Australia is almost alone at London in asking that his dominion share in framing imperial foreign policy and in offering to share the cost of imperial defense. He wants closer trade relations, but even he is opposed to a preferen- tial tariff, and his political opponents in the antipodes are already denouncing him as an “imperialist.” PEN HE revolution in Bulgaria has crumbled under fire; thousands of rebels are said to have been mowed down by the government troops, Communist and agrarian leaders have been executed, hundreds of men are in jail. And thus, according to present-day methods, “order and tran- quillity have been reestablished throughout Bulgaria.” We have seen order and tranquillity established by these means before—in Hungary, for instance, and recently in Spain. Sometimes they continue a surprisingly long time—as long as terror is more strongly rooted in the hearts of the peo- ple than hate and resentment. But they cannot last for- ever unless the masses who have been suppressed are ulti- mately placated. And the present Bulgarian Government by undoing the land reforms of Stambuliiski and wiping out even the symbols of democracy has made it certain that neither peace nor tranquillity will be its permanent share. APAN, as an aftermath of the earthquake, announces that she will cut her military budget for the current year by five million yen (a yen is worth about fifty cents) and for the next year by ten million yen. This gives added point to a letter to the New York Evening Post which, stat- ing that two of Japan’s capital ships were lost in the disas- ter, suggests that President Coolidge might seize the occa- _ sion to carry the Harding disarmament program farther still and propose to Great Britain that she and the United States scrap a proportionate share of the naval tonnage left to them by the Washington treaties. The correspondent points out that all the millions of dollars raised in this country for Japanese relief barely equal the cost of a single battleship. What fools we are! We are appalled at an earthquake, and empty our pockets for relief, but we throw away in battleships the cost of many earthquakes. HERE was little in the annual convention of the Amer- can Federation of Labor at Portland, Oregon, to en- courage those who would like to see the Gompers machine ~ go down before a more progressive leadership. Mr. Gom- pers rode all his pet hobbies through the convention without a fall or even a stumble, seemingly stronger and less un- seatable than for a number of years past. His antipathy toward radicalism in America was more marked than ever, and he found the officers of the United Mine Workers ready to accomplish for him the expulsion of William F. Dunne, of Butte, Montana, a member of the Workers’ Party. This was done ostensibly on the ground that Dunne was seeking to destroy the labor movement but actually for the purely political reason that the old-line leaders fear their radical opponents. All of which is in marked contrast with the progressive action of British workers in electing Mar- The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 garet Bondfield as president of the Trade Union Congress. Mr. Gompers succeeded also, as usual, in squelching all efforts toward using the Federation as the basis of a labor party. The adamant position of labor’s old guard on this issue is probably not susceptible of change. The hope lies in so educating “the mass of the workers, especially the young recruits, that they will push new leeders into posi- tion. To make headway labor must coordinate its political with its economic power, and even then its cry will be for more strength. HAT the rights of a minority in an organization should be was a question raised sharply in the A. F. of L. convention not only in regard to the Workers’ Party but also with respect to the Federated Press. In the latter case the report of the A. F. of L.’s special committee is an illuminating example of muddleheadedness. The first point made against the Federated Press is that its European manager is Louis Lochner, a pacifist who headed the Peo- ple’s Council of war days. Now if the labor movement is to purge its ranks of pacifists, it would better dissolve at once before it gets the workers at each other’s throats again in a general world war. Equally ridiculous is the charge that the Federated Press tries “to report the news of all ‘pretending-to-be’ factions and wings of the labor move- ment.” What, pray, should a labor-press association do which is trying to occupy a nonpartisan position toward the workers’ movement as a whole? AGNUS JOHNSON, the second Farmer-Labor candi- date Minnesota has elected to the United States Sen- ate, does well to emphasize the field that still exists for political action in this country. It has become rather the fashion in advanced labor circles to view with cynicism and indifference the possibilities of progress through constitu- tional political means. This attitude is certainly justified if we look only to the old political parties. Fortunately events like the election of Shipstead and Johnson in Minne- sota prove that the old organizations are not as impossible to dislodge as it sometimes seems, and we must not lose faith in political progress through other groups. Mr. Johnson rightly points out that the G. O. P. has been talk- ing cooperation to the farmer solely as a means of “passing the buck.” Minnesota, he says, is thick with cooperative societies and yet “the best marketing organization is feeble if there is no market.” Viewed as economic factors con- sumers’ and producers’ organizations are among our most hopeful movements, but as Mr. Johnson says: “We know that cooperation or economic organization of any kind is not a substitute for a just or honest government.” OW the Filipinos are talking of adopting Gandhi’s method of non-cooperation. General Wood’s admin- istration seems to have come to an impasse. The election of October 2, held in a district which is normally hostile to the Nacionalista and Collectivista parties which are fighting General Wood, gave an 11,000 majority to the coalition. It is nonsense for papers like the New York Times to dis- cover a victory for General Wood in the fact that 42 per cent of the voters favored Sumulong, the Democrata candi- date. The essential fact is that 58 per cent voted against him where in ordinary times any Democrata was a safe bet. Manuel Quezon’s courage in making the election a

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Oct. 17, 1923] test of the Filipino people’s abhorrence of the Wood regime is vindicated. Quezon’s candidate, Ramon Fernandez, was not strong personally. He was implicated in the inefficiency which General Wood had discovered in the conduct of the Philippine National Bank. The voters showed plainly that they preferred even inefficient Filipinos acting in Filipino interests to efficient representatives of Wall Street. Most Americans will sympathize with them. N the two short weeks of their control the editors of the New York Leader—née Call—have made a good news- paper. If they have followed closely the make-up and headlining of the other evening papers it is doubtless de- liberate and probably wise; there is no reason to suppose that the 300,000 organized workers who, through their unions, are the present owners of the paper, would either buy or read it if it failed to provide the features they have come to recognize on the face of their accustomed papers. Crime and comic strips, sports and “columns”—the Leader provides them all. And if the comics are rather worse than most, the sporting pages are excellent, and Howard Bru- baker’s column, The Cheer Leader, provides far and away the best puns in town. We wish it might appear every day instead of three times a week. A school page and a woman’s page will fill out the proper departments of a paper which sets out to be a “regular paper.” The editorial page is a vigorous and lively defender of the radical position in politics and economics and of labor’s rights in industry. There is plenty of room for change and improvement in a labor paper only a fortnight old; but already the workers of New York have an organ which deserves their steady sup- port. T is human nature that the naval officers involved in the disaster on the California coast should seek for excuses to save themselves from blame and the service from igno- miny, but we had not supposed any of them would have the impudence to transform a display of negligence and fool- hardiness that cost twenty-three lives into propaganda for increased appropriations. Yet Captain James H. Tomb, chief of Destroyer Squadron 12, stood up before the investigating court and glibly proclaimed that if Congress had not re- fused appropriations “for the proper equipment of de- stroyer squadrons” the tragedy would not have happened; he complained especially that the vessels lacked “sonic depth-finders” with which to take soundings. Depth-find- ing fiddlesticks! An old-fashioned lead line would have been sufficient, if the officers had been willing to slow up long enough to use it. We doubt if Congress will be much inclined to increase naval equipment until the service can show a personnel with the competence and the care not to drive full speed through a fog when approaching a rock- impounded coast. HAT Ireland has long needed for her intellectual and spiritual healing and what America needs for an understanding of Ireland has been provided in the Irish Statesman, a weekly journal edited by George W. Russell (Af), the first issue of which appeared in the middle of September. This is a revival of the publication of the same name which was started by Sir Horace Plunkett and ex- pired in 1920, after only one year of existence, for lack of funds. The new paper is backed financially by a group of The Nation 425 anonymous Americans of Irish descent. They have left the control of the paper in the hands of its editor and a small board of management of which Sir Horace is a mem- ber. The Jrish Statesman supports the Free State, but its position is none the less critical and independent. Princi- pally it is dedicated to a policy of reconciliation between the factions of South Ireland and between the North and the South. It is moderate and tempered in its tone, and consequently it will displease the extremists in all the camps; but among the-tired and peace-loving majority of the Irish people its quiet intelligence may easily sound more loudly than the shouts of the bitter partisans. And to the friends of Ireland in other lands it offers hope of some bet- ter counsels in that distracted country. EWS from France does not consist exclusively of the jingo speeches of the Prime Minister. There ap- peared the other day the story of a young man in the employ of the Paris office of the American Express Com- pany who had managed to steal 475,000 francs from the firm and spend it on his best girl before he was found out and arrested. He was brought to trial, admitted his guilt, and the prosecuting attorney demanded that he be severely punished. A long time behind the bars seemed to be the young man’s fate until his lawyer rose to remind the jury that boys will be boys and that it costs more to be a boy nowadays that once upon a time. The advocate then described the American Express Company as a fabulously rich organization which had made big profits exploiting people on French soil, which had heaped up millions in exchange operations that had depreciated the franc, which was managed on so poor a system that the peculations of the young man were almost inevitable and, finally, which had a great deal more money than was good for it anyhow. When the lawyer for the defense sat down the jury ac- quitted the young man almost upon the spot and could scarcely be restrained from sending the American Express Company to jail for twenty years. Far be it from us to ecndone such a verdict. We realize that it was—well, every- thing you say. But there was something ingratiatingly human about that jury, wasn’t there? E do not know whether Zev or My Own is the faster American three-year-old. We do know that the public always sides with the under dog or the long-shot horse and that a substantial section of it feels that the Jockey Club’s officers and the trainer of Zev were guilty of poor sportsmanship in not giving My Own a better chance to demonstrate that he was the proper contender to be matched against the English Derby winner, Papyrus, in the international race at Belmont Park. If Papyrus gallops home with the $100,000 stakes, there will be many to say that had My Own run against him the tables would have been turned. But all this is not Zev’s fault; he is a thor- oughbred even if some of the mere humans about him are not. He is said to be as gentle and as well-mannered as the much-extolled Papyrus, and his past performances have shown him to have the heart of a steam engine and legs like steel springs. We hope both horses get away together, reach the final stretch before the grandstand neck and neck, and then that one (we don’t care which) in half a dozen furious leaps passes the judges’ post a full half length ahead.

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The Nation ~* [ Vol. 117, No. 3041 The Twilight of a Civilization E generally think of people as living in states, na- tions, social organizations of various kinds. This conception is useful but it bears as little relation to reality as the algebraic symbols of some formula do to the actual facts of a path in the woods, the timber for a house, the diminishing weight in sickness of somebody that we love. Beauty, peace, terror, and grief—these are the actual ele- ments of human life. And these are felt by individuals. All aggregations are symbolic. The reality consists of men and women, each with his portion of suffering or joy. It follows that the measure of an age, a period, a year, is the peace, the freedom, the absence of unbearable pain and shattering delusion that mark the lives of the individuals who make up mankind. Now, it is very well and very wholesome to be optimistic, if optimism is the result of clear vision. If it is the result of wearing blinkers it destroys the very elements that might legitimately feed it. Shut your eyes to evil and you let it alone; you do nothing about it; you let it wax and grow fat. While you are comfortable the world goes more and more to the devil. But tomorrow—this is the warn- ing that must be sounded today in the ear of every liberal, of every lover of freedom and of the true goods of civiliza- tion—tomorrow the knife will be at your throat. We used to read in school and college about Roman his- tory and Roman politics, about government by murder and dictatorship and the proscription of the “outs.” And these things, in our ordered world, seemed to have so little reality that they read like a legend and we scarcely believed that the severed head of the slain Cicero was the same that pleaded for beauty and truth in the name of Archias, the poet. Well, murder, dictatorship, the proscription of ‘‘outs” —these things are upon us. The gains of centuries are lost. Horthy exterminates his opponents or drives them into . exile; the Fascisti throttle the press and administer castor- oil; Hitler and his Fascist legionaries in Bavaria talk of the sacred honor of the German name and mean the pogrom of Jews and Socialists; the Bulgarian Communists are being interned in prison camps copied from those Hungarian camps where men and women literally rotted to death. When the Russian revolution of 1905 was on, America shuddered at the tales of floggings in Czarist prisons; it rightly held flogging to be symbolic of the vilest barbarism. Today America is the classic land of the knout, the only home of lynchings. In Oklahoma a military dictatorship, benevolent, perhaps, but still a military dictatorship, locks horns with a Fascist mob whose weapon is the torch, the faggot, and the knout. North Germany, the classical land of moderate socialism, is being driven at this moment under an industrialist and reactionary yoke that will re- establish the worst terrors of feudalism without its old religious and social mitigations. The assassination of Rathenau continues what the assassination of Jaurés began. A dark age is upon us. It is, as we said, the individual and his fate that count. All through Central Europe the intellectual classes are dying of slow starvation: students labor in mines; physi- cians, after a day of toil, are waiters or film operators at night; it is dangerous to speak German on the streets of Prague or Ukrainian on those of Lemberg; one of the great- est of living German actresses is insulted on the streets of Berlin because of her slightly Jewish cast of features; a Catholic can hardly teach school in an Alabaman or Texan village; the roads from Central and Eastern Europe to Con- stantinople and Trieste swarm with ragged and penniless Jewish students expelled from the Polish and Hungarian universities; the fugitives from Smyrna are smothering Athens, those from the East, Vienna and Berlin; our Negroes are being driven northward by the tens of thou- sands—they flee from insult, pogrom, the knout, and the stake. Jewish families that have passed long and honor- able lives in Southern communities find life increasingly difficult and friendless. White terror, Fascisti, Ku Klux Klaners—these are but varying names for an engulfing wave of barbarism. This picture is not overdrawn. It is made up of solid facts visible to all who can see. It does not dig sufficiently, of course, into the concrete and place before the imagina- tion strongly enough the men and women and children in the deadly and hourly grip of hunger, of disease, of terror, of insupportable injustice. Yet we do not despair; we speak out because we do not despair, because, in fact, we believe that the forces of peace and justice and toler- ance are still strong enough in the world to make a stand. In America, in England, among the temporarily silenced liberals and humanitarians of Italy and Germany, in Hol- land and Scandinavia and Mexico, even in Poincaré’s France, there exist vast spiritual resources that can be stirred to work for a rebirth of a measure of liberty, peace, and justice. But the liberals of the world must not deceive themselves ; they must dwell in no fool’s paradise; they must not let divisions and controversies among themselves cause their ranks to waver. England trembles at the air-fleets of France; a reactionary imperium is linking up the Bava- rian, Hungarian, and Italian forces; festering injustice is making for war among the cruelly oppressed minorities of Poland and Czecho-Slovakia; rumors of war stir Europe periodically, and the sighs of relief she breathes as each fresh crisis passes are no deeper or more permanent than those of the first decade of this century. Let but the torch of war be lit and all the forces of reaction, myth, blood, hate will easily darken the minds of men with the false cries of national honor, security, and defense. We have seen it. Let it be our effort that it shall not be again. Let us forget the questionable distinction be- tween liberal and radical, socialist and economic meliorist. The day of building a new and better world is, alas, far off and questions of method may be left to the future. The problem of the hour is to save the slow gains that were made in the period from the French Revolution to the World War. It is no less than that. The days when we can afford to sneer at nineteenth-century liberalism are over. If the united front of all the active liberals in the world can but save that liberalism as a starting-point for the future, it is more than we can expect at this moment; it would be enough to carry the hope of our civilization through one of its darkest and most desperate crises.

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 427 Lloyd George, Puppet R. LLOYD GEORGE has come to the United States, presumably to make money. It is a habit that many Englishmen have, and Americans surely should be the last to protest when Englishmen follow such good American pursuits. Mr. Lloyd George, it seems to us, has a right to his royalties, and his sponsors naturally will advertise him as best they may. We feel that our neighbor, the Freeman, is too liberal with its indignation when it shouts that Mr. Lloyd George ... has spent eight busy years in the deliberate and purposeful organization of mendacity, murder, robbery, arson, oppression, and famine; and it is sheerly on the strength of his success in these elevated pursuits that he pre- sumes to come among us. From across Park Row comes the welcoming bark of the World: We have with us this morning, ladies and gentlemen, one of the nine wonders of the world. For according to reports here is a man who consists of many men in one: The Man Who Won the War and the Man Who Lost the War, the Man Who Botched the Peace and the Man Who Tried to Save the Peace, a Liberal Tory, a Tory Liberal, a savior and a destroyer, a prophet and a politician, a leader of democracy and a manufacturer of peers. . .. This man has lived on crises, gone to bed and got up with emergencies, gambled in empires. When you judge him, remem- ber that. Remember that there are no precedents by which to judge him, for no statesman of any age, and none other even of this age, has had so many times to act so quickly at awful risk amid so many complications. To the World as to the Freeman there is something super- human, almost demoniac to one and heroic to the other, about this man Lloyd George. He stands beyond criticism, says the World; he is “an undesirable alien,” says the Freeman. It would be better to attempt to understand him. There is no question that he has lied, and been the cause of mur- der, arson, and famine; but we do not believe that he in- tended any of them. He has held power and gambled with high stakes; so have, in our own day, Woodrow Wilson and William Hohenzollern, Ludendorff and Foch, Sazonov and Clemenceau—not to mention Poincaré and Mussolini. He is not alone; and the tragedy of Lloyd George is the tragedy of every one of these men—that they did not prove superhuman, could not master their environment, and in- stead of rising above their day, expressed it. They were, after all, but puppets, through which spoke the voice of an incapable period. Lloyd George is today, politically, down and out, a statesman in the discard; but he is a symbol of the period of the Great War, and if Americans still look upon the war years as a heroic epic, it is fitting that they should pay tribute to Lloyd George. Lloyd George is called the master of brilliant improvisa- tion; he has an amazing gift for sensing the spirit of his audience and expressing it. That is to say that he has been the man for his age. He has been the H. G. Wells of the political world, ready to plunge into any problem, how- ever complex, without a moment’s hesitation or preparation —and he is likely to emerge with a temporarily satisfactory solution, although almost never with anything of perma- nent value or significance. In this contentment with super- ficiality, this refusal to go to the roots of problems, he again expresses his period. Europe “slipped’—it is Lloyd George’s own word—into war because it insisted on playing Pollyanna when the cake was burning, and thought it a sufficient remedy for a bad odor to shut a door upon it. Europe—and we—may do as much again. We have learned so little; we still think that we may blame the faults of an age upon a few men, and that if it had not been for their wilful wickedness all might have been well. “Lloyd George ruined the British parliamentary system,” we hear it said—and certainly there are ample data of corruption to support the argument. But here are Russia, Italy, Spain, Bavaria, Oklahoma openly flouting parlia- mentarism; we cannot blame Lloyd George for them. The cancer lies deeper. Lloyd George may have been the agent of parliamentary decline in England, the instrument of imperialism in Ireland, Egypt, India, the trumpet through which madmen shouted “Hang the Kaiser” and ‘Make Germany pay for the war’; his weaknesses may, since he was in power, have been the direct agencies of the disaster of Versailles—but England gave him power, kept him in power, and was well content, yes, proud of him. War-time England, to be sure—but an England very like war-time America, or France, or Germany. Havelock Ellis, apropos of something very different, says: It is certainly strange to observe how many people seem to feel vain of their own ungratified optimism when the place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum. They never seem to pause to reflect on the goal that lies ahead of them, though there must be few who on looking back cannot perceive what terrible accidents they might have foreseen and avoided by the aid of a little pessimism. When the gods, to ruin a man, first made him mad, they do it, almost invariably, by making him an optimist. It might have been written as an epitaph on Lloyd George’s career. If Americans want to pay their dollars to hear his sermons, what does it prove unless that they deserve no better fare? The Violent Alien VER and again, in current writings and speeches, there are allusions to the alien in America as an instigator of mass violence, especially in labor disputes, and hostility toward our foreign-born population is sedu- lously cultivated by picturing the danger of armed revolu- tion from this element in our national life. Have the per- sons who preach, or accept, this doctrine ever taken the trouble to test it by the records of recent mass violence in the United States? Take, for instance, the ugliest exhibition of violence in a labor dispute within recent years—the massacre of strike- breakers at Herrin, Illinois. In spite of the absurd charges made for political effect by officers of the United Mine Workers, the unanimous testimony of Illinois public offi- cials, of newspaper correspondents, and of the United States Coal Commission is that the Herrin workers—including those who killed the strike-breakers—constitute one of our oldest American stocks, a community almost untouched by foreign infiltration. Likewise with the southern counties of West Virginia, where guerrilla fighting has been almost ceaseless for several years and where in 1921 an armed march was attempted which brought the State to civil war. Who are the men who, goaded by the ruthless policies of ' autocratic mine owners, have taken down their rifles and shot from ambush or in the open the mine guards and others whom they regarded as their enemies? Are they Italians, or Hungarians, or Poles? On the contrary, they are native- born mountaineers, far better trained in the use of the

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—_ 428 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 long-distance rifle than any group of foreigners in this country begins to be. Or take mass violence against the Negro in the South or in the North. That is admittedly of “pure American” origin. Nobody pretends that the mobs that lynch or burn black men are composed of recently arrived immigrants. The Ku Klux Klan, which is expressly anti-foreign in its make-up, has been guilty of more mass violence in Texas, Oklahoma, and various other States in the last year than can be matched by any other group in the country. On the other hand, what is the labor history of those regions and those industries in which our foreign-born population is chiefly to be found? Rhode Island is our most alien State; nearly a third of its inhabitants are foreign- born. Yet its industrial history has hardly been turbulent. In New York, Baltimore, and other great centers of cloth- ing manufacture there have been numerous strikes of tail- ors, cutters, garment workers, fur makers, and others in recent years. Thousands of persons, almost exclusively foreign in origin, have walked out of their shops and made every legitimate effort to prevent others from taking their places; yet these strikes have been so devoid of violence or even of demonstration that a majority of the fellow- townsmen of the disputants have scarcely been aware that any controversy was going on. Our great steel and iron industry rests largely on the sturdy backs of recently landed immigrants. Yet about the only violence that took place in the bitter strike of 1919 was committed by the Pennsylvania constabulary and police. -William Z. Foster, commenting on the peaceable character of the contest, said: “Wait until a strike of this sort takes place some time among American-born workers!” There is nothing in the least mysterious in the fact— and it is one despite propaganda to the contrary—that our old American stock is more prone to mass violence than our foreign-born population. The reason, of course, is that the European immigrant is derived for the most part from generations of law-bound and submissive ancestors, while the older Americans are the immediate descendants of a race of frontiersmen and fighters. Violence has been bred into their bones. The pioneers were more independent than tolerant. They were strong for personal liberty— when their own was concerned—but they expected to main- tain it by the ability to draw quicker than the other fel- low. Even mob action is an advance over personal venge- ance; a barrelhead court is better than none; the frontier did the best that it could. But although the frontier is now little more than a memory, its habits and its instincts are still with us, and will cling to the older American stock for many years to come. No, there is no basis for the theory that our foreign- born population is a source of mass violence or a probable focus for armed revolution. The older Americans who tremble on this account for their privileges and their pres- tige are needlessly disturbed. Because of his psychology and previous environment the foreign-born resident does seem to be more open to new industrial and political ideas than his American-bred neighbor, but education and per- suasion—not bullets and bombs—are his means of propa- ganda. Of course some of our older Americans are afraid of even such methods, but it is a little awkward to avow such a fear openly. To storm about danger from alien vio- lence preserves American self-respect and makes one more likely to be believed. What Is An ‘‘American Dinner’ ? The Lloyd Georges had dinner in the Rose Room at the Wal- dorf-Astoria. ... Mr. Lloyd George had asked for a typical American meal, and Oscar provided bluepoints, sorrel soup, mousse of sole with oyster-crab sauce, potatoes parisienne, breast of chicken, new lima beans, Waldorf salad, and ice cream, cakes, and coffee-—New York Times. E don’t want to spoil either Mr. Lloyd George’s diges- tion or his illusions, but we must turn aside for a moment to laugh discreetly at this “American dinner,” the only indisputably native dish in which was lima beans. It is true that oysters as the beginning of a dinner is an es- sentially American custom, but the oyster itself is inter- national, as is the eating of it raw on the half-shell. Had the oysters been served escalloped or as a soup, they would have been much more American. Sorrel soup is distinctly Continental. Not one American housewife in a hundred would know how to make it even if she could get the sorrel. Perhaps clam chowder is our most typical American soup, although if it is made right—with plenty of milk and clams —it is a meal in itself. Sole is anything but an American fish, and prepared as a “mousse” it would certainly get the gorge of anybody sufficiently American to tell “The Star- Spangled Banner” from “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” He would suspect that it concealed something like frog’s legs or stuffed snails. For a typically American fish one should, we think, choose one not from the ocean but from our inland waters—per- haps a Great Lakes whitefish—or at least something pre- pared in an American manner, like creamed cod on toast as the Bostonians know how to produce it. Potatoes parisienne, _of course, stands condemned by its own name, and roast chicken is as universal as war. Waldorf salad, we admit, has claims as an American dish, since it combines fruit and nuts with green vegetables, which is not European; but it is too new to our diet to have much significance. Likewise - jee cream is nowhere else made as it is here, nor con- suméd in such stupendous quantities, but we doubt if Mr. Lloyd George noticed the difference—or, if he did, liked it. What, then, would we serve Mr. Lloyd George as an American dinner? Well, in the first place, we would not expect it of Oscar, who is European; at the Waldorf- Astoria, which is international; in New York City, which is cosmopolitan. We would whisk Mr. Lloyd George into the heart of either one of our great regions of authentic native cooking—New England or Dixie. In New England we should like to serve Boston baked beans and steamed brown bread, but this would hardly do in a course dinner. So, having in mind the season, we would tentatively sug- gest—oh, very tentatively and subject to numerous alterna- tives—a dinner of stuffed roast turkey with lots of thick gravy on the side, mashed potatoes, baked squash, cran- berry sauce; pumpkin and apple pie, and coffee. In the South a choice would be easier. We should order fried chicken, candied sweet potatoes, lima beans, and beaten biscuit; caramel ice cream and coffee. We should certainly avoid that monstrous American invention, pie 4 la mode. All of which we submit tentatively and humbly, not as - cooks—the greatest of professions—but as mere editors, the most useless of all futilities. At least a million Amer- ican housekeepers could better either list, and could cook it so seductively that Mr. Lloyd George would never return to Blighty. |

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation Railroads and the Mechanics of Social Power By AMOS PINCHOT I. Can the Government Run Railroads? (This is the first of three articles which aim to explain how through control of transportation a unified industrial- financial group has built up a power which dominates the politics and culture of America.) AM not going to begin these articles by saying that the railroads are the most important things in the world; nor am I about to tell you that commerce is the nation’s life-blood and the railroads its arteries. We have heard this said—said well, said indifferently, and said badly for the last twenty years. Incidentally it is not true, though there is some truth to it, mainly of an accidental kind. There are things more important to a nation’s welfare than its railroads. For instance, its land, its natural re- sources, and the reality of its regard for justice. But the railroads are important enough; and, before long, they will be the storm-center, the issue and test of faith in momen- tous political campaigns which will divide the public into two camps—the believers in democracy, and the exponents and beneficiaries of various forms of privilege. Unfortunately, the railroad question is not a very simple one. It cannot be answered by a mere comparison between the probable efficiency of private and government operation. Other considerations are involved, some of them exceedingly practical, others reaching down to the vitals of the theory of American life. In almost every case our great monopolies, such as the coal, oil, steel, and beef trusts, owe their ability to prevent competition and sell products at extortionate prices to the fact that the railroads, controlled by the same interests as the trusts, give the latter unfair and illegal transportation advantages, which they deny to the companies that are out- side the monopoly group. Experience teaches us that these advantages, many in number, powerful in their effect, ever changing and very hard to detect, cannot be done away with while our railroads stay in private hands. Railroad regulation has failed. Its oldest advocates admit it. And, despite the no doubt sincere efforts of our com- missions and the less sincere but equally futile dissolutions by our courts, the railroads, industrial trusts, and bankers continue to act together, each year more firmly united by the common purpose of protecting the advantages, privi- leges, differentials, or discriminations—it does not matter what term we use to describe them—on which their mo- nopoly, power, and consequent profits depend. The chief objection, then, to private railroading is not its inefficiency, its extravagance, or its dishonesty. It is, first, that independent competitive effort in our basic in- dustries has become almost impossible because of the rail- road-trust group’s control of transportation, and, second, that by means of industrial monopoly built on private rail- roading vast and steadily increasing reserves of excess wealth—far above what is necessary to carry on business— are being concentrated in the railroad-trust group’s hands. And this excess wealth, which is but another name for excess power, expressing itself in every phase of American life, is used not only to prevent competition and increase the prices of necessities of life, not only to cripple the ini- tiative and functioning of independent capital, and not merely to destroy what Sumner of Yale used to call “the equal chance.” It is also used, constantly and successfully, in shaping the attitude of the press, in guiding education and public opinion, and in capturing office-holders and poli- tical parties and through them controlling the action of State and Federal government. The railroad question has been confused by such an im- mense mass of misleading propaganda that it is hard for most of us to make up our minds about it. Consequently, the safest thing is to maintain an attitude of what might be called suspended conclusion, meanwhile searching for more facts. Z How much hard cash the railroads and industrial mo- nopolies have put into propagandizing against government ownership it is hard to say. The sum probably runs far into the millions; for we have Mr. Frank J. Warne’s testi- mony before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce that in the single year 1916 the roads spent eight million dollars in advertising expenses, hiring space in 17,000 news- papers to defeat the eight-hour day. And compared to government ownership the eight-hour day is a compara- tively small issue. Propaganda against government ownership generally runs along three definite lines: (1) That Federal control of railroads during the war proved that the government cannot administer a railroad system properly; (2) that the roads ran up a big deficit under Federal control; (3) that the government wrecked the roads and returned them to pri- vate ownership in “deplorable condition.” Of course, any one who stops to think realizes that con- ditions during Federal control were too abnormal to consti- tute a test of government operation. It was war time. As Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt, head of the Southern Pacific Rail- road and a staunch enemy of government ownership, pointed out before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the roads had to be run primarily for war purposes and “regardless of expense.” In the twenty-six months of Federal control the railroads were not and should not have been conducted as commercial enterprises or for commercial purposes. When the govern- ment handed them over to seven regional directors, six of them railroad presidents and the seventh a railroad vice- president, it said in effect: “The government hereby places America’s transportation system in your hands. All that is asked of you gentlemen is swift hauling of men and sup- plies to tidewater for overseas shipment. Subordinate evelything to this. Commercial business can wait. What the country needs is service, at all costs.” Now, if these seven men abused the confidence and large powers placed in them; if they sabotaged in order to dis- credit government control, as I do not for a moment believe, they should, according to war standards, have been taken out and shot. If, on the other hand, they tried their best, but failed to do a good job, it was not the government’s fault; it was the fault of their own incompetence and the broken-down state the railroads had fallen into under their own banker-directorates. In reality, they did not fail.

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The government gave the railroad presidents a free hand. During the twenty-six months of Federal control it patched up the roads to the tune of a billion and a quarter dollars. The government paid the companies the enormous rental of $906,000,000 a year, about 5 per cent on their total outstanding securities, water and all; admittedly much more than they could have earned. Likewise, in order to elimi- nate the chance of strikes, it radically advanced the wages of employees. Generally speaking, the function of the gov- ernment was to appropriate money needed to put the roads in shape; to advance wages to secure the full cooperation of labor; to discipline some inefficient railroad presidents; and to insist on unification, common-sense car distribution, and business methods. The results were, on the whole, good. The roads got along well under Federal control, because the executives, backed by the government and free from the domination of cream-skimming directorates, found themselves for the first time at liberty to do whatever they thought was right and necessary. Enemies of public ownership have harped on the charge that, during Federal control, the railroads ran up a deficit of about $715,000,000. Let’s examine this deficit. On Feb- ruary 28, 1920, in a report to the President of the United States, Director General Hines, counted in railroad circles aman of marked ability and conservatism, stated that $494,- 000,000 of the deficit was due to the fact that rates were not advanced simultaneously with wages and other oper- ating expenses; also that the great coal strike had tied up the roads and cost them not less than $114,000,000. This would appear to explain most of the deficit, but an impor- tant contributing cause remains. The roads that had re- ceived land grants were obliged by their charters to carry soldiers and war supplies at about one-third to one-half below commercial rates. Sixty-six per cent of the pro- digious volume of the government’s war business was hauled at these low tariffs. In addition, there occurred a post-war slump in business and building, reaching its cli- max in February, 1919, when the average daily surplus in freight cars rose to 451,026, the highest on record. Also an extraordinary series of storms from November, 1919, to February, 1920, seriously interrupted railroad operation. These unusual circumstances occasioned, according to Mr. Hines, a further loss to the railroads of several hundred millions. All of these facts, little commented upon by the daily press, were enough to warrant Mr. Hines in writing to the President that the so-called deficit was “in no sense chargeable to Federal control as against private control.” As to the charge that the government wrecked the roads and returned them in “deplorable condition,” let us see what shape they were in when the government took them. On March 22, 1917, President Rea of the Pennsylvania testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission as follows: “We realize that the condition of the railroads today pre- sents a menace to the country, not alone to the owners of the properties, but as affecting directly the international situation.” Eight months later, or a month before the government took the roads over, after quoting an expert who estimated that our railroads required five billions to put them in trim, President Underwood of the Erie summed up the situation as follows: “It needs no gift of prophecy to foretell the financial end for railroads in the Northerly and Easterly sections of the United States except their net earnings are The Nation ~- [ Vol. 117, No. 3041 increased. There is a short word that indicates it—smash!” The following month the Railway War Board, composed of five railway presidents, told the Interstate Commerce Commission that, in order to become a _ well-equipped machine, the railroads needed 2,000 new locomotives and 150,000 new freight cars, in addition to those already on order. During Federal control, according to the Director General, the government supplied 4,226 locomotives and 159,066 freight cars. Now let us hear from the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion. Late in 1917 it made an examination into the con- dition of the railroads. The day after the railroads were taken over, Commissioner Aitchison said: “The conclu- sion which we all reached was that existing conditions were intolerable and constituted a menace to the public safety.” How fully the railroad presidents themselves realized the havoc private management had wrought is shown by the way they snapped up the government’s forced war-time generosity in providing funds to repair the damage. In the three years prior to Federal control the average annual expenditure for maintenance of equipment on Class I roads was $440,000,000. In the two years of government control the average rose to $971,000,000, an increase of $531,000,- 000 a year or over 100 per cent. In the same three years of private control, 1915 to 1917, the average bill for way and structures was $409,000,000. In the two years of gov- ernment control the average was $708,000,000, a raise of $299,000,000 or 73 per cent. The cold fact is that it was only the government’s purse that saved the roads from a pretty complete debacle and Wall Street from a first-class shake-up. For most of the roads had been run, not in the interest of the stockholders, but for the benefit of an inside ring of trust magnates, manipulators, unprincipled financiers, and supply compan- ies, the latter largely controlled by railroad and trust repre- sentatives and selling to the railroads enormous quantities of materials, according to Mr. Warne over $83,000,000 worth a month. Railroad division engineers will tell you privately that Federal control worked and that the roads went back to private ownership in better shape than they left it. Pri- vately, railroad presidents will tell you the same thing; so will Wall Street financial houses. They will admit, in con- fidence, that unification under the government was a sheer necessity. But only once in a while we find a railroad presi- dent, in an unguarded moment, letting slip to the public the truth about Federal control. Congratulating his col- leagues on the savings made by Federal control, President Bush of the Missouri Pacific said: “Satisfying as may be the money savings throughout the country resulting from unification and coordination of railroad facilities and prac- tice, the outstanding gratification is with respect to the accomplishments for the government and its allies by the unified railroads in the successful transportation of troops, supplies, and munitions of war to the ports of transship- ment overseas.” And Mr. Kruttschnitt declared, on March 10, 1921, before the Senate Committee on Interstate Com- merce: “The railroads of Class I performed the greatest transportation task in their history, having during that year [1920] handled the largest volume of traffic, both freight and passenger, they ever handled.” The roads came back to private ownership on March 1, 1920. How, one might ask, could they have performed the feat mentioned by Mr. Kruttschnitt if they were returned

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Oct. 17, 1923] in “deplorable condition.” No fact is ever inconsistent with any other fact; facts never contradict each other. If, as we know to be true, the roads were on the rocks before the government took them, and if, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Kruttschnitt say, they functioned well, while and after the government had them, we are obliged to discredit the al- leged fact that the government wrecked them and returned them shattered. ‘Can the government run railroads? Of course it can. As Mr. Ford says, there is no mystery in railroading. It is a fully developed, understood art, difficult only when you try to combine the inconsistent functions of milking the roads for the enrichment of insiders and giving the coun- try sound transportation. The government runs an army, a navy, and a post office; a Panama canal and an Alaska railroad; it conducts huge irrigation, power, and reclama- tion projects, all more efficiently and certainly more hon- estly administered than the railroads are under private ownership. Though, for economic reasons which we need not discuss now, the government should not, in my opinion, take over any service except where monopoly is inevitable, it must be admitted that, in the government services enum- The Nation 431 erated above, there can rarely be found graft or conspicu- ous inefficiency, except in war time when the dollar-a- year men flock in, carrying with them their ideals and practices. The history of public ownership has been the same every- where. Whenever the government takes over a service that is of great importance, used by a majority of the voters, and where the difference between good and bad service affects the public’s pocket, convenience, or safety in an obvious, unmistakable way, it is well handled. That is the rule. And when we take over and operate our railways, we shall discover that no administration will dare to give us such inefficient, expensive, dangerous, and dishonest railroading as we have endured for half a century. For politicians will quickly realize that to do so will surely make railroading the big issue in the next election and render the party in power liable to be swept out by an avalanche of votes. In the next article, I will take up other and more impera- tive reasons for government ownership of railroads, in- cluding the part private railroads play in preventing com- petition in industry and in establishing monopoly and high prices. These United States—XL MISSOURI: Doesn’t Want to Be Shown By MANLEY O. HUDSON OTHING is simpler than to throw a few millions of human beings into a hopper and ascribe to all of them qualities which not one of the individuals may possess. For a generation now four millions of Missourians have been herded under the music-hall slogan, “I’m from Missouri and you’ve got to show me.” And as a consequence they have gained the reputation for being a cautious and inquir- ing people. Now few things might be said about Missourians which would be further from the truth. In the large—by which I mean that I cannot produce statistics for what I am about to say—in the large, they deserve no credit for such skepti- cism. You do not have to show the Missourian. He knows already. And he is quite content to let it go at that. Mis- souri doesn’t care to be shown! Every time I come to town Th’ boys keep kickin’ my dog aroun’; Makes no diff’rence if he is a houn’, You’ gotta quit kickin’ my dog aroun’. This Ozark doggerel is not merely the original of Sena- tor Vest’s famous eulogy. It breathes also the sentiments with which the Missourian looks at the world. His dog may be a hound, but it is his and he proposes that others shall take it at his valuation. Missouri may not be the greatest State in the Union. Illinois may have a richer soil and a more prosperous people; Iowa may have a better or- ganized community life; and Kansas, a quicker sense of civic responsibility and political opportunity. But Mis- souri doesn’t care to hear about it. Missourians are satis- fied with her, and she is satisfied with herself. Besides, who can say that Arkansas excels her in anything? For Missouri—we who are to the manner born call her “Mizzourah” with no apology for rolling the r—Missouri is not merely a geographers’ diagram. It is not simply a place. It is a state of digestion. It is a set of conventions. It is a slant on life. In brief, it is a civilization. An effete Easterner whose travels in America are bound- ed by Baltimore on the south, by Buffalo on the west, and by Bar Harbor on the north may wonder that the straight lines remembered from his school geography as the boun- daries of Missouri could so clearly mark out the personality of a people. I have met Americans on the Atlantic coast to whom Missouri was no more than a name for a river or a waltz or a compromise. Judging by the date-lines not many editors know today that Kansas City does not vote in Kansas. And perhaps few New Yorkers will be able to understand why it is that we resent their placing Missouri in that trans-Allegheny vastness which they call “the Mid- dle West.” Our query is, “West of what?” It all depends on where you start. We don’t find Missouri west of where we begin to measure the continent. To us it is difficult to see why the rest of the country does not call it “the center.” The nerve controls may be elsewhere. And we’re willing to use Chicago as a sort of aorta through which to supply the rest of the country. But Missouri is the heart of America! What other State was so favored by the geographers? The eight bordering States give Missouri a contact with the Great Lakes, the Alleghenies, all of Dixieland, the Gulf, and the Rockies. They make her the friend of the North and the South, the common ground of the East and the West, without identifying her with any section. As a place, Missouri is not quite coterminous with the map-makers’ shuffle. The two broad portals which she opens so generously to the outer world are for most purposes not part of Missouri herself. We must exclude St. Louis first of all. For that sprawling city lops over into Illinois and takes its cue from the screeching factories and glaring furnaces of other lands. It serves Missouri chiefly as a

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432 sieve for Eastern money and Eastern manners. It is a huge railroad terminal—the only American city besides Chicago where passengers always change. No train ever passes through St. Louis. It is an island of Germanic cul- ture in a sea of American indifference. It once had a Fair which made it great, and the laurel has been borne in slumber these twenty years since. Only this year a bond issue seems to have waked it up; it was no mean thing to vote eighty-seven million dollars for improvements on the crest of a high tide of taxes. But except for Forest Park and its unique open-air theater, St. Louis sets no pace. It forms no part of Missouri. Even the postal clerks know it as St. Louis, U.S. A. At the opposite end of Missouri’s corridor, Kansas City stands as an outpost flung out by the great Southwest in its reach for Chicago. Busy, boasting, and Babbitt-ful, Kan- sas City holds a key position in the American system of interstate commerce. It is a way-station for the country’s hogs and corn and oil. It is a warehouse for Montgomery Ward & Co. It has life but it lacks character. It once got bold enough to experiment with a Board of Public Welfare, but the courage faded when Jacob Billikopf went East. It lacks history, too, though a few of us can still recall the days when we bought our trousers from the Grand Pants Co. for “$1.75 a leg, seats free.”’ Those were the good old days! Then as now Kansas City was like New York—all of its people come from somewhere else and many of them are still in transit. Like New York, it is a part of no State. It is interstate. It does not wear Missouri yarn, and its face is turned toward Kansas. These exclusions leave to Missouri a territory larger than all New England, with a population almost as large as that of the Irish Free State. They leave the farmers who culti- vate each year a half a million acres of wheat and oats and corn and hay. They leave the miners who produce a large part of America’s zinc and lead and coal and iron. They leave a host of small villages, each consisting of a few houses clustered around a combined post-office-and-general- store which handles postage-stamps, prunes, and potatoes, all in the bulk. They leave St. Joseph, Kirksville, Hanni- bal, Columbia, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Springfield, Joplin, Carthage, Cape Girardeau—each with a niche in our na- tional history, each with a Main Street all its own. For its population, Missouri was originally indebted to three things—the bad land in Virginia, the failure of the potato crop in Ireland in 1847, and the revolution in Ger- many in 1848. From Virginia came a yeoman stock of purely English blood, urged by the hard times of the twenties to seek their fortunes in the promised land across the plains. Some of them stopped en route in Kentucky— in Madison County, Sir! A few of them brought their slaves along. But with the climate inhospitable to both cot- ton and tobacco, slavery got no firm hold in the State. An abolitionist conference at Lexington in the late twenties attracted little attention, and if Missouri was a bone of contention it was not due to her own defense of slavery. One-twentieth of the people are still black or mulatto, but we have no Jim Crow cars and a lynching or two a year is regarded enough to “make the Negro keep his place.” This Virginia immigration gave to Missouri society a Southern tinge which many communities still retain. They built their court-houses on the best Virginia models of the time, and where the court-house square exists today, with the town built around it—in Liberty, in Marshall, in Mex- The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 ico, in Springfield—the architecture remains unsurpassed by any of the styles borrowed from Chicago or Cleveland sub- urbs. A Southern family tradition lingers, too, where the invading Yankees have not smothered it, and helps Mis- souri to resist change. I recall entering a farmhouse “in the kingdom of Callaway” a few years ago on a cold winter day, to find a glowing fire cracking out its welcome. As I held out my hands, I exclaimed to my host about his fire. “It ought to be good,” he parried, “It’s been burning long enough.” I asked when it had been started. “In 1832. My father brought it out from Virginia when he came across the prairie in a wagon, and it’s been burning ever since.” It was a very different strain that came from Ireland and from Germany. The Irish soon mixed, for here they never limited themselves to politics and the police force. But the Germans held aloof, and they still live in enclaves, secure from the ravages of puritanism. In the early days they captured South St. Louis, whence they’ve ministered since to many a thirst. They proved themselves superior agricul- turists, and in the eastern counties they gradually crowded the Virginians out of the better bottom lands. With their militant ideas of freedom, they opposed the extension of slavery, they kept Missouri from seceding, they sent Carl Schurz to the Senate. More recently they held back the Volstead onslaught until the general capitulation. They began as Republicans in 1860, and they’ve voted straight ever since—until the combination of the war and prohibition led them to reelect Senator Reed. Content with what they have escaped in Europe and what they have found in Amer- ica, they add no ferment to Missouri’s society. They help to keep her satisfied. The Atlantic seaboard is too far away for a large Euro- pean immigration—there are some Greeks in St. Louis and a few Italians in Kansas City. But if some explorer sent out by the peasants of Southeastern Europe should ever re- discover Missouri, and if a 3 per cent limit would not - bar it, the Ozark wilderness might be transformed into another Switzerland! A traveler who journeys from Kansas City to St. Louis on the Wabash or the C. & A. or the Missouri Pacific or the Rock Island—all of our railroads seem to run east and west—may wonder about Missouri’s prosperity. For in a land of teeming plenty, poverty still lifts its ugly head. But if we take as a test the existence of a favorable trade bal- ance, there can be no doubt about it. Not that she depends on her foreign trade; if she chose to do so, Missouri could probably live more comfortably on her own resources than any other State in the Union. She could produce almost everything she needs except coffee and rubber, and doubt- less the agricultural experiment stations would soon find substitutes for those luxuries. But what community would care to be self-contained with such wares to spread its fame? There is, for instance, the corn-cob pipe on which Missouri holds a world-wide monop- oly. Wherever a few smokers gather together, a hymn of thanksgiving can be heard for the Missouri meerschaum! Then there is the Missouri mule. He it was who won the war. Indeed he has won all the modern wars. He opened up Cuba for our bankers, he stilled the Boer’s insolence, he elevated Japan to the international peerage, he waded through blood in the Balkans, and now he has made the world safe for Poincaré and Mussolini to play in. But he never gets a decoration. He was the only part of the A.E.F.

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 433 that got left behind in Europe. And a few days ago I saw him trying to win the peace in Haute-Savoie. We take our religion very seriously—that is, we insist that every man must profess it and on all red-letter days we bow to its authority. We shouldn’t think a marriage were valid unless a preacher tied the knot. And any rene- gade is entitled to a funeral from a church. But on ordi- nary week-days we don’t allow ourselves to be greatly ham- pered by our faiths. On Sundays the Irish go to mass, the Germans gather in the Lutheran Church, and the rest of us are exhorted from the Baptist or South Methodist or Presbyterian or Campbellite pulpits. A small Virginian aristocracy is Episcopalian, and Christian Science was grow- ing in power until its recent difficulties. The Latter-Day Saints have won a prescriptive right to their center in In- dependence. But for other queer peoples we have no time and no toleration. We don’t care to be shown that our be- liefs are not the only true beliefs. I once heard it whispered that a Baptist minister had gone over to Unitarianism, but the rumor was too awful to follow up. Since the war, we feel the citadels of our faith attacked by a newly strength- ened modernism. William Jewell College recently dismissed a professor who had yielded to the temptations of the “higher criticism.” Until the final victory is won, we must all be fighting fundamentalists. As to our politics, they don’t much matter. We like the game. A few men—and latterly women—play it and are much admired. A few more spectate. But Missouri was never a “sovereign independent State,” and we look upon our State government as merely a local division under a government which has its seat in a far-off Washington. Bill Stone was far more interesting to us when he ruled the bosses at Jefferson City than when: he was chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate. We pointed with pride when three of our politicians—Clark and Folk and Hadley, not one of them native sons—were ranked among the presidential possibilities in a single elec- toral year. One reason for the toleration of Reed is the feeling that he wants what he wants when he wants it. In the ordinary campaign the inherited categories of Democrat and Republican are quite enough for us. The Prohibition- ists have disappeared. As for being a Socialist, it isn’t done. Our farmers were cold to Townley. On the whole, it is men not measures that matter. We endured an obso- lete taxation system and an antiquated constitution for a whole generation. We didn’t propose to take any new- fangled notions from Oklahoma or Wisconsin. We keep a store of patriotism always ready, and on the war Missouri was ready to follow the lead of the East by going in or by staying.out. Once in, it was necessary to have a certain measure of forced taxation in behalf of the Y.M.C.A. and the Red Cross, to prove that we were united. We held in readiness for any pacifist who might appear the same medicine that was administered to Lovejoy in 1836. We insisted that it was not enough for one to say that he was against the Kaiser and for the war—he had also to believe that the Kaiser was a mad dog loose in the world and that the war was a heaven-blessed righteous crusade or we questioned his Americanism. When it came to the peace, we were all for the League of Nations until our politicians got so nervous about it, and now—we wait for a lead from Washington. Education is a necessity in Missouri, but only for those who are growing up. It ends with the close of the last spring term. A week of Chautauqua each summer and three Lyceum evenings during the winter are enough to keep the adults alive to an outside culture. I asked a Baptist home missionary what books he found in the homes he visited. Just two, he said, the Bible and the Sears-Roebuck cata- logue. But in the towns, the parlor tables exhibit Wells’s Outline and the latest Hutchinson novel—Sinclair Lewis would be resented. The State maintains a circulating library, and will send out a case of “standard authors” on proper demand, but the supply is quite equal to the demand. But Missouri does not read books—she reads magazines and newspapers. Any up-to-date person will know the progress of the latest serial in the Saturday Evening Post. We once had a great magazine of our own, great because it introduced America to Spoon River; but his Mirror and Reedy were buried in the same grave. The new Point of View published in Kansas City “for all who are interested in Travel, Art, Architecture, Music and Drama,’ has yet to make its mark. And once, in Colonel Nelson’s lifetime, we had a great newspaper—the paper that introduced daylight saving to America; but today, in spite of its wide territorial influence, the Kansas City Star takes no precedence over thirty other dull American dailies. In St. Louis, the Post- Dispatch still crusades in an intrepid and intelligent way for an old-fashioned brand of Pulitzer righteousness; and the Globe-Democrat, since killing off its hoary rival, the Republic, justifies its morning monopoly only by the excel- lence of its editorial page. But the leadership of the metro- politan dailies is fast waning. Missouri editors have gone to school to Walter Williams and their annual Journalism Week at Columbia is beginning to show results. The smaller cities are developing a press of their own, with United Press service, and the publication of a daily paper is coming to be one of the earmarks of urban respectability. Another challenge to Missouri’s self-satisfaction is bring- ing learning to the land. The farmers have begun to read government bulletins. The time was, not so many years ago, when the farmers and the homemakers knew more about their jobs than any bureau chief could tell them. But now they have capitulated to hard times and to the craze for modern babies. The farmer kills his hogs, fills his silos, and rotates his crops, and the homemaker cans her cherries, sets her hens, and nurses her baby according to the latest bulle- tin from the State University. For the University of Missouri is bringing a revolution in lower as well as in higher education. Thirty years ago, in the pre-country-club period of American college education, it was a sleepy recruiting ground for the learned profes- sions. The first shift came when athletics and highly colored sweaters captured the enthusiasm of the small town high-school boys and girls. The university began to stand- ardize the high schools throughout the State, and that in turn drew it into the job of training the teachers to man them, or more accurately to woman them. The curse of too many colleges has been met by creating the rank of Junior College and by fitting the professional courses at the university onto the sophomore college year. The regimen- tation of the schools is now all but universal, with a few outstanding exceptions such as the original School of Osteopathy at Kirksville. And now the College of Agriculture is regimenting the farmers. There are first the clubs to which the boys and girls at home go to spurt themselves in farm endeavor. Then the “short-horn course” at Columbia for the older

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434 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 OT ——eEeEIEE ones who can be spared from home only during the slack winter months; four months in each of two winters makes a boy into a farmer who will never be a peasant. Then the regular four-year course which is training the farm leaders of the next generation—the county agents, the experiment- station experts, the teachers of agriculture, and the “gentle- men farmers.” But most important is the Farmers’ Week in January when even the genuine dirt farmers gather at Columbia to listen to lectures, to watch demonstrations, and to civilize up generally. There they courted favor with “Chief Josephine” while still she held the record as the world’s largest-producing milch cow. They heard David Lubin once, and when he scolded them for not organizing and controlling their markets they took it sitting down. During the war they entertained an English lord. It is a revolution which promises freedom from many a tyranny. The chinch-bugs and the chiggers have had their day. The menace of the grasshopper is gone. The weather man has lost his spell. The “hill-billies” are passing. Mis- souri has begun to be shown—by herself. The millstone today is bad roads. The Missouri farmer was imprisoned until Henry Ford broke his chains. For fully a third of the year he is still mired in the mud. Re- cently the members of an automobile club, motoring from the Pacific coast to the automobile show in New York, had to take the train at Kansas City and ship their cars to St. Louis. But the reluctance to learn from road-building else- where is now yielding, and the Santa Fe Trail and the J ef- ferson Highway are promising beginnings. A sixty-million dollar bond issue, a non-partisan highway commission, and a project for primary and secondary roads for the entire State are the progress registered in a single year. In spite of the mud, or because of it, each new generation seems to find its way out. Many towns seem to be peopled with old men. To Oklahoma, to Idaho, to California the boys go off. And though they never cease to be Missou- rians, they never come back. Many of them become famous, and a few deserve fame. There are Harlow Shapley, the astronomer at Harvard; Walter Stewart, the teacher at Amherst when Amherst valued teaching; Glenn Frank, the editor of the Century; Charles G. Ross, the Washington correspondent; Fred Deering, the Minister to Portugal— to mention only a few who are under forty. Every State has its great men; in Missouri we grow them for the rest of the country. And let it not be forgotten, we gave Mark Twain and Jesse James to the world! The girls roam less and have a shorter range of oppor- tunity. Everywhere they are teachers. We still have a notion that business is not their sphere. Journalism is opening up to them, and medicine and other social work. Domestic service, being the preserve of the colored folk, is not i1espectable for the whites. But most of the girls are drawn down that vista of dreariness which we refer to as “Just staying at home.” And though we have always had fewer women than men, we count them lucky if the last call for the dining-car does not pass them by. Home means hard work for them, and often valiant sacrifice. But it is a world in which nothing happens. I chanced to meet one of these stay-at-homes on a train out of St. Louis last Christmas Eve. She was tall, shapely, thin-skinned, with small ankles and small wrists but large feet and large-knuckled hands, and she still nestled up to twenty-five. The crowded condition of the car led to con- versation, and I asked where she lived and what she did and what the prospects were. She lived in Warren County; though an artist by temperament, having once had a few lessons with Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, she was now a farmer; and the prospects were horrible. I dilated on the glories of a life out-of-doors. ‘“You talk like a novel,” she re- plied. “You haven’t sat on a plow from sunrise to sun- down for fifteen days straight running.” “Well, don’t you make money?” ‘“We’re supposed to be partners—father, mother, and I. But I never see any money.” I asked her how she spent her leisure. She read a bit— she liked Browning’s poems and Barrie’s plays. But there wasn’t a library within forty miles and books were so hard to get. “But for Father Donovan’s lending me books and giving me ideas, I’d go mad. Life gets so awfully dull. I get to a point now and then where I feel I can’t stand it any longer.” I inquired what her escape was. “I have to have a fling. There’s no other way out.” “Are you returning from a fling now?” “Yes. At breakfast two months ago I told my parents I couldn’t go on another day; that I was go- ing away. They asked where, and I said I didn’t know. Away! They refused to drive me to the station, so I car- ried my suit-case and walked the eight miles, Fortunately I had saved a little money from the music class I used to have in Jackson County. I took the first train that came along and went to St. Louis. There I found a hotel, and went out to the theater. Next day I got a job as governess through the Y. W. C. A. The children had been unmanageable, but after a week I got the household straightened out. And tonight I did so hate to leave them. But then—that’s not the way I want to live my life.” “And what now?” I asked. “I’m going home. The family want me to marry. But there’s no chance to meet anybody except the farmer boys in the neighborhood, and they wouldn’t understand why I have to have my fling. Tomor- row I’ll feed the pigs, and I guess we’ll soon be getting ready to put in the crop.” When I had watched her greet her father at the station in Jonesburg, I spent the rest of my journey searching for the secret of a civilization which could produce such a human being. Perhaps Missouri herself has been a stay-at-home too long. Saddled with the monotony and drudgery of plowing the fields, her life has lacked color. For too long she had no desire to see how the rest of the world was living, not even how it was doing its plowing. She did not want to be shown. But a new era is breaking. Missouri too must have her fling. And she is now beginning to look for it, in a flivver. Contributors to This Issue MANLEY O. HUDSON was born in St. Charles County, Missouri, and grew up in Montgomery County; he was for four years a student at William Jewell College at Liberty, and for nine years a professor at the State University; he has been secretary of the Missouri Chil- dren’s Code Commission and was one of the State’s com- missioners on Uniform State Laws. Since leaving Missouri he has been attached to the Department of State, the League of Nations, and Harvard University. AMos PINCHOT, a writer on economic and political sub- jects, has devoted several years to a study of the sources and effects of monopolistic control and particularly to the railroad question. GusTAvuS ADOLPHUS STEWARD is the author of Elizabeth Goes to School, which appeared in The Nation of De- cember 6, 1922.

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 435 Little Old New England (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD AZING toward the turmoils of the Upper Mississippi Valley and listening to the ejaculations of Brookhart, Shipstead, Magnus Johnson, Howell, Wheeler, Dill, and others, the country forgets that in New England, in ways more reticent but under compulsions equally painful, the local population is striving to discover an outlet from a great crisis into a new security. In the Upper Mississippi Valley there is a claimed need for lower freight rates in order to retain a broad market for Northwestern agricultural products. In New England there is an equally claimed need for lower freight rates in order to retain a broad market for Northeastern manu- factured products. Meanwhile, among all the groups of rail- roads in this country, the ones which most clearly are pro- ducing earnings so low as to make a rate reduction supremely difficult are precisely those of the Upper Missis- sippi Valley and of New England. To a tourer of New England there is no scene of any abandoned village more affecting and more burdened with a message of the transitoriness of human power than the financial and political scene in which those great alleged masters of New England life—the New York, New Haven and Hartford and the Boston and Maine—are disclosed on their beds of agony and weakness, suffering excruciatingly from financial gout and industrial anemia, while their former subjects gather about them with bandages and bottles to see what can be done to nurse them back to mere servile serviceableness. It was feared that these railroads would eternally rule New England. It is now feared that they may not be even reasonably able to run errands for New England. Two plans—in the main—are brought forward for their restoration. Each of these plans would have been thought a few years since to be a plan of despair. One of them would sink the New England railroads into the trunk-line railroads which run between New York and Chicago, thus thoroughly surrendering New England rail transportation facilities into “foreign” control outside New England. The other would consolidate New England’s principal railroads into one great regional rail transportation system with grants of public credit from the treasuries of the New Eng- land States and with boards of public trustees from the executive offices of those States. Public ownership with private operation is an idea which frequently has been suggested and sometimes has been used in the settling of transportation problems. New Eng- land has developed the precisely reverse idea under which the ownership remains private and operation becomes public. Public trustees, appointed by State authorities, have been quite successful, it is claimed, in improving the condition of the private owners of traction properties in eastern Massa- chusetts. Testimony before a committee of the Interstate Commerce Commission in Boston week before last showed from conservative lips that the public trustees appointed to operate those properties are believed to have done very well in comparison with the era of purely private credit and of purely private management which preceded them. Accordingly, it was asserted, the Boston bankers who are suggesting public trustees for the management of a consolidated New York, New Haven and Hartford and Boston and Maine are doing so without fear of the results. Thus they show greater fearlessness than many North- western radical Senators who actually favor public operation of railroads but do not quite dare to say so. There are things which a member of Lee, Higginson and Company can safely say but which a member of the Farmer-Labor Party can say only at the risk of a grave loss of social standing in the Eastern press. It is to be noted, however, that the public credit which the “Storrow Committee” would extend to the great New England railroads is credit from the local New England States, and it is to be noted that the public trustees which it suggests would be trustees appointed by New England local State governments. Appeal is not made to the Fed- eral government for credit or to the White House for the trustees federally named. For that local independence of character and of program New England deserves perhaps a visit of inspection from Senator Frazier of North Dakota. Here are people suffer- ing large woes who wish nevertheless to be rescued by local agencies and not by Washington. To a Washingtonian the scene is one of heroic primitive Sabine virtue. To regenerate their railroad transportation system and to get renewed good rail service; to regenerate their agri- culture and to get a renewed effective countryside; to dis- cover and develop new sources of power in order to supple- ment or replace the coal which comes so expensively from mines so distant at final costs so high—such are the prob- lems that New England must solve if it wishes to retain its position in American life, and they exceed by far in diffi- culty the problems which confront the Northwest. The Northwest needs to stop growing more wheat than the European world is willing to buy from off expensive American farm-land when it can buy wheat from off the cheap farm-lands of Canada and of the Argentine. The Northwest needs to turn a bit to other crops and heavily to cooperative selling societies. It needs to do things which are difficult and disagreeable in performance but easily and surely visualized. New England struggles with problems for which the solutions are visualized—if at all—with only the greatest uncertainty. In New Hampshire men like Frank Knox of Manchester and ex-Governor Robert Bass of Peterboro have initiated a “survey” of the condition of their State and a pros- pective “program” for arresting the decline which it has shown in many particulars and for changing that decline into an advance. Ex-Governor Bass has incubated an in- genious proposed law for impounding water in new reser- voirs at public expense on New Hampshire rivers, while meeting that expense in the end through contracts made beforehand with private manufacturing plants for the paid use of the surplus water. The future of New Eng- land, according to Mr. Bass, lies in cheap power from water sources, in skilled labor of the highest training, and in manufactured products so clearly and uniquely the result of such labor that they will be able to travel great distances _ at high freight rates and still on their merits find a market at high profitable prices. To a traveler from the national capital New England exhibits a consciousness of a grave crisis, but most admir- ably a will to live it through and dominantly to live it through by its own exertions.

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“White” By GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS STEWARD I HEN Everett took a job as truck driver for a large Philadelphia concern he did not say that he was “colored.” Tall, white, with brown hair and brown eyes, and with Caucasian—or should I write Nordic?—features, nothing in his physical appearance betrayed his “race.” Week in and week out he worked steadily, apparently giving entire satisfaction, earning the praise of his boss. Suddenly he was “let go.” A real white man, a friend from his Jersey home, happening to secure work for the same firm, had given the information that. Everett’s mother and father, sisters and brothers, all of whom he personally knew, were “colored.” “But I’m the same man I was yesterday, ain’t I?” pro- tested Everett to the boss. “Why yes, but you’re colored. It would hurt the busi- ness—the other men won’t work with a ee All right, then, he’d be “colored,” he determined, as he stamped out, flaming. In New York he applied to the Pullman Company for a job as a sleeping-car porter. The man at the desk looked up at him in amazement and replied: ‘“‘We can’t use white men as porters.” “But I’m not white, I’m colored,” Everett fiercely declared. No use. The other, unconvinced, waved him politely out. Everett was never sure whether the man believed him sim- ply a plain liar or a new brand of interesting lunatic. a The widow Moore is the daughter of her former Vir- ginia master by one of his slaves. She is stately, gray- haired, with bluish-gray eyes, and far from unfashionable in dress. She listed with the Barton Rental Agency a piece of property she owns, and did not state that she was “col- ored.” In due time Barton’s “For Rent” sign appeared in the front window of her vacant house. Some time later she called at the agency. Mr. Barton told her that her house seemed a bit hard to rent, that is, to desirable tenants. She should be patient, however. The house would cer- tainly be rented, and to first-class people, too. They did not rent to any other class. “Of course,” he continued, “we could easily rent to col- ored, for example, but me “Well, why not? Colored people are good people, aren’t they?” “I’m not saying they aren’t, but when they get into a property it depreciates. If you should want to sell later, you would lose money. Moreover, any agency which places colored among white people thereby earns an undesirable and unprofitable reputation. We therefore make it a busi- ness point not to 7 “Have you had any applications from colored people?” “Oh, several.” “Then rent it to them. Why keep the house idle if they are good people and can pay?” “Sorry, madam, but we shall have to decline = As the widow Moore was leaving Barton’s office, she had a consuming desire to fling back at him the scorching words: “I’m colored.” She thought how much she would enjoy seeing him writhe as they annihilated him. Instead she went out and rented her house—to “colored.” The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3041 III The brown letter carrier bought a house in the very mid- dle of a block occupied entirely by whites. When the day to move came, he went to his work as usual, while his blonde, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed wife superintended the transfer of their household goods. She wore no tag stating that she was “colored.” Her new neighbors watched the emptying vans from be- hind front-room curtains and upstairs windows. Late in. the afternoon, when the greater part of the preliminary “settling” was over, the lady next door ventured over. “You must be tired, working here all day by yourself. I just thought I’d run in and ask you if you would not like to come over and have a cup of hot tea or something with me.” The blonde wife went. The brown letter carrier finished his day’s work, hurried to the new home, slipped into rough clothes, and began to busy himself about the yard. The lady next door and his wife were in the midst of a pleasant neighborly chat, finish- ing their luncheon. The former was saying: “I’m so glad I had a little something in the house. It’s such an awful job to move. Now, anything I can do until you get straight, let me know. Just come right over any time and use our stove and things until yours is connected.” The postman’s wife thanked her. “Your yard man has come, I think,” the neighbor con- tinued, as she saw the brown man in overalls in the yard. “Oh, that’s my husband,” said the carrier’s wife, and without waiting to see what visible effect this pronounce- ment had—an omission she now decidedly regrets—she ran out to him. But the lady next door ‘does not speak” now, and the neighborhood bristles with antipathy against the interlopers. IV None of his friends seems to have known what blood mixture filled Norton’s veins. He himself was able to ac- count for three strains—American Indian, American white, - and Mexican. He had the complexion of an Italian, his head was covered with a mass of deepest black hair, and he wore the long curling mustache of the vogue which preceded the present truncated, stubbly fashion. At any rate he cer- tainly did not state that he was “colored.” When I first met him he was a night clerk in the Brook- line, Massachusetts, post office, dreaming of the day when, with a friend who was both violinist and composer, he would entrance a waiting world with the beauties of an exceed- ingly graceful light opera to the preparation of which they both devoted all their spare moments. Suddenly he be- came violently religious, and vehemently damned the very art to which hitherto he had been ardently attached. He joined a church in the shadow of Faneuil Hall. He and his wife became prominent in its activities, and with the inspiration and approval of its pastor, he prepared him- self for missionary work in India. The missionary board approved his application. He went to the New York offices to complete preliminaries. Somehow information seems to have reached the board that he was “colored.” Perhaps some member of the church had drawn that conclusion from the fact that his wife was indubitably “colored,” and this startlingly subversive intelligence had been communicated to the board. At any rate, upon seeing him the good gentle- men of the missionary board were sure that some unac- countable mistake had been made. They were profuse in their apologies. In spite of their written approval of his

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Oct. 17, 1923] application for service in India which he held, it seemed that they had intended to state “service in Africa.” It is reported that they oiled their explanation of this unusual blunder with the same old quasi-pious stuff which white Christians too frequently employ when confronted with a Negro demanding mere human consideration. “Colored people are so much happier among their own, you know.” “Africa should make a particularly compelling appeal to every consecrated colored man,” and so on. But Norton was interested in souls, he said, and not in the color of human skins. He left the board’s rooms con- vinced that there was a mistake and that he had made it. He had seriously misjudged the board. Bitterly he reflected afterwards that he had thought that they were Christians! His missionary zeal did not at once abate, and so he started with his wife on a tour through the South, with the avowed purpose of converting the Negroes there. He had desperately determined to be “colored.” They got as far as Petersburg, Virginia, became upset and frightened at the hostility they engendered among the Negroes by their frank, somewhat superior-minded assumption that they needed conversion, and returned, cured, to the North, where Norton accepted the pastorate of a church in a New Eng- land town. But his disillusionment must have been both thorough and permanent, for not long afterward he had given up religious work for good and was driving a huge auto truck for some New York business house. One winter morning he was found frozen to death in the city’s streets. It is said that his mind had become deranged from brooding over his abortive missionary efforts. His widow now does uplift work in a Jim Crow Y. W. C. A. in a Southern city. And the soft-voiced, elderly gentlemen of the missionary board, one supposes, still approve “col- ored” missionary applicants for service—in Africa only. Billers By ANN HAMILTON Forty or maybe fifty year Tim Billers wore a coachman’s gear, Drove for Mister and Missus Brown, Steered their carriage round the town, Fussed with horses all his life To buy bread for a snappish wife; His cloth hat made his face look hot, He always joked around a lot; A great one to be awful kind— Quiet and kind as you could find. Then Brown got in a bunch of crooks, Lost some money and pulled the hooks, Skinned Billers out of all he’d earned Since the first time his hand was turned; And one day down on Center Street Billers shot him and fixed him neat; But people seemed to understand, And crowded up to shake his hand. The Nation 437 In the Driftway HE Drifter himself was educated in the old-fashioned way. He went to school at nine o’clock, not because of any deep desire for instruction at that hour but because he was punished for being tardy. From nine to three he lived by rule; he could not speak without permission; he progressed from room to room not by himself but standing in line with his fellows; he was frowned upon if he laughed, or scuffled his feet, or dropped a book, or wriggled in his chair, or failed in the smallest detail to maintain a decorous and highly unnatural demeanor. From time to time he has read with interest of the experiments in education which are going on around him. There are schools, he learns, where “the nature-study room is ready to receive the col- lection of snakes, mice, kittens, and puppies which children are already bringing.” He reads that ‘‘the deadening effect of artificial discipline is very evident,” and that “in freedom alone can the individual experience the inherent quality which is contained in every existing thing.” * * * * * E has eagerly awaited statements from the parents of students at these paradises of education. ‘‘My child,” he expected them to say, “at six shows signs of becoming a great painter,” or “My young daughter, aged twelve, man- ages the household with more ease than I do,” or “Just from his experiences at playing grocery store in school my boy is a better mathematician than his brother in high school who never had the advantages of a real education.” And alas, what actually are the reports? “My son at twelve can neither read nor write nor spell; I am afraid I shall have to take him out of that school.” ‘That school may be all right for shy, backward children, but for our two, who have already so much energy and gusto and persistence that no one in the house has any peace, it is simply ruinous. We cannot stand the strain of so much freedom.” “They don’t think it is proper for a child to read at her age and of course she has read since she was four and loves it, and she simply refuses to be amused by paper cut-outs or wooden beads on a string.” And the most disturbing re- port of all is that one of the most modern of the schools is contemplating going back to the old primary system where Order and Discipline and Quiet and Rules are the first les- sons taught, if not the first ones learned. * * * * %* T is all very perplexing. The world, though not exactly full of, is nevertheless partly populated with, persons whose minds are free, fresh, and able to receive or even to create a new idea. The Drifter knows a few such persons; and every one of them is a product of the old system. Ob- viously these are happy accidents. For a time he was joyful in the thought that under the new system of education such accidents would be more frequent. And so they may be; yet it is barely possible that some people are born to be free and some to be slaves; the latter, under any sort of tuition, and with any amount of freedom, will not learn the proper relationship between themselves and the universe, and the former cannot be kept from learning it. While these ab- struse questions are being settled, however, the Drifter almost wishes that he were back in school; he would not insist on perpetual freedom but he would enjoy being keeper of the school menagerie. THE DRIFTER

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The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 Correspondence Spain Today To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The article published in your issue of September 26, un- der the heading of The Revolt in Spain, is a tissue of happy-g0- lucky inaccuracies, intermingled with some occasional truisms which, in trying to explain all, leave all in a maze of obscurity. Whether the individual Spaniard is as democratic as painted is a matter of individual appreciation. I believe he is. But the assertion that the Spanish Government is the most autocratic in Europe (Russia and Italy temporarily excepted) is far from true. Really, in Spain, never in my recollection was there a government in the approved sense of the term. To call it “mis- government,” while true enough, would not fit in exactly, nor do I find any appropriate word in English to designate the actual thing, which in Spain itself is called desgobierno, something akin to “ungovernment.” Whoever says that the King of Spain rules by divine right ought to know better, for he does nothing of the kind. Much less does he appoint ministers, life senators, ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the like, although he has, perhaps, something to do with the decorative part of the system, that is, the bestowing of decorations and grandeeships of the realm. As to appointing army officers he has no power at all. The War Minister brings the nominations in batches every year from the military colleges for the King’s signature, and that is all the King does—the signing up. As to the high officers, the Minister can be depended upon to have them appointed among his friends and retainers. The same can also be said of the ecclesiastical appointees, who are all recommended by the Minister of Justice. The Spanish Senate contains 300 members, 150 of whom, that is, half the number, are elected through compromisarios or sena- torial electors, just as the President of the United States. Whether the elections are fair or unfair is another and alto- gether different question. Perhaps it concerns others than Span- iards. That the grandees are exempted from taxation is a huge hoax. There may be tax-dodgers among them, of which there are said to be quite a few outside of Spain. On the other hand, there is no doubt of King Alfonso’s popularity. Miguel’de Unamuno has not been punished otherwise than by demotion from rectorship to professorship at Salamanca. He was once tried and convicted of lese majeste, sentenced to seven- teen years of hard labor, and pardoned a few days afterward by the King. In fact, he never was in prison. As to his demotion from rectorship to mere professorship, while I do not know the exact motive or precext, I have heard that it was based on the fact-that his mental faculties were impaired and that the dis- tinguished professor had become an actual crank and a bore. New York, September 22 RAMON A. MARTINEZ To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: I can well understand why Mr. Martinez should find my article on Spain full of “inaccuracies.” Politically we speak totally different languages. I take the point of view of the liberals and he of the royalists. I fully agree with Mr. Martinez that Sefor Unamuno is guilty of lese majeste; he regards it as his mission in life to liberalize the Spanish monarchy. Mr. Martinez states on hearsay that Senor Unamuno’s ‘faculties were impaired” and that he is a ‘crank and a bore.” I have had the pleasure of hearing Senor Unamuno speak in public, I have read most of his writings, and I consider him Spain’s greatest intellectual and moral force. No less an authority than James Fitzmaurice Kelly rates Sefor Unamuno as Spain’s greatest living man of letters. Before going to Spain I, too, cherished the current foreign notion that Alfonso was a popular monarch. Were Mr. Mar- tinez to visit Spain now, I am sure that he would not be so stout a defender of the Spanish King. In his youth Alfonso was looked upon as the beloved messiah who was to free his people from centuries of almost continuous warfare. They want only bread and peace. But instead of peace he gives them war, and for bread he gives them a stone. Peoples today no longer suffer in silence and pay for the gambling debts and amorous escapades of absolute monarchs while their sons are slaughtered because of the criminal negligence of the appointees of their rulers. Mr. Martinez says that there is “ungovernment” in Spain. For that very reason the Spanish King is an autocrat. Some one must hold the reigns tightly in a land where anarchy threatens the state, and Alfonso has usurped powers which were not con- ferred upon him by the constitution of 1876, ostensibly still in force. By this constitution Alfonso is empowered to suspend guaranties when parliament is not in session. Professor Ogg, in his “Governments of Europe,” says: “It need hardly be pointed out that the opportunity for the evasion of constitutionalism which is created by this power of suspension is enormous, and anyone at all familiar with the history of public affairs in Spain would be able to cite numerous occasions upon which upon pre- texts more or less plausible the guaranties of the fundamental law have been set at naught.” Now when a king makes and unmakes ministries without regard to parliament or people it looks very much as though he ruled by “divine right.” It may be that the ministers of war and of justice recommend military and ecclesiastical appointees, but if a minister of war or a minister of justice is responsible only to a king and not to parliament he easily degenerates into a convenient rubber stamp. Alfonso has had to bow so often to popular clamor in his appointments and dismissals that, fearing for his throne because of recent riots and mutinies, he either secretly engineered himself or allowed to be engineered the mili- tary coup d’etat of Sefor Primo de Rivera, a general and a nobleman. The present dictatorship is a clever camouflage on the part of the King to save his tottering throne. Again, if Mr. Martinez will examine the constitution of 1876 he will see that one-third of the senate is appointed by the King for life. As to the question of exemption from taxation of grandees and ruling class in general, that is one of the burning issues in Spain today. The liberals reiterate again and again that the privileged classes do not pay their taxes and that the poor man bears the burden alone. Boston, October 1 SAMUEL M. WAxMAN Lingerie in Oklahoma To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Just before Attorney General Palmer made his mighty effort to make this country unsafe for the safe and insane for the sane, I purchased two suits of red flannel underwear. Some time after this Mr. Palmer made his fierce drive on Reds. In those days I was getting small wages and my outside clothes were very thin. I was almost certain that if the seams ripped or the goods broke and my red undergarments were brought to light I would be arrested and charged with being a dangerous radical who wore a red flag wrapped around his abdomen. So I pulled them off and locked them up in the trunk. A few months ago I bought myself three white nightgowns— yes, I know that a he-man should not wear nightgowns, but they are very nice to sleep in when used for that purpose. Well, a short time after the purchase Governor Walton busted into the Klan. One of my neighbors says that if he sees anyone prowling around in the night time with a nightgown on he will shoot first and investigate afterward. Sometimes I hear the chickens squawking and I get up to see what is the matter and run outdoors before I realize my danger. But after due delib- eration, I have decided that until safe and sane times come and until the commandment “Mind your own business” is taught it will be best to lock up my nightgowns with the red underwear and stick to B. V. D’s. Guthrie, Oklahoma, September 5 Guy WILLIAMSON

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 439 LS A Victory for Passive Resistance? To THE Epiror oF THE NATION: Sir: Since Homer is said to have nodded, I suppose that we must expect even The Nation on occasion to nod. I am sorry, however, that the nod came on such an issue as the abandon- ment of the passive resistance policy in the Ruhr. This is not a triumph of force, not a defeat of passive resistance, as you have stated. On the contrary! For nine months the passive resisters have held the whole military power of France at bay. They have made the French invasion a futile and foolish thing. See, for evidence, J. Henry Scattergood’s testimony in his ad- dress at Williamstown! Hopelessly defeated in his purpose to conquer the German citadel by force of arms, Poincaré at last looked for traitors to betray it and found them in the great German industrials and their puppet, Stresemann. The Ger- man people have been sold out. But passive resistance remains what it has been from the beginning, a weapon more potent than an “army with banners”’—and machine-guns. New York, October 1 JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Intellectual Washington To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Returning from my vacation The Nation for September 5 has been placed before me and I have read your article en- titled Washington: A Capitol Without a Thunderer. Permit me to offer comment on one sentence that has for me and for others with whom I discussed the article a very bitter taste and which is, I believe, essentially false. I refer to the sentence in which you state, in referring to the newspaper press of Wash- ington, that “its intellectual level has, over a long period of time, been that of the bulk of its poorly salaried constituency.” Now I cannot think that you wish to slur the government employees because they are badly underpaid or that you wish to give the idea that our intellectual level is low because of our underpayment. Furthermore, I thoroughly believe that it is absolutely incorrect to state that the intellectual level of the government employees is low. I believe that I am ina position to know the facts with reference to this matter. From my nine- teen years’ experience here I believe that there is no librarian in the United States who has a more intelligent constituency or a constituency with a keener appetite for the best literature, including plenty of high-brow stuff! It has always been one of our handicaps that we are unable to supply the demand for the best worthwhile books of non-fiction as they are published. For example, we were never able 10 buy more than twenty or twenty-five copies of Wells’s “Outline of History,” whereas the insistent demand for that book would have justified us in buy- ing fifty or more copies had we been able to afford them. In spite of the fact that we have almost no branch libraries we have a registration of over 60,000 readers and an annual cir- culation of over 1,000,000 volumes. This means that our read- ers come miles for the privilege of securing books. It is unfair to say that the intellectual level of this town is low. GEORGE F. BOowMAN, Librarian The Public Library, Washington, D. C., September 28 Peace, in Normandy To THE EpITor oF THE NATION: Sir: Is it perhaps a symbol that across the bay from Havre where every day enormous ocean liners disembark numberless visitors to the Old World a little center has lately been estab- lished dedicated to the study of international problems? All the world has lately seen the exploiters of public opinion, un- restrained by conscientious scruples, deliberately creating a false and dangerous international situation. The public mind is be- ing so misled that everywhere men and women of vision, fearful of the sinister future being prepared for mankind, ask in dis- may whither the world is tending. To what, indeed, will mankind be brought if these dangerous doctrines, scattered broadcast across the world, are not exposed in their falsity? Today merely to assume the right of criticism requires audacity; to attempt to combat the situation is to as- sume a crushing burden. It is to this overwhelming task that the little conference, called last summer at Honfleur, dared to dedicate itself. While the evil psychology of war still dominates the world, in this quiet corner of Normandy a noteworthy effort toward interna- tional education is being made. Here year by year serious minds will meet and exchange opinions, and here future policies will be discussed and amplified in an atmosphere of liberal thought. Each year it is planned to follow the program successfully established during the three-week session of the past summer. One after another a succession of competent men and women of varying nationalities met and discussed from various angles contemporary problems, international, sociological, and eco- nomic, always in an atmosphere of liberal thought and in com- plete freedom. Never by official means could such a real rap- prochement have been attained. The effort of such a reso- lute group must do more to establish human brotherhood than could all the diplomatic missions in the world, charged with diplomatic lies. Is it too much to hope that in the future the work of the Honfleur Conference may prove a weighty factor in the struggle for the truth? Such an effort deserves every encouragement. In France the friends of peace hail with joy the initiative of the little group that has called the Honfleur Conference into being. Paris, France, September 15 JEANNE MELIN A Protest Against Indiana Imperialism To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Without wishing to detract from the glories of Indiana, as revealed by Theodore Dreiser in The Nation of October 3, I must, as an Ohioan, object to his annexing William Henry Harrison to the Hoosier State. Though born in Virginia, Gen- eral Harrison made Ohio his home and was elected to Congress and to the Presidency therefrom. He is buried at North Bend. Tecumseh, whom he fought at Tippecanoe, was also an Ohio man. Thomas A.—not Thomas B.—Hendricks, was Vice-Presi- dent of the United States and he was born in Muskingum County, Ohio! New York, October 9 Don C. SEITZ A Correction N its issue of September 26 The Nation made the follow- ing statement in an editorial note: Non-resident fees in State universities are a common provi- sion, but the University of California has added to its fee of $150 for students from outside the State an extra sum of $50 for all foreigners. Whether they live in the State or not, accord- ing to the San Francisco Chronicle, foreign students who have not taken out their first papers must pay both fees. The San Francisco Chronicle, it appears, and consequently The Nation, was in error. B. M. Woods, the assistant dean of the University of California, assures us that this state- ment is unwarranted. He says: The university has never required alien students to pay tuition or other fee additional to that collected from all non-residents of California. Non-resident aliens and non-resident students of the United States are treated exactly alike. We are particularly glad, in view of our strictures on the reported practice, to print this correction.

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Books Confusing Psychology Psychological Types. By C. G. Jung. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $7.50. bag psychological works by Englishmen one is frequently im- pressed by the distillation into simplicity of profound insight and elaborate scholarship. In similar works in the German tongue one is time and again astounded by the indirectness, obscurity, and dogmatism with which a few simple—and ques- tionable—ideas can be expounded. In this instance the fault may be in the translation. But it would have to be a very bad translation indeed which could turn decent German into such appalling English. One reads page after page in pained dis- belief. The words, with a few hundred barbarous exceptions, seem English enough. But the cadence of the phrases, the structure of the sentences, the architecture of the ideas are like nothing to be found in any major European language. Cer- tainly if Mr. Jung’s book is even readable in the original, then his translator owes him and his English-reading public an apology. This reviewer can certify to having read the six hun- dred pages with care. He can urge no one, save gluttons for literary punishment, to do likewise. It is a great pity. For despite its pretentious jargon, its weird generalizations, its petulant bombast masquerading as science, the book is interesting. Mr. Jung has attempted the hopeless and tempting task of classifying human beings into psychological types. Coleridge, it will be recalled, divided mankind into Platonists and Aristotelians, Gilbert and Sullivan observed that “every little boy or gal that’s born into the world alive is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative.” An unremembered wit said there were two classes of people in the world: those who divided people into two classes and those who did not. Mr. Jung has his two pet types and his four favorite subdivisions under each, and in an intelligible prose they might have been as illuminating as any others. Under the names extravert and introvert, Mr. Jung calls attention to the familiar distinction among human beings between those who are characteristically controlled in their conduct by the external world of facts, ob- jects, and conditions, and those who are moved for the most part by their undisciplined dreams, their irrelevant visions, and their uncontrolled fantasies and desires. (As Mr. Jung concludes his ponderous volume with a hundred and six pages of what his favorite words mean in his vocabulary, the reviewer trembles to use any word in its common or garden variety of meaning.) Mr. Jung’s distinction has been made time and again under different names: the classic and romantic, the objective and the subjective, the rationalist and the sentimentalist, the tender minded and the tough minded. It has received classic illustra- tion in Hamlet and Ulysses, in Mary and Martha, in Rachel and Leah. Mr. Jung himself spends some four hundred pages in culling examples of this distinction in “history, poetry, psychi- atry, aesthetics, and philosophy.” So copious and omnivorous are his explorations that at times the book seems for all the world like a parody of German Wissenschaft written by Stephen Leacock or Robert C. Benchley. The distinction probably holds water, though Mr. Jung does almost nothing to show how much or what variety of water it does hold. He complicates and classifies still further. by calling solemn attention to the fact that both the extravert and the introvert may be moved primarily by reason, feeling, sensation, or intuition. There are a good many pages about the last named, but intuition remains none the less as vague and sloppy a term as it is in the hands of Maeterlinck or Bergson, or in the practitioners of the Higher Life meetings that fill ballrooms on Sunday afternoons in New York hotels. Now Mr. Jung is a distinguished and successful psychiatrist at Zurich, and gives evidence even in this book of being a sensi- tive knower of men. But page after page he turns local insights The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3041 into cosmic dogmas, and plausible suggestions into the silliest of “world laws.” Somewhere in the muddled stream of these six hundred pages Mr. Jung points out that if you criticize a man’s work you simply show that your “type” is not “in rapport with,” “projects no parallelism with,” “has simply a negative relation with” the type you criticize. The present reviewer, even after six hundred pages, is unable to say whether he is an extravert or an introvert, or whether thought or intuition is with him a primary or mediate function. He can only say in all frankness that the book seems a notorious instance of that pretentious verbalism, that mechanic of thought without its content, which justly brings learning into disrepute. Psychology at its best is a highly suggestive form of literature; it gains nothing but a bad reputation by palming off flub-dub science. IRWIN EDMAN The Art of the Singer Lillian Nordica’s Hints to Singers. Transcribed by William Armstrong. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3. The Art of the Prima Donna and Concert Singer. By Fred- erick H. Martens. D. Appleton and Company. $3. Nore ten years have passed since the death of Lillian Nordica. In spite of the lapse of time and in spite of the rise to fame of younger singing-women, it holds true that any- thing the late Mme Nordica has to say to the singers and the would-be singers of today. possesses a quite special value. Mme Nordica’s talent was not one of those Minerva-like phenomena that spring into being practically perfected. In the absorbing pages of these “Hints to Singers” an unremitting worker speaks to other workers. Underlying an extraordinary career is the determining fact that Lillian Nordica first of all learned really to sing. This basic mastery of vocal technic proved an unfailing stand-by. Her steady recognition of that fact, together with the caprice of fate that deprived her of the natural facility with which not a few eminent singers have been endowed, imparts to the hundred-odd pages of her “Hints” their peculiar and abiding worth. A somewhat longer companion book to the Nordica volume is “The Art of the Prima Donna,” by Frederick H. Martens. It really consists of hints to singers by not one but twenty lyric ladies. Mr. Martens has interviewed the twenty—‘heart- to-heart talks” is his exact language. “In easy, conversational fashion,” he adds, “they present the lessons of experience which has led them to the summits of vocal success.” It may perhaps seem ungracious to begin by charging Mr. Martens with a sin of omission, but really one cannot help wondering at the conspicuous absence of certain names from the twenty prime donne that he selects. It is hard to see how he could manage not to call on Mmes Fremstad and Garden, Mmes Melba and Tetrazzini. Mme Sembrich’s long career would seem recent enough, as well as important enough, to entitle her to an honored place in the book. Mme Matzenauer could certainly contribute matter of exceptional interest. And per- haps no singer before the public is better qualified to expound instructively the art of the prima donna than Mme Frances Alda. And yet not one of those distinguished singing-women is summoned to give testimony in Mr. Martens’s court. How- ever, though some of the inclusions in his company of twenty (in view of the omissions, at least) may occasion a mild sur- prise, he does allow his readers to hear from Mmes Calvé, Schumann-Heink, Farrar, Homer, Galli-Curci, Hempel, Raisa, Jeritza, Verlet, and Easton. If a sufficient proportion of these heart-to-heart confessions do not greatly transcend the lingerie-and-tatting stage of lyric experience, there is also a lot of solid meat in the book. For instance, all that Mme Calvé has to say is worthy of close at- tention, including her defense of the discreet use of gesture on the concert stage. “Breathe right and you will sing right,”

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 441 sententiously remarks Mme Schumann-Heink—a fundamental truth that her own singing nobly illustrates. Mme Galli-Curci and Mme Hempel prove particularly judicious and practical in their advice. “As I see it,” remarks Mme Rosa Raisa, “the real soprano, the artist who has voice and musicianship, should be able to sing every kind of soprano role, as they did in the old bel canto days,” and there Mme Raisa, who, thanks to her early studies with Barbara Marchisio, was trained in the authentic spirit of bel canto, nails the modern fallacy of an extreme vocal specialization. Unfortunately the substance of wisdom is not the whole of this book. We find the same old contralto wail about the unat- tractiveness of most contralto roles—“villainesses,’”’ witches, shrews. As a matter of fact, there is a whole treasury of contralto parts that these ladies seem not even to suspect. Do they know, to take a single example, that Rosina in “The Bar- ber of Seville’ was written for a low voice? If one or other of the complaining contraltos would only prove to man- agers and public that she can sing and play Rosina .. .! Mme Easton voices some debatable opinion. “Never sing your top notes needlessly,” she warns. “Old Sims Reeves used to say that every singer had just so many top notes and used them up, one by one.” If that contention be true, Lilli Leh- mann ought to have gone into vocal bankruptcy long ago. And yet in her eighty-first year she still can sing the top E, and does. Nor did any one ever accuse Mme Lehmann of parsimony in the expenditure of high notes. Quite the contrary! The section of the book allotted to Mme Farrar, being par- ticularly personal and vivacious, is bound to have readers. “I am by no means the first or last to present a successful But- terfly. At least two singers vocally my superiors [the italics are mine] have sung the part.” “I think the role of Carmen is great fun, because it demands much high animal spirits and pulchritude, and the singer first of all must absolutely look her part, so that every man in the house who sees her will wish to send his card behind the wings.” The frankness and liveli- ness of such and kindred statements are most engaging. But Mme Farrar is just as blithely positive where the rec- ords do not bear her out. What does she mean by saying of Carmen that “no contralto has ever carried this role to suc- cess”? Did she never hear of a singer named Trebelli, nor of another named Maria Gay? And doubtless the best representa- tive of the Spanish gypsy in our century, with the possible ex- ception of Emma Calvé, was another contralto, Clotilde Bressler-Gianoli. Mme Farrar is not so wary as to avoid repeating ignorant -eant like the following: “Formerly, all she [the opera singer] had to do was to step out on the stage and pay attention to nothing but her song. In fact, so different are the two types of opera, that to ask any great exponent of the modern dramatic score to sing a Bellini aria, would be like asking Dempsey to pick up a pin.” Mme Raisa might have some- thing to say to that, as well as Mme Farrar’s adored teacher, Lilli Lehmann. So might women named Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, Viardot-Garcia, Titiens, if they could speak to us. And what on earth is Mme Farrar thinking of when she declares: “Practically the only great Italian singer who has gone beyond his own country’s repertory was Caruso”? As for singing “from the inside, out,” why “Calvé was the first to call attention to it by ‘being it,’ and together with Miss Mary Garden and myself, developed the singing actress of the modern repertory.” At this point the ensorcellated reader can do nothing but reverently close the book and call for three rousing cheers from the living and the dead! The danger to students that lurks in such a book as Mr. Martens’s is illustrated to perfection in the gay and sparkling misinformation with which an interview with a prima donna, though perfectly innocent in its intent, may so easily abound. The book as a whole is rich in wisdom, in sound and mature counsel, but the burden lies with the reader of distinguishing the wheat from the chaff. PITTS SANBORN Greek and Roman Classics Loeb Classical Library: Geography of Strabo II. Translated by H. E. Jones.—Polybius III. Translated by W. R. Paton.— Hippocrates. Translated by H. S. Jones.—Cicero de Senec- tute, de Amicitia, de Divinatione. Translated by W. A. Fal- coner. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2.50 each. Our Debt to Greece and Rome: 10a. Cicero and His Influence. By John C. Rolfe. 33. Warfare by Land and Sea. By Eugene S. McCartney. 36. Mathematics. By David Eugene Smith. Marshall Jones Company. $1.50 each. Broadway Translations: Petronius, the Satyricon. Translated by J. M. Mitchell. The Girdle of Aphrodite—The Love Poems of the Palatine Anthology. Translated by F. A. Wright. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3 each. HAT literature—whether original, imitative, or compiled— owes a mighty debt to the fostering warmth of patronage is not to be disputed; on the whole it is probable that quality thereby, as well as quantity, has gained rather than suffered. Interesting enough in these days is the sight of a stream, issuing from this benign source, of the Greek and Roman classics and of treatises, fresh and modern in spirit, on our debt to the life of Greece and Rome. Thanks to the generous interest of the sponsor of the Loeb Series and the list of patrons who made possible the series entitled Our Debt to Greece and Rome, our chances of escaping that “age of ignorance” deplored in a despondent moment by Johnson in the Idler, “when the treas- ures of ancient knowledge lie unexamined and original authors are neglected and forgotten,” are increased in great measure. We await with eagerness the arrival of further volumes prom- ised in these series where, as in many already issued, title and author alike promise excellence. In the Loeb translations the new volumes are the second of the “Geography of Strabo,” the third of “Polybius,” the first of “Hippocrates,” and in a single volume three of the best known of Cicero’s shorter essays, the “De Senectute, de Amicitia, and de Divinatione.” In Strabo we have volumes 3-5 of his work— the most significant to a modern reader—describing the Spain, France, and Italy of an age when, the writer tells us, “the inhabited world comes to an end” with the Strait of Gibraltar. The new instalment of “Polybius” contains the valuable treatise on the Roman constitution (Book VI) and ends with the capture of Syracuse. “The Hippocrates”—which includes the famous “Oath”’—is enhanced in value by the translator’s introduction and notes. Of the “De Senectute” and “De Amicitia” of Cicero —the late Frederic Harrison said that “every man who has attained, or hopes to attain to old age, or who has, or hopes to have a friend,” should read them; “a pleasanter book for a quiet elderly man cannot be found,” he adds. Of these and of the “De Divinatione” W. A. Falconer of Arkansas has pro- duced an excellent translation. In “Warfare by Land and Sea” appears a most interesting collection of analogies between ancient and modern warfare, both in tactics and strategy and in the importance of naval operations. Perhaps the most surprising information is in the chapter on ballistics, where we are told of the astonishing dis- tances reached by the Greek and Roman siege engines—the artillery of the ancients, employed in field as well as against fortifications. The layman, reading Professor Smith’s well- ordered and scholarly account of ancient mathematics, will probably find a suggestion to provoke thought in the continuity of our scientific knowledge and the contributions of Greeks in pure mathematics and of Romans in applied science. “Cicero and His Influence” is J. C. Rolfe’s subject; a separate volume in the series on “Cicero as Philosopher” is promised. Estimates of the man, ancient and modern, are cited, and a sympathetic account of Cicero’s political ideals and his conduct as a statesman follows. Naturally the larger part of the book deals with the influence in his own and later times of the orator and writer—a subject, according to Schanz, that is yet to be

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442 The Nation - [ Vol. 117, No. 3041 written. On Cicero the man Mr. Rolfe is a partisan, for which we are grateful: it is to be doubted if any man among the world’s great has had from lesser men more words of bitter criticism or of patronizing defense than he. His very human weaknesses, revealed so frankly in his letters, have no “good press” to hide them from his own time or ours, and have, since Mommsen’s day, been a godsend to the thesis-provers and to the breed of pamphleteers—alas, not yet extinct!—who can aspire to the dubious rewards of shallow cleverness in writing of a great soul tragically burdened by fate. Some day, perhaps, we may better gauge the perplexities by which, as man and statesman, Cicero was so beset; may grasp the significance of his heroic effort to achieve the impossible. The hopeless dead- lock between senate and magistrates on the one hand and the vicious counter-government of tribunes and assemblies on the other that to Caesar and Antonius spelled opportunity, to him brought a realization of the only way of deliverance. It is not that he was less clear-sighted than they, but more. Poignant indeed is his despairing cry when, at the very crisis, he tried to rouse a sleeping public to a sense of the facts: “nihil prorsus aliud curant nisi agros, nisi villulas, nisi nummulos suos.” There is much in Boissier’s observation that Cicero paid the penalty for his moderation; more truth, probably, in Cicero’s own admission that he clung, with a passion too great, to his own ideals. The Broadway Translations, we are informed, “are a scholarly and attractive issue of the more robust and human examples of classical and medieval literature.” Unless one errs in read- ing the natural implication of the word “robust,” both Petronius and the love poems of the Palatine Anthology may without cavil be allowed a place in the collection. The last few years have witnessed a rather startling cutput of robust literature: apparently the reading public is suspected of after-war pro- pensities. It was last year, in fact, that the Firepaugh trans- lation of Petronius appeared, in a “privately printed” edition. Compared with it, Mitchell’s translation displays a commend- able restraint; the notes are on the whole excellent, and unlike those at the end of the Firepaugh edition, are clearly designed for the sole purpose of elucidating the text. The task of the translator in this, by all odds the most colorful writing in Latin literature, is very difficult because of the variety of style and idiom of the original. Some of the notes, like that on “copo compilatus” in Chapter Lx1I, seem lacking in a sense of the true humor of the situation. The translator has, however, pro- duced the most serviceable edition of the ‘‘Satyricon” so far done in English. Of all the speculations about the baffling person- ality of the genius who wrote the “Satyricon,” that of Sidonius Apollinaris, that he was a native of Marseilles, is the most interesting. Certaiuly no other work of antiquity has in a greater degree a Gallic sureness of touch. Under the alluring title of “The Girdle of Aphrodite” appear in verse translation the love-poems of the Palatine Anthology, that tenth-century collection, amounting in all to some four thousand poems, of the minor Greek poets, chiefly the Alexan- drians. As compared with the complete translation, in prose, that appeared a few years ago in the Loeb series, this edition wisely follows in the steps of such competent translators as Symonds, Mackail, and Lang, and renders the elegiac couplet of the originals in English verse. Rhyme, the translator tells us in the introduction, is “the one grace of verse that English possesses and Greek lacks”; as the one “absolutely perfect translation” he quotes the version of Plato’s epigram to Aster: “Thou gazest on the stars: Would I might be, O star of mine, the skies With myriad eyes To gaze on thee.” His own essays in rendering into English the sprightly conceits of these Hellenic strains en mineur are on the whole pleasing, in many cases even happy. A. H. RIce Man and the Market An Introduction to Economic History. By N. S. B. Gras. Harper and Brothers. ’ $2.25. “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig; Home again, home again, jiggety jig.” 6 be write for college freshmen a textbook that is a work of impressive and commanding scholarship, and to ride a hobby through three hundred pages without unduly boring or biasing the reader, are achievements of no mean order. These achievements Mr. Gras has accomplished in his “Introduction to Economic History,” which is essentially a sketch of the eco- nomic development of mankind in terms of the growth of the market. More than that, it is a sane and reasonable essay in the economic interpretation of history. Wide and exact scholar- ship, a stimulating point of view, and a realistic mode of treat- ment are here combined in the making of an admirable book, albeit one stuffed with facts. In place of the traditional classification, the author recog- nizes five stages in economic growth: collectional (including the old hunting and fishing stage), cultural nomadic (including the old pastoral and early agricultural), settled village, town, and metropolitan economy. Peoples do not necessarily pass through all these stages in order. Indeed, a valuable by-product of Mr. Gras’s world-wide survey is a keen realization by the reader of the vast number and extent of the survivals of earlier stages today all over the earth, and an understanding of the forces that have brought and are bringing about development from one to another. The work is a study of the conditions, the growth, and the consequences of economic cooperation on a progressively widening scale, with constant attention to collat- eral political and cultural results, as well as purely economic ones. The sinful “radicalism” of the conservative objective his- torian occasionally peeps out to cheer the reader. In the last chapter, for example, after sketching the growth of the eleven metropolitan areas which he discerns in the United States, the author quietly suggests the apparently remote contingency that some day “instead of the almost meaningless divisions of Michi- gan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, we shall have the metropolitan administrative unit of Chicago.” Not if the Lusk Committee can help it! But Mr. Gras does not fail to recog- nize that man is a creature of politics and religion no less than of economics. In the broad sweep of the survey contemporary happenings and ideas sometimes fall into interesting perspective. The Nonpartisan League becomes a revolt against the metropolitan dominance of the Twin Cities. Enthusiastic internationalists will find their judgment challenged, perhaps, by Mr. Gras’s denial of the existence of a world economy in any proper sense, while hot nationalists will discover little support for their pas- sions in his assertion that~our real economic unit is not the nation, but the metropolis with its hinterland. Some accepted economic commonplaces, too, are brushed aside. As one watches “the long and frequent processions of pack horses and the trains of creaking carts making their way to town markets.” the manor ceases to be the tidy little “self-sufficing” unit of the textbooks; and the towns, which in the theory of Adam Smith and his numerous successors have been engaged chiefly in manufacturing goods for the country, become primarily trading centers, with manufactures as little more than an incident. In his preoccupation with the market, Mr. Gras does not always keep other things in due perspective. Though this be a world of trade, some of us still believe that the industrial revolution was an important, even if unfortunate, incident in the life of the human race, deserving of more than a single ten-line reference in a summary of economic history. We are firmly persuaded, moreover, that to explain modern business in other than money terms is to miss its point and to befog its

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Oct. 17, 1923] problems. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after all, do differ from their predecessors. A due emphasis on the differences constitutes no denial of the continuity so dear to the heart of the genetic historian, and it does contribute to the philosophical patience so sadly needed as we survey our collective stupidities in dealing with the new-old problems created by those differences. After all, before any of us can bring home the bacon from market, we have got to know how to fatten the pig, and have got to decide who is to have the spareribs and who the bristles—and when all is said and done, as Mr. Gras himself frequently reminds us, life is more than pickled pigs’ feet and scrapple. HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY After the ‘‘Peace’’ Europe Since 1918. By Herbert Adams Gibbons. The Century Company. $2.50. MORE unqualified indorsement than this book contains of practically every substantive criticism that has been leveled at the Paris peace settlement it would be hard to find. Dr. Gibbons puts the case for the “peace” on trial from its be- ginning, and pursues the various counts of the indictment un- falteringly to the end. At the same time he disclaims any intention of arguing for or against any particular view of what was done at Paris or of what has happened since, and although his own opinions are freely expressed he may fairly be acquitted of bias. It is hardly likely, however, that the personages whose misconduct he exposes will think him anything but a rank par- tisan, and his book may win him the distinction of being ad- mired for the enemies he has made; but those who dissent from his main conclusions about the peace will have to bring forward something besides opinions to overthrow them. For he has made out a good case. What is clear, of course, is that everything at Paris went wrong from the outset, and that the mark of failure was stamped upon the conference almost from the day when the conference began. “The principal asset of success was lacking. The United States had failed to make her cooperation in the war contingent upon the acceptance by her associates of cer- tain facts and well-defined principles. None of them was pledged to us. All of them were pledged to one another” (p. 36). The Treaty of Versailles, accordingly, instead of breathing peace, breathed war. “The Germans were to be con- sidered permanently as enemies. They were not to be allowed to become friends. ... The more light we get the more we realize that the Treaty of Versailles was not a treaty of peace, and that even those who made it were convinced that it would not and could not bring peace to the world” (pp. 93, 118). President Wilson is a sorry figure when the tale of his work at Paris is told, and the reader who still cherishes respect for either the motives, the intelligence, or the moral sincerity of that one-time idol will not have his respect enhanced by a reading of these pages. The brutal cynicism of Clemenceau, fittingly framed in equally brutal manners and speech, is as clearly pictured in Dr. Gibbons’s straightforward narrative as are the weak complacency of Mr. Wilson and the shifty dicker- ing of Mr. Lloyd George. It is a curious illustration of the work of time in dissipating hysteria and vindictiveness that practically every one of the leaders whom the makers and par- tisans of the peace acclaimed is today in contempt, while more than one of the many who then were denounced and buffeted is today held in honor. The drafting of the Versailles treaty, however, was only the beginning of trouble, and it is in his account of the events which have followed the Paris conference that Dr. Gibbons makes his chief contribution. Successive chapters tell, in con- cise and popular form, the story of the treaties of St. Germain, Neuilly, the Trianon, and Sévres, the effect of the Balkan settlement upon Bulgaria and Albania, the new Baltic republics The Nation 443 and their relations with Russia, the formation and political evolution of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, and Jugoslavia, of Austria bereft of its provinces, of Italy from Giolitti to Mussolini, reparations and Allied debts, the Eastern question before and during the Lausanne conference, and the exploits of France and Belgium in the Ruhr. The cumulative impres- sion, as one follows the round, is that the political schemers and autocrats who made the Paris treaties sinned persistently and repeatedly against the light, that they left force enthroned while professing to weaken and shackle it, and that the un- steady structure which they reared is certain before long to go to pieces. A few typical quotations will best show Dr. Gibbons’s point of view. “Since the Treaty of Versailles, from the Baltic to the Bosphorus, all decisions, all changes have been made by and in favor of the people possessing arms and using them” (p. 229). “Greater Poland was a glorious dream, but its realization has meant the disillusionment of the dreamers” (p. 256). “When we estimate the chances of long life for so curiously formed a state as Czecho-Slovakia, we have no other grounds for assum- ing its durability than the adoption of a program like that ad- vocated by Dr. Benés at Genoa,” namely, the acceptance of the principle of “a universal and binding compact of non-ag- gression” (pp. 271, 272). While “financially and in healthy trade prospects the Baltic republics are better off than any of the new states that have come into being as a result of the World War, with the possible exception of Czecho-Slovakia” (p. 230), Rumania is headed for bankruptcy (p. 316). “The Council of the League of Nations has postponed the collapse of Austria in the same way as it settled the Upper Silesia and Vilna questions, by offering a solution that took into account the transcendent interests of members of the Council” (p. 344); while “less than five years have proved that the Treaty of Ver- sailles has deprived the German people of the possibility of a normal economic existence,’ and “unless there is a radical revision . . . the Germans may have to emigrate in large num- bers or die or fight again” (p. 413). “The lesson of the pro- tracted and fruitless negotiations at Lausanne seems to be that force alone counts for anything in international relations” (p. 440). “From the world point of view, there is no separate problem called the Question of the Straits.... There is a question of straits, by which we mean all international water- ways. The League of Nations can rightly be suspected of be- ing an agent of particular interests, plotting in the interests of some nations against others, until its champions are able to convince themselves and public opinion in the nations whose representatives sit on the League Council that the League can exist and function only as an instrument of impartial adminis- tration and justice” (p. 489). Where the presentation on the whole is so able and large, it would be ungracious to emphasize defects of detail or to dwell upon debatable points. It is to be regretted, however, that space could not have been found for a fuller record of British performance since 1918, that the development of the neutral states could not have been traced along with that of the former belligerents, and that the spread of Fascism and reaction else- where than in Italy could not have been more thoroughly fol- lowed. The attitude of the Allied experts at Paris deserves a rougher handling than Dr. Gibbons gives it, and there will cer- tainly be much dissent from the author’s summary dismissal of communism in Russia as a failure, as from his declaration that the United States ought to guarantee military aid to France in case another 1914 should come. The great pre- dominance of political over economic data, also, makes the pic- ture of actual conditions at many points incomplete. With these reservations, the book may be heartily commended as an informing, acute, and stirring survey of a situation which bristles all over with danger to the peace of the world, and the plain truths which it presents ought to be widely read and seriously pondered by the American public to which it is pri- marily addressed. WILLIAM MAcDONALD

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Books in Brief The Editorials of Henry Watterson. Compiled by Arthur B. Krock. George H. Doran Company. $3.50. This is a compilation by one of Colonel Watterson’s ablest subordinates, made with skill and an evident desire to put the Colonel’s best foot forward, for many of this editor’s saddest mistakes and most erroneous prophecies are generously over- looked. Yet it is these which the historian of the future must also read in order to get a complete picture of Watterson. This volume will please many admirers of the Wattersonian grand manner and peculiar style and was, therefore, probably worth doing. Indeed, from its pages one may deduce some of the likable human qualities which made Kentucky’s greatest editor so popular. But the reputation of few editors who have written over so many years can, we believe, be enhanced by such a review and marshaling of the evidences of their pens. It is, therefore, open to question whether a genuine service has been rendered by this volume to the memory of Watterson the writer. A serious defect of the book is that the explanatory comments of the editor are not set in sufficiently different type and manner to distinguish them clearly. Eris. By Robert W. Chambers. Doran. $2. “Bris” brings the number of Mr. Chambers’s novels up to fifty-seven. This places the author on a numerical par with Mr. Heinz. Mr. Heinz’s products are uninjurious, extremely popu- lar, and inordinately profitable. So are Mr. Chambers’s. But the comparison ends abruptly with the term “varieties.” Mr. Heinz has fifty-seven. Mr. Chambers has only one. His variety consists solely in labels. Eris is a cinema star. There is a director villain, a journalist hero, and the inevitable ending. And there are frequent mid-Victorian attacks on the “Great American Ass,” a term of opprobrium which includes all labor unionists, all “worshipers of the cult of ugliness” in art, in literature, and music, all Bolsheviki—in brief, all modern thinkers. The Story of the Mikado. $2.50. Only one man should have been permitted to recast the story of “The Mikado” from the imperishable original, and that is the man who has done it. In narrative form, the legend loses inevitably some of its infectious verve, but elements of quaint- ness and solemn-visaged fun survive in good measure. As an introduction to the classic for children the book is admirable, while the inclusion of most of the lyrics insures it a wider wel- come. The volume is beautifully printed, and adorned with happy illustrations hy Alice B. Woodward. By W. S. Gilbert. Alfred A. Knopf. Drama Opus I M® GILBERT EMERY, whom you can see nightly acting in a neighboring playhouse, sustains and indeed surpasses the promise and performance of his play “The Hero” in his new tragi-comedy called “Tarnish” (Belmont Theater). The title, though effective, is ill chosen and points to a moral or, at least, to a principle which has little enough inherent connection with the people and their story. It is an amusing but rather cheap and easy formulation—a vulgar error, in fact—that all men have an inveterate taste for perfumed mud and that a girl had better choose one who “cleans easy.” If the play were on a level with this generalization or with the coincidence by which the “fancy lady” to whom Letitia Tevis’s father gave the family’s last and only five hundred dollars happens to be the same fancy lady who was once the special friend of Letitia’s young man—if the play didn’t rise above that moral and that device comment on it could be quite brief and sharp. The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3041 But the play does rise immensely above these things. They are crutches of a sort which I hope some day to see Mr. Emery discard. He hasn’t quite enough artistic fortitude yet. But he is gaining. “The Hero” collapsed ingloriously in the last act. The inner line of development and culmination in “Tarnish” runs admirably straight and true. There is no cheap conces- sion at any point. If the ending is technically “happy” it is, for once, profoundly natural. And it is treated with a reserve, with an undertone of restraint which points to Mr. Emery’s sensitive discrimination between the happy ending of, say, a John Golden play and such a yielding to the healing illusions of mortality as is necessary to life itself. There is no doubt that Letitia would in time have yielded. She was so lonely, so buffeted. She needed her man. She takes him. The author asks nothing of us but to hope for the best. That is both sane -and true. The special virtue of the play, as of all good plays, is not in its action. The necessary compression of the dramatic form, its necessary pointedness, makes all action debatable. What is both sound and delightful here is the characterization and that part of the fable which arises directly therefrom. The elder Tevises are literally priceless. The lady, a whining and brain- less snob, made the mistake in her youth of marrying the hand- some bounder Adolphe. Now they are on the verge of old age. | Long ago, of course, he ran through her money. They are in a flat on 189th Street. She has nothing left except the memories of former glory and the consciousness of gentility; he, white- haired, fat, but rosy, still treads, when possible, at least the edges of the primrose path. And both are of a selfishness so deadly and unconquerable, portrayed by the author with such masterly precision and truth, that for once the illusion of the stage almost becomes reality and one aches to crush these weak and morally slouchy and yet devouring monsters. They try to devour their only child, Letitia, of course. Her love and loyalty and decency furnish easy food. But Mr. Emery has not made the mistake of having her too supine. The girl doesn’t want, naturally, to see through her parents. But her vision is too honest. A disgust of the mind has come to her. She will flee, and one wishes her well; she has gone hard, and one applauds her hardness. It is the less noble ma- terial that yields to the hammer; the nobler gains compactness and strength. 4 What, finally, raises one’s hopes of Mr. Emery and recon- ciles one almost to his central coincidence is that he does not stop with the sharp moral contrasts which I have indicated. He knows—and this is what separates the dramatic “maker” from the dramatic hack—that every human being has his case, plea, defense. Nettie Dark, the lady of the half-world, has hers, of course. That is obvious and easy. But the unspeakable coward, whiner, roué, Adolphe Tevis, has his. He snivels and lies and poses. But for a minute or two, in a scene with Letitia which is as deep and as delicately molded as anything in dra- matic form written in this country, he states his case. And it is a case. It carries conviction. The color of the moral world is neither black nor white; it is an endless gray. This admirable and moving play is superbly cast and acted. Miss Ann Harding who glimmered briefly with little but her beauty in Macdougal Street a few seasons ago appears here as perhaps the most stringently intelligent of our younger ac- tresses. She has emotional reach, too. But mind is added to fire, accuracy to charm. Next to her performance I should place Albert Gran’s as Tevis. The Micawberish is broader and easier. But here it is done with richness and zest yet without excess. Tom Powers is excellent as always. He is a lover and is not foolish, a young lover and yet a sane man. And equal praise must be given to Fania Marinoff, Mrs. Russ Whitehall, Marion Lord, Mrs. Jacques Martin, and Mildred MacLeod. Having seen “Tarnish,” both the play and the performance, one has left the limbo of the early season and is convinced once more—it was high time—that both the drama, and even an American drama, and the art of the theater exist. Lupwig LEWISOHN

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Oct. 17, 1923]

LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS

COURSES BEGINNING RAND Oct. 183—1.30 P.M.....- Eee Scott Nearing “Current History” : Oct. 183—8.40 P.M....... Ludwig Lewisohn SCHGO “Modern Poetry and Modern Life” ‘ 95—8.40 P.M....-.-- Herman Epstein Oct. 7 East 15th Street “Ring of the Nibelungen” Oct. 26—8.40 P.M Carl Van Doren “Pioneers and Artists” Write for bulletin The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” ; H K H A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE Evs. at 8:30 BELASCO west 44th Street. ee Mats. Thurs. & Sat.-, 2:30

Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan Henry Hull RLEZ Theatre, Evening 8:30 West 48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. at 2:30 Arthur Hopkins presents Miss Pauline Lord in Ferenc Molnar’s drama “Launzi” at the Plymouth Theatre. The play has been adapted by Edna St. Vincent Millay and the production designed by Robert Edmond Jones.

THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Matinees, COMEDY Eves. 8:30. Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children <2 Moon WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST.

ATOP NEW AMSTERDAM FROLIC THEATRE THEATRE, WEST 42nd ST. MONDAY NIGHT, CCTOSBER 15th THE SELYNS Announce First American Appearance of THE GRAND GUIGNOL P E; A Y E R Direct from the Grand Guignol Theatre, Pa COMPLETE CHANGE OF BILL BACH WEEK ‘a 27th Street and YIDDISH ART THEATRE Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. le “SABBATI ZEVI” SWARTZ in “Very colorful and effective.’—Craig, Mail. “Splendor, harmony, power.’’—WNation.

WEST 48TH STREET THE PLAYHOUSE Matinees: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.’’—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune.

THE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL S E. H. M TULLA OTHE RN = ARLOWE Entire week, Oct. 15, Taming of the Shrew; Oct. 22, Twelfth Night; Oct. 29, Romeo and Juliet ; Nov. 6, Merchant of Venice ; Nov. 12, Hamlet. JOLSON’S 59th ST. THEATRE. Evgs. 8 sharp. Only Mats. Sats. 2 sharp.

The Nation

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A professional Course in Play Writing is offered under the personal supervision of THEODORE BALLOU HINCKLEY Editor of THE DRAMA

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International British Raj Dethrones the Maharaja of Nabha By BASANTA KOOMAR ROY ESTERDAY he was the supreme ruler of 300,000 peo- ple inhabiting 1,000 square miles in the state of Nabha; today he is a tragic prisoner at Deradun in British India. The British Raj recently dethroned this Sikh Maha- raja of Nabha. The British press correspondents have so far succeeded in withholding this significant news from the American press and the public. The offense with which the Maharaja has been charged is that a few of his officers are responsible for the arrest under false charges and punishment of certain officers of the neighboring state of Patiala in the Punjab, and that he was cognisant of these offenses and did nothing to punish his offending officers. This was a dispute between two of India’s ruling princes. There is already a chamber of princes in connection with the Government in India supposedly to safeguard the interests of the princes. For mysterious reasons this dispute was studiously kept from the attention of this chamber. The British Government appointed a British official to investi- gate the matter, and he found the Maharaja of Nabha guilty. The report has not yet been made public. It will never be if the British Government strictly adheres to its traditions in India. No definite information as to the nature of the offenses of the Nabha officers is given out. The Maharaja was given no warning, and certainly no hear- ing was granted him. He is forbidden to publish any ac- count of his side of the question. His Britannic Majesty’s officials declared: ‘Let the Maharaja of Nabha be deposed,” and he was deposed. Soon after this he was made a virtual prisoner in his own palace. He was not allowed to go out, nor was he allowed to receive friends and sympathizers. His letters were opened, and even his movements within the palace were closely watched. His Highness the Maharaja Shri Ripuda- man Singh of Nabha was indeed a singh (lion) in a golden cage. But this Sikh lion was soon removed to a mountain home. On Sunday, July 8, at 6:30 a.m. Colonel Minchin, the British political agent, reached Nabha with a colonel, a few British officials, about 250 soldiers, three machine- guns, and a quantity of ammunition. The Heera Mahal Palace was surrounded by armed soldiers, and machine- guns were placed at strategic points. The Maharaja was ordered to prepare for departure. Then the British officials took possession of the fort of Nabha, and there, in the absence of the Maharaja, a con- ference was held in which the end of the Maharaja Ripuda- man Singh’s rule was declared. It was announced that the affairs of the state would be managed by the Government of India until the four-year-old heir, the Tikha Sahib, reached his majority. At about 9:30 a.m. the Maharaja and Her Highness the Maharani were forced to enter an automobile and were driven away. They were both calm and stern as they en- tered the car, but their eyes were glistening with tears, tears perhaps not for their thrones and palaces and jewels, but for their child from whom they were being separated. The Maharaja was compelled by the British Government to sign a document of “abdication.” The conditions of this deposition, which the British so euphemistically call “abdi- cation” are as follows: (1) The administration of the state will be handed over to the Government of India; (2) the Maharaja will in future reside outside the state; (3) visits which the Maharaja wishes to make to Nabha or other specified places will require permission of the Government of India; (4) the Maharaja will remain subject to the obli- gation of loyalty and obedience to the British Crown and the Government of India. This condition of loyalty is the crux of the situation. The question of loyalty and disloyalty is the cause of the deposition of Nabha. This Prince of India is a Sikh by faith. The Sikh faith unites the Hindus and Mohamme- dans on a common platform. In recent years nationalist unrest and revolutionary activities have been spreading among the Sikhs, who for years have been loyal to the British Raj. The strangling of the Sikhs at home and in British colonies like Canada has alienated the more intelli- gent among the Sikhs. The Maharaja of Nabha is a real Sikh, a true disciple of Guru Govind Singh. He is well read, cultured, widely traveled, and intensely patriotic. From his early youth he has been a man of independent spirit. He does not talk much, but thinks deeply. Unlike many of his compatriots he thinks, not in terms of Nabha or sikhism, but in terms of India as a nation, glorious in the past, enslaved at present, but with a radiant future. During the administration of Lord Minto the Maharaja was the crown prince of Nabha, and was nominated by the British Government as a member to the Viceroy’s legisla- tive council. And to the disappointment and dismay of Lord Minto this young prince, instead of sitting with the government members, was wont to sit with the leader of the opposition, Mr. G. K. Gokhale, a conservative and pacifist like Mahatma Gandhi, and his real and professional followers. In violation of the traditions of the nominated members, the prince of Nabha voted with Mr. Gokhale against the Government. This Tikka-Sahib of Nabha even voted against the Seditious Meetings Bill by which the Government sought to suppress freedom of speech and as- semblage. This patriotic act at once made him seditious in the eyes of the Government, and at the same time ex- ceedingly popular with the people of the land. Such an act could not be tolerated in a prince whose state had done so much for the British in the Afghan War of 1879-80 and during India’s War of Independence in 1857-58. So when his father, Maharaja Heera Singh, died, the British delayed long before formally installing him on his own throne. And again, during the World War Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Governor of the Punjab, was dis- pleased with the Maharaja for his tacit opposition to Eng- land’s exploitation of India’s princes and peoples. He was secretly charged with disloyalty to the British Crown, and on threat of deposition was forced openly to pay $1,600,000 for England’s war purposes. Quite undaunted the Maharaja kept in close touch with . the ramifications of the Nationalist movement in India and abroad. He knew what the Amritsar massacre was for; he knew what it meant to see hundreds and thousands of his fellow-countrymen and coreligionists beaten by the British police in the Sikh holy places. Besides Gokhale, he

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Oct. 17, 1923] The Nation 447 Pe eee was also a friend of Tilak, who before the advent of the revolutionists was the leader of the radical wing and had been imprisoned several times for his patriotic activities. To be a friend of Tilak was to be condemned by the Brit- ish Government. Yet this Indian prince openly presided over a Tilak memorial meeting at Musoorie in 1921, paid $300,000 for a Tilak library, and in the course of his speech said: “Mr. Tilak was a man of towering personality, a leader of iron will and determination, a soul of inspired vision. He was a giant among men, inspired with lofty ideals of regenerating his nation and uplifting his country which could once style itself the cradle-land of civilization.” We knew then that some sort of humiliation for Nabha could not be long delayed. Today he stands humiliated in- deed. But out of this evil to Nabha will come good to all India. The direct and immediate effect of this deed will be a tremendous tidal wave of unrest. The Sikh community is doubly affected—nationally and religiously. The Babbar Akali Sikhs have already challenged the alleged supremacy of the British rule in India. Led by the patriotic ex-sol- diers of the British army in India they have started guer- rilla warfare in the districts of Hosiarpur and Jullunder in the Punjab. The British have declared martial law in these districts and their aeroplanes are flying over them trying to terrorize the people into submission. Perhaps this is another reason why the Maharaja of Nabha has been de- posed and deported from the Punjab in such haste. It would be useful for the readers of this article to remember at this time that there are thousands upon thousands of Sikh soldiers in the British army of occupation in India. For numerous reasons they are already showing unmistak- able signs of militant restlessness. From the very begin- ning of his administration, Lord Reading has been doing everything in his power to pacify the Sikhs. Not only the Sikhs, but all sects and creeds and prov- inces of India are protesting against the deportation of Nabha. For, quite unlike those treacherous Hindu, Moham- medan, and Sikh leaders who openly or secretly sow the seeds of sectarian dissension and communal bitterness, the Maharaja of Nabha is first a Hindustanee and then a Sikh. His exile will undoubtedly hasten the day when British rule in India will be a thing of the past. Indian Rights in the United States HE following memorandum, signed by representative American missionaries in India and addressed to the American people and the Government, was published in the Indian press on August 9. The decision of the Supreme Court regarding the naturalization of Indians in the United States was commented upon editorially in last week’s Nation. The naturalization law of the United States limits the granting of citizenship to “aliens being free white persons,” “aliens of African nativity,” and “persons of African des- cent.” The undersigned citizens of the United States, resident in India, desire to place before the American people the following: America hitherto has been held in high esteem in India because of her idealism and brotherliness, but the recent Supreme Court decision that Indians are ineligible to become citizens of the United States has decidedly a tendency to diminish this esteem. In fact, it has caused a deep resentment in the mind of India. We do not presume to question the interpretation of the statute by the Supreme Court in this matter. Nevertheless, we cannot let this opportunity go by without registering our regret that authorities and the Russian counter-revolutionaries. such a ruling was possible. It will help to widen the gulf be- tween the East and the West, and will give added impetus to the rising tide of resentment and bitterness against the white exclusiveness. We deeply regret that our country has any part in augment- ing this rising tide. By good-will and friendliness and just deal- ing between man and man, better moral forces of the world may yet avert a clash and make a more friendly world. We sincerely hope that our country will have a vital part in doing this. We are given to understand that as a result gf this decision the Alien Land Act may be enforced and that land now owned and leased by Indians in America may be taken from them. We are not acquainted with the terms on which this may be done, but whether it is on liberal or harsh terms we urge that this act should not be brought into operation so that the insult of depri- vation shall not be added to the injury of disenfranchisement. In support of this we would draw attention to the fact that with the exception of a few of the Native States, Americans may, and do, hold land in India in large quantities, but the same privilege may be denied to Indians in America on the ground that they are aliens. The Golden Rule would demand that the same privilege be extended to Indians in America as is extended to us in India in the interest of good-will and friend- liness and fairness. We trust that technicalities will not be taken advantage of to deprive Indians of the land taken in good faith before this ruling was given. Signed: F. B. FISHER, Calcutta, (Bishop); C. A. R. JANVIER, Allahabad; E. D. Lucas, Lahore; Louis R. ScuDDER, Vellore; J. J. BANNINGA, Madura; R. A. Hume, Ahmednagar; B. T. BADLEY, Calcutta; W.L. FERGUSON, Madras; D. H. MANLEY, Cal- cutta; E. STANLEY JONES, Sitapur; E. C. WoRMAN, Calcutta; and H. D. GRISWOLD, Lahore. Russia and the Bulgarian Reaction 7¥XHE nature of the opposition to the present Bulgarian Government and the attitude of the Russian Govern- ment are indicated in the following telegram from the Russian Foreign Minister Chicherin to Premier Zankoff, sent on August 9: Lately there has been taking place an unbroken series of sys- tematic persecutions, violent attacks, and unheard-of crimes in general on the part of the Bulgarian authorities, acting hand in hand with the White Guard émigrés—the enemies of the Russian people—toward the Russian Red Cross Mission in. Bulgaria, the repatriation workers, and ordinary Russians awaiting -repatriation. The Russian Red Cross representative in Plevna, Schelpugin, was at first arrested by the Bulgarian authorities and then murdered under mysterious circumstances, being subjected before death to the most refined tortures. Im- mediately after this another Red Cross representative, Morozov, was nearly beaten to death. After orders had been received from Russia recalling the Russian Red Cross Mission, the Bul- garian Government, on the excuse of lying and calumnious ac- cusations, seized the mission, subjected it to domestic arrest and repeated searches, and announced its expulsion. It is impossible to recount all the indignities inflicted upon the repatriation workers and Russian citizens by the Bulgarian When the S.S. Ignatii Sergeev, the property of the Russian Government, arrived in Varna to take the Red Cross Mission on board, it was seized by the port and police authorities by order of Governor Chimchiroff. The police by force placed on board a group of 678 persons, without either documents or visas. The com- missary of the steamer was inveigled on shore by fraud, ar- rested by the governor, and assaulted. From among the vast number of members of the non-partisan Repatriation League arrested, assaulted, and tortured, I can quote as particularly notorious the tortures inflicted upon Yere- min, Popoff, Karaulny, Zhurkevich, Vladimir Inanov, Komar-

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izky, Ludzin, and Panaitov. The Russian citizen Mme Har- lambova was arrested for no reason in Varna, struck across the face with a switch, and subjected to six searches with in- describable insults. The Russian citizens awaiting repatriation arrested in Varna were on July 12 subjected to mass torture. M. Gudzenko, representing the Agricultural Exhibition Com- mittee, was also arrested by the Bulgarian authorities, and, according to the information at our disposal, has not yet been released. These unprecedented crimes were accompanied by a cam- paign of calumny on the part of the representatives of the Bulgarian Government, taking the form of a number of false statements and insults directed both against the Russian Red Cross Mission and against the Soviet Government. From cer- tain indications in the Bulgarian press, it seems indubitable that the Bulgarian authorities, after seizing the office and archives of the Red Cross Mission, placed forged documents in them to justify the slanderous campaign carried on by Bul- garian ruling circles against the Soviet Republics. The Union Soviet Government declares that it places full responsibility for the above acts on the Bulgarian Government, and demands the immediate liberation of M. Gudzenko and all the arrested members of the repatriation organizations, as well as all the Russian citizens arrested solely for their desire to return to their native country. The Union Government re- quests the Bulgarian Government to give full satisfaction, an apology for the above acts, and compensation for all citizens of Russia and the united republics who have suffered loss or in- jury in connection with these events. It demands the exem- plary punishment of all Bulgarian officials guilty of ordering or participating in the acts previously mentioned, and also the most stringent punishment and expulsion from Bulgaria of the Russian counter-revolutionary emigrants who took part. The Union Soviet Gevernment has to draw attention to the fact that in various regions of the Soviet Republics there are living Bulgarian citizens who hitherto have enjoyed the con- stantly favorable attitude of the Soviet authorities, who af- forded them the possibility of peaceful labor in the Soviet Republics, independently of their party views and political sympathies. This can be attested by the Bulgarian citizens themselves,- who well know of all the political and economic advantages arising from friendly relations between Bulgaria and the Soviet Republics, and particularly the importance which trade with Russia has for Bulgaria. The Union Soviet Government calls the attention of the Bul- garian Government to the serious results of its activities against the Russian people and the people of the Soviet Union. It reminds the Bulgarian Government that the political leaders of the Bulgarian people have more than once complained of the painful position of the latter in its international relations, and to the oppression suffered by the Bulgarian people in other countries. By its policy of violence against Russia, the Red Cross workers, and citizens awaiting repatriation, the Bul- garian Government is acting in conflict with the primary neces- sity for the Bulgarian people of struggling against the policy of oppression. Awaiting from the Bulgarian Government an immediate re- ply to its justifiable demands, the Government of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics will be obliged, if satisfaction be refused, to place on the Bulgarian Government the full weight of responsibility for the consequences, in particular for the re- pressive measures which against its will the Union Govern- ment will be obliged to adopt in the case of certain Bulgarian citizens living in Russia. At the same time the Union Government protests in the face of the whole world against the provocative activities of the Russian counter-revolutionaries and the present Bulgarian Gov- ernment, to which peaceful Russian citizens on Bulgarian terri- tory have fallen victims, and which may yet react on certain Bulgarians in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Spanish Labor Limps HE weakness of labor opposition to the military coup in Spain is explained in part by the following letter from a Spanish Communist leader to the International Press Correspondence in which the writer reveals the fatal divisions in the Spanish labor movement: The Spanish Communist Party is still weak, and the small- ness of its membership is the more to be regretted in view of the political tasks by which it is faced. We are up against a Socialist Party which has won no small influence over the masses by forty years of work, and which is at present engaged in winning over those working masses which have hitherto been adherents of that old and historical republicanism now in a state of complete dissolution. We have further to fight for the extermination of the very strong influence of anarcho- syndicalist ideology in the labor movement. Any attempt to form an estimate of the work done by the Communist Party of Spain must accord these facts the fullest consideration— must give due weight to the necessity incumbent on the party of carrying on the struggle simultaneously against an alarmed and cruel bourgeoisie, against a Socialist Party whose political weakness has not yet reached such a point as to bring it into the discredit in which the other parties affiliated to the Ham- burg International have fallen, and finally against a deeply rooted anarchist tradition—or the most reckless and incorrect conclusions will be reached. ... The policy to be pursued in an environment so complicated and so hostile to communism must be neither unintelligent nor rigid. Have we invariably shown sufficient intelligence and flexi- bility in our past struggles? We regret to have to admit that this has not been the case. In our party there has been no lack of heroism, self-sacrifice, and revolutionary impatience. But it has been lacking in political grasp of events, and in the capacity to view given situations from the Marxian stand- point. And as errors have always to be paid for in politics, we have had to pay for our political instruction by the loss of positions. The second congress of the party, held in Madrid in the middle of July, constitutes a decisive landmark in our move- ment. Now we are beginning to see clearly at last. We seem to have passed through the period of infantile complaints. We also seem to have got over our superficial and ultra-revolution- ary conceptions of party action. The congress passed a number of resolutions of an entirely concrete character. ... Besides this, the unity of the party has been established, and its ideo- logical homogeneity and united organization are a sure pledge that future work will be capable of accomplishing much more than past. To this it must be added that at the present time many circumstances are extraordinarily favorable for a rapid development of the party. The political situation of the coun- try, the ever more disastrous effects of the war in Morocco, the growing antagonisms in the army, and the increasing internal disintegration of the state, all these factors supply the objective premises for the rapid growth of our party. A few days ago, in Madrid, a mass of workers numbering about 10,000, declared themselves in full agreement with the standpoint expressed by a representative of our party on the responsibili- ties created by the defeat of the Spanish army in Morocco. With respect to the labor movement, the increasing loss of prestige of the Socialist Party and the cbvious decay of anarcho-syndicalist influence are now enabling us to approach the working masses with every prospect of success. The fact that the two uprisings among the miners in Vis- caya and in Seron could be officially led by the Communist Party of Spain is a proof that our prestige is increasing in the sphere of trade unionism, and that the party ... is none the less possessed by the aspiration to place itself at the head of all proletarian struggles.

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII Contents EROS: TTA UA Git A PE Sats ce ciciainiole isis civ cisvewisicscclvasislecsiscsecesceeaes 449 EDITORIALS: Mr. Hughes Makes a Secret Alliance..........c0ccseeseneccscnecess 452 AeGhallencarto: EECIIy LONG rite acre clcle sie aclcls cis wecc sc clciscc cee staeees 453 erect BNC LI GIe oatsiniaie iemiieriaielaia\ ofa cde ie cisisia: sielepeia olsyataie, e+ eyaiayaa ere) atjena 453 a SPIISIISONIS® Soneterernje oc ete ieteicicin ciate «cic cic 5 tie cic elle cles cece e cece tee ae 454 Pir rere tk GANGES cera etic ln tonto) of etete ta toys |e hala okey dieusheln\e ble Diels Salas c sjejeres 454 WHAT OF THE LEAGUE? By Oswald Garrison Villard.............. 455 TIGOMENGEEOON: “By Ait SWOtMe es. occ sc ee selec ccc e ene teseseranes 457 RAILROADS AND THE MECHANICS OF SOCIAL POWER: II. The Technique of Industrial Monopoly. By Amos Pinchot...... 458 WHY IRISH LABOR FAILED. By Henry W. Nevinson.............. 460 WHITE, PROTESTANT, AND DRY. By William Hard.............. 461 PREV RTO LT WAN. Rup mtbe yO rilter a ciatisierr'= crs cio sap cic ce coce cet s ec eee A462 ROONEO ESE SE ONGDININGHM Ls cia eee tetaieieia cls Sale dialolsfelels i isisicie'c scivisle cle aecwedsoenece 463 MVOGDSNMAN. By Genevieves Tacear dad cicicic cic ccs ole ciciic cc asee cilia seine sees 464 BOOKS: I, Pyramus SAOERGMUESPEN CON | RRASCOP cechicak )|cieisic.s\c elercieichsiole soiree eee 464 Heretical Orthodoxy and the Cycle. By Henry Raymond Mussey.... 465 New Unionism for Old. By David E. Lilienthal.................... 466 After “‘La Garconne,” ‘(Le Compagnon.”’ By Martha Gruening...... 466 Spurious Anthropology. By Johan J. Smertenko...................- 468 Ae Teps Mn RNIN ES ToL ae ee clea as ccd cadet a) ak oysre eyo e\'0) cieieiCaleser eaeiasioyae:s i sere. Gas 468 DRAMA: Muted Strings. By Ludwig Lewisohn...............s.eeeeeeeeeeees 469 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Republican Prisoners in the Irish Free State: Ar CIa ME MEHESE els ieke e'ajais elossisieie © elelsscjsle ans qpeiaitierarecejeicie)s cole cleo ee A471 SE EMRICCO HOMOSHMULTALTUNTGinie Vals sisle'vcicics sic tina saenanesecceeccecceene 471 AIPA N WEL tO THEEVed i GLOSSeycie co, sholele wise) /siexe siey-/alb lew ciciao eo evs in) 473 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EDIToR ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES :—Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HATEVER subject he chooses to make his own, Gifford Pinchot manages to turn into a challenge to the administration and policies of Calvin Coolidge. First coal, now liquor. His attitudes are quite unimpeachable— and he gets there first. We do not suspect Governor Pin- chot’s sincerity; he may want to be President, but we have no reason to suppose that he does not as honestly want the laws enforced. He is in politics in the public interest, and we need more whose purposes are as untainted as his. But nevertheless the challenge exists. His every act seems to say: “If Calvin Coolidge wants to be elected President he will have to keep jumping.” As for the non-enforcement of the prohibition law, is there any doubt that it is a gross scandal, a piece of public dishonesty so blatant that private decency itself disintegrates in the face of it? E have been in small Jersey coast towns which have lost their bearings entirely in a flood of graft and easy money. When the owner of a power-boat plying be- tween the rum-fleet and the coast gets $5 a case for all whiskey brought ashore, and lands several hundred cases in a night; when the men that help unload get $1 a case, and the revenue officers $2 protection money; when these things happen, and everyone is happy and serene—even the ultimate consumer who is too thirsty to cavil at extortion- NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1923 No. 3042 ate prices—why should anyone be either honest or law- abiding? Mr. Hard, in another column, suggests that other Iederal amendments deserve the equal attention of law- enforcers such as Governor Pinchot—the enfranchisement of Negroes, for instance, and free speech for us all. His plea is a fine one and we agree with him, but we must admit that there is a degree of actual overt dishonesty and corruption in the liquor situation that is not involved in these old sores. In any case we can hardly object to the enforcement of a law simply because other laws are not enforced. Either we must pass measures that will be obeyed or we must make people obey the measures that are passed. Mr. Pinchot is choosing the second course, and Mr. Coolidge, with less ardor, will doubtless choose it too. T takes bloodshed to put Germany on the front page now. Mere unemployment, mere starvation, mere food riots are old stories. But the process of degeneration continues, and Poincaré still betrays no hint of readiness to discuss matters on a common-sense basis. The French papers do indeed show a glimmering recognition of the fact that mili- tary victory has its limitations. Passive resistance has ceased, but the Ruhr is not yet functioning and producing. Before the French invasion Germany was paying the coal- owners who shipped reparations coal to France; now Ger- many cannot pay, and if the French Government is to get the coal it must itself pay. The coal owners are willing to ship the coal to France, but someone must pay them the wages they have to pay to their miners. France threatened to seize the coal tax, but part of the price Stresemann had to pay the industrialists for their support of his dictator- ship measure was the abolition of the coal tax. TRESEMANN hardly seems made to play the role of i dictator. His voice trembled when he asked the Reichs- tag to give him plenary powers, and he did not put the mo- tion until after prolonged bargaining with both industria- lists and Socialists. Whether, once the argumentative Reichstag is out of the way, he will show a stronger face, is yet to be seen. The plan to force payment of taxes in gold instead of in shifting paper values is the necessary first step to order, but it is doubtful whether any German currency can be stabilized until some sort of understanding is reached with the French Government. Just why the Socialists felt it necessary to pledge their support to dictatorship is not clear. They still have the power, under a constitutional pro- vision, to reconvene the Reichstag, and probably they regard that as their salvation. Meanwhile, with parliament out, the political battle continues between the state governments. When Bavaria went under virtually royalist control, Sax- _ ony and Thuringia reverted to their earlier Socialist-Com- munist coalition governments. There is plenty of explosive material in Germany just waiting to be stepped on. ERHAPS the American press, reputed to be an accu- rate reflector of public opinion, has misled us a bit in regard to popular approval in this country of the French occupation of the Ruhr. We note, at least, that two college ras, Cad

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audiences, after listening to a debate on the question, have voted overwhelmingly against French policy. A Harvard team did its best to uphold the occupation against attack by the visiting debaters from Oxford University, but the audi- ence voted its disapproval of the treatment of Germany 1,748 to 590, or nearly three to one; and this, it should be observed, in what may be called the intellectual center of pro-French sentiment in this country. Two nights later an audience in New Haven, after listening to a Yale-Oxford debate on the same question, voted 776 to 286 against the French occupation. R. LLOYD GEORGE’S tour is not to include Australia, a New Zealand, South Africa, or the Falkland Islands, so the inhabitants of those various sections of the British Empire will have to miss, for the present, the exhilarating assurance, on the highest of all authorities, that the assis- tance they rendered at a critical moment saved civilization. The lack of this testimonial will perhaps be endured with the more equanimity from the fact that almost every day makes it more doubtful whether the war saved civilization after all. That there was nothing final about it seems, in- deed, to be the one conviction that today unites those who preached it as a holy crusade. Mr. Lloyd George says at Toronto that he had hoped the last war would have put an end to war, but he sees imminent the menace of an even greater catastrophe unless the British Empire, by increas- ing her own strength, can “teach the world to keep out of war.” And Lord Grey warns a London audience that it is “not so indisputably true yet” that in the last war mili- tarism was defeated. ‘That would depend on the answer to the question whether the peoples of Europe had been so penetrated, by the experience of the last war, with the sense that war was a great disaster that they would in future settle their disputes by some other means, If militarism, he added, was to gain ascendancy over the spirit of those who won the last war, it would not have been defeated but would have won. That “if” was a pleasant euphemism. ALK of an “armed uprising” in the Philippines does not come from the Filipino leaders but from troubie- making Americans who want to discredit the Filipinos at home. The leaders of the independence movement in the islands are the same men who have peacefully and effectively cooperated with the various American civil administrations which preceded that of General Wood. The new factor in the situation is the general, and it is plain that he does not know how to adjust himself to a civilian’s job. He may bea good army officer, but he is not fitted to participate in a task of democratic administration. He has failed. For Secre- tary Weeks to go on parrot-like reiterating that he will support General Wood to the limit is to repeat the most common failure of colonial bureaucrats. The Harding Ad- ministration would have avoided a lot of trouble if it had recalled Governor Reily from Porto Rico as soon as his un- fitness became evident, and Mr. Weeks and Mr. Coolidge are only storing up trouble by delaying the recall of Leonard Wood. ROM the moment that Governor Walton announced his intention to prevent a legally called election in Okla- homa his downfall has been predictable. For a quarter of a century the American people have been accustoming them- The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3042 selves to industrial dictatorship, and since the European War they have submitted to a high degree of political autoc- racy on the part of the Federal executive departments, but they are not ready yet to give up their right to the ballot. In attacking that fundamental the Governor showed the poorest possible generalship. He went farther than most of the post-war crop of European dictators, undoubtedly leaving many Oklahomans sympathetic toward the anti- Klan campaign to break away and join in the three-to-one popular vote invoking a special session of a legislature that was bent on destroying the Governor. But, though Gover- nor Walton’s attempted dictatorship has failed, the Klan does not emerge triumphant. The Democratic Party in the State is said to be determined upon some kind of anti-Klan legislation in order to save its political future, and the head of the Klan in Oklahoma is himself advocating an anti- masking law, with reservations that would prevent the act from upsetting the organization’s ceremonials. Further- more, the call for a mobilization of Klansmen of the South- west at Dallas, Texas, is not necessarily the proof of strength that is suggested in most of the newspaper dis- patches; the object is perhaps defensive quite as much as offensive. Indeed the Klan may have reached the position at which the American Legion arrived a couple of years ago, when opposition both within and without impelled that organization to modify its tactics. SRAEL ZANGWILL’S descent upon New York, his tri- umphal seizure of columns of front-page newspaper space, the crowding thousands that heard him speak at Carnegie Hall—all testify to the man’s hold on the imagi- nation of his own people and, to only a little less degree, of all Americans. He is able to say sharp things and some wise things and remain intact. No one can excommunicate him, because he is already apart. He is a person and a power, but he is not a leader because he refuses identity with any followers. And the fact that he is an artist gives him an added strength of aloofness. His place as a writer and a public man is clearly defined in an article which we shall publish next week by Johan J. Smertenko. His place in the immediate controversy over Zionism and the role of the Jews in Palestine is less easy to discuss. The issues are not clear. That French and British wrangling—and the existence of a large unreconciled Arab majority—make the hope of complete Jewish control in Palestine a dream is obvious; Jews of all nationalities in Palestine will have to be Englishmen first. But it is not quite as obvious that there will be no political future for the Jewish race even under the domination of Great Britain. Culturally the Jews may modify and mold that part of the Near East as Englishmen and Frenchmen can never do. Politically the Jews may come to form a sort of solvent in the ferment of Near East- ern politics; they may well hold the balance of power be- tween the forces that find themselves in conflict there. We should like to hear the answer of Dr. Weizmann, that “dis- tinguished chemist,’ to the epitaph on Jewish hopes pro- nounced by Mr. Zangwill. UNSEY, Stinnes, and Hearst are mere pikers beside the British newspaper-owners. Lord Rothermere, brother of the late Lord Northcliffe, and Lord Beaverbrook, who is a forty-four-year-old Canadian, recently bought the Hulton papers for the trifling sum of thirty million dollars,

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Oct. 24, 1923] The Nation 451 EE ERE TEE EE ——EE>EE———E————E———————_——_—_——————————__——————————— and Lord Beaverbrook is reported since to have added the Pall Mall Gazette to his Daily Express and to the Evening Standard, which is his share of the Hulton properties. His three London papers, however, are nothing compared to Rothermere’s string. Rothermere was a newspaper-owner on his own account when his brother died, leaving him the main heir to the Associated Newspapers and other North- cliffe properties. The Daily Mail, which claims the largest circulation in the world, the Daily Mirror, which closely trails the Mail, the Evening News are his in London, and with them go some seventy-five weekly and monthly publi- cations, and daily papers in Glasgow, Leeds, and Manches- ter. Some of these papers have been paying their enterpris- ing owner 60 per cent profit annually for several years. It is estimated that Rothermere’s papers reach nearly 90 per cent of the British reading public, and his chief rival, the Berry group, which bid against him for the Hulton papers, controls a group of newspapers equal in importance to the Hearst press in this country. When financiers operate such enormous sections of the press as profit-making ventures, is it any wonder that men study anxiously Mr. Astor’s at- tempt to make the London Times a semi-public trust, and that workers make huge sacrifices to build up a press of their own? AR from getting better, housing conditions in New York City have grown worse in the last three years, according to a mass of testimony submitted to the State Housing Commission, which is trying to determine whether the emergency rent laws of 1920 ought to be reenacted by the legislature. From 600,000 to 700,000 persons are vir- tually without homes, it was asserted, living herded with others in tenement-house apartments. One case was cited of forty-two persons occupying one five-room apartment and sleeping in shifts. Plenty of new housing has been built for the well-to-do, but in the last three years only one building has been completed with apartments to let for as little as $10 per room per month—and that by a philan- thropic organization. No intelligent person expected that New York’s emergency rent laws would build new houses, but they were expected to protect the tenant from profiteer- ing landlords. Even this hope has been only partially realized, as landlords have often made life unbearable for persons who have stood upon their legal rights, and have used the legislation as an excuse for insufficient heat and an almost unanimous refusal to make repairs. Added to the housing crisis is the fuel shortage. So far this winter dealers have generally refused to quote a definite price or date of delivery. The consumer must take his chances on both—or nothing. Actually, buyers in small lots have paid $17 to $20 a ton. “It’s great to be a New Yorker,” says the Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s Subway Sun. Sure—provided you don’t mind the lack of a roof over your head, or object to freezing to death for lack of coal. F General James E. Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, had a sense of humor, his spirit must be chuckling hugely as it roves along the banks of the Styx and con- siders what a to-do they are making here on earth over his poor bones after he has been dead—and all but forgotten— for 138 years. He has had more newspaper publicity in the last few weeks than he obtained during his entire life- time, and hundreds of persons who never heard of him until this autumn have suddenly become violently passionate about the future resting-place of whatever dust may be left of him. Is the American craze for change to have no limit? Having dug up our war dead from the only soil which in any true sense can be called consecrated, must we now disinter every other American or near-American who may have fallen by the way abroad? General Oglethorpe left Georgia of his own free will, and lived in England forty-two years thereafter without ever returning. Why bring him back forcibly now? But, of course, universities must live, and universities—like soap—live by advertising. Oglethorpe University has a president, and a university president must be a money-getter and a go-getter and— finally, it seems—a bone-getter. It is a little depressing, though, that a modern university should have expended so much more energy and passion on a dead general than on live professors. SUSPICION has been growing of late years that it might be just as well to treat university undergradu- ates as adults instead of as children. The creatures seemed to be getting out of hand, and sops like student self-govern- ment and the honor system at examinations and student members on the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs were thrown out from time to time by more than one harassed Alma Mater. But, of course, the cut system and compul- sory attendance at classes was the prop on which the aca- demic world rested. It seemed obvious that if a student did not have to come to class he would stay away; if you did not believe it, you could visit the classes yourself and see why. Now Princeton has taken the bold step of permitting the students to decide for themselves if and when they will attend classes. This puts a fearful responsibility on the instructor. Henceforth he must make his classes interesting. At the end of the course he will also have to prepare an examination determining less whether the stu- dent has mastered his facts than whether he has any ideas about them, or about anything. Some young gentlemen will never come to class at all, but if they do not and can satisfy the instructor in those two points, Princeton is ready to admit that it is all right. Common-sense sometimes sounds alarmingly revolutionary. J EW YORK plays New York for the “world’s champion- ship” in a sport that is as narrowly national as buck- wheat cakes—and half a million fans on the spot yell them- selves hoarse while millions more listen to radio announcers until their feet grow cold and their noses run. Some mil- lions of tongues stutter, with varying degrees of inaccuracy, the classic lines of Casey at the Bat when “Casey” Stengel knocks a home run into the right-field bleachers. Still more millions enthusiastically choral ‘Atta Baby” when George Herman Ruth clouts the ball clear outside the playing field. There is no common sense or philosophy to it. Half a dozen men own all the stock in both Yankees and Giants, and hardly half a dozen players on either team call New York home. When a psychologist turns up able to explain why a whole continent goes mad over a sport which has become a branch of big business he will probably be so wise that he can also tell us how to avoid the next war. Before that, however, if anyone ever listens to him long enough to understand what he is doing, he will probably be lynched. We might spare the games but we could never get along without the living literature which they inspire in the Heywood Brouns and the Grantland Rices.

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[Vol. 117, No. 3042 Mr. Hughes Makes a Secret Alliance prospective purchasers of bonds in a brokers’ circular im- ENHE Republican Party, nominally, and a large number of American citizens, actually, are opposed to “en- tangling alliances.” Yet without authority from Congress, and under cover of secret negotiations, Charles E. Hughes, as director of foreign affairs for the present Republican administration in Washington, has entangled the United States in an alliance which forms a new chapter in the most dangerous kind of imperialism. By formal diplomatic agreement Mr. Hughes has allied the United States government with a group of investment bankers in making a loan of $6,000,000 to the republic of Salvador, and he has pledged the services of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—or some other Federal judge —as arbitrator in a business transaction purely for private profit. In an editorial note two weeks ago on the Salvador loan we remarked that previous to the publication of its terms it was impossible to say what political control that country was ceding. The terms are before us now, and we are amazed not so much with what Salvador is giving for a mess of Wall Street pottage (for that is getting to be an old story among Latin American republics) as with what the United States is giving—the way in which Mr. Hughes has made the Department of State an agency for a group of financiers and has involved the Federal government in an undertaking which experience has proved to be the most potent cause of foreign aggression and imperialistic war- fare in our day. The first paragraph of the bankers’ cir- cular inviting subscriptions to the loan puts it concisely: The United States of America and El Salvador have entered into an exchange of formal diplomatic notes with reference to this loan . . . by which Salvador on its part assures the United States that it will cooperate in every respect with the govern- ment of the United States and the bankers in carrying out the terms of the loan contract, and the United States on its part takes cognizance of the terms of the loan contract and states that the Secretary of State of the United States is prepared to carry out the stipulations with reference to him in Articles IX, XIX, and XXIII of the loan contract should it be necessary to do so. The articles alluded to provide, among other things, for reference of differences to the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and for the appointment of Salvador’s Collector General of Customs. The latter, it is provided, must be one of two persons nominated by the fiscal agent of the American bankers ‘“‘with the concurrence of the Sec- retary of State of the United States,” which nominations “shall be transmitted to the republic through the Depart- ment of State of the United States.” Thus both the judicial and the executive branches of the United States government are committed to the flotation and collection of this loan. The only branch not included is the legislative, and this branch Mr. Hughes studiously ignored, although his “agree- ments” with Salvador are far more important actually and potentially than most negotiations which when classed as “treaties” require the consent of the Senate for their ratifi- cation. Mr. Hughes’s action constitutes secret diplomacy at its worst. No adequate information of what was going on was permitted to reach the public until the agreement was com- pleted. Then the important details were divulged only to pudently marked: “For confidential use of addressee only. Not to be reprinted.” The Nation takes pleasure in mak- ing public some of the salient data in this circular without permission and without apology. We think, for instance, that the circular hits the nail on the head when it says: The State Department of the U. S. government has inquired into the price which the bankers are paying for this loan as it wants Salvador to get a fair deal. Per contra, the bondholders are entitled to and will unquestionably receive the full protec- tion of their own government. This protection is promised under the contract in so far as it is provided that any dispute as to the terms of the contract is to be submitted by the Secre- tary of the State of the U. S. to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for adjudication and final determination, and Salvador agrees to abide by such a decision. In case the Chief Justice cannot act, any question is to be referred by the Secre- tary of State to some other Federal judge. It is simply not thinkable that after a Federal judge has decided any question or dispute between the bondholders and the Salvador govern- ment, that the U. S. government should not take the necessary steps to sustain such decision. There is a precedent in a dis- pute between Costa Rica and Panama, in which a warship was sent to carry out the verdict of the arbitrators. Quite so. We have spoken of this loan so far only as it affects the United States, because the most astonishing aspect is the way in which our government is made a participant—in everything except the profits. So far as Salvador is con- cerned, the loan presents an equally bad face. For the quarter century during which the bonds run, 70 per cent of the customs duties are to be paid direct to a representa- tive of the bondholders in Salvador, and if this is not enough for the interest and sinking-fund charges in United States gold the entire customs may be demanded. In case of default the representative of the bondholders auto- matically fills the position of Collector General of Customs. As the brokers’ circular neatly puts it: “The government [that of Salvador] at no time receives any of the money pledged for the benefit of the bondholders, but the bond- holders collect this money themselves.” It is further pro- vided that during the life of the bond issue the customs duties, whether export or import, shall not be altered so as to reduce the gross revenues. Thus Salvador not only cedes her entire customs duties, if needed, for twenty-five years, but also pledges another generation to her present tariff policy. One of the first duties of our new Congress should be to investigate this shameless transaction by an administration whose motto is “less government in business.” Among the questions that may pertinently be asked we suggest: Do the American people want the Department of State to make secret agreements with foreign countries and en- tangling alliances with international financiers? Who gave Mr. Hughes the right to lay out work for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or other Federal judges? Are American fathers and mothers agreed that their sons shall be marched into Latin America to lay down their lives in order that the world may be made safe for Wall Street investments?

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Oct. 24, 1923] A Challenge to Henry Ford R. WEEKS may be a tool of the interests as Henry Ford suggests, but his sale of the Gorgas steam plant to the Alabama Power Company does not prove it. Nor does Mr. Ford make a case for the necessity of keeping the Gorgas steam plant, ninety miles away, as an integral part of the Muscle Shoals hydro-electric development. So honest a Senator as Mr. Norris of Nebraska, chairman of a committee which investigated this whole matter, thinks it probable that the relations between the government and. the Alabama Power Company with regard to their re- spective rights in the Gorgas plant were so tangled that the only way out was for the government to sell to the Power Company. He believes if Mr. Ford had bought out the government he would probably have sold the Gorgas plan: to the Alabama Power Company for about as much as he offered the government for the whole Muscle Shoals outfit, including Gorgas. The alternative would have been endless litigation, in which the power company would have tried to enforce the contract provision that it should have first option on the Gorgas property if the government sold. At any rate the government got $3,500,000 for the Gorgas plant which cost about $5,000,000. This may be bad but it is rather better than Mr. Ford’s offer of $5,000,000 for real estate, house, factories, equipment at Muscle Shoals, the Waco limestone quarry, and the Gorgas plant, for all of which the government paid about $90,000,000. From such a tangled mess of personalities and politics there seems to us one plain escape. Mr. Weeks suspects Mr. Ford of seeking a personal and political profit; Mr. Ford says that Mr. Weeks is playing into the hands of the big interests. Meanwhile, the farmers want nitrate, and they do not care very much whether Mr. Ford becomes President or what Mr. Weeks does for Wall Street if only they can get cheap fertilizer. Mr. Ford says he knows how to produce cheap fertilizer, and Mr. Weeks controls the power which Mr. Ford needs to produce it. Why not let Mr. Ford produce it, not for personal profit, but for the people? There could never be another doubt of Mr. Ford’s sincerity if he would offer to hire himself out to the gov- ernment as a dollar-a-year man, or better still at a moderate commercial salary, to develop Muscle Shoals as a great government-owned plant efficiently producing fertilizer at cost for the farmers of the United States. Mr. Ford, Muscle Shoals seems to have fascinated you. Will you offer to head a commission of three, with, say, Senator Norris as one of your colleagues, to develop Muscle Shoals without a suspicion of private profit? Mr. Weeks, will you let Mr. Ford do it? Reason in Fiction OME excellent and by no means hide-bound contempo- raries are alarmed and shocked by the latest manners of the art of fiction; others are in a triumphant state about Mr. Joyce and Miss Richardson and Miss Woolf and Mr. Frank and speak of the amazing authenticity of the works of these and similar authors. We suspect that neither group is quite steadily keeping its eye on the object, as Words- worth used to say, but that each is in reality waving a little private flag. The one group says under its breath: ‘This is disgusting and immoral. Is there to be no reserve or | The Nation decency? Shall both the mind and the body appear habitu- ally naked? Man, after all, is an animal that wears clothes!” The other group says not quite so softly but rather in a stage whisper: “Off with the indecent rags. Let us have the naked truth. That is decent; that is moral.” No, we haven’t the slightest intention of taking a middle ground, counseling moderation, saying: truth and authen- ticity are good things, but even a good thing can be over- done. Heaven forbid! Truth and authenticity cannot be overdone. Nothing that is human can or should be alien. In so far as the art of fiction can press closer and closer to the very core and quick of life it will become a greater and, in the Goethean sense, a more useful art. Do we then belong to the heralds and proclaimers of the new fiction? We do not. We deny its authenticity; we deny that its crazy-quilt fragmentariness of form or that its endless rambling establish a closer contact between reality and itself than has been achieved by other men and other media. We deny, above all, that its complete neglect of the human mind brings us nearer to the inner truth of life. The human mind is, to be sure, nothing to brag of. It has made a hash of civilization. To speak of the horse- sense of most people in this world is an insult to a noble and useful animal. But the human mind, such as it is, exists and functions. And when it functions well—a thing that happens, however rarely—it is the source of any hope we have. But it always functions somehow, usually quite violently, and usually, alas, the violence is not in propor- tion to the excellence of the functioning. Nothing is so common and widespread as the making of judgments. Bad judgments, no doubt. But there they are. Take men at their crudest. Are they without principle? Ah, if only they were! They are as stuffed with principle and prin- ciples as a pillow is stuffed with feathers. Only the prin- ciples are all mean and superstitious and barbarous. There is no endless stream of sensation and revery flowing through the consciousness of these gentlemen. They stop the stream. They put their foot down. They do what they call thinking. They pass moral judgments. They live, in their own con- ceit, in an ordered and rational universe. They mean to keep it so, even if they have to go night-riding. What the new fiction misses is both the terror and the pathos of this fact. Man is, after his queer fashion, a reflective and moral being. He doesn’t, as a matter of fact, live in a mental void. His ideas are, as a rule, phan- toms and hobgoblins and no true ideas. But he thinks they are ideas. He thinks he thinks. He thinks he governs his life by his thinking. To exclude that consideration and that fact is to exclude half of life and the groundwork of life and all the genuine damnation or salvation that there is. There is another and more vital consideration. It is the mark of the artist to be a thinker. He must dwell in what Plato calls an intelligible world. He knows the shadows on the wall of the cave to be but shadows. He sees under the aspect of eternity. He may be passionately absorbed in experience; thought is part of his passion. Even while he endures life he transcends it through his mind. His pangs are never blind; his very ache has vision. There is nothing so secret, so shameful, so pitiful, so perverse in all the world that he cannot treat it in writing unless and until he deliberately resigns the higher function of his being and silences that reason by virtue of which he stands above life even while he identifies himself with it. He may

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become wholly one with the sorrows and aberrations of men. He may share with them everything except that ultimate and sovereign reason which stands aside and thinks the thoughts of eternity. We have a suspicion that the authors of some of the new fiction have silenced that voice within them. That is why the muddiness and ‘earthiness in some of their work seems ugly to sensitive people. The earth is full of mud. But the stars shine over the mud. The stars should not be put out. Irish Prisons E print this week in the International Relations Sec- tion documents and statements bearing on the treat- ment of political prisoners in Ireland. Both sides are pre- sented. The Free State Government rests its case on the report of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Miss Broderick, in behalf of the Republican prisoners and the Prisoners’ Defense League, criticizes the report and suc- ceeds, it seems to us, in establishing the investigation as a one-sided and incomplete affair at best. She refrains from definite charges but in a letter accompanying the manu- script she makes some statements worthy of quotation: . . . I have been three times thrown into prison, the last time having been fired on by Free State troops and wounded. There was no charge brought against me and no trial. I went on hun- ger-strike and was released after fifteen days. . . . I have my- self seen girls detained in hospital in grievous pain from being kicked in the stomach and side by men of the Criminal Investi- gation Department. I have seen women with their faces scratched and their bodies bruised by the violence of female searchers. One girl had a cut on her head necessitating four stitches. I have had the personal evidence of men who have been beaten and tortured until they prayed for death and of men who have seen men killed for no reason, before their eyes, and have seen others brought in to prison able only to lie groan- ing and speechless on their beds after the torture and who were taken out again for renewed torture within two days’ time. In regard to the investigation of the Red Cross, Miss Broderick says: One of these delegates, having obtained permission, then went round three internment camps, and half of one prison only. It may be noted that it was against the prisons and not against the internment camps that the most serious allegations were made. Notwithstanding this, the report stated to the world that the camps have an excellent and well-organized sanitary service (including medical attention) and that the complaints as to sanitary conditions, poor food, and forbidding correspond- ence and parcels were unfounded. We are entirely in disaccord with this finding—which is simply not true. During my im- prisonment all letters and parcels were forbidden us, and sani- tary and medical conditions were bad. For four days my wounds were left undressed... . Miss Broderick, of course, can no more claim impartiality than can the Free State Government, but her direct personal testimony is more convincing than any official denial or than the statements of an investigation carried on under govern- ment auspices. We disagree with Miss Broderick’s politics; we think that the Free State was probably the best form of government that could be secured for Ireland under the immediate menace of the British heel. Mr. Nevinson’s analysis of the political situation printed elsewhere in this issue appeals to us as reasonable—as almost unanswerable. It is as a friend of the Free State Government, then, that we oppose with all our strength its policy of eliminating oppo- [Vol. 117, No. 3042 sition by throwing thousands of men and women into jail, of refusing to acknowledge that these men and women are political prisoners, and of subjecting them to treatment that, in spite of the Red Cross inquiry, we still believe to be improper and needlessly brutal. It is not by such means as these that bitter hate will be healed and Ireland made finally into one strong nation. Bones of Camels ORD cars in the desert; airplanes in the Arctic; “horse- shoe links” in California—we have grown accustomed to these inroads of civilization and almost forgotten the days when we lifted lonely voices of protest against auto- mobile highways through the Adirondack wilderness. And now suddenly we find that progress has, so to speak, reached its goal. Upon the testimony of England’s only Moslem peer and the first European openly to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Mecca, that impregnable fortress of an ancient faith has become modern. Lord Headley—who holds the world’s championships mentioned above—has returned from his pilgrimage with the word that newsboys and “legmen”’ and a foreign news service keep the streets of Mecca aware of all that goes on in the world. He says that automobiles whirl back and forth between the holy city and Jeddah, the pilgrim port on the Red Sea—‘“and the route is indi- cated by the bleached bones of dead camels which have been engaged in the pilgrimage.” Well, in time, we suppose, even these bones will be covered with the dust of many cars and spattered with gas and oil, and nothing, nothing at all, will be left to testify to weary centuries of tired, pious men who have worn their hearts and their bodies out on the long road to Mecca. Primarily, however, the news of Mecca’s breezy western atmosphere sets our aesthetic rather than our religious or sentimental nerves aquiver. Some parts of the world, hang it all, must be kept inefficient, slow, unsanitary, and beau- tiful. We are not convinced that life itself moves along a lovelier course in backward countries. Bertrand Russell, Edward Carpenter, and a hundred other opponents of in- dustrialism say so, but we have, none the less, an impulse to seek our own happiness in a world of bathtubs and gas ranges. But this we know: beauty which is natural and an essential, accepted part of life lives somewhere else. Peasants the world over in backward regions have beautiful things that we can only acquire through wealth or leisure— and they not only see and possess, they create them. The embroidered clothes they wear, the bags they carry to mar- ket, the water jugs they hang on their donkeys, the crooks of their shepherds are cunning and beautiful—and out of our reach. If we have them at all we have them as trophies, exotic ornaments thrust into the midst of our manufactured possessions, and strangely out of place among them. The backward peasants have these things of their own right— and they treasure them. Newsboys and airplanes may invade Mecca, automobiles may preserve pilgrims from the more painful ardors of their faith, but we shall still hold on to a hope of beauty in the world until we hear that the peasants of the Near East have sold their gorgeous handwoven bags to tourists and carry their seeds to market in the neat oil-cloth containers of Fourteenth Street. New York, and Main Street, Gopher Prairie.

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Oct. 24, 1923] The Nation | eee A55 What of the League? By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Geneva, October 1 HAT of the League of Nations as its fourth As- sembly comes to an end? Well, there can be no doubt that it ends with considerable gloom and little satis- faction with the results achieved. The gloom is not wholly due to the grave European situation which has overshad- owed the entire meeting, nor to the incidents growing out of Mussolini’s murderous acts in Corfu. “It is the poorest Assembly we have had,” is the verdict of one of the perma- nent staff who will not admit much that is disadvantage- ous to the organization to which he is so devoted. It cer- tainly has not sparkled; many of its sessions have been as dull as those of any American legislature, yet there has been great excitement within the ranks of the members and much indignation at the course of events. There have even been moments, as at last night’s session, when there was mutiny in the air, mutiny on the part of the members of the Assembly against the acts and decisions of the Coun- cil. Yet there have been few moving utterances; only Nan- sen, Gilbert Murray, and Branting have really stirred the Assembly. It has not been, or has not been allowed to be, guilty of expressing any of the wrath and indignation it has felt at the procedure of Mussolini or the conduct of the Council of Ambassadors in calmly turning over to that brigand the fifty millions of liras which the Greeks put up as a guaranty of bona fides. Nor has the deep feeling held by many of the Assembly’s members as to the events in the Ruhr been allowed to express itself except in the moving and downright speech of Gilbert Murray—always the scholar and honest gentleman. For this Mussolini is in large part responsible. There would undoubtedly have been much said about the Ruhr situation had not the Italian dictator drawn his red her- ring across the trail just as it met and jeopardized the very life of the League itself by questioning its competence. Someone here has remarked that when you get a great group of men and women together in a foreign city like this they are only good for one big issue—they are not capable of more. That seems to be true of the psychology of this group, and so, to the delight of the French, the oc- cupation of the Ruhr came up only once and the debate was choked off as soon as one or two lesser delegates had sec- onded Gilbert Murray’s outburst—just as Nansen was de- clared out of order last night when he dared to express his opinion about the high-handed action of the Ambassadors. Perhaps the collapse of the Germans would have made any action as to the Ruhr impossible, but men like Professor Murray see very clearly that if the League is not to be allowed to have an opinion about acts as contrary to the principles of the League as that, the League will rapidly lose caste. Indeed, if I were an advocate of the League as it is I should go away from here heartily discouraged, and that is, I think, the feeling of the liberal leaders who are hon- estly trying to make something out of this body in the inter- est of peace and humanity. They are whistling, some of them, like Robert Cecil, to keep up their courage; they are pretending that everything is going well, but in their heart of hearts they cannot be happy. In the first place, there is the quiet but never-ceasing effort of the French and Italians to sabotage the League. Next, it is now old enough to have growing pains and also to have developed some of the vices and weaknesses—such as log-rolling—of all legislatures. Then its activities are cleverly limited by its charter as if with malice aforethought—there was, for instance, no way in which it, since Greece was afraid to do so, could move to demand that Mussolini be made to pay for the human lives he so wantonly blotted out at Corfu. If, asked one of the protesting delegates at last night’s session, the League cannot deal with acts of its members directly leading up to war, and the International Court cannot be trusted with strictly legal questions as to the League’s competence, what is the function of either body? When I first arrived here there was a general feeling that after all the League had gotten pretty well out of the Italian-Greek mess. The liberals acknowledged that the League had received a black eye abroad, but they felt that after the facts became known the League would regain its former position in public opinion. After all, they said, a ‘war was averted and it would not have been had there been no League. They took the position that the Council of Ambassadors had accepted, with only one slight change, the proposals made by the League, and that if five private citizens had volunteered to settle the difficulty the League would have accepted such an offer provided the five were in a position to do the trick. The League, they said, is only an instrument to an end and if there is a better one why not use it? The answer to that was, of course, that in the case of Mussolini they had used a worse one. As it was, this atti- tude of forced contentment was radically changed when the news came that the Ambassadors had calmly handed over the swag to Mussolini without even waiting for the guilt of anybody to be fixed. Rarely have I seen men so indignant. They not only felt outraged for the sake of the Greeks, they realized that they had been buncoed themselves and that the Ambassadors had accepted their terms merely in order to get around them. One of the Englishmen declared to me that Thursday was the blackest day in England’s his- tory since August 1, 1914. Gilbert Murray thanked God in the Assembly that the League had had nothing to do with that and uttered his profound regret that he could not say the same of the British Empire. The action of Lord Crewe broke the hearts of the high-minded Englishmen here. They would have been outraged enough had all the other ambas- sadors voted for this steal; they could not bear the thought that their own ambassador had by order of the Prime Min- ister joined in. This, following the rumors that Baldwin surrendered to Poincaré in Paris, seemed the last straw to men in Geneva who are up against sinister French and Italian opposition at every turn. On top of that came the news that, finding it impossible to get the League’s Council to agree to refer to the World Court the five questions arising out of the Italian chal- lenge of the League’s competence in the case of the Alban- ian murders, Lord Robert Cecil had agreed to the compro- mise the Italians asked and that these vital questions should go to a Special Commission of Jurists. The Council

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456 eo The Na wrangled hour after hour over this and then Lord Robert announced it to the Assembly, not in sackcloth and ashes, but glorying in his shame. While he had felt, he said, that the matters ought to go to the World Court, still he was happy to record that there had been substantial agreement, the real object desired had been achieved, etc., etc. It was the worst kind of political trimming and compromising the old, old language of the expedient politician. Lord Robert has quite changed since he entered the British Cabinet— as was to be foreseen. It is said for him: “Of course, he is no longer free to act as he should like to now that he is in the Government!” You are quite expected to forget that last year when he was playing a different and finer role he was also representing a Government, that of South Africa. Fortunately, as already stated, he was not allowed to get off unscathed. One man after another got up to dissent. As it is, some of the smaller countries are still talking of drawing out. My judgment is that they will not now, but there is no denying the truth of a statement like that made by a Finnish delegate that the press in his country cannot understand why anybody should be allowed to remain one moment in doubt as to the competence of the League in so clear-cut a case. As Nansen put it, if he had been asked to create an absolutely perfect case for the League to act on he could not have produced a better one than Corfu. ~ Geneva is like Washington in that those at work in the League find it hard to realize the trend of public opinion outside of this locality. I am wondering tonight if Lord Robert has estimated the damage his compromise has done to the cause of the World Court in America. How can any- body get up to advocate the court in the United States and face the query why the League did not have faith enough in its own court to intrust to it such vital questions as its own competence but actually preferred instead to appoint a special court of political judges? For that is what these judges are going to be. Each member of the Council is to appoint one judge. Of course, each member of the Coun- cil will choose some one whose opinion he has ascertained in advance! To illustrate the kind of slim behavior the honorable men in the League are up against, I may add that the Italians early insisted that they would not accede to the question of the League’s competence being taken up unless the matter were separated from the Corfu affair. That was cheer- fully accepted. Then, when the competence issue arose, the Italians promptly pointed out that a unanimous decision would be needed in the Council to settle the question of reference! Had the issues not been separated unanimous action would not have been required, if my information is correct. It is a constant struggle against the reactionary forces, with the smaller, and especially the Scandinavian, states playing a fine, brave role. Meanwhile, it is only fair to acknowledge that the work done by the permanent secretariat and committees steadily increases in value. Those who carry it on say frankly that they need a great deal of time to build up their machinery, but they insist that it is far more effective than three or even two years ago and that it gets stronger with every year. But, as I have already pointed out, the one thing that is lacking in Europe is time. Already there is increas- ing pressure to cut the appropriations for the permanent forces and there is no doubt that the expense bears heavily upon certain nations, although it is pitifully small as con- trasted with the price of one battleship. [Vol. 117, No. 3042 The fate of the League as a machine for peace will not, however, be decided by the efficiency of its social or eco- nomic or legal bureaus but by political considerations. It is both the weakness and strength of the League that it is tied up with governments. It is its strength because in so far as the delegations represent the governments and speak for them their word is binding. Where the tie is loose, the home government sometimes fails to honor the obliga- tions incurred by the delegation—as the French did on one occasion. One of the most thoughtful and influential and democratically minded men here told me that he absolutely opposed any plan to elect delegates through the parliaments or by direct popular vote because it would then be so easy for the home governments to ignore or even to thwart the actions taken here. So we must face the fact that the League is but a machine of the existing officialdoms in the various countries, that its source is the governments, and that it will only with great difficulty, if at all, rise above its source. All the governments are willing that it shall go on with its philanthropic work, regulate the traffic in obscene pictures and literature and the traffic in women, talk of improving conditions of labor—the chief cannon- fodder. But when it comes to interfering with the existing sckemes of the chauvinistic governments of today, then the League must look out for itself. It may be that it will be killed by direct sabotage of the sort Mussolini, unwittingly perhaps, undertook; it may be that it will one day face an indignant withdrawal of the innocent smaller Powers who insist on taking the League seriously and dislike being bun- coed; it may be that it will perish slowly by sinking into innocuous desuetude in both Assembly and Council. That it has done some excellent work no one can deny; that it might be welded into a great instrument for human right- eousness is also true. But its survival as a really useful or- ganization for justice as well as peace calls for the reform of certain governments which at present have not the slight- est intention of being reformed but propose to carry on the world as if it were the same world that existed in 1914. How to reform these governments which learn nothing and forget nothing and are now mere puppets in the hands of the great industrialists within their borders—that is the great problem of humanity. I asked one of the most dis- tinguished and despairing members of the Assembly what he had to suggest. He has seen communism in Russia and is sure that that road leads only to ruin. Socialism has never had any attraction for him. He agreed to my state- ment of the problem—but when I asked him for his remedy he threw up his hands. The men here seem to know noth- ing of the possibilities of the cooperative commonwealth; they only faintly realize that political government has everywhere broken down, and they grope in the dark for a solution while fighting incessantly against the powers of darkness so conspicuous here. These are steadily sending Europe to its doom and will yet land her there if some miracle does not happen, such as a British buying-off of France in her relations with Germany or an awakening of America to the possibility of her using her good offices and influence—still tremendously potent in Europe—to bring certain countries to their senses before it is too late. Mr. Villard is at present in Germany. The Nation will publish in subsequent issues other articles from him on European subjects.

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9.26 05) Looking On The Nation by Art Young a lovely time whittling up Europe gether again, but the pieces don’t fit —it was so easy. and the glue won't stick. THE NEXT WAR IDIOT OFFSPRING OF THE WORLD WAR Introducing the Monster “We feel that you folks ought to get ac- quainted with this fel- low. Let your little children see how noble F . Fy and inspiring he is.” Aa ~~ | LEZ EA |e oe Z ao Zz Se em po | ag Abdul Hamid, Constantine, Venizelos, Lloyd George, Briand, Orlando, Clemenceau, Giolitti, etc., etc.

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3042 Railroads and the Mechanics of Social Power By AMOS PINCHOT Il. The Technique of Industrial Monopoly (This is the second of three articles which explain how the control of transportation by a unified group has resulted in its domination of the politics and culture of America.) HE railroad question is a practical one, but like most practical questions it needs some patience. The fact is, industrial civilization has grown so complicated that we cannot hope to readjust it properly unless we have some idea of the principles that govern its functioning. One of these principles has been beautifully stated by the Interstate Commerce Commission: “In .any industry whoever controls the avenues of transportation of either the raw material or the finished product can speedily drive all competitors out of existence.” This statement is of immense interest, because it points out the main process, the technique, the actual existing mechanics by which wealth, and incidentally power, is accumulated in a modern nation. Monopoly is the surest and quickest way of making money. If you can once destroy competition and establish monopoly in a large business producing things people need, you not only become rich; you become a power in the com- munity. Let us see how the principle laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission has worked, not in theory but in fact, in building up monopoly in America’s industrial field. Up to 1901, when the Steel Corporation appeared on the scene, the steel industry was highly competitive. There was no monopoly. Prices were regulated by the law of supply and demand. Though some of the steel-makers formed pools and did their best to boost prices, the com- petitive spirit proved too strong for them. Whenever prices rose above a certain point outsiders would rush in, undercut the figure fixed by the pool, and take the pool members’ customers away. Besides, as Mr. Schwab relates in his testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, the pool members themselves would not abide by their agreements. True, they would solemnly sit at the meet- ings and fix prices for steel products. But, according to Mr. Schwab, the moment a motion to adjourn was carried, they broke for the telephones, called up customers, and undersold each other without the least compunction. In 1901, however, an amazing change was seen. As if by magic competition ceased. Prices were fixed by the newly formed trust, and no one dared disturb them. And there began a golden era of steady, unparalleled profits. Though the Steel Corporation’s assets were worth only about $400,- 000,000, it had paid, by the end of the first nine months, dividends aggregating $41,979,168.75 and carried forward as surplus $43,620,940.30. According to Mr. Farquhar J. McRae, the statistician for the congressional committee that investigated the steel industry in 1911, in the first nine years ending December 31, 1910, its adjusted net earnings totaled $1,029,585,389.28, or an average of $13 a ton on sales to customers, or a net profit of 40 per cent on the actual cost of production. How was this feat accomplished? By what means did the trust contrive to banish competition in the most com- petitive industry of the time? Why was it able to shelve the law of supply and demand, fix prices arbitrarily, and take so substantial a toll from the public pocket? A partial reply is found in the words of the Interstate Commerce Commission: “In any industry whoever controls the ave- nues of transportation of either the raw material or the finished product can speedily drive all competitors out of existence.” But this explanation is obviously incomplete. We must also inquire, first, how the trust controlled transportation and, second, how, with transportation controlled, it devel- oped its monopoly and price-fixing prerogative. The answer is that it bought the great ore-carrying railroads from the Missabe range down to the upper lake ports. It bought the principal ore-carrying lake boats and barges and docking facilities. And it bought the strategic railroads from the lower lake ports to the Pittsburgh district. Today the Steel Corporation owns or leases roads with about 3,500 miles of track. ; The immediate results of these purchases were little short of phenomenal. They are described in the report of the congressional committee already referred to, which was Signed by the committee, but largely the work of Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, now of the United States Supreme Court. The outstanding fact developed in the report may be summed up briefly as follows: It takes two tons of ore to make one ton of pig iron. The committee found that, because the Steel Corporation carried its own ore on its railroads, ships, and barges at cost and that of outsiders at a large profit, the cost of assembling, in the Pittsburgh district, enough ore to make a ton of pig was $2.61 more for the outsider than for the trust. In other words, control of transportation gave the trust an advantage or differential of $2.61 on every ton of metal it produced. And this does not count its further dif- ferential in assembling coke, coal, and limestone. So that the committee put the trust’s total transportation advantage over the independent at something more than $3 a ton. How impossible competition became under these condi- tions is shown by the statement of the trust’s own very eminent engineer, Mr. Julian Kennedy, who was retained to select the plants the trust took over: The Chairman: As I understand it, you are of the opinion, if by any method we could force the common carriers of the country to treat all industries exactly alike, the advantage of the Steel Corporation over its competitors would be practically eliminated? Mr. Kennedy: To a great extent.... The Chairman: If the Steel Corporation chose to do it, with its present weapons, could it destroy its competitors? Mr. Kennedy: I think it could; yes. In corroboration of this, Judge Gary admitted at the Lockwood _ investigation in 1922 that the trust’s control of transportation was “a substantial advantage.” And at about the same time the general manager of one of the largest outside companies told me that, in his opinion, there had never been a day since the steel trust’s formation when

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it could not have destroyed every independent by using its transportation differential against them. Indeed, this conclusion seems unescapable. For, armed with the differential, the representative of the trust can go to the independent and say: “If you undersell the price fixed by us you will have a price war on your hands. We will sell down to cost and, owing to our special transporta- tion advantage, this will be about $3 below cost for you. How long do you think you can hold out?” At this point, it is perhaps appropriate to say that, not- withstanding considerable propaganda to the contrary, the steel trust’s power and profits are in no sense due to size or superior efficiency. The congressional committee re- ports that it is abundantly shown that “the actual cost of production between the United States Steel Corporation and other large concerns is practically the same.” And Mr. Andrew Carnegie took the position that a huge combination of combinations like the Steel Corporation is a notably poor producer compared to smaller, but still large and well-inte- grated concerns, “If you want to keep the country ahead in steel,” said he, “you cannot depend on the great combina- tions. In the nature of the case they become conservative.” In addition to the transportation differential already de- scribed, itself enough to overawe the most headstrong inde- pendent, the trust has a large but not easily measured ad- vantage arising from its community of interest with rail- roads all over the country, which it does not own but con- trols to a greater or less extent, through common ownership and interlocking directorates. As far back as 1910 John Moody stated that officers and directors of the Steel Cor- poration were also officers or directors in railroad corpora- tions capitalized at $10,000,000,000, the total capitalization of all our roads being $18,000,000,000. These interpene- trated roads naturally favor the trust, both in the matter of purchasing supplies and in the prompt delivery of trust products, whether to themselves or other customers. The situation in the coal industry does not differ sub- stantially from what we have seen in iron and steel. There, too, we find monopoly and high prices, due to the same cause—one interest controlling both mines and railroads. Dissolutions by the courts have had little effect beyond forcing the railroad and coal companies to the inconvenience of erecting partitions in their common offices, through which the business of squeezing. the public goes on as usual, ; Though I cannot prove it, as there has been no adequate investigation of the facts, I am credibly informed by deal- ers that besides controlling the price at the mines, the rail- road-coal monopoly also fixes the price at which the local dealer sells; and that any dealer who undercuts this price may look forward to having his coal supply cut off at the source. But whether this is true or not, it is sufficiently clear that the public will never get good coal at reasonable prices until the government takes over the coal roads and at the same time condemns and leases to private competi- tive developers some of the unused coal lands now held out of use by the trust. There is nothing experimental about this. The government owns and successfully operates a rail- road in Alaska; and the fee of all timber and grazing land and water-power sites on our Western federal reserves has long been held by the government, which leases the natural resources to private individuals or corporations under con- tracts guarding the public interest. In the oil industry it is the same story. Despite all the The Nation Interstate Commerce Commission can do, the trust still controls railroad and pipe-line rates. Last year Mr. Nicho- las, president of the National Petroleum Marketers’ Asso- ciation, testified at Washington that if the independents start any “real competition” they ‘‘are up against a system of reprisals that rather deprive you of the desire to try the experiment more than once.” The railroads, he said, have ‘no cars for the other fellow.” And Mr. Gray, president of the National Association of Independent Oil Producers, showed how the trust makes regulations for the use of its pipe lines which practically exclude the independents, ex- cept on a basis that prohibits competition. His experience in trying to change unfair rates and regulations by appli- cation to courts and commissions had been at once so ex- pensive and so barren of results that he was forced to advise the independents not to attempt to disturb them. In the beef industry the discriminations against the in- dependents are equally notorious. The railroads favor the trust by countless devices which they replace by new ones as fast as the government proceeds against them. Empty trust cars are shipped back quickly, while those of inde- pendents wait for cargoes; refunds for defective icing; differentials through the trust-owned terminals and stock- . yards; rebates by false claims, rebates by bogus leases, differentials and discriminations of a hundred kinds. The Federal Trade Commission reported that, in 1917, the rail- roads hauled the cars of the Big Five packers an average of 80.8 miles, while those of the independents only made 54.5 miles a day. No wonder President Calloway of the New York Central is quoted as saying: ‘‘We do not do these foolish things {rate discriminations] from choice. I will say that they are just as bad and foolish and stupid as can be, but what are we going to do about it? We have built up these big shippers and now they control us.” And President Fish of the Illinois Central: ‘Tell me how to enforce the Ten Commandments and I will tell you how to stop discrimina- tions.” But why, one might ask, will discriminatory practices cease under public ownership? A book might be written on the subject. One obvious answer is that the men in charge of the Federal government’s technical work have always maintained a high standard of honesty and esprit de corps; another, that the railroad men responsible for discriminatory acts now report to superiors who are the beneficiaries of these acts and keenly interested in their continuance. Under government ownership, on the other hand, the men in charge of running the roads will report neither to trust magnates nor bankers, but to departmental heads, whose one chance of holding their jobs will be to furnish good service and avoid the scandalous favoritism that now goes on known but unpunished. Contrast for a moment conditions in the industries in which private railroading has produced monopoly, with those that are still free and competitive, such for instance as automobile making. In the steel, coal, oil, meat-packing, and similar monopolies, prices have steadily gone up and the tendency of quality has been either to go down or re- main stationary. In the automobile business, on the con- trary, cars have become better and cheaper, notwithstanding the rise in labor and materials. Why is this? Merely be- cause since freight rates are not a vital element in the automobile industry, railroad discrimination cannot suc- cessfully be used against competitors.

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Thus, in the major basic industries of the United States, private railroading has built up an unwise, expensive, and by no means efficient monopoly system. It is unwise because it tears down the equality of industrial opportunity, which is the only secure basis of political democracy in an indus- trial age. It is expensive because it raises prices to levels which the public can ill afford to pay. It is inefficient be- cause, since it is easy to make money under monopoly, the main incentive to efficiency and invention is removed. Like- wise, by a strange twist of fate, the monopolists have un- wittingly introduced into industry the cardinal and very real vice of socialism. Indeed, they have actually done what the socialists have dreamed of, i.e., destroyed com- petitive enterprise and erected in its place a dull monopolis- tic hierarchy; the main difference between the socialists’ The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3042 heaven and this arrangement being that, in the former monopoly is supposed to be for the benefit of all society, while under the existing regime it works to the advantage of a few people only, the monopolists themselves. We are maintaining at great public cost a poor system of common carriers. Unable to support themselves, we sub- sidize them enormously through the Transportation Act. They are our most expensive paupers, and yet they have none of the loyalty to the public that should be attributa- ble to a well-fed public charge. They still favor the private interests that have used and wrecked them, and they are common carriers only in name. In the next article I will discuss the effect exerted by pools of power, produced by private railroading and monop- oly, on our political system and on society. Why Irish Labor Failed By HENRY W. NEVINSON Dublin, September 23 OU ask me to tell you something about the state of Ireland, and specifically about the failure of the Labor Party at the recent election in the Free State. I have fol- lowed Irish questions very closely for forty years. I have lived much in Ireland. As often happens with Englishmen, I have loved the country better than my own. I have lately been staying in a “Republican” district far out in the west. I have conversed with leaders and followers of every party. And I have attended the meetings of the newly elected Dail. So I know a good deal about the subject. But does knowl- edge make the answer to a question easier? Never believe it! Ignorance answers easily. Any clever correspondent after two days in a Dublin hotel will slam you off a solution of Ireland in half a dozen lines. But every writer knows that the more you know the harder it is to write. Take even the labor question about which you inquire. The labor leaders expected 27 or 30 seats in the new Dail (it is called the Fourth Dail, but is really the first duly elected under the Treaty of December, 1921). Now the Labor members sitting on the left of the small semicircle in the old courtroom of Leinster House make a forlorn little group of 14 (nominally 15, but one has already left them). They have lost their orator, O’Shannon, and they have lost their enthusiastic but steady leading member, William O’Brien. Their real leader and creator, Tom John- son, still holds his place, though under proportional repre- sentation he scraped in with difficulty. That Northern Irishman, so honorable, so sensible and straightforward, so highly respected by all parties, stands as Leader of the Opposition, but what a fragment that opposition is! Next to the little Labor Party sits the Farmers Party, also num- bering 14 or 15; and in some questions the two parties may combine. But even when combination is complete (and that will be seldom, for farmers are born opponents of labor and change) the opposition could count only on about 30 as against about 80 of the Government combined with the Independents, who will support the Government at a crisis. The main cause of labor’s failure was simply the condi- tion of the country ever since De Valera repudiated the treaty directly after it had been signed. The real issue at the election was the continuance or destruction of the treaty. That was a question of life or death, and a question of life or death extinguishes all others. In England we have proved it in the “Khaki” or war elections. In Ireland the choice before the people was whether they would maintain the treaty as an immense advance in national liberty—an advance far beyond anything that former leaders had even imagined—or repudiate the treaty and bring the British Government, army, and police back again to renew the old struggle. I understand the idealists of the so-called Repub- lican cause as well as any foreigner can. With the idealists are mixed up a lot of men and women who enjoy the excite- ment of fighting and bloodshed for its own sake, together with a lot of land-grabbers who have burned down the big houses, seized the lands or turned in their cattle, and strongly object to a Government which drives them out of the lands, takes the cattle to pay compensation, and actually insists upon rates and taxes. But I cannot go into the Re- publican question now. It appears to inflame your readers, as it inflames some of my friends here. My point is that Treaty versus Civil War was the vital question before the electors, and so the labor candidates had little chance. The Labor Party had strongly opposed many government ac- tions, especially as to the imprisonments and executions. At the same time they had not denounced the Government vio- lently enough to please the enemies of the treaty. So they occupied a middle position. And a middle position may appeal to philosophers, but it makes no appeal to electors in Ireland. Besides, the labor question is still new to the country. For about seven centuries the burning questions were defense of nationality, defense of religion, and defense of the land. Outside Belfast the labor question has hardly existed, and in Belfast it was surpassed by the religious contest. In the Free State it hardly exists outside Dublin, Cork, and perhaps Limerick, Waterford, and Galway, and it is noticeable that in all those big towns labor failed. In Dublin itself only 6 per cent.of the voters voted Labor. To be sure the party was torn by internal division, chiefly due to the workings of Jim Larkin, whom you have re- turned to this country as a gift. Ten years ago, at the time of the great dock strike here and the formation of the Transport Workers Union, I saw a good deal of Jim Larkin. I always regarded him as an egoist of immense physical and rhetorical energy, highly qualified to detect and expose suffering or wrong, but far less qualified to discover reme-

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Oct. 24, 1923] dies. Now, though he does not announce himself as a leader, he is said to inspire the dockers’ rank-and-file committee, which dictates to the executive of the union. His only power lies in Dublin, where he occasionally addresses open- air meetings. In the election he always opposed the can- didates of the regular Labor Party, and though his own supporters always failed, he probably reduced the labor representatives in the Dail. He has no followers in the Dail himself. As to the charges of bolshevist aims and Mos- cow influence, I disregard them. They are made against everyone whom other parties dislike. In one movement we are freely charged with receiving “Tory gold’; in another, with receiving “Moscow diamonds” ! The Irish Labor Party refuses labels. It will not even call itself “socialist,” for who knows what socialist means? For the moment the vital labor question here, as in England, is unemployment. The causes are much the same in both countries, the main cause being the callow brutality of French politicians in carrying on the starvation and de- The Nation struction of the German people. Actual unemployment is perhaps relieved here by keeping some 10,000 to 15,000 (the number is still uncertain) men and women in prison as actual or possible violent rebels against the state; also by enrolling some 40,000 young men in the new Free State army. But neither prisoners nor soldiers are lucrative, and both are being reduced. Meantime strikes rage throughout nearly all the cities, worst in Dublin and Cork. Strikes are at present labor’s only weapon, but the weapon is suicidal As Bernard Shaw says in a characteristic article in the first number of the new Irish Statesman (On Throwing Out Dirty Water, and in “dirty water” he includes all manner of obsolete Irish conceptions and ideals) : “The strike means starving on your enemy’s doorstep. ... The modern capitalist simply calls the police to remove your body to the mortuary.” But I suppose the striker may hope that his body on the doorstep may first infect the owner’s household. It is not a pleasing process for either side to contemplate. White, Protestant, and Dry (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD HE “Citizenship Conference,” called here by distin- guished Protestant religious leaders to promote a hope for a more vigorous enforcement of the Volstead law, was notably lacking in speeches by distinguished Catholics and was notably lacking also in attentiveness to the enforce- ment of the constitutional rights of Negroes or of man as man. It spoke much of “obedience to law” but it cared little for law as law. It fixed itself on a certain tiny segment of the circle of law and on that segment it lavished the full force of the assembled Protestant conscience of America. Washington, which is al- ways unwillingly enacting legislation forced upon it by exigent groups of vot- ers, perceives once more that after having gone through a legislative spasm it con- fronts an administrative crisis. Alone among the countries of the world, the United States produces people who, having forced a government to enact a certain law, then find that they must rally together—as this “Citizenship Conference” declares—to conduct a “ten years’ fight” to secure the actual recognition of that law as a binding law to which obedience must be rendered. The difficulty of the matter is considerably increased by the numerousness of other laws to which obedience is not yet rendered but to which obedience is strictly logically equally desirable. It is suggested accordingly that the Department of Jus- tice, in imitation of the Interstate Commerce Commission regarding freight traffic, should issue “priority orders’ re- garding law enforcement, The situation is that we have a congestion of law-enforce- ment traffic and movement. The enforcement of the Four- the glorious Cons’itution.” Drawing by Art Young “Now, gen’lemen, let us all stanup an’ give three cheers for teenth and Fifteenth amendments regarding the civil and political rights of Negroes, is stalled in the passes of the Alleghenies. The enforcement of the basic rights of man, in so far as they are possessed by Catholics and Jews and Negroes and citizens charged with crime but unconvicted of it, against the Ku Klux Klan and other mobs, is stalled on hills and plains through- out the country. Meanwhile the “bottle- neck” yards, which cannot be widened except by new enormous expenditures of public money, are jammed and clogged by the busy engineers and conductors of statutes regarding ma- ternity welfare, motion- picture inspection, sedition eradication, boll-weevil ex- termination, foreign-trade inquiry, domestic-trade analysis, gambling prevention, Sabbath protection, and other endeavors classifiable as necessaries or classifiable as luxuries. The essential demand of the “Citizenship Conference” is that the Volstead law shall be classified as a necessary and shall in fact be put at the head of all necessaries and given a special absolutely first extra “priority order” entitling it to unconditional precedence over all other forms of enforce- ment traffic on all Federal Government tracks. Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, the leader and the idol of the “Citizenship Conference,” informs the Federal Government that by all means there must be a special Fed- eral department or agency, responsive directly to the Presi- dent himself, for the enforcement of prohibition and of prohibition alone. Many Negro inhabitants of Washington, however, think that the numbers fourteen and fifteen come before the num- ber eighteen, and that while it may be a very good thing SS a VW» QI

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The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3042 to have a special Federal department for enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment regarding prohibition, it would also be an equally good thing to have a special Federal depart- ment for enforcing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amend- ments regarding particularly Negro suffrage. They argue in fact that the Negro suffrage Federal en- forcement department ought to have a large “priority” over the prohibition Federal enforcement department both in size of appropriation and in vigor and concentration of effort. They think that an appropriation of $100,000,000 a year would be no less than is needed in order to enforce Negro suffrage in Mississippi under a Federal Negro suffrage enforcement Volstead law. They also think that a special emergency appropriation of perhaps half a billion dollars may be needed in order to compel Congress to obey the mandate in the Fourteenth Amendment regarding the reduction of the congressional representation of States in which Negro suffrage is re- stricted. In any case they see no reason why their constitutional amendments, which have been law for more than half a century, should not have a special Federal enforcement de- partment if such a department is to be granted to a juve- nile constitutional amendment which has been law for less than half a decade. At this point, however, there is a considerable clamor raised by the special friends of the first amendment. This amendment fs almost as old as the Constitution itself and has to do with free speech. It is not impertinently sug- gested that “priority order number one” should issue to the activities of a Federal free-speech encouragement de- partment which would watch over, and endeavor to prevent, all invasions and infractions of the right of free speech, particularly during strikes in Governor Pinchot’s State of Pennsylvania. It develops then, however, that there still are certain enthusiasts and fanatics who give their special attention to those primary and basic rights of man which antedate the Constitution and which underlie the whole idea of govern- ment and which have to do with preventing individuals from physically assaulting the properties or the persons of other individuals. Physical security for property and for person, it is pointed out by such antiquarians, is the original primal purpose of government; and there is less of that security for individuals against other individuals—or for individuals against mobs—in this country than in any other civilized country in the world. It is accordingly strongly suggested that a special Fed- eral agency shall be instituted for the purpose of establish- ing a civilized degree of physical security in the United States and that this agency shall be given “Priority Order Number Triple A 1 Plus” and that “Citizenship Confer- ences” shall be numerously held all over the country to rally all citizenry to the support of this agency in order that the primary foundations of government may be securely laid in the hearts and minds of all citizens to the end that there- upon from time to time there may be raised high towers and pinnacles of new lofty excess-baggage ideals. Such are the lengths to which the zealots would go who are willing to get along with a scandalously scanty enforce- ment of some recent ideals if only they could be as safe from burglars and murderers as people are in loose-living, gam- bling, drinking England, It is firmly responded to them that such is not the tem- perament of our dear country. From the beginning we have been not so much interested in our own security for ourselves as in our own morality for others. England is as it is because we came out of it and left it to its life of security and sin. We are as we are because we preferred jeopardy and reform. We also prefer recent reforms to old reforms. We en- forced complete free speech for a while. We enforced Negro suffrage for a while. Now we are going to enforce pro- hibition; and we incidentally assert that if only we can get people to live up to our latest white Protestant dizzy ideal, they somehow will learn to respect the laws which are the primary dictates of the human conscience. As a lily-white Protestant, I ask my fellow lily-white Protestants to note that in fact we are now giving this country a perfectly spectacular instance of our preoccupa- tion with the latest top-branch fruit of our own peculiar meeting-house morality while the broad basic human posi- tive rights of whole great racial and religious groups of our fellow-citizens are neglected by us and indeed simul- taneously violated by large numbers of us without any effective national rebuke. In the Driftway HE Drifter is never so glad he is not an editor as when he reads something by one of those poor bloodless creatures on a genuinely important topic. So long as edi- tors discuss European politics or the condition of the Fed- eral Reserve banks, it doesn’t matter what they say, because nobody cares about such things or reads tiresome articles on those subjects anyhow. But when one attempts to write on an all-important subject like food he ought to know more ‘about it than an editor can possibly know about anything. In last week’s Nation the Drifter was pained to find an edi- tor who had probably never had half a dozen square meals in his life trying to define—and draw up a menu for—an “American dinner.” The Drifter would bet a Virginia- cured ham against a pound of Philadelphia scrapple that this anemic editor learned all he knows about American cooking in the railway-station restaurant of Bridgeport, Connecticut, or looking for handouts at the back doors of quick-lunch rooms along the waterfront of New York City. * * * * * S° long as he confines himself merely to pulling to pieces the alleged “American dinner” served to Mr. Lloyd George at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, this editor chap is not so inadequate. Editors are always good at finding fault with other people. But just set one of them to doing something on his own account, and where is he? In the first place, with an editor’s customary absent-mindedness, he forgot the soup course in both his New England and his Southern dinner. Not that this is so serious. Soup is not a great institution in American families. It makes a lot of extra dish-washing and the men folk refuse to count it as part of the meal. As a New Hampshire farmer-friend of the Drifter would say, soup “ain’t got no chaw to it.” It may properly be—and commonly is—omitted. But the Drifter finds it less easy to excuse the editor for failing to provide any green vegetables merely because he does not

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Oct. 24, 1923] The Nation 463 think highly of the claims of Waldorf salad. How about cucumbers? They are indubitably American, even if they do promote indigestion (and maybe that’s American too). And then there’s lettuce. Not that lettuce is exclusively American, but we have some ways of eating it that pos- sibly are. When the Drifter was a boy lettuce was uni- formly eaten with vinegar and sugar, and that method still prevails in thousands of rural homes throughout the coun- try. In the Drifter’s own home there was a better way of eating lettuce—with sugar and thick cream. Yum, yum! The Drifter could eat two or three plates of that now at one sitting. It beats oil and vinegar, mayonnaise, Russian, or any of these fancy modern dressings all hollow. Only it seems impossible to get it. Sugar still exists—too much of it in most cooking—but cows no longer give that thick cream of the Drifter’s boyhood. You could almost cut it with a knife, like butter, and could scarcely pour it out of a pitcher without wishing for a pair of tongs. * * * * * HEN, too, pumpkin pie may be all right, but it is neither so good nor so typical of New England as squash, while in the South—at least in Maryland—sweet- potato pie is a delicacy which no visiting Englishman should be allowed to miss. Also the Drifter is sure that no true American housewife, North or South, would have failed to provide at least two or three kinds of home-made jellies, jams, and preserves. * * * * * UT the greatest failure of this under-nourished and ill-informed editor remains to be exposed. He has provided no hot bread, North or South, and has omitted the most typical and important cereal of America, corn. Would a New England dinner be right without baking- ‘powder biscuit or some kind of hot rolls or muffins? And would anybody but a provincial New York editor conceive of a typical Southern dinner without cornbread? Beaten biscuit—bosh! As well offer a man a mouthful of dry dust! * * * + * LSO why limit Mr. Lloyd George to two dinners—one in New England, the other in Dixie?, American cook- ing deserves a wider survey. There is the unique school of the Pennsylvania Dutch; there are the groaning tables of the Middle West; there is the cookery of Louisiana, with a French flavor, and that of the Southwest, with a tang from Spain. * * * * * HE Drifter’s own selection for a typical “American dinner”? Ah, he is no such simpleton as that; if he were he would turn editor. Nobody who has eaten such a meal could write about it until at least six hours afterward and then he wouldn’t want to profane its memory by trans- lating it into words. Also the Drifter surmises that the great American dinner, like the great American novel, was cooked and forgotten fifty years ago—or remains for a wiser and worthier future to contrive. THE DRIFTER Contributors to This Issue Henry W. NEVINSON is well-known as essayist, war corre- spondent, and champion of oppressed peoples. He is author of a new volume of essays, “Changes and Chances,” to be published later in America. Correspondence Euterpe in Arkansas To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I read with joy Mr. Edson’s beguiling description of the happy state of Arkansas. I few issues later I was a bit taken aback to see in your correspondence column several let- ters from indignant natives of that State asserting that Ar- kansas had to the square mile as many leagues of paved road and readers of the Ladies’ Home Journal as any other State. Nevertheless, being still desirous to go into that country, I sent a letter to a dealer in real estate who lives in a small town in the foothills of the famous Osarks, asking him for advice regarding farms in his territory. The answer I got was inclosed in an envelope upon which was printed in the upper left-hand corner this verse: “There is a land the Lord has blessed More richly far than all the rest. In it you cannot find a flaw; It is the State of Arkansas.” Not long after I received a “follow up” which greeted me from the envelope in this wise: Colorado, irrigation. Kansas, stagnation. Say, why don’t you come to Arkansas Where they need no irrigation. Any man can engage in speculation, Bring on his wife’s relation, Have a good time and free salvation Without any danger of starvation?” After receipt of these letters I feel an inner urge to pack my goods. In a land where even the dry and callous “realtors” dally with Euterpe surely life must beckon. EDITH SUMMERS KELLEY North San Diego, California, September 62 Jim Crow Here and There To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: I notice that one of the railroad men who wrote to The Nation regarding my article, Jim Crow in Texas, merely hinted at “exaggeration.” I did not tell the worst things to be told in that article, for I only told what had happened 10 me. Worse things have happened to others. A Negro bishop and his wife were made to get up in their night clothes and get out of a Pullman berth in Kentucky, simply because whites aboard ob- jected to their presence on the car. A white woman was awarded “damages” against a railroad in Mississippi because she had to ride on a Pullman car in which some Negro bishops had a section. Two colored workers of the International Y. W. C. A. were compelled to get out of the drawing-room of a Pullman car a few months ago in Texas because whites who were riding in the open part of the car, and who could not even see the colored women in the drawing-room, and who only accidentally learned that colored people occupied this very sepa- rate accommodation, objected. Coffeyville, Kansas, September 21 WILLIAM PICKENS Gum and the Army TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of September 26 I learn that the Army and Navy Journal in November, 1922, reported Secretary Weeks as saying that the nation (with small n) spends more on chewing gum than it does on national defense. This struck me as likely to be interesting equally to those who deplore it and to those who welcome it. So I set about verifying it. After looking in several wrong places in the index

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to the World Almanac, I succeeded in extracting from that compendium the information that the value of America’s chewing-gum product for 1919 was $51,240,156, and that the “actual” budgets for 1922 included “Navy Dept.—Pay of the Navy $170,660,523.38; increase of the Navy $143,028,025.57; Marine Corps $35,448,401.92; all other $109,657,861.75” and “War Dept.—Pay of the Army $50,692,348.10, Panama Canal, operation and maintenance, $2,791,035.40, Rivers and Harbors $43,262,427.26; all other $305,312,638.86.” Of course “All other” for the War Department must include all expenditures for arms (including artillery), munitions, horses, and the up- keep of forts and West Point. If Secretary Weeks recognizes these and the navy as part of the national defense, we must infer either that the expense of chewing gum has increased immensely since 1919, or that the Secretary spoke carelessly, or that the Army and Navy Journal proved itself an inaccurate reporter on such an occasion, and made its own champion ridiculous by exaggerating his words. Ballard Vale, Mass., September 24 STEVEN T. BYINGTON ‘Tt Shall Not Be Again’’ To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit an unclassified and unlabeled liberal-radical—l prefer the name humanitarian—to express his deepest apprecia- tion of your editorial, The Twilight of Civilization, in the cur- rent issue of The Nation. No, your picture is not overdrawn. It could not be. No pen nor brush is powerful enough adequately to describe or depict the horror, the anguish, the misery, the hunger pangs, the disease, the insanity (in the literal sense of the term) which are the direct results of the war and still more so of the in- famous peace. And our participation in both is perhaps one of the principal causes of the misery and the reaction that we see around us. In the terrible darkness that surrounds us there are a few beacons of light. And one of the steadiest, never-wavering beacens is The Nation. In sincere appreciation of the work you are doing in com- bating ignorance, brutality, and reaction everywhere, I inclose check for one hundred dollars to help along the circulation of The Nation. May it forever remain a beacon light of peace, tolerance, fair play, and humanitarianism. New York, October 14 Dr. WILLIAM J. ROBINSON Is This the Fact? To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of October 3, H. C. Dekker in speaking against birth control states that in the writer’s opinion “the world would decline considerably in population if propagation were left to a pure parental instinct,” and further on “we might confidently look for a tremendous decline in birth-rate were this kind of knowledge universally available and the means at hand to use it.” Exactly, but why call this an argument against birth control? Mohegan Lake, N. Y., September 28 BOAO K Or This ? To THE Epiror oF THE NATION: R: Mr. Dekker, in his letter in this week’s Nation seems tical concerning the benefits of birth control, and is alarmed lest our population diminish to the vanishing point if we prac- tice voluntary parenthoed. In Holland, where birth control has been practiced for a num- ber of years, the population has increased and the infant mor- tality rate has decreased. Couples have children when they want them and when they can afford them. New York, September 29 SI 1 sxep 1. AGA The Nation 7 [Vol. 117, No. 3042 W oodsman By GENEVIEVE TAGGARD I think you draw out roses on the stem Just by your love, because you look for them. So a drab woman, when you look at her Puts on new leaves where never any were. No matter how much winter she has seen Or how much sorrow, you will make her green. If she should stand a skeleton-tree for years You would not give her up, for all your fears, But look at her as if she rustled soft Multitudes of leaves held lightly up aloft, Until her branches were an airy flush, Color of second life, green burning bush. And if the woman flings her hair, and shakes Her thin leaves from her—bows her head and takes The steep path down her roots, to lie as seed Under the ragged triumph of a weed, And though her shell grows crooked, cold and brown, You let her go, and do not cut her down; You. let her go, content that she will come Up from the earth in hymeneal bloom; You do not cut her down—though all her sisters wear Glittering leaves, and she is gaunt and spare. Books J, Pyramus, Some Makers cf American Literature. By William Lyon Phelps. Marshall Jones Company. $2.50. ADORE Billy Phelps. If that is the wrong way to begin a review of a book of criticism by the Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale University, I must plead that for purposes of review this book has stumped me; but it has sealed my affection for the man. I can now readily see why it is that Professor Phelps is beleved by those youngsters who sit, or have sat, at his feet and who concede his deficiencies as a critic and yet champion his importance as an enthusiast for letters. He has, they will tell you, nothing of the pontiff or academician in him; he has not soured on his job; he hasn’t the usual profes- sorial vice of making the livest author seem like an embalmed cadaver; and he is so cheery, kind-hearted, and good-natured in expounding his unblunted tastes in books that he can make even Archibald Marshall appear as a writer full of gusto. I know of no one who writes like Billy Phelps, unless it is Diogenes Laértius. His mind hops around like a grasshopper; you never know where it is going to land next. There is no continuity or coherence (in the grammatical sense) in what he has to say. His essays are a patchwork of incredible irrele- vancies. In the midst of a discussion of Emerson’s idea of the Over-Soul he will suddenly be reminded that Emerson’s favorite among his own poems was The Daughter of Time and will ~ tell you, “I would not exchange The Humblebee for a hundred

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Oct. 24, 1923] The Nation 465 Daughters of Time.” Something seems to start him on a line of thought, but before he has developed it he thinks of some- thing else. To follow him in his mental processes becomes a strange and fascinating sort of game. It takes a dull and humorless person not to enjoy him. And in his essays I seem to see a new art of expression, arising as clear and distinct as James Joyce in “Ulysses.” Between the uncorrelated cerebral impressions and remembrances of Leopold Bloom as he walks down a Dublin street and an essay by Billy Phelps on Emerson or Webster there is a remarkable similarity: “He [Webster] learned self-reliance by supporting himself through Dartmouth teaching, writing, and editing a newspaper. He was graduated in 1801, and in 1901 a week-long centenary celebration took place, which the Dartmouth authorities have incorporated in a handsome volume—invaluable to anyone in- terested in her greatest son.” This management of irrelevant anti-climax, this revolutionary syntax is nothing short of a triumph of genius. It is impossible not to conceive a vast affection for a man who writes such non sequitur paragraphs as these: . “We are fortunate enough to possess the numerous volumes of his [Emerson’s] Journal, published not long ago, which illu- mine his inner life, and are full of good anecdotes. As Dr. Johnson wrote disparagingly of New Jersey, so Emerson gave a delightful opinion of Connecticut. In 1862 he met Mrs. John C. Fremont at Washington.” “In Anthony Trollope’s little-known but highly interesting novel, ‘The American Senator,’ he makes a slip which would betray the fact that even if we did not know the author’s name we should know that he was not an American. He invariably says Senator for Minnesota, instead of Senator from Minne- sota. The little preposition displays the vast difference between the method of representation in the British House of Commons and our National Legislature. One reason why the average is higher than here, is because they have Open Constituencies, which makes it possible to secure the best men, and insures the country against the loss of their services in the event of a local defeat. The moment any statesman in England is defeated in an election, a number of constituencies come forward, and request that he do them the honor of being their representative in the House. With us, the Senator must reside in his State, and the representative in his district. The advantages of our system are, in my judgment, overweighted by its drawbacks. I think it would be fine if any State or district might choose the best man, regardless of his residence; then we could have at Washington a company of the ablest men in the country, met in the best interests of the nation.” It is all like that. There are, in this book, essays on Jona- than Edwards and Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mark Twain. They are discursive essays in which the art of digression is carried to its apotheosis. Something is always reminding Billy of the story of Pat and Mike, and the story of Pat and Mike reminds him that, though he is supposed to be talking about Emerson, personally he feels sure that Robert Burton got a lot of fun out of writing “The Anatomy of Melan- choly.” Having recorded that impression, he indulges in an adage: “It is forever characteristic of humanity that the more serious and ambitious a person is, the more he is given to self- reproach. Consider Milton’s Sonnet on his twenty-third birth- day.” Even when Billy reasons, he reasons in a fashion unlike any- one else: “As everyone knows, Emerson was a Unitarian min- ister, and he might have continued in that profession if it had not been for three things: he disliked all confessions of faith, he disliked preaching in the pulpit, and he particularly disliked pastoral work.” This is very much as if one should say: He was a trapeze performer and he might have continued in his profession if it had not been for three things: he lost both legs in an accident, he went blind and suffered from palsy, and he became a convert of a religious cult which prohibited its adher- ents from having anything to do with circuses. The reasons in both cases are remarkably complete. Among his many other attractions as a writer, Billy Phelps has an aptitude for critical epigrams which are sure, succinct, and illuminating. Of James Fenimore Cooper he says, “he brought to the gates of immortality an enormous amount of excess baggage,” which I take to be the best thing ever said about Cooper. No better differentiation of the personalities and points of view between Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Frank- lin has been expressed than this: “Edwards would lie awake all night, thinking of some sin he had imagined himself guilty of committing; Franklin, after committing some gross sin, would write in his journal, ‘Another erratum,’ and calmly proceed with the day’s work.” The essay on Emerson is really a masterpiece of hedging, wherein a sound critical sense creeps through a maze of benevo- lences. “In Emerson it is difficult to see the connection between any sentence and those that preceded or followed it. . . . Some- one has wittily said that in Emerson’s ‘Essays’ ‘the whole is often less that the sum of its parts.’ ...It seems almost as if some of his essays would read as well backwards as forwards; or one might begin in the middle and read either way... . It is natural, therefore, that there should be some lack of connec- tion; but, as a friend suggests, although the sentences were not always connected with one another, they were all connected with God.” And that’s the way I feel about Billy Phelps. Although his sentences are not always connected with one another, they are connected with God. He is not urbane, but there is no malice in him; he is not a great critic, but he is a good sort of a person to instil in youths a love for literature; he is one of those for whom the profession of criticism has only one attraction—the pleasure of praising. I adore Billy Phelps. BuRTON RASCOE Heretical Orthodoxy and the Cycle Money. By William Trufant Foster and Waddill Catchings. Houghton Mifflin Company. $3.50. FTER a quarter century’s reading of books on money, this reviewer has at last come across one that helps him under- stand something about that puzzling subject. If the combi- nation of trained economist and trained business man can give us a work like this, let us have more such combinations. By issuing this single book, if it had done and were to do nothing more, the Pollak Foundation would have justified its existence. But the publication of Mr. Fisher’s monumental work on index numbers, and the announcement of other studies already well under way, give additional promise of the help that impartial scientific research is yet to render in the endless task of making more solid the material foundations of life. The book under review is a remarkable study of money in its relation to prices in a world of private ownership of indus- try conducted for profit under the freest possible conditions of competition and ,individual initiative—that is, with all due qualifications, the United States of 1923. Economics in the existing world becomes “the science that deals with human interests from the standpoint of price.” Disregarding a good part of the old meaningless textbook distinctions, the authors use the term money to cover, not only all forms of currency, but also bank credit, that is, deposits subject to check. This adoption of everyday business terminology makes it possible to understand something of the relation between money and price. Inflation is a matter of simple mathematical definition: “any increase in the volume of money that is accompanied by a rise in the general price level.” Deflation is the reverse. Our entire economic life, from the business point of view, is simply a process of buying and selling for money. As the sole purpose of money, socially considered, however, is to keep goods flowing smoothly and continuously from producer to consumer

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466 in as large a stream as possible, the community has one over- whelmingly important interest in the money system. That system should be such as to maintain a stable price level. “Where the price level happens to be is of minor importance; the major need is that it should stay where it is.” Viewed in this light, no small part of the boasted “flexibility” of our banking system becomes sheer perversity. The sturdy realism of the treatment of business activity in money terms, as op- posed to an economics which regards money as insignificant end modern trade as only refined barter, is refreshing to others besides the tired business man. At last we are beginning to find out what the earlier economists never discovered, namely, that money can obstruct as well as facilitate production and exchange. With rare success, Messrs. Foster and Catchings show how it does so, and they accordingly offer a fruitful sug- gestion for the control of the business cycle. It is impossible, within the available space limits, to present even the outlines of the argument, but its drift may be sug- gested. The primary essential to business stability is that dollar-demand for consumers’ goods shall match the value of such goods offered for sale at current prices within a period of a year (nature’s cycle). But in our money economy this an- nual production-consumption equation is upset because of the time factor introduced by money. Money (including, be it re- membered, bank deposits) is suspended purchasing power. Though the banking system be maintained absolutely on a gold basis, even so the two basic assumptions of orthodox theory do not hold true: goods produced do not necessarily cor- respond to new credit* created, and new credit and new goods necessarily do not affect the market at the same time. Hence at one time, as in the period just after the war, new credit, rapidly passing on, through wage and other payments, into the hands of consumers, puts dollar-demand far in excess of the value of the current output of consumers’ goods at current prices. A business boom inevitably follows. At another time, as in 1921, the situation is reversed, and we find ourselves in the trough of depression. The root difficulty is our lack of knowledge and intelligence suificient to keep the money supply in right relation to the current output of goods; it is not any inherent defect in our system of private property, competition, individual initiative, and profit-making, which the authors stoutly defend. Their suggestion for a remedy is bold, interesting, heterodox, and, in the reviewer’s judgment, theoretically sound. The gold standard is a necessary concession to human weakness; for “with humanity as it is no nation has ever kept its paper money within bounds without arbitrary restraint.” “The gold basis, in spite of the fortuitous output of mines and the equally for- tuitous acts of legislatures, has come nearer than any other basis to maintaining the stability of the money unit. . . . Con- fusion is better than choas.” Yet though the gold basis as a stabilizer of prices is better than nothing, in fact it is a miser- able failure. Retaining the gold basis as a precautionary measure only, we should therefore utilize our present enormous gold reserve to make a courageous experiment in stabilizing our price level, as one of the greatest services we can do to ourselves and the world. All the gold might be used as a re- serve against currency, which, aside from subsidiary coin, might well be of but one single sort—United States notes. When the price level, as indicated by perfected index numbers, began to rise, the amount of such notes in circulation might be decreased by the sale of government securities in the open market. As the price level fell, the government might buy such securities, thus increasing the supply of currency and tending to keep up prices. If then the rediscount policy of the Federal Reserve banks also were directed solely to the mainte- nance of a stable price level, inflation and deflation due to expansion and contraction of bank deposits could be curbed. Thus two powerful forces for stability would cooperate, one affecting the volume of currency, the other of bank deposits. The plan is as sound as it is bold, though its full operation, The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3042 as the authors point out, requires more knowledge than we yet possess. Imagine, however, the grief of the “sound money” advocates of our boyhood if the United States should be con- verted by the cogent arguments of these orthodox heretics to some such scheme as this for an intelligent political-mathemati- cal control of the money supply and the price level, instead of leaving the whole matter in the hands of God—or the devil. To criticize a book of this importance within the limits of a review is even less easily possible than to ctate its argument adequately. In the judgment of the reviewer, the fundamental position of the authors is well taken. Economists and mone- tary theorists will have to take account of their proposal, to say nothing of its value for business men and legislators, pro- vided they can be induced to do the hard reading the book de- mands. Notwithstanding the authors’ explicit and repeated recognition of the importance of monopoly in current business life, however, they no less specifically decline to build it into their scheme. The beauty of their theoretical structure is per- haps enhanced thereby, but it may be doubted whether its foun- dations are rendered the more secure, and it is not impossible that some of their practical deductions are laid open to attack. Nevertheless the book deals with a fundamental problem of social well-being in a manner uncommonly stimulating and suggestive. It is highly realistic, well thought out, and clearly presented. The best service of a reviewer in such cases is perhaps simply to urge everyone to read, mark, and inwardly digest. HENRY RAYMOND MussEy New Unionism for Old Labor’s Money. By Richard Boeckel. Company. $1.50. p ican traditional methods of trade unionism—collective bar- gaining, the strike, the boycott, and other forms of eco- nomic coercion—have failed in any satisfying measure to give the worker what he wants: “increased purchasing power, de- cent working conditions, more leisure, security against unem- ployment.” The traditional aim of trade unionism—an organ- ization strong enough to wring advances in money wages from the employers—no longer satisfies the worker. Therefore new methods and new aims: are rapidly taking the place of the old. Labor is now seeking the control of industry. Through such control it intends to secure that higher standard of life toward which it has so long been struggling. Aims so radical call for new and radical methods. Chief among the new methods of this new unionism is the entrance of labor into the field of banking and investment. But labor banks are only the sur- face waves of the movement; forces of incalculable might, in whose keeping the whole future of society rests, are surging in the deeps. In all his discussion of the details of this phe nomenal development, Mr. Boeckel never loses sight of the close relation of the labor banking movement to the new union- ism. The modern trade union, with its system of dues, its huge strike benefit funds and insurance departments, is the custodian of enormous sums of money. Such funds have been deposited in banks where as ordinary savings deposits they have received a low rate of return. These very funds have often been loaned by the banks to anti-union employers. Faced with this situ- ation, it was natural for the more far-sighted labor leaders to organize banks of their own, where union funds would receive a fair return, and where the power behind those funds would be expended, not in union-breaking campaigns, but in productive enterprises. This idea has spread to the ends of the country, and has touched every phase of the labor movement. Mr. Boeckel has given an admirable account of the causes leading up to the advent of labor in finance and has resisted the temptation to paint too highly the possibilities of the newer methods. Throughout, he emphasizes the problems of tech- nique involved in transferring the control of industry. But Harcourt, Brace and

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Oct. 24, 1923] labor’s most serious problem is not one of technique; it is some- thing far more subtle. Labor is trustee of the “Humane Ideal’: it is dedicated to the task of making industrial life less sav- age, more considerate of human desires and needs—needs not capable of expression in the vocabulary of the economist. If labor loses sight of this ideal in its search for a technique, its ultimate assumption of control will be a fruitless victory. In a failure to point out this insidious pitfall in labor’s path lies the major (and almost the scle) weakness of the author’s book. In discussing the labor banks, it is customary to refer to them as “cooperative” enterprises: Mr. Boeckel says the “work- ers’ banks... are operated along cooperative lines”; the largest bank of all is called “The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Cooperative National Bank.” This is a misuse of the word, unless indeed all its meaning, acquired through long usage by the English and continental movements is extracted, leaving only a loose, flabby term. This is not the place to go into detail. It must be sufficient to point out that in a true co- operative bank a union holding 51 per cent of the stock would have but one vote, no more than the holder of a single share; that not only stockholders but depositors and borrowers would have a vcice in management; that the loan service would be extended chiefly to depositors and stockholders, which is not at all the case in the banks under discussion. Present-day labor banks are simply corporations which have imposed upon them- selves certain extraordinary restrictions, such as the limitation of dividends to stockholders, and the division of earnings with depositors and borrowers. But they are still traditional cor- porations—corporations with a soul perhaps—but corporations nevertheless. Mr. Boeckel’s book comes at a strategic time. If widely read it will doubtless be very instrumental in spreading an intelli- gent understanding of the new unionism, not only among union- ists themselves, but also among that increasingly large group of the amorphous “general public” who see in the labor move- ment the hope of a sorely vexed society. Davin EF. LInsNTHAL After ‘‘La Garconne,’’ ‘‘Le Compagnon’’ Le Compagnon. By Victor Margueritte. Paris: Ernest Flam- marion. 7 francs. HE echoes of the tumult and the shouting which greeted the appearance of “ia Garconne” last year having hardly subsided, Victor Margueritte has followed it with “Le Com- pagnon,” a book no less likely to provoke vigorous disagreement. In publishing “Le Compagnon” Victor Margueritte makes a gesture of defiance and of affirmation, the affirmation of the right of the artist to write as he thinks and of whatever he sees, and he does more than this. He carries his exposition of femi- nism as he sees it a step further; to the point, as he indicates in the preface, where man himself suffers from the laws he has made. In this respect also “Le Compagnon” is the logicai sequel of “La Garconne.” Monique Lerbier, the heroine of “La Gar- conne,” revolting out of blind suffering and disillusionment from the ugly world she lived in, and driven by that suffering into excesses in which she found no happiness, is a victim of circum- stances. Annik Raimbert, the “Compagnon” of the later novel, is the product of a sane education. She is not a drifter like Monique but a conscious rebel, and going much further in her rebellion does so knowing and choosing her path. While the later volume deals no less frankly and crudely, though at some- what lesser length, with the unsavory customs of certain Parisian circles, its chief interest lies in the story of Annik, the emancipated woman of the future as Victor Margueritte con- ceives her and with the marriage of the future as it will be when women like Annik have a part in shaping it. Annik is not a “garconne” in the same sense as Monique. A woman lawyer, a radical, living and working independently in Paris, she enters into a free union with the man she loves, The Nation Amedée Jacquemin, a Socialist deputy and theoretically a con- vert to equal rights and complete freedom for women. She and Jacquemin are happy in their union until her pregnancy, when convention reasserts itself in her lover and he insists on mar- riage and the legitimation of the child. Annik refuses. She feels that marriage and legitimation can add nothing to their happiness or to the welfare of the child, but she knows that it would rob her of her freedom. It is not for nothing that she is a lawyer and knows the rights which French law gives to husbands and fathers, or has seen the slavery to which an un- happy marriage has reduced her weaker convent-bred sister Paule. Failing to convince her lover, she succeeds, at the risk as she fully realizes of their happiness together, in frustrating his intention of declaring his parenthood simultaneously with hers, which formality under the Code gives the father control even of an illegitimate child. It is this incident which is the climax of their struggle and of the book. With great skill and sympathy Margueritte has shown this struggle and the suffer- ing of two people loving each other sincerely and finely, but hopelessly divided as it seems by the allegiance of the one to the conviction of tomorrow and of the other to the convention of yesterday. In the end, however, Annik’s steadfastness tri- umphs over the conventionality of her lover and Amedée comes slowly to accept and even to rejoice in the situation which gives her complete control of their child. Annik’s right to herself and her children being established their union continues and their happiness grows and deepens. Annik to Victor Mar- gueritte represents the wife of the future, the “compagnon’” of man and mistress of her own destiny, whether her mating be . accompanied by a legal formula or whether, as he apparently hopes, she chooses to dispense with it. That her vision tran- scends that of most of her sisters today, however, he is well aware, as he has shown in the tragie figure of her sister Paule, and other feminine characters in the book who bow more or less submissively to the yoke of present-day marriage. Such a bock will, of course, be denounced as immoral in cer- tain quarters. It is inevitable that a book so candid, so gen- erous, so scathing in its attack on recognized institutions, so fearless and unashamed before natural phenomena (though curiously somewhat savage and uncomprehending in its con- demnation of any unusual form of sexual satisfaction), so severely moral in fact should fall foul of censorship in any land. Its candor will probably stand in the way of its being translated into English or freely circulated in this country, which will be particularly unfortunate if its effect is to add to the legend of Victor Margueritte as the author of pornographic books, rather than of social documents. Under our Sumnerism no other reason need be advanced to bar it. In Europe, however, there are apparently further reasons, whether avowed or not, why such a bock is denounced and why a campaign of mud- slinging is inaugurated against its author, culminating in the action of the Legion of Honor, which in spite of the plea of Anatole France not to make itself eternally ridiculous in this way, last January solemnly struck Victor Margueritte’s name from the list of its members. The echoes of the controversy which reached our shores dealt mainly with Margueritte’s sup- posed pornography, the charge being based on his convincing, brutal, and it was said wholly unnecessary picture of debauch- ery. But Margueritte’s offense is not and was not that he de- scribes debauchery but that he does not stop there. If he had, his books would probably have been no more interesting or im- portant than any of the crop of post-war flapper exposés that have wearied us for the last three years. But Marcueritte is profoundly concerned with what is back of that debauchery. It was his crime to be in passionate revolt against a greed-ridden, hypocritical, militaristic society, which made such debauchery possible at a time when it was still largely dominated by greedy, hypocritical, militaristic politicians. His feminism is only one aspect of that revolt. He is as much in revolt against the ex- ploitation of workers in war and industry and against the tyranny and hypocrisy of church and state as he is against the

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subjection of women. Out of that revolt he dared even to at- tack the “war against war” and the makers and the profiteers of that war, and to put upon them squarely the responsibility for the conditions he described. Hence, no doubt, the scurrying to cover and the denunciation of Margueritte as pornographic, mercenary, and a defamer of French virtue and womanhood. Of the animus back of all this he is, of course, fully aware. He has painted the picture of a society, “such,” in the words of Anatole France, “as never existed before in France,” and of which, he says, that Margueritte’s account is, if anything, an understatement. Out of his fierce disgust with this society Margueritte has imagined a utopian world in which men and women love and work equally and freely, in which all child- hood is protected and all motherhood reverenced, and in which girls and boys receive from their mothers an education that will end war. He has made Annik the radiant spokeswoman of that world. One wonders if her voice, too, will be drowned for the many by those of the critics who will be able to see in this beautiful, wistful, uneven book only filth, pornography, and the defamation of French womanhood. MARTHA GRUENING Spurious Anthropology The Jews in America. By Burton J. Hendrick. Doubleday, Page & Company. $1.50. j* is reasonable to expect that the writer who makes a start- ling, sweeping change in the arrangement of those items of information which the world accepts as its history should present some newly discovered facts, some authoritative docu- ments, to support his own interpretation. The ethnologist or archaeclogist who makes the claim that there are two distinct strains in the Englishman of today, an English and an Armenian strain, would back up his assertion with tables and measurements and probably a new cranial index. But Mr. Hendrick, depending on the prevalent will to believe anything derogatory to the Jews presents his theory that the difference between the Polish and the Spanish or German Jew is almost as great “‘as that between an Armenian and an Eng- lishman” without any more substantial evidence than a map he has drawn for the purpose—like the fisherman who proves the size of “the one that got away” by the missing bait from his hook. Dr. Maurice Fishberg, the only authority cited by Mr. Hendrick in the course of his historical narrative, has recently characterized the author as “the inquiring reporter . .. inno- cent of biology and anthropology.” Mr. Hendrick’s theory is commendable for its simplicity. Once upon a time, he writes, there was a wild Tartar tribe called the Khazars which invaded and occupied southern Rus- sia, then and there adopted Judaism, and eventually was driven out of the territory. What more natural than that it should have gone to what is now Poland since that was just across the western border? By this reasoning the Polish Jew is made kin to “the unspeakable Turk” to be equally shunned, despised, exterminated, or dealt with in whatever manner pious souls are now advocating as medicine for the sick man of Europe. This theory, however, runs counter to a number of facts of which Mr. Hendrick was apparently in ignorance when he wrote. 1. Only the king of the Khazars and the governing classes professed the Jewish religion. Among the lower classes the three monotheistic religions were all represented, and in addi- tion a considerable number of pagans still survived. 2. The Russian tribes invaded and destroyed the Khazar set- tlements in the Caspian region 966-969 A.D. The Khazars with- drew to the Crimean peninsula, which for a long time was known as Khazaria, but fell before the onslaughts of the Rus- sians and the Byzantines in 1016. Tradition holds that the royal house fled to their coreligionists in Spain. The rest of the nation was scattered and lost while the few who professed Judaism were merged with the native Jews of Crimea. The Nation — [ Vol. 117, No. 3042 3. The Jewish settlements in Poland were made by the hordes fleeing from Germany during the Crusades and enlarged by the refugees from Spain during the Inquisition. 4. The German Jews of today whom Mr. Hendrick holds to be of a different breed from their Polish coreligionists are, in the main, descendants of Polish Jews who returned to Germany about a century ago. My data are gathered from the only three available sources, and, unless Mr. Hendrick sought a revelation from his inner consciousness to uphold the theory that the Polish Jew is a descendant of the Mongolian Khazar tribe, he must have turned perforce to the same sources of historical information. They are the early Arabian and Hebrew chronicles, “The History of the Jews in Russia and Pcland” by S. M. Dubnow, and the later texts of those who have utilized the research material presented in Dubnow’s definitive work. Each of these proves Mr. Hend- rick wrong. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hendrick refused to be enlightened. For when the chapters of this book appeared as articles in the World’s Work, they called forth a mass of challenging and pro- testing letters, among which was an offer of Bernard G. Rich- ards, secretary of the American Jewish Congress, to procure for the magazine a refutation of Mr. Hendrick’s assertions by any reputable historian the editors might choose to name. So that when the book appeared, five months later, the author was aware that many considered his map worthless and misleading, his distinctions spurious and vicious, his conclusions false and libelous. The author’s failings are not confined to a miscitation of records. He betrays in his general discussion that psychopathic trait of a bigot, the desire to beat his victim with both ends of the stick at the same time. Thus he criticizes the Polish Jew for lack of patriotism and for his tenacious love of his people, customs, and religion; for monopolizing all business and for playing an insignificant part “in the great tide of American business and finance”; for being poor and clannish and for trying to be rich and break into society; for working eighteen and twenty hours a day in sweatshops and—most damning sin of all—for radicalism in demanding shorter hours and decent working conditions. He cites some of the least creditable names as examples of the Polish Jews and for many of the noted mem- bers of the race that he mentions he presents a fictitious Spanish or. German ancestry. It is surprising that so keen a journalist as Mr. Hendrick did not recognize that by piling up his con- tradictions in so gross a manner he has made the indictment self-defeating. The author’s purpose seems eminently laudable: he has sought a goat for the accused members of his race and found one in the Polish Jew. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Books in Brief The Little Tigress. By Wallace Smith. With drawings from a field sketchbook. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $2.50. Mr. Smith is a brave man, and a better artist than writer. His uncompromising and unvarnished condemnation of the ignorance and stupidity that make up the average American’s conception of Mexico proves him brave; his strength as artist is shown in the drawings which, though too painstaking and refined in technique to be completely in accord with the rough spirit of his material, capture and communicate the individual mood of his subjects. They succeed in making the unusual natural. But his stories and written sketches fail at just this point. They make the unusual also unnatural by the author’s overemphasis of the elements of suspense and humor, by his straining after effects, in short, by his attempt to make these “tales out of the dust of Mexico” like the romantic sentimentali- ties of Richard Harding Davis. When, as in Nocturne and Greaser and Gringo, Mr. Smith writes most naturally, we have convincing narrative, clear, honest, and interesting. Er ee

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Oct. 24, 1923] The Nation

A Mid-Victorian Pepys. Annotated and edited by S. M. Ellis. George H. Doran Company. $7.50. A collection of rather dull gossip, extracted from letters sent by Sir William Hardman, an English lawyer of convivial tastes, to an Australian friend between the years 1859 to 1863. It by no means fulfils the expectations aroused by the title, but it may incidentally be of service to historians of our Civil War by furnishing them with specimens of the virulent hatred then felt toward the North by some English Tories. A curious feature of the book is the extraordinary conception of an editor’s functions held by the compiler, who interpolates un- necessary explanatory passages of great length; e. g., a mention of the death of the Prince Consort provokes a whole page of editorial comment on his character. The American Jewish Year-Book. Volume 25. Edited by Harry Schneiderman for the American Jewish Committee. Jewish Publication Society. The new edition of this invaluable year-book adds to its usual compilations, statistics, and summary of Jewish history in the past year a fascinating series of colonial Jewish portraits, in- cluding several Gilbert Stuarts and Sullys, and an exquisite Malbone miniature of that Rebecca Gratz whose beauty is said to have stirred Sir Walter Scott to name the fairer heroine of “Tvanhoe” after her. Drama Muted Strings Te light of the mind is flickering. Let us save it before it goes out. Galsworthy despairs of it; Molnar and Piran- dello disregard it. “Follow your instincts,’ counsels the ad- mirable Mr. Bly in “Windows” (Garrick Theater). And that is, as a matter of fact, very good advice if it means follow your instincts rather than your prejudices or your supersti- tions. But cannot the instincts be, well, not restrained, but tempered and guided a little by the reason? Pirandello and Molnar are, apparently, beyond any such question. They give us studies in pure pain—the pangs of despised love, the woe of a woman who loses an old self for another and can endure neither continuance nor return. I am not asking for the trum- pets of action, the falseness of decisions and solutious. In Schnitzler, too, for instance in “The Great Domain,” in “The Lonely Way,” we have the minor-keyed chronicles of subtle and wavering souls. But these souls know, at least, that they are living and experiencing. The self, in them, still surveys experience; the mind, however powerless, is vigilant. It is that, at least, always in Galsworthy. There is always an intellectual fineness about his work. If he is never fine as flame, he is never less fine than lace. The threads are delicate. But they are strong and visible. You watch that precise and thoughtful weaving with admiration, with respect, though sometimes with a touch of impatience. The impatience, in the case of “Windows,” arises from the fact that one suspects in the conclusion both a touch of condescension and of rigidity. Why cannot such a girl as Faith Bly be saved? Largely be- cause she is supposed, by this moral and social order, to need “salvation.” She, like the Frenchman in “The Pigeon,” be- longs to the “wild ones of earth’—seekers of mere beauty, mere delight. But society denies these and, by denying, de- grades them. It is the social stigma which eats into these fluttering hearts. Mr. Galsworthy feels that; he does not see it. Hence he dismisses Faith with a gesture of elegant despair. It is the elegance of his despair that is a little troubling. If Faith could not indeed be saved, if her end was, unescapably, painted cheeks and draggled skirts and upon her the dead eyes of fat men in club windows, then we had a right to demand not a louder but a firmer judgment of a world and an order in which such things can be.

THREE MODERN JAPANESE PLAYS Translated by Yozan T. Iwasaki and Glenn Hughes With an introduction by Glenn Hughes These short plays are the direct result of Western influences and are representative of the new drama movement in Japan, which is, not supplanting, but very decidedly challenging the No, the Kabuki, and the Doll-play. The plays are: The Razor, by Kichizo Nakamura. The Madman on the Roof, by Kan Kikuchi. Nari-kin, by Yozan T. Iwasaki. - Decorated boards, $1.50 net ONE-ACT PLAYS FROM THE YIDDISH Translated by Etta Block Champagne, by Isaac Loeb Perez. Mother and Son, by J. Halpern. The Stranger, by Perez Hirschbein. The Snowstorm, by Perez Hirsch- bein. When the Dew Falleth, by Perez Hirschbein. The Eternal Song, by Mare Arnstein. These plays are some of the finest examples of the one-act form in Yiddish, and Miss Block, the authorized translator, has lifted them over into English without losing their distinctive flavor. $2.00 net THE SEA-WOMAN’S CLOAK and NCVEMBER EVE by Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy) Amélie Rives is an American. These two 3-act plays are Irish. It has been said of her that she has a genius for all English forms. The Sea Woman’s Cloak and November Eve are evidence in part, of this state- ment’s truth. They are as Irish as anything of Yeats’s, Synge’s, Lady Gregory’s. As individual. As enchanting. $2.50 net HUMBLE FOLK, by Bosworth Crocker Introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn One-act plays which have been produced by the Washington Square Players and other Little Theatre groups. They are: The Baby Car- riage, The Dog. The Last Straw. The First Time. The Cost of a Hat. Alexander Woollcott calls them ‘‘sympathetic and lifelike to a degree.”’ $2.00 net SHAKESPEARE, University Society Edi‘ion Founded on the famous Cambridge text, this edition is complete in eight volumes and includes thirty-seven Plays, The Poems and Sonnets, and a Life of Shakespeare. Each play has a frontispiece and is prefaced with a critical account of the plot, its probable source, ete. The type is large and readable. Price for complete set, $12.00 ONE THOUSAND AND ONE PLAYS FOR THE LITTLE THEATRE Selected and compiled by Frank Shay A handbook of great value to those interested in the reading or pro- ducing of plays. The list is arranged alphatbetically by authors and organizations and gives the title, nature of the play, number of men and women, and the publisher. Art Boards, $1.00 net MARCH HARES by Harry Wagstaff Gribble A satire in temperamentalists. N. Y. Eve. Telegram: “A delightful work, as good as Oscar Wilde at his best, sharply defined, brilliant, and deliciously amusing.”’ $2.00 PLAYS FOR A FOLDING THEATRE by Colin Campbell Clem=<nts Seven short plays. Oakland Tribune: ‘‘Those in search of effective material should give these a reading.” $2.00 DRAMATICS FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY by Claude.Merton Wise On directing, staging, lighting, making-up, costuming, etc. CHECKER CLASSICS by Erroll A. Smith Shows how famous experts have won and lost. $2.00 BILL .JOHNSTON’S JOY BOOK Edited by Willi-m T. Johnston 2,002 jokes and amusing stories classified and indexed. Houston Post: “A fat volume packed with laughter.’”’ $2.50 REAL ESTATE BUSINESS AS A PROFESSION by John B. Spilker, LL.B. Instructor in Real Estate at the University of Cincinnati. Revised Enlarged Illustrated Edition. The first practical treatise on Real Estate Business based, not on abstract theories, but on the experience of leading realtors. When first published in September, 1921, it was adopted as a text book by the Universities of Cincinnati, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Kansas City, and was enthusiastically commended by prominent realtors in Canada and the United States. $4.00 net New Editions Portmanteau and More Portmanteau Plays by Stuart Walker Each vol. $2.50 net Comedies of Words and Other Plays by Arthur Schnitzler Translated by Pierre Loving. $2.50 net Lucky Pehr by August Strindterg Translated by Velma S. Howard. $2.50 net Book of Black Bass by Dr. James A. Henshall author of ‘Bass, Pike, Perch, and Other Game Fishes of America.” Revised and rewritten. Many new illustrations. $4.50

Ill. "$3.00 Gar 1923 General Catalogue sent free on request STEWART KIDD, CINCINNATI, U.S.A. In Canada: 25 Richmond Street, West, Toronto

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{ ars Molnar in “Launzi” (Plymouth Theater) takes faint mem- ories of Juliet, Ophelia, Hannele, and melts them into a futile Launzi loves Imre who loves her subtle, morbid, beau- tiful mother. And that mother plays with Imre because her soul cannot in reality love the ruthless industrialist. Here, in the first act, strong and credible motives are set in action. Imre is of the pure, poetic, pacifist youth of Central Europe. In his passion for Claire blend many passions—among them a passion of revolt against a world of steel, business, blood. But with the end of the first act all these motives are abandoned. What follows is a study in regressive insanity, probably de- mentia praecox. Launzi’s soul is too wounded to endure reality and withdraws from it. She thinks she is dead; she thinks she is an angel. There follow scenic pictures which approach more and more the level of Christmas cards that show cherubs with very pink cheeks and warm yet forlorn looking little -houses in drifts of gritty and slightly gleaming snow put on with paste and warranted to move the simple heart. The Christmas legends are duly printed across the top—all of them. The world becomes pure lithograph. Village children sing carols. I almost suspect that Claire became reconciled to her first husband, Leunzi’s father, a “music master,’ and settled down in his mother’s cottage. And, in the first act, she was—Hedda, Hedda with more passion and more goodness. In Pirandello you never get such playing to the gallery that exists in the heart of the pit. “Floriani’s Wife” (Greenwich Village Theater) is imagined with a certain meticulousness, almost with a faint doggedness. It may be true; it is not im- portant. Vanna never lets us know her inner processes except pathos. | 470 The Nation - LECTURES AND AMUSEMENTS [Vol. 117, No. 3042 through tortured hints. Thus her actions remain obscure. Her tragedy is precipitated, moreover, by her daughter’s rigidly Catholic temper. Would Vanna have accepted that tragedy? Would she not have faced Livia with the accusation of her human experience, wisdom, suffering? In Italy perhaps not. But the strain remains, for Luigi Pirandello is not strong enough to universalize the concrete, to project his parish into the world. The Guild production of “Windows” is by far the most steadily intelligent and finished of the three. The casting of Phyllis Povah does not satisfy me and the cook is a trifle low comedy. The others are admirable. Helen Westley has a remarkably deep, clear, and imaginative moment, and Henry Travers gives one of the most veracious, concrete, and memor- able performances one is likely to see. Mr. Hopkins’s produc- tion of “Launzi” is so hushed in the first act that it is almost a dumb show. The best part of the play must be inferred. This is the more to be regretted since Miss Millay’s English phrasing is a source of pleasure in itself. Mr. Jones’s scenery, especially in the last act, is lovely and suggestive as usual; Miss Pauline Lord’s fine modulation both inner and outer of the long note of wistful yearning and utter defeat which she has to sustain cannot easily be praised too highly. In “Flor- iani’s Wife” all that is notable is Margaret Wycherly’s acting. She is a little gesticulatory at first. Later she becomes quieter and intenser. She has moments then that I shall long see. But she cannot, of course, emerge from the obscurity in which Pirandello has left the character itself. Lupwic LEWISOHN || The Theatre Guild presents JCHN GALSWORTHY’S COMEDY WINDOWS GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 35th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday UKRAINIAN NATIONAL CHORUS, with Ewssei Beloussoff, Russia’s foremost cellist, soloist “Here was that noblest and austerest and most stringently moral thing in the world—perfection.’”—Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn in The Nation, Nov. 1, 1922. “The most amazing and beautiful singing heard here in the memory of middle-aged men.’—Mr. Henderson in the New York Sun. TOWN HALL—October 25, 26, 27, 28, at 8:15. Tickets $1.00—$3.00 now on sale at box office. 27th Street and YIDDISH ART THEATRE Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. MAURICHK SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Friday evening, Saturday and Monday through Thursday evenings. Sunday Matinees and evenings “6 59 “SABBATI ZEVI” | _ /heSevenWhoWere Hanged ATOP NEW AMSTERDAM THEATRE, WEST 42nd ST. FROLIC THEATRE MONDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 15th THE SELYNS Announce First American Appearance of THE GRAND GUIGNOL Direct from the Grand P L A Y; E. R S Guignol Theatre, Paris COMPLETE CHANGE OF BILL EACH WEEK The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS. Ki S K E . in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO. west 44th street. Evs. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan Henry Hull RI’ T Theatre, Evening 8:30 West 48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. at 2:30 THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Eves. 8:30. COMEDY Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children of Nia Gr: WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST, W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 THE PLAYHOUSE Matinees: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.’-—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. THE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL E. H. JULIA SoTHERN- MaRLOwWE Entire week Oct. 22, Twelfth Night; Oct. 29, Romeo and Juliet; Nov. 5, Merchant of Venice; Nov. 12, Hamlet. JOLSON’S 59th ST. THEATRE. Evgs. 8 sharp. Only Mats. Sats. 2 sharp.

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Republican Prisoners in the Irish Free State N an editorial comment on the Irish elections in a recent issue, The Nation criticized the conditions of Irish prisons in which thousands of Republicans are at present incarcerated. We have received various protests from offi- cial Irish bodies and we take this opportunity in the Inter- national Relations Section to present in documentary form the testimony of the parties to the controversy and of the Red Cross Commission which made an investigation. An Official Protest A reply to The Nation is contained in the following state- ment from the Irish Government Publicity Department, which protests against the wide-spread reports of brutality and shocking physical conditions. In your issue of September 12, 1923, commenting on affairs in the Irish Free State, you declare that the prison conditions here “are so shocking as to impugn the humanity and decency of the Free State Government.” It would be difficult for any newspaper to glean the truth from the statements of Irregular propagandists, which must at the very least be one-sided. We therefore inclose for your information the report of the Inter- national Committee of the Red Cross on the subject. You will note that the committee says that the treatment of the prison- ers “is devoid of all hostile spirit,’ and that “the Government refuses the status of ‘prisoners of war’ to the prisoners, but in reality treats them as such.” You will also note that the dele- gate nowhere found “a wounded or sick prisoner left without medical treatment. On the contrary he found everywhere a carefully organized medical service.” Finally the committee declares that “the complaints regarding the prohibition of cor- respondence with prisoners’ families, sanitary conditions, and food in the camps are unfounded.”’ The reason for the con- tinued detention of the Irregular prisoners is not political. Though the active Irregulars have to a large extent ceased their hostilities against the National Government, they have not sur- rendered, but merely “dumped” their arms, presumably for use as opportunity may offer. That the Irregulars regard the pres- ent cessation as a mere breathing space is amply proved by the declarations of some of their leaders and by letters published (after capture) by the Government. In one of these Mr. Frank Aiken discusses the possibilities of poison gas in the impending conflict. In another, written on July 8, 1923, he orders his sub- ordinates to “send in a report at least weekly” on such subjects as “Enemy posts—description with view to attack; transport; possibilities of buying arms and ammunition, etc.’”’ On June 11 Miss MacSwiney, speaking at Kilkenny, said: “The men that were fighting were getting ready to fight again, and would fight if the Irish people attempted to turn down the Irish Republic. ..’ The Government’s first duty is to safeguard the lives and properties of law-abiding citizens; and to release the prison- ers in a wholesale manner under these circumstances would be a flagrant dereliction of that duty. In the meantime they are detained under conditions which are as humane and considerate as any government similarly situated could grant. In a few cases, where prisoners have done malicious damage to prison property, disciplinary measures have had to be taken, but the vast majority of the prisoners have no complaints against their treatment. It may be added that over 500 prisoners were released last month. International Relations Section The Red Cress Inquiry S the result of complaints directed against. the Irish Free State Government for its treatment of Repub- lican prisoners, the International Committee of the Red Cross decided to make “‘an inquiry of a purely non-political and technical nature into the position of the said prison- ers.” M. Schlemmer and M. Haccius were appointed as delegates. The former secured the consent of the Free State Government and then M. Haccius conducted a personal investigation. We quote below those sections of the com- mittee’s report which give M. Haccius’s findings: M. R. Haccius was delegated to visit the prison camps from the point of view of their organization and accommodation, and of the sanitary conditions of the internees. We give the fol- lowing extracts of information from the report submitted by our delegate: The total number of prisoners and internees is about 11,500 men and 250 women. Our delegate visited the principal camps comprising a total of 7,369 prisoners. The treatment of these prisoners is devoid of all hostile spirit and the general prin- ciples adopted by the tenth International Conference of the Red Cross are observed. The Government refuses the status of prisoners of war to the prisoners, but in reality treats them as such. The delegate particularly draws the attention of the com- mittee to the fact that nowhere did he find a wounded or sick prisoner left without medical treatment. On the contrary he found everywhere a carefully organized medical service. The serious accusations made on this subject appear to him un- founded. The delegate was not able to visit the prison at Kilmainham where 250 women are detained, but has no reason to believe that the treatment there is different to that adopted at Mountjoy. Thirteen of those prisoners had been on hunger-strike since the day of their arrest to obtain their release or immediate trial, and not as a protest against the prison regime. This fact is moreover verified by their written statements. The delegate did not consider it his duty to insist on getting into touch with these prisoners, fearing that his intervention, misinterpreted, would only encourage them to persist in their attitude, and give rise to a new case of strike. During his sojourn three of these prisoners were released. The buildings of the old North Dublin Union are in the course of alteration for the reception of those detained in Kil- mainham. These buildings with the surrounding garden will fulfil all desirable hygienic conditions. The instructions given by the International Committee of the Red Cross to its delegate exclude certain representations and sworn inquiries bearing on individual complaints. It is a fact that searches have taken place in various private hospitals, but the working of these hospitals has not been interfered with. There are grounds for the complaints of overcrowding in Mount- joy Prison. The complaints regarding the prohibition of correspondence with prisoners’ families, sanitary conditions, and food in the camps are unfounded. A VISIT TO THE INTERNMENT CAMP AT TINTOWN April 20, 1928 This camp adjoins the barracks of the Curragh Camp at about twenty-five miles from Dublin. Number of prisoners 3,200 men (average age 16 to 25 years). Habitation. A series of barracks made of corrugated iron (each containing about fifty prisoners), in good condition, with French casement windows and stoves. Work is being carried on actively on the enlarging of this camp, where the prisoners

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472 The Nation © at present interned in prisons will be concentrated. Each prisoner is supplied with a bed, a wire-mattress, mattress, sheets, and three blankets. W. C.’s at thirty meters from the corresponding barracks. Wash houses with water supply in the inclosure of the camp. Baths with hot-water supply (baths and douches) in a special building, open at all times, and work- ing at the time of my visit. Soap supplied. I was surprised to see that in spite of these facilities many prisoners neglected their own personal cleanliness. Food. The kitchens are well run (one kitchen for four bar- racks), with a concrete floor. A dining-hall with tables and benches adjoining each kitchen. I was informed about the ration by the Q. M. of the camp. I was able to see for myself in the stores that the provisions are of good quality. Judging from the remains on the table after the mid-day meal, it is evident that the quantity of food supplied is amply sufficient. Sanitary Situation. Sick, seventy-two men in the infirmary, twenty-five men in the surgical hospital. There are six wooden barracks used as an infirmary; these buildings are in good con- dition and well heated. The sanitary staff is composed of three medical doctors (Head Dr. Comdt. Maguire) and army nurses. A medical visit daily, which anyone wishing to see the doctor can attend. There are no epidemics. A certain number of men who arrived lately are affected with scurvy, and have been iso- lated from the rest while being treated. The sterilizers are in- stalled in a stone work building and function permanently. The wounded who are submitted to surgical treatment are nursed outside the camp in a pavilion isolated from the bar- racks hospital. The rooms are fitted with every comfort and contain from four to five beds. The patients seem to be very grateful to the doctors for their devoted care and attention. Correspondence. The prisoners are authorized to send two letters weekly to their families; these letters are censored by the camp authorities. The parcels addressed to the prisoners are delivered to them. I have seen several men open their parcels; and it is thus they receive tobacco, which is not sup- plied by the camp authorities. Organization and Complaints. The prisoners themselves or- ganize the interior service of the camp, kitchen, fatigue-duty, etc., and are responsible for material, which is not replaced in case of wilful destruction. I have not had any complaints to register concerning the food, medical care, or treatment, not having been authorized to question the prisoners. The men are not obliged to do any compulsory work, and are at liberty to walk about the inclosure of the camp. I was present at a foot- ball match. Observations. My visit of inspection to the camp made a favorable impression on me. The conditions correspond with the normal treatment of prisoners of war, in conformity with the principles which inspired the convention of Geneva. A VISIT TO THE INTERNMENT CAMP IN GORMANSTOWN, CouNTY MEATH April 25, 1928 Number of prisoners, 1,500 (average age 16 to 25 years). Habitation. The aviation camp was built during the war. The barracks are built of concrete, with double wooden walls, French casement windows, and means of heating installed. The whole is in good condition. There are about 500 prisoners in each barracks; in the old officers’ barracks there are two or three beds in each room. Each prisoner is supplied with an iron bed, a mattress, and three blankets. Flush W. C.’s in the cen- ter of the inclosure. Wash houses and baths with hot-water supply. Food. The kitchens and dining-halls in a special building. Same rations as the army. Sanitary Situation. Sick, seven men in the infirmary. The infirmary and hospital in two special buildings. Medical doc- tors and army nurses. Medical visit daily. No epidemics. Correspondence. One letter sent out weekly. Parcels and letters through the post are delivered. [Vol. 117, No. 3042 Organization and Complaints. No compulsory work, except duty-service in the kitchen, ete., organized by the prisoners themselves. Large ground for recreation attached to the camp, surrounded by an iron railing. Observations. Same observations as in the Tintown Camp. (See report of April 20, 1923.) Treatment of prisoners of war. A VISIT TO THE ITERNMENT CAMP AT NEWBRIDGE, COUNTY KILDARE April 18, 1928 Former cavalry barracks and eleven wooden huts. Number of prisoners, 1,969 men. Accommodation. A large two-story building with dormitories containing twenty to thirty beds; a large two-story building (non-commissioned officers’ quarters) with three to four beds in each room; stables transformed into dormitories of fifty beds and eleven wooden huts. Some of the doors and windows have been intentionally destroyed by the prisoners. Each prisoner is provided with an iron bed, pillow, mattress, sheets, and two blankets. Latrines are situated in all the buildings and in the center of the principal yard. There are lavatories with water installation (partly destroyed), hot-water baths, and douches always in working order. Soap is supplied. Food. Three well-regulated kitchens with refectories con- taining tables and benches. The rations (see annex) were made known to me by the governor of the camp. The stores are well kept. Sanitary Conditions. Patients, thirty men in the infirmary. The former recreation hall has been converted into an infirm- ary. A special apartment is set aside for the treatment of those suffering from the itch. The medical staff consists of two army doctors and several army nurses. There is a daily medical visit. No epidemics. Two disinfecting rooms are in working order. Organization and Complaints. The same as Tintown (see report of April 20, 1923). Correspondence. Reception and dispatch, one letter each week. Parcels are distributed regularly, but must be opened under supervision. Observations. Same as Tintown (see report of April 20, 1923). Surveillance in the small rooms is difficult. There is a great difference in the neatness of the rooms. I remarked on this to the governor who replied that this depended entirely on the prisoners themselves. A Visit TO MouNTJOY PRISON, DUBLIN April 19, 1923 Number of prisoners, 700 (average age 30 years). Habitation. Three longitudinal buildings looking out on a central square. Each building is composed of three stories, the cells opening on to an iron gallery. The cells are left open during the day; it is possible that the airing of the rooms may be insufficient when the doors are closed. The dimensions about two by three meters, occupied by two or three internees. Each prisoner is supplied with a mattress, and three blankets. In each building there are six flush W. C.’s. Wash houses and baths (about twenty baths) in the basement with hot and cold water. Food. Kitchens in a special building situated in the inclosure. The rations (see annex) were communicated to me by the commissariat officer. Sanitary Situation. Sick, fourteen men being treated in prison hospital. The sanitary staff is composed of a doctor and the Sisters of Charity. There are no cases of epidemics nor contagious diseases. Three sterilizers in the basement. Correspondence. Authorization to send out two letters weekly, and to receive parcels, newspapers, and books. Organization and Complains. The interior service of the prison: kept clean by the prisoners themselves. Soap and ma- terials supplied. There is a vast difference in the cleanliness of the cells. Some internees scour the floor, and keep their ere paliintein tr tthas ee

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Oct. 24, 1923] blankets well beaten, while others take no care to keep their cells clean. Near the door that opens on to the inclosure (cen- tral building) there is a heap of rubbish that no one thinks it worth while removing. I have had no complaints to register concerning the food, medical care, or treatment, not having been authorized to question the internees. The prisoners are not obliged to do any compulsory work, and during the day are at liberty to walk about the corridors, galleries, and the square (thirty by forty meters) attached to each building. Observations. The central building as well as the one on the right seem congested. The cells should not have more than two internees, and should be better ventilated. I was assured that as soon as the enlarging of the camp at Tintown was com- pleted (in about two weeks) the prisoners would be transferred there. Treatment of prisoners of war, except as regards habi- tation. Rk. A. Hacctus, Delegate of Commission of International Red Cross An Answer to the Red Cross HE following analysis of the Red Cross Report was pre- pared and sent to us by Albinia Brodrick, an Irish Re- publican who has herself suffered imprisonment, has carried on a small hospital and dressing station for the wounded, and is associated with Mrs. Despard, president of the Pris- oners’ Defense League. The report of M. Haccius, delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross, sent to Ireland in response to many complaints on the subject of the treatment of Republican prison- ers in Ireland, has produced consternation among those cog- nizant of the true state of affairs in our Irish prisons and intern- ment camps. That delegation was sent to conduct an inquiry, “completely non-political and technical,” into the position of the said pris- oners. These prisoners were all under the contrel of the British Free State Government in Ireland, without exception. They were in military custody of the acknowledged army of that Government. Of the actions of that army, Richard Mulcahy, speaking in the Free State Parliament on June 1, said there was nothing that the Free State army had done that he was not fully and com- pletely associated with. Mr. Mulcahy is the Minister for De- fense in the Free State Government, and by that statement ad- mitted his Government’s responsibility for whatever treatment the army, or the Government itself, had dealt out to their prison- ers, whether good, bad, or indifferent. 1. The report gives figures. These figures were furnished by the one party only, and that the party accused of maltreatment. They are incorrect. M. Haccius states the number of women imprisoned in his report as 250 for the whole of Ireland. There were, at the time of his visit, 325 women prisoners in the prisons of Mountjoy and Kilmainham alone, who were immediately afterwards transferred to the North Dublin Union, where I met them. Eighty other women prisoners were then transferred to Kilmainham, chiefly from provincial prisons, while an unknown number were still retained in provincial prisons. There was thus a known number of between four and five hundred women prisoners, at a time when the figure furnished to M. Haccius was 250. 2. The report states that the “Government” gave the delegate all facilities for visiting the prisons and internment camps of the country and for making a report on the treatment of those detained in them. Despite their general permission, the delegate visited three only of the internment camps, those of Gormans- town, Newbridge, and Tintown (he does not mention which of the Tintown camps), and the male portion of one prison—that of Mountjoy. He visited no female prison; and he left unvisited prisons such as Tralee, Dundalk, Killarney, Ballybricken, Kil- The Nation 473 kenny, Maryborough, Templemore, the basements of the Cork Courthouse, the Victoria and Custume Barracks, Athlone, and others of similar reputation throughout the country. 3. M. Haccius was authorized (apparently by the Interna- tional Committee) to visit the prison camps solely from the point of view of their material organization and the sanitary condition of the prisoners. Very grave complaints had been made to the committee of grievous mishandling and of the mur- der of prisoners in the prisons. Why was not this included within the scope of the inquiry? 4, M. Haccius did not question the prisoners. Without doing so, how could he hope to arrive at any clear idea of facts? He depended for his “facts” apparently on the statements made by the “Government’—the party most interested, as the accused party, in proving that the condition alike of prisons, prisoners, and camps was satisfactory. Why did he not question the prisoners? Again, what value can be attached to statements repeated by him from the mouth of the one interested party? 5. M. Haccius especially calls the attention of the committee to the fact that he nowhere found a sick or wounded prisoner left without treatment, and that on the contrary he found every- where a carefully organized sanitary service. He specially states as regards Tintown that the sick seem to be very grateful to the doctors for the devoted manner in which they care for them. How came M. Haccius by this information without ques- tioning the prisoners? How does he judge of whether men are sick or wounded? Is he qualified to tell at a glance as he passes by the 7,369 prisoners that they are all in good health and un- wounded? In the absence of conversation with the prisoners even a well-qualified medical man would be in no position to say as much. How was he aware of the prisoners’ gratitude? Did he see it in their eyes? As regards the medical service, did he ascertain whether the gentlemen employed were medical men? Did it occur to him that the hospitals in Tintown, with ninety- seven patients, should have been properly staffed with fully trained nurses? How did he know that the sanitary service was properly carried out? What about the dung-heap which he saw near the door of the principal building in Mountjoy? In one of the places he inspected he gives figures from which it is obvious that there is but one latrine to every one hundred and sixteen men. Is M. Haccius not aware that this is a gravely in- adequate number? 6. M. Haccius did not visit Kilmainham. He however tells us in spite of this fact that he has no reason to suppose that the treatment is different from that in Mountjoy. He adds that there are 250 women imprisoned there—that is, the full num- ber said to be imprisoned in all Ireland. Was M. Haccius not informed that there are women prisoners in Mountjoy? If so, why did he neglect to visit that part of the prison? If he was not so informed, what was the reason for concealing the fact on the part of the Free State Government? What value can we place on the report—without investigation—that M. Haccius “has no reason to believe’? His duty was to deal with facts, not suppositions. B. Wing, of Kilmainham, condemned long since as unfit for British tommies, is notorious. 7. The delegate did not visit the North Dublin Union. This does not prevent the International Committee from reporting that the buildings are in process of being prepared for the re- ception of the female prisoners from Kilmainham, again omit- ting any mention of those in Mountjoy. He adds that those buildings and the adjoining garden will fulfil all necessary hygienic conditions. I was a prisoner in the North Dublin Union. One bath per hundred women, a gross insufficiency of water for personal hygiene, and an almost impossibility of washing under- clothes through want of water, did not appear to me, as a trained sanitary inspector, to fulfil all necessary hygienic conditions. It may be added that the floors were filthy, the lavatories wet, and the huge dustbins left for weeks unemptied. As a matter of decency it may also be noted that the young sentries had a full view of all that went on both in the prison hospital and in the dormitories, through the windows, bare of blinds or curtains.

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[Vol. 117, No. 3042 474 The Nation ~ The dormitories were overcrowded, in spite of which the girls had no other room in which to sit by day when the weather was bad. 8. The delegate states that raids have been made on private hospitals, but that the normal functioning of these hospitals has not been interfered with. That is possibly true—but how does he know it? He records no visits to these or any but the actual camp prison hospitals. He also makes no allusion to the results of these violent cataclysms on the condition of the patients, many of whom were recovering from surgical opera- tions, recently performed. 9. The delegate definitely states that the stoppage of corre- spondence and the complaints as to food and sanitation are unfounded. Whence does he get this information? It cannot, as regards the correspondence, have been supplied by the pris- oners, whom he did not question and whose families have suf- fered grievous anxiety from the frequent stoppage of letters and the inability to send parcels of much-needed food. Even the fact of his seeing parcels does not preclude the suspicion that he may have chanced upon a fortunate day. The matter of constant stoppage of both letters and parcels is widespread and notorious. I was unable while in the North Dublin Union to send or receive parcels or letters, as were the remaining 325 women. This state of affairs continued long after I left. 10. As far as food is concerned, M. Haccius tells us frankly that he repeats the list of rations given him by the governor, superintendent, and quartermaster responsible for the camps. He did not question the prisoners, and could not therefore ascer- tain whether the amounts noted on the list reached the prison- ers, nor yet whether they were of the right quality. If they were not (and there have been many complaints) this might account for the amount left over which he noted in one instance. 11. As to sanitation. Considering the single latrine noted to each 116 men in the one case, without comment from the dele- gate; considering that in the remaining cases the number of latrines is not mentioned and that there is only one allusion to their condition, it appears unwise to accept his conclusions as regards the sanitary condition of the camps. At Newbridge M. Haccius notes of the latrines “partially sabotaged by the pris- oners.” Is this another unsupported statement of the accused, or did he obtain information also from the prisoners whom he did not question? 12. M. Haccius maintains that the spirit of hostility in the treatment of prisoners is conspicuous by its absence. From what grounds does he draw this general conclusion? Not from the prisoners, with whom he did not converse. It can, therefore, once more have been only from the accused party, to whose in- terest and advantage it would be to make the matter appear thus. Every sane person who has even an elementary knowledge of prisons and prisoners in Ireland—much more those who have experienced the difficulties attending an independent investi- gation into any alleged misconduct by government officials, un- der direct government authority, must necessarily feel that the Red Cross International Committee is on its trial as a conse- quence of this so-called investigation and report. Admittedly there were difficulties. If they were of such a character as to prevent honest investigation, it was open to the Red Cross delegate to withdraw, stating his reasons. More, it was his duty. He did not withdraw. He visited out of the whole of Ireland three camps and half a prison. He took evi- dence from the accused party only, although the accusing party desired nothing better than to bring their evidence before him. The president of the Prisoners’ Defense League was not in- formed of his presence in Ireland. The Consul of the Irish Re- public in Paris was left equally ignorant, although both had sent in requests for the intervention of the Red Cross. The evidence of no person was taken which could have borne out the complaints. Notwithstanding this, definite conclusions are stated, both by the delegate and by the International Committee, conclusions based on the evidence of the accused party alone. As such, they are worthless. Does the statement of the committee on page 608 of their International Review for June: “We extract from the report presented by our delegate the following statements,” mean that we have not even now got before us the full report? It looks very like it. If not, why not? The credit of the Red Cross is at stake. Neither at Gormans- town, nor in Mountjoy did the prisoners by their own account see any Red Cross delegate. The difficulties, frankly to be acknowledged, attending in- spection and the taking of evidence under such circumstances, should have made the delegate doubly careful. Has he been — misled by the accused party? We hope so. But he will need to prove it, and to admit it. In any case, the Red Cross Inter- national Committee will be wise to investigate the matter with care and openly, if they are to escape with credit from a pain- ful situation. Watch for the special Russian Number of The Nation dated November 7, 1923 Further announcement next week. KARL MARX’S CAPITAL Greatest work on economics ever written. It is an elaborate analysis of the existing system under which wealth is produced and distributed. Three large volumes, over 2500 pages, with an extended alphabetical index for ready reference. Price $7.50, by insured mail or at book stores. Catalog free. CHARLES H. KERR & CO., 347 East Ohio Street, Chicago Second London Edition Reviewed and discussed in every part of the world. The LET FRANCE EXPLAIN witine orc, tock ot tte astonishing documents in this By FREDERICK BAUSMAN ew edition The Nation, New York $2.85 postpaid George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. Publishers, London

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1923 No. 3043

Vol. CXVII Contents PPT EOMIUATGrARAGRADPEIS <<a saleeiine cs vile ccoiclc ccdieltslnees teccecscen 475 EDITORIALS: Monarchy, Communism—or Mere Starvation?............00eeeeeeee- 478 Mar rughes Admits: Biverythimitae aes scs clacce ccuccecincicnascccscacs 479 BREGreanG Eel NIMS. . «setts cislan ce cle’ ayes calecWevilas a nenevcicece 479 EP APO CULE Hia, ws piclen we cyeree eialoicl stele metetetaia elishc) © sleinpscdl chess, siele euloiilivetela ss ts.e eee 480 THE END OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. By Oswald Garrison Villard.. 481 PINCHOT FOR PRESIDENT? By William Hard...................... 482 ISRAEL ZANGWILL. By Johan J. Smertenko...............000ee0ees 483 THESE UNITED STATES—XLL FLORIDA: THE DESERT AND RETRO ie Eye Claret) Gems UND ote cicieie win cre sisieuwiv'e dewisisjstjeveieeeses 484 RAILROADS AND THE MECHANICS OF SOCIAL POWER: Ill. The Pools of Power. By Amos Pinchot..................2..00.. 488 NERO rR VV AGW Es we MO MPINYE CED e/s:rsisielelaielcisc.e slvis ajelecislers.ceccee cass 490 OU TUE SE OO DUD HUN Cibiiny cio ec clelelaiersiaiel nie vecheicielaleresclers s\eccvalcle ci clele sleeinicis ccosececs 490 BOOKS: Understanding Mexico. By Ernest Gruening.............25eeeeeees 492 How to Make Wages Go Up. By Henry Raymond Mussey.......... 493 By One of the Marchers. By Fanny Garrison Villard............... 493 Bouise Bogan. By Mark Wan Dorene. <2 ine. ee ce ce cece cece ne 494 Faradox. By Alice Beal Parsons..........cccsesescecccccserececce 495 “Your Own Personal View.” By Clara M. Smertenko.............. 495 ERO ICT MER GC te rete tea tetetel a cis aos sceveler aie a’<iehsrels sa 8 Siele(ciciele’s's\ees eiceee 495 DRAMA: Importations. By Ludwig Lewisohn.......... cesses eeee cence erence 496 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: arc ree care rRTe CCRT i eT Mlafateto foheinie she’ oi =) eiaiai's a) efs/sicreicielers,c/alelsiesleinialovwclsias ss s'ec 497

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EDITorR ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: Nation, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. HE best there is to say of the pow-wow in Washington between President Coolidge and the State Governors in regard to prohibition is that the meeting and its recom- mendations will soon be forgotten. It was a fine exhibition of unctuous claptrap which apparently satisfied nobody ex- cept the official stenographers who were paid for reporting it by the word. Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, who fathered the whole movement, says it got nowhere; Gov- ernors Parker of Louisiana, Ritchie of Maryland, and Smith of New York think it got too far; and Governor Blaine of Wisconsin asserts that the only result was to boost Gov- ernor Pinchot as a Republican Presidential candidate. Even these mild estimates give an exaggerated importance to the meeting. The speeches and resolutions reek with “cooperate,” “coordinate,” and other words whose use we discovered during the war when we were trying to express in a high-sounding way something we didn’t in the least understand or mean. Mr. Coolidge himself was not a little muddled about the duties of States toward Federal laws. If he meant to say that in general States have a direct duty to enforce Federal laws, he announced a doctrine not hitherto -accepted. If he referred to the “concurrent power’ to en- force prohibition which is specifically given to the States by the Eighteenth Amendment, he forgot that the fun of that has been destroyed by the Supreme Court’s ruling that no higher alcoholic content can be fixed than in the Volstead law. The fact is that in prohibition the United States is undertaking a great radical experiment. Successful en- forcement will come only if eventually the law commends itself not to a large minority or a small majority but to an overwhelming proportion of our citizens. In the meanwhile we are in for rather a nasty time of it. HAT staunch old democrat, President Masaryk of Czecho-Slovakia, must have twinged when he read the comparisons in the Paris press between his visit to the French capital and that of the Czar of Russia some years ago which sealed an alliance that began with a loan and ended in a war. For he too is concluding a loan and sealing an alliance, and he is too experienced in the ways of diplo- macy not to know and regret the possible implications of his and his country’s action. Henceforth, apparently, the French army of more than 600,000 men, the French-trained Polish army of 400,000 men, and the French-trained Czech army of 300,000 men will form one military unit. We shall soon see published in the League of Nations Treaty Series, as the Covenant of the League requires, the text of some in- nocuous “defensive” treaty; but the accompanying military treaty will be styled “agreement” or “convention,” and kept secret. As a matter of fact this new treaty marks the com- pletion of another chapter in the development of a system of alliances which makes Central Europe virtually a prov- ince of France. That empire of Mitteleuropa of which pan-Germans dreamed during the war has been realized— but by Germany’s ancient enemy. N intricate network of post-war alliances binding the new nations of Central Europe to each other and to France perpetuates the hates of war time. Belgium is bound by treaty and loans to follow France. Political, commercial, and military treaties between France and Poland, signed during Marshal Pilsudski’s visit to Paris in February, 1921, gave the signal for the “Little Entente.” Czecho-Slovakia and Jugoslavia and Rumania, moved by a common fear of mutilated Hungary, signed military agree- ments in June and July of 1921; Rumania and Poland made an agreement directed against Russia at the same time; and before the end of the year Czecho-Slovakia and Poland composed their disagreements. @zecho-Slovakia moved toward including ruined Austria in her orbit in December, 1921, but Austria’s subsequent adoption as a ward of the League has left her out of any scheme of alli- ances. Poland sought, just before the Genoa Conference of 1922, to sweep the Baltic states into the Polish military system, but they resisted. Meanwhile a series of loans and commercial agreements has cemented the dependence of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and Rumania upon France. Jugo- slavia’s future remains uncertain; she may settle her dif- ferences with Italy and swing into the British system, or follow the easier path of French domination. In any case an enormously powerful military system has been estab- lished in Europe, and Germany, facing disruption, sees an alliance of enemies reaching greedy hands at her from every side. Outside the system stands one Power—Soviet Rus- sia; and toward it too Poincaré is now extending feelers.

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The Nation ° [ Vol. 117, No. 3043 ONTINUING unemployment brings in England, as everywhere, talk of money inflation as a remedy. Even the Conservative Spectator and so sound a financier as Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, seem to be flirting with the thought; and less cautious thinkers are boldly proposing that the government issue paper currency to the value of a hundred million pounds, and use it to put the unemployed to work. It is an alluring prospect—it all sounds so beautifully simple. Print money and pay your debts—the harassed statesman need not even resort to taxation to meet the obligations of his govern- ment. Unfortunately the game has other consequences. For England particularly, burdened with the American debt which must be paid in gold, the prospect of a debased cur- rency has obvious drawbacks. But there are always some men who, like Hugo Stinnes, can find means to profit by a falling currency, and such speculators will always find hun- gry crowds ready to accept any glistering hope. It remains true that, as Francis W. Hirst once put it, No more severe reflection could be passed upon the moral and political eapacity of the human species than this: Five thou- sand years after the invention of writing, three thousand after the invention of money, and (nearly) five hundred since the invention of printing, governments all over the world are em- ploying the third invention for the purpose of debasing the second; thereby robbing millions of innocent individuals of their property on a scale so extensive that previous public confisca- tions of private property through the adulteration of money . seem pigmy frauds in comparison with the present vast inundation of counterfeit paper money. RANCE naturally is watching the British move toward inflation with eager interest. The steadiness of the French note circulation—it is actually a trifle lower today than in 1920—has been the chief argument of those who have sought to bolster the waning credit of the franc. The utter financial failure of the Ruhr invasion has not yet had its due reflection in the market rating of the French unit of currency. Note circulation has been kept low by resort- ing to internal loans and other camouflaged forms of infla- tion, but these have their limits. Further issue of paper money would under present circumstances seriously damage the credit of the government at home—although some poli- tician-financiers such as M. Loucheur are already advo- cating inflation—for it would involve an open parliamentary vote raising the legal limit of note issue beyond the present 41 billion francs. If, however, the canny financiers of Great Britain should take the lead, the task of the French poli- tician in explaining such a policy to the people would be enormously simplified. Inflation gives a temporary relief, even though the after-effects be harsh—and after the elec- tions next spring the politicians will be safe for another four years. HE folly and futility of preparedness were never bet- ter illustrated than in the storm raised by Britain’s proposal to build a great naval base at Singapore. Before the first load of cement had been dumped the old, wld story began again. Holland feels menaced—the Dutch East In- dies seem threatened. The Dutch Government, which feels the need of economy so keenly that it is reducing civil employees’ salaries 10 per cent, proposes an enormous naval budget to build a base at Tanjung Priok as a defense against Singapore. The Philippines are also near; and when our Congress reassembles there will not be wanting Senators and Representatives to plead for scrapping the Washington treaties and building a base in the Sulu Archi- pelago or on Palawan Island, even if the British proposal should fall through. Japan, in the long run, will never let such a fort go unmatched, though earthquakes and Wash- ington treaties enforce a present prohibition. The Singa- pore plan has done more to excite distrust of England in the East than the return of a dozen Wei-hai-weis, even if faithfully executed, could wipe out—and the Englishmen who like Ramsay MacDonald are fighting it are, even from an imperial point of view, the true patriots. O all those who are losing sleep over the influence and position of the Ku Klux Klan we suggest a look at the American Legion. Three and four years ago the Legion, with its lawless attacks upon individuals, its campaign against our foreign population, and its effort to dictate the policies of public officials, occupied much the same position on the first pages of the newspapers that the Klan does today. But the Legion did not succeed in holding its posi- tion and neither will the Klan. Today the Legion has al- most completely abandoned its former violent and offensive tactics, and at its recent national convention it passed a resolution aimed at the Klan (though not by name) which sounded much like censure of the Legion’s old self. In regard to a soldiers’ bonus, too, the Legion has shifted its ground. For the first time in the Legion’s history there was an organized opposition in the national convention to the usual resolution in favor of the bonus, which for a time deadlocked proceedings. If even the Legion, which has been the mainspring of bonus propaganda, now finds itself divided on the issue, what justification is there for the plan to put a bonus bill through the forthcoming session of Con- gress? We agree with the Legion that care of the disabled is the nation’s first duty; and we think it has no other finan- cial obligation toward the ex-service men of the World War. OW the shortage of homes in New York City had torn down the constructive efforts of a quarter of a cen- tury toward protecting the health and comfort of tenants was described by Frank Mann, the Tenement House Com- missioner, when he appeared before the State Commission on Housing. Mr. Mann frankly admitted that the require- ments of the tenement-house law were not enforced unless his department believed there was a fire hazard. Only four apartments out of 1,000 are vacant at the present time, said Mr. Mann—almost precisely the same situation as in 1920 when the emergency rent laws were enacted. To en- force the tenement-house law would be to put some 30,000 persons on the streets without expectation of finding new homes. “If we consider it is a case where no danger of fire exists, we don’t prosecute,” he said, ‘‘on the ground that there are times, and these are the times, when a public official charged with enforcing a certain duty must close one eye and sometimes both.” Obviously the emergency rent laws of 1920 should be continued, but that meets only part of the need. As the New York Evening World puts it: Increasing sense of social and State obligation has steadily sought to mitigate the harsher workings of economic law in crowded cities. The present rent laws in this State, with the exception of the tax-exemption law, are only the restrictive part of the program urged when they were passed. The constructive part of that program proposed State aid for housing. If pri-

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Oct. 31, 1923] vate initiative fails to provide decent homes for families of modest income, public initiative must take a hand, as it has in other countries. N a period when labor newspapers are finding it hard to | live, it is pleasant to observe that labor banks multiply and grow fat. New York City already has two and is about to add a third. The first of the trio, the Amalgamated Bank of New York, only six months old, increased its depositors from 800 in the middle of April to 5,613 on October 14, while its total resources expanded in the same period from $747,000 to $2,514,000. The progress of the Federation Bank, sponsored by the New York State Federation of Labor and the Central Trades and Labor Council of New York City, has also been rapid. All of which promises well for the forthcoming International Union Bank of the Inter- national Ladies’ Garment Workers, the opening of which is now definitely set for December 1. It may be objected that while there is a clientele in New York City for one or two labor banks, there will not be enough business for three. But the opportunity lies in creating new business, not in taking it away from other banks. The creation of new banking services and the gathering in of new groups of customers among people of moderate and small means are open fields for labor banks. HERE is frank amazement in Great Britain over the fuss Americans are making over the visit of Mr. Lloyd George. The British newspapers cannot understand why his visit is attracting such attention, is receiving so much pub- licity. But for America Mr. Lloyd George personifies, as does no other individual, the epic of the World War; and that holocaust still has much more romance for the people of the United States than for those that had more of it and learned to understand it better. Besides that, America can hardly fail to respond to its first direct contact with so vital and keen a personality. There seems to be another consideration too. For the British Mr. Lloyd George is only an ex-premier; shorn of power, he is shorn of interest. In America—never much concerned with his precise political status—Mr. Lloyd George continues to be a public official on the basis of his reputation. Something similar happened when, after the last presidential campaign, James M. Cox visited England. Here he was regarded as a spent bullet, and Americans could not fathom why he was received abroad with virtually official honors or how his words could _ be taken so seriously. As runner-up in the presidential con- test, Mr. Cox was apparently rated as the second most im- portant political personage in the United States. Which reminds us that a Buenos Aires newspaper once gravely described the official position of William Jennings Bryan as “ex-Presidential candidate of the United States.” N these days of almost universal folly and insufficiency in politics it gives one a glad jump of surprise to read of one region which is reputed to have a model governor and an almost ideal government. One’s surprise is greater because the region in question is in a country whose national government has all but collapsed. The region is the province of Shansi, China, and the man is General Yen Hsi-shan. General Yen became the boss of the province of Shansi when only thirty years old and has been on the job for eleven years. Although a graduate of a military school, his first act was to propose a general disbandment of troops, The: Nation 477 setting an example by reducing his own soldiery from 50,000 to 20,000 men. Nevertheless, according to a corre- spondent of the Manchester Guardian, banditry is virtually unknown in Shansi and it is the one province of China that has effectively put down the opium traffic. Nor is General Yen asleep in constructive measures. He has built roads, has started a forestry school and a scheme of reforestation, and has introduced sheep from Australia with a view to breeding a strain suitable to the Shansi hillsides. All of which sounds too good to be true—and maybe it is. Any- how it is so far away that it can have no unhappy influence on our own politicians, and as most of our critics—a few of whom are also our readers—say we ought to publish more that is optimistic, we present this picture of political per- fection for such as are able to believe it. OST of the spectators of the Zev-Papyrus race seem to have missed its most novel and spirited aspect. We came near missing it ourselves, for we saw the race at second hand through the columns of a New York Sunday newspaper, whose account began on the first page but, before getting fairly warmed up, skipped not only to an- other page but to another section—one which we had already read and thrown away. Eventually we recovered the missing section and thus the threads of the plot. The officials of the Jockey Club, not satisfied with the gate re- ceipts from 45,000 spectators, sought to sell the exclusive privilege of making motion pictures to a single company. The first company approached declined to be held up in any such manner, saying that the race was a public spectacle and the company would get pictures of it anyway. Two other firms took the same position; a fourth accepted the offer, paying, it is said, $50,000. The outsiders then ar- ranged to instal cameras in various nearby houses, built a “crow’s nest” in a handy tree, and arranged for airplane pictures from above. But just before Zev and Papyrus lined up before the starter’s gate, the photographers with the concession put in position some huge mirrors and sent up a screen of smoke to spoil the plans of their rivals. The outsiders say they got their pictures just the same and some “close-ups” besides, the latter made by two actresses in the grandstand who carried small motion-picture cameras camouflaged as hand-bags. We hope so. ANADA, it is reported, plans to shoot two thousand bison this year, because her protected herd has grown so large that it runs the risk of starving on its range. Tanganyika Territory—née German East Africa—finds lions and leopards such a pest that it puts a bounty on their scalps, as we do on the skins of rats and other petty rodents. In the first half of this year rewards were paid for the destruction of 300 lions and 800 leopards—and in return the lions of one district killed 67 natives. From India we hear that snake-bites cost 20,000 human lives in a single year, while tigers killed 1,603, leopards 509, and crocodiles 255. <A collector has just arrived in New York from Aus- tralia with 58 camels rounded up 800 miles from a railroad in the Australian desert, whither they had fled from civili- zation—all our present-day camels are the offspring of domesticated stock; except possibly in Siberia the wild camel became extinct in pre-scientific days. After all, despite the water-power companies and the missionaries and mandaters, there are still great open spaces, utter wilderness, in the world.

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478 Monarchy, Communism—or Mere Starvation‘ HE strangulation of the Ruhr and the Rhineland, which the editor of The Nation so vividly describes elsewhere in this issue, is one part of the process of decay which is going on in Germany. As rats desert a sinking ship the monarchist Bavarians are asserting their independence of Berlin and the more material-minded of the Rhinelanders are seeking a safe harbor in the shelter of the French franc, while the federal government itself is kicking Saxony in the hope of appeasing Bavaria. If Poincaré desired the destruction of Germany he has his wish, perhaps more thoroughly than he expected; but if he desired reparations he must at last realize that the English were right when they warned him in terms of the nursery fable against killing the goose that laid the golden egg. There will be no more reparations for France—that is surer today than the future of the puny infant republic of the Rhineland, of the monarchist movement in Bavaria, or of the workingmen of Saxony. Frenchmen who think will hardly rejoice at the turn of events. In Germany, too, there seems to have been a woeful ab- sence of statesmanship. It is difficult to understand the state of mind of the Bavarians who talk of their German patriotism while they sabotage German unity, or of the Ber- lin officials who give the order to the Reichswehr to advance against the Saxon workingmen while the empire is crum- bling about their ears. Yet in these crucial days Bavaria has not only continued to mobilize her own guards but has defied Berlin, refusing to recognize the right of the federal government to name the commander of the national army unit in Bavaria, and actually going so far as to kidnap a whole regiment and force it to swear a special allegiance to Bavaria. This is separatism with a vengeance. Saxony, fearing precisely such disloyalty as the Reichswehr has shown in Bavaria and knowing its record of reactionary control, some time ago established working-class defense units, and when the local army commander called upon the Saxon Government to dissolve these it refused, at the same time sending a flaming protest to Berlin. Berlin, however, only gave the Reichswehr commander authority to go ahead, and while Bavaria and the Rhineland are falling away from Germany we arc treated to the spectacle of triumphant communiques issued by this general as he marches victori- ously through the factory villages of Saxony. There is between the present rulers of Saxony and Ba- varia almost as wide a gulf as there was in the early years of the soviet revolution between Russia and the Western world. Bavaria is today ruled by men who trace the down- fall of Germany to the revolution of 1918, and look to the restoration of monarchical dictatorship for any possible salvation. When they denounce “Marxism” and the “inter- nationalists” of Berlin they mean to denounce mere democ- racy. They hate the republic, the Weimar constitution, the parliamentary governments which have had to recognize the fact that the Social Democracy was the largest single party in Germany. Ludendorff and his Fascist dummy, Hitler, and von Kahr, von Knilling, von Lossow, and Rup- precht of Wittelsbach, Crown Prince of Bavaria as they call him, may fight on internal Bavarian issues, but they agree in wanting a return to the pre-war kind of rule. It is one of the ironies of history that old Munich is today the center of Germany’s grimmest reaction, while Frederick the Great’s The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3048 and Wilhelm’s capital has become in its way a symbol of liberalism. Industrial Saxony was called the Red Kingdom in the Kaiser’s day. Since the war its Socialists have been unable to stomach, like their Berlin comrades, alliance with the Industrialists. The course of events has driven them into alliance with the Communists, and the mere existence of a Socialist-Communist Government, regardless of its activity or inactivity, seems to have excited the Munich super- patriots to frenzy. Presumably the willingness of the Ber- lin Government to send the Reichswehr into Saxony was in part due to a vain hope of placating the Bavarians. The insubordination of the Saxons has been far less than that of the Bavarians—it seems to have been confined to un- willingness to order dissolution of the proletarian self- defense organizations—but they are weaker, and they are suffering the fate of the weak in these post-war days. One of their cardinal offenses, in Bavarian eyes at least, was that their ministers predicted the failure of the passive- resistance campaign in advance of its abandonment, while every official voice in Germany, Bavaria included, was still proclaiming solidarity unto death. What will be the outcome of this internecine strife? It is difficult to believe that the parliamentary leaders of the Social Democrats will long support a government which surrenders to the Bavarians while sending troops against poor Saxony. But if their ministers withdraw from the Cabinet, what then? They have voted Stresemann almost dictatorial powers. Presumably, even in the absence of a parliamentary majority, he—or those whom he represents— would continue to govern without them. The Socialists are not strong enough, even allied with the extreme Commun- ists, to rule Germany against the Industrialists. Their weakness may be in part the fruit of past mistakes, but they are today, despite their numbers in the Reichstag, almost powerless. They have exhausted themselves in struggling against the Left. If a great civil war comes between Left and Right in Germany, the Communists will lead the forces of the Left. The decay of the middle parties, which has been noted by every intelligent observer through- out the period of French pressure upon Germany, seems to be reaching its climax. Monarchists and Communists face each other, alike ruthless and scornful of democratic prin- ciples. If it comes to a struggle the Communists will have numbers with them, but the monarchists will have the troops and the arms, and the rural food-producing sections. It is still possible that the threat of the Rhenish republic will draw distracted Germany together. There have been so many steps to the French invasion, however, that it seems probable that the effect of this latest stage will be no more striking in Germany than it is likely to be upon the outside world. If the collapse comes we shall have another great people forced, as Austria was, to beg alms upon any terms from the victorious peoples who fought to make the world safe for democracy. It may then be that the League of Nations, which thus far has so carefully averted its gaze from the Ruhr, will feel called upon to act as it acted in Austria in the interest of the business life of the world. Before that happens some hundreds of thou- sands of German women and children will probably have starved to death.

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Oct. 31, 1923] Mr. Hughes Admits Everything HEN the attention of the Secretary of State was called by Washington correspondents to the editorial in last week’s Nation, entitled Mr. Hughes Makes a Secret Alliance, he issued a statement which, as sent out by the United Press, follows: The attention of the Department has been called to statements both in the advertising of the recently concluded loan to Sal- vador and in the press which created an erroneous impression regarding the relation of the United States Government to the loan. It has been stated that a secret agreement has been made by the Department of State. This is a misleading statement as the agreement was negotiated between the Government of Salvador and the representatives of the bankers concerned. It is in no sense a treaty. The Department of State has no relation to the matter except with respect to facilitating the arbitration and distribution of disputes that may arise between the parties, and the appoint- ment of a collector of customs in case of default. It is mani- festly to the interest of peace and justice that there should be an appropriate method of deciding such controversies as might arise, and at the specific request of the Government of Salvador and the interested bankers the Secretary of State has consented to use his good offices in referring such disputes to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, or if he is unable to act, to another member of the Federal judiciary for appropriate arbitrament. Also, at the request of the Government of Salvador and the interested bankers, the Secretary of State consented to assist in the selection of a collector of customs, who, according to the loan contract, is to be appointed in the case of default. This was simply for the purpose of facilitating the choice of an entirely competent and disinterested person. The contract also provides that the collector of customs, if appointed, will communicate to the Department of State for its records such regulations re- lating to the customs administration as may be prescribed and also a monthly and annual report. The Government of the United States has no relation to the loan except in these particulars. We understand this statement was called a “denial.” It would be a tribute to our accuracy if all our writing were denied in a similar fashion, for Mr. Hughes confirms all the important points which we made against him. He admits having agreed to refer disputes between Salvador and the Wall Street bankers who are making her a loan to the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, thus taking it upon himself to lay extra and unauthorized work upon an independent branch of the government. He admits making the American Government a further party to the loan through promising that the Secretary of State shall ‘assist in the selection of a collector of customs” in case of default by Salvador. Mr. Hughes says that the agreement in regard to the loan “is in no sense a treaty.” We have not said that it was; indeed we were at special pains to point out that the secret diplomacy with Salvador had eventuated in what are now- adays called “agreements,” negotiated by the executive power alone, although their substance is more important than that which when classed as “treaties” requires the consent of the United States Senate. These agreements, of which the highly important Lan- sing-Ishii agreement with Japan is an instance, have be- come notoriously frequent of late years, and an inquiry by Congress into their legitimacy would be timely. The same The Nation 479 questions in regard to loans which Mr. Hughes has cava- lierly disposed of alone were submitted to the Senate in the form of treaties in Mr. Root’s days as Secretary of State and even in the golden age of Mr. Knox’s “dollar diplo- macy.” The Dominican customs agreement did not take final shape until the Senate passed it, in somewhat amended form, in 1907. In 1911, again, when American bankers were considering a loan to Honduras, which would have involved the United States only to the point of approving the collec- tor general of customs, President Taft sent the project to the Senate for ratification; and the Senate, as a matter of fact, did not pass it. In the same year a similar convention for a loan with Nicaragua was presented to the Senate; it also failed to go through in that form, although a loan was eventually made. Mr. Hughes could have found the detail of all this by taking down his red book ‘Foreign Relations of the United States” for 1912. Instead he negotiated with- out the consent of the Senate an arrangement with Salvador substantially the same as those proposed with Honduras and Nicaragua, and he threw in as an extra a promise of the services of our Federal judiciary to settle disputes. Mr. Hughes’s explanation of the part played by the De- partment of State in the Salvador loan differs in no essen- tial from the fuller presentation given in the pages of The Nation except when he refers to our having given an “erroneous impression regarding the relation of the United States Government to the loan.” Naturally we do not ex- pect Mr. Hughes to put the same interpretation upon the facts as we do. If so, he would not have consented to the negotiations. But we beg to remind American citizens that all we maintain in regard to the danger of such arrange- ments as promoters of imperialistic aggression and foreign war is supported by the bankers who are floating the loan. These solid men of affairs, assaying at its business worth Mr. Hughes’s promise of our Federal judiciary in settling disputes, say, to repeat our quotation of last week: It is simply not thinkable that after a Federal judge has de- cided any question or dispute between the bondholders and the Salvador Government, that the United States Government should not take the necessary steps to sustain such decision. There is a precedent in a dispute between Costa Rica and Panama, in which a warship was sent to carry out the verdict of the arbi- trators. Beer and Bigger Things HEN his beer is taken away from him—even by his own action or his own inadvertence—the American citizen knows how to raise a shout of protest calculated to make the high gods tremble on their thrones. But when his other freedoms and his wages and his goods are taken from him by the more devious processes of big business his voice is very small. And this is natural, for beer flows directly down the gullet and creates, they say, satisfying sensa- tion on its way, and its absence seems to be marked by a direct and painful sense of loss. But a man’s goods and chattels and even his rights as a citizen and his children’s education may be taken from him in so indirect and piece- meal a fashion that he is none the wiser during the process. He will cry out, ‘““My beer is gone; a curse on the blue-nosed blackguard that stole my beer!” But about his other goods he cannot shout, for he does not know what to say. And so he goes on being robbed. It is time, however, that he learned that the economic

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480 . The Nation © afflictions of life have causes that can be named and that these causes deserve some of the interest that he is spend- ing so lavishly on his apparently more intimate woes. In three illuminating articles, the last of which appears in this issue of The Nation, Amos Pinchot has described the net- work of power and ownership that dominates the life of America today. Put briefly, his argument is this: A group of big-business men and financiers own the great railway systems of the country. This ownership gives them several sorts of power; they can charge freight rates that directly increase the prices of the things we buy, and they can dis- tribute illegal transportation advantages to their own indus- trial concerns, thus unfairly driving out of business their competitors and developing their own concerns into great monopolies. These monopolies, free from the threat of competition, can fix prices where they want. More than this, they can dominate legislatures and universities and the cultural life of the people; and this domination, which everyone feels, can be traced directly back to the illegal favors that are sucked out of the railroads. A general im- pression has got abroad that rate discrimination and other transportation favors are a thing of the past. Mr. Pinchot cites the eminent testimony of industrial magnates and engi- neers to prove that transportation differentials are the com- mon weapon of the trusts every day in the year and con- tinue to be so. Various sorts of rebates are devised to elude the eye of the government; cars are refused to competitors or service made ruinously bad. The government will never be able to protect independent producers under a system of private ownership of the railroads. The simplest logic in the world would seem to demand that we take the railroads away from the men who use them to dominate the country, and begin to acquire some control over the prices we pay and the sort of lives we lead. We need not pretend that Utopia will be ushered in with government ownership; we need only admit that a vicious circle of control will be broken, and that many evils will automatically right themselves. We may expect lower rates and lower prices; equal treatment of all business concerns, resulting in real competition in steel and coal and oil and meat; lower prices. We may expect that monopolies will be broken up and that those institutions and men who pay tribute to monopoly will be freed. The relative success of government and private owner- ship of railroads has been subjected to endless dispute and almost no experiment. Mr. Pinchot’s consideration of the facts seems to us almost unanswerable, but it is worth sug- gesting to those who doubt the government’s capacity to run anything efficiently that even inefficient railroading is vastly preferable, from a public point of view, to railroad- ing that delivers the welfare of all of us into the greedy pockets of a few. It is this robbery on the grand scale, intangible but com- plete, that the American citizen must come to think and talk and protest about. We doubt if government ownership of railroads will ever be the sole issue of a national cam- paign. Too many people will always worry about how to get beer or how to prevent people from getting it or how to keep out of Europe. But it must certainly be made a chief issue, and every labor and farmer group in the country must be made to realize that there will be no real prosperity —no prosperity which can be translated into food and clothes and leisure—and no real freedom while the railroads are in private hands. [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Pavlowa MERICA is the happy hunting-ground of dancers, and i in many a revue on Broadway you can see dancing that takes from you, as fine dancing should, the inner sluggish- ness and inertia that tie you to the earth. A superficial observation may not at once yield up the secret of the dif- ference between the best of these dancers and Anna Pay- lowa. But the difference exists—a difference at once ex- quisitely fine and enormously important. Pavlowa’s art is pure; it is purged of all dross. It is beyond the impulse .of display. It has divine ease, self- confidence; it has piety—pietas—toward its own spirit. It has not the lyric lift, the romantic magic of the dancing of the Duncan girls. It is quite serene, quite alien in spirit to any modern experiments. It is pure dancing, as Bach is pure music. It has nothing to say that is beyond itself; it expresses nothing but the loveliness and restrained rap- ture of rhythmic motion. In brief, it is classic. It is all that despite the music, which is not natively or naively Russian but is Russian music trying skilfully but not convincingly to sound like Gluck and Mozart. More essentially right than this sounded a once famous and thrice-hackneyed waltz by good old Johann Strauss, because one felt there a last echo, at least, of the tradition in music to which Pavlowa’s dancing is so closely akin. We do not quarrel with all this. But we cannot help imagining an evening of Pavlowa dancing, with all pantomime eliminated, to the music out of which her art has really come. She clings to her tradition and mood in every respect, wearing almost always the classic garb of the ballerina with no concession either to modern eccentricity or modern nakedness, She is effortless, too, as the classics are, and floats—all other dancers leap, with whatever marvelous agility—toward the shoulder of M. Novikoff. It is in that floating that you can estimate her. She has transcended the heaviness of earth. The body has become the dance. What she adds, what betrays her period and sensibilities in the end, is the eloquence of her hands. They are mor- bidly fine and flexile, never pantomimic in their motions yet never still. They are very speaking hands. But what they say is nothing that can be set down in words. Here, as else- where, she shuns the mimetic. But they communicate yearning and even such touches of strange passion as deny the inner stillness which one would otherwise suppose at the core of her art. She dances “The Fairy Doll’ without much participation in the pantomime or in the grave, quaint humor. She leaves the expression of these to her associates whose work shares this with her own, that, in its possible measure, it has the perfection which is peace. After “The Fairy Doll” comes “Dionysus,” which is not of the modernized Greece of white placidity, but of the ruggeder Hellas of the severer gods—severe even in orgiastic moments, sad with the in- tent sadness of primordial aspiration, desire, ecstasy. After this the “‘Divertissements” seem a little trivial and a little shallow, and even the pleasant, quick, bird-like poetry of the Rubinstein “Valse Caprice” is in the nature of some- thing faded and spent. What one remembers longest and most fruitfully is Pavlowa, the immemorial ballerina, poised as if for flight, poised yet still, giving that lovely and peaceful moment a touch of strangeness with the light eloquence of her incomparable hands.

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Oct. 31, 1923] The Nation 481 The End of the German Empire (Special Radiogram to The Nation) By CSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Essen, October 21 HE great German Empire founded by Bismarck is col- lapsing. It has all but ceased to exist. Not only is it flouted, ignored, and rebuffed by Poincaré, who is seeking to destroy its authority in a hundred ways. Not only is there a Stinnes imperium in imperio compelled to negotiate separately with the French as if Berlin were not concerned. Not only are Bavaria and Saxony almost at war with the Reich. The Palatinate, the Rhineland, and the Ruhr are now lost to Germany, perhaps for fifty years. The French political policy, so absolutely contrary to the Versailles Treaty, has triumphed. The dismemberment of Germany is at hand, and the Balkanization of Europe as well. What we are seeing mortal eyes have never witnessed in our industrial age. Stark naked military power has tri- umphed as never before in peace. France cares little now what Berlin does; whether Bavaria secedes, or if England be angry. She has cut the heart out of Germany, seized the left bank of the Rhine (which Wilson prevented at Paris), and has done it by theft, chicanery, brute force, expatria- tion. Her representatives gloat over their triumph, igno- rant or unaware of the lessons of history or of the absurdity of the idea that such a monstrous human wrong could go unpunished. They make no concealment of their purpose. Their offi- cial press representative at Diisseldorf was brutally frank on Friday, saying that France will give the Ruhr workers the absolute choice of working for them or starving; that they will work as, when, and how the French want, for fif- teen years to come. He declared that what the German people might think or feel was of no consequence. The French wanted their money, proposed to get it, and would continue to deport everybody whose conduct or bearing they did not like. Asked why the Palatinate and Rhineland were so much more harassed and subjugated than when I was here last year he said it suited his country to govern that way. As for the German railroads seized during passive resistance, he declared that they would never go back to the Germans—at least, he added, for sixty years, being gov- erned meanwhile by an international commission. Ger- many, he said, would never be able to utilize them for mobi- lization again. No honest American could have listened to his utterly cynical, cold-blooded presentation of a plan to dismember a nation and despotically enslave millions of its citizens, and still pretend that our intervention in the war had had any other result than to transfer militarism from Berlin to Paris, and in a more dangerous form—for where that of Berlin was stupid and inevitably self-destroying that of Paris is diabolically clever. I am not basing this on the word of one official. For his one frank avowal of policy there are a thousand facts visible here on every hand. It is an even more startling fact that the French can carry their policy of ruthless subjugation through unless an in- ternal or financial upset causes her to desist. The Ruhr labor leaders say nothing can prevent the German laboring men being driven into absolute despair by the deliberate French policy of delaying the resumption of work and the approach of vast unemployment. The endless exactions, harassments, extortions, thefts of the conquering soldiery are in complete contrast to the British at Cologne. The truth is that the French are ruling as Napoleon did. They have learned nothing. They believe that you can reduce and humiliate these people as if they were Cochin-Chinese. I am writing with no love whatever for the German In- Gustrialists. It is true that their means are now exhausted. They did receive large sums from Berlin during the period of passive resistance, putting it chiefly into plant better- ments to occupy the workers and prevent the loss of that money by the lightning-like fall of the mark. Trustworthy bankers say that unless the French reverse their policy there will be absolute collapse within two weeks. The French reply that this is all humbug, and point to the rise in the values of Ruhr shares. They quote Otto Wolff as saying before their staffs are dismissed the Industrialists will shake large sums out of their sleeves. Meanwhile plants are daily shutting down; unemploy- ment is menacing; shooting down hungry men and women is a daily occurrence. The local officials are at their wits’ ends. Sometimes, as at Diisseldorf, they are allowed no police to uphold order. Sometimes they are aided by the French troops in cities where there are many French women and children. Sometimes there is deliberate incite- ment of the Separatists, the Communists, and the unem- ployed. There is no sign how far the French mean to carry their vindictive policy. It looks as if they meant both to rule and ruin, destroying what they cannot use, com- pelling the complete yielding of every German birthright of freedom and manhood. There has been the utmost delay in reinstating the railroad workers, half of whom will be dis- charged and their places filled by French workers now here, resulting inevitably in inefficiency and further delay in the resumption of work in the Ruhr. The postal men in Essen were summoned yesterday to go to work and then after much talk were told that everything was off and were sent home. All officials of whatever rank not born in the Rhine- land or the Ruhr have been permanently dismissed, also all the higher officials, and their places have been filled by carpet-baggers from France. The French are blocking the resumption of huge plants by refusing to return great amounts of completed products which were seized, and by preventing export of coal, iron, and steel. Every possible obstacle has been thrown in the way of resumption. If what is being done here were done by Italians or Turks to Greeks or Armenians the heavens would ring with the pro- tests of the world. This week is absolutely critical. The French must show their hands or a general collapse will follow. It is impossible to believe this was planned by Ger- mans or that Germans have large sums of foreign currency. German labor leaders say this is not true. All groups are too badly scared. Even Krupp and the small companies are printing their own money. A cup of coffee at Diisseldorf costs a billion marks. The terrible fact for the Germans is that the passive battle need not have been lost, at least not so soon. The people here were eager to go on indefinitely. The gov-

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Ll UL ee UU 482 The Nation - ernment lost the fight through inadequate preparation, by not planning for a two years’ struggle, by throwing away resources, by waste and extravagance, careless and often corrupt management. Germans admit freely that that part of the passive battle was as big a disgrace as the other was honorable. The principle is unaffected by its defeat. What is happening is that between the upper millstone of incom- petent political government at Berlin, beset by party squab- bles playing politics, failing to put their own house in order and to convince the world of their honesty of purpose, and the lower millstone of French rapacity and utter ruthless- ness the German people are being crushed and broken down until their only thought is how they can keep body and soul together with the dollar at twenty billions. What form of government the French will give the stolen [Vol. 117, No. 3043 provinces is not clear. It is no longer necessary for them to promote a Rhenish republic, despite Aix. They expect the distracted, starving people voluntarily to ask their con- querors for anything that will enable them to live in peace without starvation and constant military despotism. Out- right annexation will of course not be attempted. We are witnessing hour by hour the fall of a great empire in a way to make inevitable a future war, filling Europe with hatred of an intensity never before dreamed. The French are unable to realize that their policies are certain to lead to their own ruin and to cause a coalition against her. Any temporary gain will be as nothing to the future ill-will of the whole world. No structure founded on such inhuman- ity, cruelty, and gross materialistic selfishness can endure any more than could Kaiserdom. Pinchot for President? (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) . By WILLIAM HARD INCHOT is what is called an “anti-machine” politician, but he is a politician, thank God, never forget it. He is not a butcher or baker or candlestick-maker who in his spare moments and with his left hand is willing to be good enough to steer the ship of state for a while. Albert Lasker, after a few months of Washington, remarked to this writer “This public life is a business too.” It is. Pinchot in office under Roosevelt and Taft gave his time to public affairs; and then, out of office, subsequently, he still gave his time to public affairs and to deep thought on how to get back into office. People say: ‘Does he want to be President?” To a political reporter that question seems about as sensible as if a diligent inquirer were to go to a young man in the Harvard freshman football squad and say to him: “Can it be—can it be—that the thought has crossed your mind that you would like to be captain?” Of course Gifford Pinchot wants to be President. A dis- tinguished rival of his for the next Republican presidential nomination said to this writer last spring: “I am going to sit in the presidential gambling game; and if I win, I win; and if I lose, I lose; and when it is all over, well, anyway, I shall have sat in a game for the biggest stakes in the world.” What is the use of pretending that the public man lives who if he has even one white chip of presidential gambling currency will not edge his way to the table of that game? Pinchot has several chips—of several colors. Some he acquired while in office under Roosevelt and Taft and some he acquired while out of office by active deliberate cultiva- tion of certain issues and certain electoral elements. Quarreling with President Taft and thereby forfeiting office, and quarreling during the Great War with Food Ad- ministrator Hoover and thereby again departing from office, Pinchot proved indeed that the holding of office is not the total of his temperament or ambition. His tempera- ment, his ambition, is to deal with public questions, but to deal with them his way. He is a stubborn, wilful, conscientious, bigoted, charm- ing, laughing, sweet-tempered, smooth-mannered, hard- mouthed, stiff-necked, intractable person, who is congeni- tally interested in problems of state and who wants to hold an office—any office—but the bigger the better—in which God and Pinchot can solve those problems as they should be solved. Out of office, and seeking the electoral resources with which to return to office and to resume the hunting and kill- ing of wrongs, Pinchot explored the territories occupied by the labor vote and the farmer vote. Defeated for the United States Senate by Penrose, he did what few ex-Rooseveltians were wise enough to do: he dug trenches extending from the general moral issues of the Progressive Party to the specific economic issues of the rising farmer-labor groups. ’ He made his big house in Washington the organizing cen- ter for groups of representatives of farmers. He and Mrs. Pinchot gave parties for farmers as dazzling as any parties they gave for diplomats. Their hearty and straightforward manners served them as well in the one case as in the other. Simultaneously he made his way deeper into the labor world and came to be personally better known to the leaders of labor at Washington and in Pennsylvania. When his anthracite coal conference met this year at Harrisburg it surprised the reporters from afar to observe that for at least one of the miners’ conferees the Governor was just naturally “Gifford.” Farm support, labor support, plus the echoes of “On- ward, Christian Soldiers” made Pinchot Governor of Penn- sylvania. He ran on the platform of honesty and efficiency at Harrisburg and of dryness throughout the State, but his platform would never have carried him into the guber- natorial mansion if underneath it there had not marched the new quiet confidence felt in him by farmers and by trade unionists whose acquaintance he had sought and whose organized intentions he was known to’have studied and known to be capable of understanding. He is, in a sense, a farmer-labor governor. He goes against much of labor in being so dry. He enjoys being dry. Enforcing the Volstead law is with him a labor of love. He talks about it as his duty. Roosevelt used to talk about the duty of hunting wild animals for fear that other- wise they might overcrowd the earth; Pinchot hunts boot- leggers for duty and pleasure both. If much of labor would rather be wet Pinchot nevertheless will always be dry, bone- dry, dust-dry; and the American Federation of Labor could make him President and then ask him for Heaven’s sake to ; ‘ : ' } ; 0

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Oct. 31, 1923] show one slender streak of humidity, it would not appear. If people are going to make Gifford Pinchot President, they will have to take him, previously and subsequently, exactly as he is. He is sympathetic toward the toiler, whether on farm or in factory; he finds in the toiler an ally against his old enemies the capitalistic grabbers of the for- ests and ranges and mines and water-power of the public domain; he gives himself to public questions and will climb the ladder of public offices to the highest rung within his reach; he will spread his issues before the public with all the craft of the experienced manipulator of political pub- licity; he will denounce the political “machine” and create in some minds the illusion of his being a political amateur; he will all the time be an absolutely accomplished profes- sional political player of the lone-hand type; and the sum of him personally and politically is a consistent sum. It is this: he is an inveterate public man whose technique of playing over the head of the “machine” to the “people” is just as competently and professionally managed as if he were playing directly to the “machine.” Incurably a public man, he is also nevertheless incurably his own man; and in so far as he acquires political power in this country it will strictly technically resemble to the last line the political power now owned by Robert Marion La Follette. It will be an absolutely professional but absolutely personal posses- sion. Israel Zangwill By JOHAN J. SMERTENKO HO is this Israel Zangwill? In the two little libraries to which I have access there is one—and only one—book, “The Melting Pot,” by the man. The English ‘“Who’s Who” furnishes a list of some twenty volumes; novels, plays, essays, sketches, stories, and verse. On the shelves of these libraries stand the works of Spinoza and Heine and Brandes, some in the original, some in translation, and the catalogues disclose commentaries, textbooks, and chapters on them scattered here and there. Who is this Israel Zangwill? If you accosted the Jews of my town with this request for information, you would listen to biographical details, true and imaginary, to opinions of truly oriental eloquence and exaggeration, to dissertations on Zionism, assimilation, Ito, Uganda, and other catchwords. But if you inquired con- cerning the three sages whom the Gentile world justly con- siders the glory of modern Israel, not one in ten, possibly not one in a hundred would recognize the names. Nor would the percentage be much greater if the names were exclu- sively contemporary. Neither Bergson nor Schnitzler nor even a Yiddish writer like Sholom Asch is known by the rank and file of Jewry. Indeed, there is no one, be he states- man or scientist, philosopher or financier, artist or soldier or physician, who can vie with Zangwill for a place in the hearts of his people. Who then is Israel Zangwill? Zangwill, the average Jew will tell you, is a great English writer who by virtue of his position has been able to render invaluable service to the Jewish race. It is the famous novelist and playwright whose aid Theodore Herzl seeks when he wishes to present the idea of Zionism, whom the Jews of Warsaw consult on the advisability of voting for certain candidates to the Russian Duma, into whose office Joseph Fels enters “unannounced and unheralded” with an offer of a hundred thousand dollars, and at whose request the American Jewish Congress, the most important Jewish organization in the world, changes its designated place of meeting from Baltimore to New York. And finally, it is Zangwill, “the foremost Jewish literary figure of his time,” to quote the New York Evening Post, who is asked by this organization to awaken the conscience of mankind and the consciousness of Jewry to the problems the Jews are facing. Now the irony of the situation—so completely crystallized in the solitary copy of “The Melting Pot” at our provincial libraries—lies in the fact that Mr. Zangwill is invariably ignored by critics of English drama and fiction, even while they solemnly study the piddling of Pinero, the baroque of Barrie, and the raucous novels that betray the teething of our youngest generation. Yet I venture to say that the Jew-in-the-street is right and the critics are wrong. Zangwill’s political activities, though they threaten to absorb, cannot shut out the artist any more than those of Paderewski and Lamartine. He is first of all an author, then Messiah or Devil’s Advocate or what you will. More than that, Zangwill’s work as much as any man’s—I do not refer here to foreigners like Joseph Conrad or Hilaire Belloc who have miraculously acquired an astounding command of the language, but to Thomas Hardy, John Galsworthy, and Arnold Bennett—bears the unmistakable English stamp. England of the Ghetto? Yes. And of Essex too. The English of the King James’s ver- sion? Yes. Also the precieux English of Oscar Wilde. In fact, during those early days which might be called his pseudonymic period Zangwill as editor of Ariel and as the most successful practitioner of the “new humor” was even more responsible than his associate, Jerome K. Jerome, for the fantastic philosophy of topsy-turveydom that spiced English writing with the salt of sophistication so obviously lacking in the Victorian brew. The sketches that appeared as “The Bachelors’ Club” and the “Old Maids’ Club” carry on the tradition of Pistol and Pickwick. Yet at the time that “J. Freeman Bell” was writing these sketches, ‘“Mar- shalik” was discussing with insight and detachment the position of the Jew, and satiric studies of Jewish life were appearing from the pen of “Baroness von S.” Luckily the Jewish Publication Society of America en- abled Mr. Zangwill to achieve a synthesis of the humor, the wit, and the judgment—wit, said Locke, is chiefly conver- sant in tracing resemblances; the business of judgment is rather finding differences—displayed in these pieces by requesting him to write a novel of modern Jewish life. The result was “Children of the Ghetto.” Here he found his reputation and here lie the founda- tions of the critical fallacy. For “Children of the Ghetto” is not a Jewish book written in English but an English book about London Jews. It has more in common with a Wessex novel like “The Mayor of Casterbridge” than with a translated study of the New York Ghetto like “Uncle Moses.” To be sure, when dealing with Jewish subjects Zangwill gives ample evidence that man unconsciously re-

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acts to the genius of his mother-tongue. The characteristic Jewish cadences, the sing-song, and the involved iteration of the Talmudic dialectics are reproduced in the beat of his prose just as truly as in this intentional imitation from “The King of Schnorrers”’: For what? For two things in the very least... . In the first place . .. compensation for not eating the salmon my- self. For it is not as if I offered it you—I merely intrusted it to you, and it is ordained in Exodus that if a man shall deliver unto his neighbor an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, then for every matter of trespass, whether it be for Ox; for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, the man shall receive double, and therefore you should pay me six guineas. And secondly... But as the non-Jewish work has proved, Zangwill can change the very flow and inner rhythm of his writing to suit his subjects and scene. In “Jinny the Carrier” he boldly attempts—and succeeds—“to seize the essence of Essex.” I am not prepared to say that “Jinny the Carrier” is Zangwill’s best novel but there can be no doubt that “Plas- ter Saints,” the last “English” work to date, is his best play. Yet “Plaster Saints” is ignored and “The Melting Pot,” his worst drama, is the piece that cemented his repu- tation. Verily the irony of inversion pursues him. “The Melting Pot” made a Zangwillian of every sentimentalist in America, from that apostle of romantic claptrap, Theo- dore Roosevelt, to so disillusioned a humanitarian as Jane Addams. This idealization of the United States as “God’s Crucible” for the manufacture of the superman captured no one as much as himself, however, so that he who had op- posed single-handed the “irreflective idealism” which made light of the difficulties of Zionism hymned hysterically the mirage of a Utopia. Mr. Zangwill’s last two plays, though they complete the trilogy begun by ‘“‘The Melting Pot,” are closer kin to ‘‘Plas- ter Saints.” In one respect they differ from both. The scene is no longer laid in an existing land but in the imag- ined Voldania whose adventures as a militarist nation are told in “The Cockpit” and whose life under Communism is described in “The Forcing House,” “ideal history which has not occurred literally, and yet is essentially a summary of historic realities.” Otherwise, like “Plaster Saints,” they are problem plays, broader in scope and better executed than most of this genre. These plays and “The War God,” a tour de force in blank verse, make up the bulk of Mr. Zangwill’s creative work since his last visit to America. The group would have been considered more respectfully a quarter of a century ago. During the Ibsen obsession a shock was ‘‘God’s message to set what shocks you right” by writing a drama about it; today melodrama with a moral thesis is melodrama still. But if these plays represent little growth in Zangwill the artist, they indicate most clearly the change in Zangwill the Jew. Fifteen years ago Mr. Zangwill’s interest in the Jewish question was confined to the humanitarian desire to alleviate exiled Israel’s tragedy and pain. As “The Melting Pot” showed, he favored assimilation as much as, if not more than, the establishment of an autonomous Jewish state, whether in Asia Minor or in Africa or in South America. Believing that the solution to the problem of the “Jewish trinity: patriot everywhere, Jew everywhere, anti- Semite everywhere,” lay in the hands of the Jews, he ad- dressed his prophetic fulminations solely to his own people. The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3043 Today all this is changed. As Blum declaims in “The War God”: Had Christians handled us with Christliness, There would not be a single Jew in Europe. We should have melted in your love... Such not being the case, Mr. Zangwill is disillusioned and militant. The world owes the Jew a hearing, he insists, and so Blum and Baron Gripstein are dragged into the alien plots of his plays, bearing out Mr. Lowenthal’s contention that if a Jew were asked to write a treatise on the Great Auk, he would immediately publish a pamphlet entitled, “The Great Auk and the Jewish Problem.” In his volumes of essays, especially in “The Voice of Jerusalem,” he sets down argumentatively what is illus- trated in the dramas. Pitilessly, even quixotically, he analyzes the un-Christ-like conduct of the Christian peoples. And when he attacks the chutzpah, the “nerve,” the irides- cent impudence of assuming superiority to “the race that supplied Christendom and Islam with their religions, Euro- pean art with its subjects, Western oratory with its phrases and images, socialism with its ideas, and America with its puritan foundations,” his comparison of Jewish and Chris- tian civilizations is not a paean to the “‘Rabbi-ridden folk” but a scathing condemnation of the latter. Indeed, Mr. Zangwill, in general ‘‘a democrat with a pro- found mistrust of the people’—“the people’s heart is sound, but its head is wood,” says one character—is in particular contemptuous of contemporary Jewry, “clever as _ indi- viduals, but as a people... rank below the Hottentots.” “Mine is not in the racial sense anima naturaliter Judaica,” he confesses. There lies the explanation of his humorless championship of Israel. He is interested in justice rather than in the Jew, and therefore he writes a running refuta- tion of all taunts and libels the Jew is subject to, giving almost equal weight to each. He defends the Mosaic law from the attack of an anonymous contributor to the Lon- don Times, Samuel’s prescription that Saul smite Amalek from the generalizations of Sir Charles Bruce, Shylock from Shakespeare, and so forth. ; Now it is right and proper to have a Jew boldly chal- lenge the anti-Semite. The question arises, however, whether Mr. Zangwill ought to devote his talents to pour- ing cold logic on the odorous embers of war propaganda. He who has seen the brilliant, limpid stream of Zangwill’s creative genius turn murky through agitation can answer only in the negative. Mr. Zangwill knows his Bible—none better—yet he does not profit by the lesson Elijah was taught at Mount Horeb; there are more then seven thousand in Israel who are equally jealous for the Lord and equally anxious to slay his enemies. But even were he left alone as champion of the Jewish people, his duty would lie elsewhere. That duty he owes to English letters. His contribution, though ignored, has already been generous and great. The struggle, the suffering, and the maturity which these last ten years have brought, have prepared him for greater achievement, an achievement in which we may see welded the peculiar genius of Englishman and Jew—the power and detachment of Shakespeare to express the wisdom of Solomon and the pas- sion of Isaiah! To persist in his present course will but fit him to the epitaph he has written for another Jew, “That so much... time, which was not money but treasure for the race, should have been frittered away by the res angusta domi seems to me the real tragedy.”

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Oct. 31, 1923] The Nation 485 These United States—X LI” FLORIDA: The Desert and the Rose By CLARA G. STILLMAN FLAT, sandy, sun-bathed plain sprinkled with a sparse monotony of pine, punctuated here and there with vague swamplands and thick, rich forests intricate with interlacings of hardwood, scrub, and vine, and jeweled with thousands of sparkling lakes, streams, and fountains —such is Florida, a paradise for invalids, sportsmen, and naturalists. To the east the far-flung coast line harbors still other waterways, great salt rivers and lakes formed by shallow sandbars and peninsulas lying parallel with the mainland. To the south stretches the vast region of the Everglades, eight thousand square miles of swamp and partly submerged prairie bristling with rapier-edged saw- grass eight feet high, a panoplied wilderness only recently penetrated by white men, through which Indians have trav- eled swiftly from time immemorial. The west coast, curv- ing widely around the gulf, crumbles away at its southern end into the archipelago of the Ten Thousand Islands, a land of mystery, a labyrinth of woods, swamps, mud flats, beaches, bays, and fierce tidal rivers that has never been completely explored. Most of the southern shore, too, is a little-known wilderness. Florida preserves for us, though probably not for long, our last remnant of virgin soil. No other State thrusts down into the Tropics. No other contains so many kinds of climate and soil, such an elon- gated and diversified coastline, such a widely distributed and easily tapped water supply, such varied luxuriance of native and naturalized vegetation. As a final unique ges- ture there are the Keys, that exotic flourish beyond the mainland’s southern tip, of coral and limestone reefs and prickly island jungles, swept and sculptured into jagged grotesqueness by wild tropic tides, eternally being built up and dissolved away by wind and sea—remote repositories of curious and entrancing forms of life. In 1513 came Ponce de Leon seeking the fabled island of Bimini, its fountain of youth and its mythical treasure far surpassing the known splendors of Mexico and Peru. Then for three hundred and fifty years the smiling region remained a wilderness, tossed from Spain to England, from England back to Spain, from Spain in part to France, finally from France and Spain to the United States. It became a territory distracted by Indian wars, then a State entering the Union only to secede a few months later, then a State once more, enfeebled by civil war and racked with war-born hatreds and maladjustments. In its history there has been little continuity or coherence. Of British and Spanish occupation hardly a trace persisted. During the Revolution the State was a base for loyalist plots. Seven thousand Tories fled there. The wilderness beyond the frontier became a refuge for fugitive slaves and other out- laws. To the more accessible regions there was a trickle of immigration from the North, from Alabama and Georgia, mainly a low grade of white squatter, but conditions were not such as to attract wealth or culture. Such germs of social life and refinement as existed at all were concentrated in the great cotton plantations and the few small towns in * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. : Copyright, 19238, The Nation, Ine. All rights reserved. the north. Here were some magnificent homes and such wealth and fashion as the State could boast. The least- developed territory admitted to statehood, Florida was at the outbreak of the Civil War the poorest of the Southern States, with the fewest towns, plantations, and slaves. It had no social, political, or religious traditions such as went to the founding of Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, or South Carolina, and no homogeneous group of citizens bound by common ideals to develop it in any particular direction. Immigration for the culture of oranges and the taking up of land for homes began seriously about 1870. In the eighties were discovered the great potash fields of the southwest. And long before that St. Augustine and the St. Johns River had been centers of winter travel. But it was in the nineties, with the beginning of the great railway systems, the East Coast of which Henry M. Flagler was the presiding genius, and the Atlantic Coast Line carried down to Tampa by Henry B. Plant, that Florida’s history as a modern State actually began. As they pushed south the railroad companies built the huge, elaborate hotels so well known to all tourists, at least from the outside, which were to be the last word in comfort, elegance, and expense. Plant died before completing all that he had planned, but the Flagler system pushed on, passing beyond the last small pioneer settlements to tame wildernesses and plant palaces in lonely deserts and jungles. Palm Beach arose to snatch from St. Augustine its social eminence as the Winter Newport. By 1896 the railroad had reached Miami, dropped another hotel into the wilds, and proceeded on its way to perform one of the most appeal- ing of modern engineering feats—the Overseas Route that joins Key West and the intervening keys to the mainland, snaring wild islands and binding turbulent seas with con- crete and steel, and stopping finally only because there were no more keys to conquer. Now began a period of sensational economic develop- ment. Tourists overran the State. East coast, west coast, and center sprouted resorts like mushrooms. A thousand and one agencies sprang up to cater to their needs. A huge floating population of invalids and pleasure-seekers that had to be housed, fed, clothed, doctored, nursed, en- tertained. A secondary throng of floaters arriving to help serve the first. A great stock-taking and overhauling of regional resources. A hectic competition of road-building and developing schemes. Great swamp areas drained and turned into fertile farm and fruit lands. The most am- bitious of these projects, the draining of the Everglades, has been going on for some eighteen years, and is not yet completed. While tourists continued to be enthusiastically cultivated, settlers and investors were and still are a greater need. For in spite of the large volume of immi- gration from other States, there are still only 17.7 inhabi- tants to the square mile, and planned improvements are con- stantly outstripping taxes and bond issues. Hence an end- less, vociferous campaign of real-estate enterprise, of build- ing and boosting, of speculations and bonuses and invita- tions to free trips with luncheons and eloquence thrown in.

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ee 486 The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3043 Perhaps because of an inferiority complex due to her long history of frustration and her lack of traditions, Florida has suddenly discovered an unlimited pride and faith in herself, an enormous appetite for wealth and power. Her climate is unrivaled, her soil unsurpassed. She can produce three crops a year and some that can be grown nowhere else in the country. To her long list of products and manufactures—fish, sponges, cigars, lumber, turpen- tine, potash, tobacco, citrus fruits, peaches, pineapples, potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables, sugar and forage grasses—items are constantly being added. For her grow- ing commerce she is busily deepening harbors. Nothing less than everything that any other States has, with a few slight exceptions such as mountains and glaciers, and as many things as possible that other States have not is her economic ideal. A great world playground. But this is not enough. A great agricultural commonwealth unrivaled in the quantity, quality, and variety of its products. But this is not enough. A great focus of world trade with opulent cities strewn along its splendid coasts, cities that shall combine 100 per cent industrialism with 100 per cent American home atmosphere and 100 per cent opportunities for luxury and pleasure. If anything has been omitted let the reader supply it and be sure that Florida includes that too in her vision of greatness. Material greatness, of course. For Florida, mixture of infant prodigy, spoiled prima donna, and nouveau riche, has the engaging and disheartening qualities of all three. Forced into adult ways beyond her years, what wonder that she fre- quently lapses into corners to play with dolls or make faces, what wonder that like the slattern beautiful only for com- pany she decks herself gorgeously according to her lights, in her tourist centers and rich agricultural regions, with wastes of slovenly, burned-out, swamp-gutted rural desti- tution and decay between. Nothing can exceed the for- lornness of some of her aspects, with windowless cabins and crazy lean-tos in the midst of a sandy waste contain- ing a few stricken pines, anemically sharing a bog with weedy, undaunted razorbacks and discouraged cattle mourn- fully nosing among inhospitable cypress roots. Then there are Florida’s beautiful schoolhouses—for her white child- ren—which she has scattered about with a prodigal hand. Only the best is to be good enough for them. And naively to her the best is always something to be seen, touched, and financially rated. But school terms are short, teachers few and poor, and money for their salaries not always forth- coming. Here is the antithesis of the little red school- house of New England tradition with its meager equipment dedicated to high purposes. Nothing distinguished has yet emerged from Florida, whether in statesmanship, scholarship, letters, or arts, and whatever comes in the future will have to struggle through a pall of American provincialism, economic ruthlessness, and Protestant obscurantism. Florida took William Jen- nings Bryan to her bosom with the instant mutual recog- nition that they were made for each other. But Florida is a melting-pot of all the States. So what one finds there is after all not only typically Southern but a composite of small-town and rural Americanism with an infusion of pioneer crudeness and youthful bumptiousness. The States and sections of the country are, however, not equally repre- sented. The Southern cracker type still rules in politics, which are narrowly local and unprogressive. Florida, after years of agitation, still retains the antiquated open range for cattle, still finds in abuse of the Negro the master key to political office, and would still be farming her county prisoners to the highest bidder had not recent sensational disclosures, made by another State, of the murderous bru- talities practiced upon her unhappy convict slaves forced her only a few months ago to abolish the lash and sweep the leasing system out of existence. There are in fact many Floridas within the boundaries of the State, and some of them know little of some of the others. There is, for instance, the proposed political divi- sion along geographical lines which frequently comes up for discussion. The northern part of the State was settled long before the rest, the center is but of yesterday, the south barely of today and partly of tomorrow. United only in their common jealousy of California, whose minutest blizzard, seismic tremor, or other liability or peccadillo are enthusiastically featured on every Florida newspaper’s front page, these parts are jealous of each other. The north has the State capitol and all the public institutions. In 1885, when the present constitution was established, representation was according to population which was much denser in the northern counties, and no change in the ratio has since been made in spite of strenuous efforts of the southern counties to bring it about. In the last twenty- five years the increase in population in the southern half of the State and in its political and economic consciousness has been phenomenal. South Florida feels that it is differ- ent, unique indeed among all parts of the Union in climate, aspect, agricultural and structural possibilities. It is de- veloping a regional self-consciousness and dreams of a regional culture. So one hears talk sometimes of a separa- tion into two States—North and South Florida—and even into three—part of northwestern Florida to become part of Alabama so that Alabama may have a larger access to the sea and the north gulf coast a better representation. The jealousies of Florida, however, exist not only between north and south but between east and west coast and in- dividual resorts in the same or different regions. Miami and Jupiter “merely cling to the outer skirts of Palm Beach,” a booklet informs us, which compares Palm Beach to Egypt, Venice, Honolulu, Algiers, Mandalay, Constan- tinople, Greece, and Mecca, “the Mecca of the pilgrim with his face turned toward Society, and perhaps praying equally as fervently as his Bedouin brother,” a Mecca, moreover, to which one does not merely travel in a Pullman but makes “a journey of de luxe idealism.” But tourist Florida is not all extravagance and fashion. It may be a small room with a kitchenette in which a Northern farm couple are passing a thrifty and comfortable winter. One sees them mainly in the center and on the west coast—for the east goes after bigger game—but actually they are everywhere, strong, ungainly, weather- and work-worn, or cadaverous and pale, sitting about on park benches, pitching horseshoes in shirt sleeves, or forcing huge fists to guide treacherous pens over the gay stationery provided by paternal boards of trade. They are from Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, from everywhere where farmers in winter sit by the stove behind the snow- drifts. They have found a better way to wait for planting time. “Like it? Wall, I guess I do. Four feet o’ snow to hum,” and they smile, crinkling little red eyes, sharing with you the picture and the subjective shiver in the rosy well-being of sun-warmed blood and appeased “‘rheumatics.” Yes, they’d like fust rate to settle if they was twenty

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Oct. 31, 1923] years younger. “But there ’tis. Ma ’n’ me’s too old to start fresh.” Sometimes they do settle, fail wretchedly, and are fortunate if they can return to their frost-bound Northern haven. Sometimes with efficiency and luck they reap a golden harvest in spite of the real-estate man. For these and for the many others who need the sun Florida is all golden. Then there is the naturalists’ Florida, far different from that of the railroad folder and the realtor’s snappy blurb, unimproved, unmanicured, devoid of sleekness and comfort, full of hardship, danger, adventure, and beauty, now being pushed ever farther south and fast disappearing. The stories of these men are hidden from the public gaze in the journals of museums and scientific societies. Only one that I know of, Charles Torrey Simpson, a veteran ex- plorer of thirty years’ standing, has emerged into the open with a delightful book, “In Lower Florida Wilds,” which is at once a paean to the wild life he knows so well and a protest against its passing. Through its pages one may come to see in the vanishing tropic and semi-tropic forests, the rich, wild hammocks, Florida’s unique treasure, whose like is not in any other State, and will soon be little more than a memory inthis. His is a voice crying for the wilder- ness fast turning into tomato farms, pineapple fields, and cocoanut groves, and with him one learns to mourn the de- parting mangrove, most human of trees, whose primitive methods of land building are giving way before the concrete sea-wall, the dredge, and the suction pump; the flamingo, the roseate spoonbill, the gentle, colorful race of tree snails, and other wild things that die in the presence of civilized man. Still another Florida, least known of any, through which most travelers and natives walk blindfolded or upon which they bestow the cursory attention and facile generalizations of the “car-window sociologist.” This is the colored man’s Florida which differs more from all the other Floridas than they do from each other. What does Florida mean to its Negro inhabitants? It is “the best of the bad States,” one will tell you. On the whole it used to be better before there were so many people and so much competition. Of course this means some increase in economic opportunity, but also increased discrimination and bitterness. In Miami, the wonder city, pride of South Florida, where some of its citizens dream a new culture is to be born, we have this extraordinary situation, extraordinary even for the South: a curfew regulation. No Negro except those needed as night bell boys, porters, and the like by hotels, allowed out of the colored section of the city after 9 pm. No Negroes permitted to act as public chauffeurs, or, in the winters at least, in any but unskilled jobs connected with building. In winter, when building is at a standstill in the North, northern workmen, “snow birds” or “white doves” in Negro parlance, flock south. Work must be found for the white doves, so out go the blackbirds. It is hardly within the power of any builder to retain his colored work- men, even if he wishes to. Pressure is too strong. In summer when pressure relaxes one may find Negro work- men again on the job, but the uncertainty and seasonal character of the work discourage them, as it is intended they shall. Miami is proud of its “solution” of the race problem. They “keep them down” and “You must hand it to the Southerners,” remarks many an admiring Yankee, “they know how to treat the niggers.” Odd this, for Miami is anywhere from 75 to 85 per cent Northern. What becomes, then, of the pleasant myth that the presence of so The Nation 487 many Northerners in Florida has perceptibly lightened the Negro’s lot? It continues to be a pleasant myth. Miami is of course the extreme. As everywhere in the South the Negro’s condition varies greatly in various sec- tions. Places are “good” and “bad” from the Negro point of view, and it is not always easy to know why some should be one and some the other. Thus Miami is bad, Tampa is good. St. Augustine is good, Jacksonville less so. In the northwest there is a certain amount of peonage—white peons as well as black, caught in the net of tenant farming with all its attendant evils in remote rural districts where conditions are always at their worst. If the white schools throughout the State are poorly developed except archi- tecturally, colored schools have not even architecture to boast of. Brick buildings are rare and matter for some pride. In all the State there is not a single standard colored high school. In all South Florida there is only one high school, so called, for colored children, the one at Tampa, which shares a somewhat down-at-heel brick building out- side the city limits and its principal with a grammar school. The equipment for this school did not include chairs. The money for these was recently raised by colored citizens. They still have no desks for some classes. They have them- selves put in electricity, so they can use the building for evening meetings. Chemistry is in the curriculum, but it has to be taught theoretically because there is no apparatus. School terms are everywhere shorter than those of the white schools, which are themselves in some cases shorter than they should be. There are several counties that have no colored schools at all. The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, the State College for Negroes at Talla- hassee has a Carnegie library, and at Jacksonville there is a Negro reading room in the Public Library building con- taining some eight thousand volumes, which cannot grow because there is no budget for its expansion. This is the only public library provision for Negroes in the State. The colored public school system is supplemented by several large educational institutions supported by de- nominational and individual contributions. These schools are the soil for a certain timid and delicate growth of op- timism that is beginning to raise a somewhat paradoxical head among Florida Negroes. It consists of the feeling that although racial conditions are growing worse, they are also growing better. Violence and lesser forms of op- pression have of late years increased, but there is also an increasing number of Negroes technically and intellectually equipped to improve the primitive social conditions under which most of the race lives. There is the rising financial status and the growing spirit of racial responsibility and self-help, so much needed, which is fostered by these schools. If increased education and prosperity sometimes bring with them an increase of persecution, this is to be faced and overcome with still further progress. Taking it all in all, Florida is physically and spiritually both the desert and the rose, and, strangely, when it ap- pears to be one it often turns out to be the other. Its gray sands and malarial swamps are potential treasure houses of fertility and health; its bustling surface life, its expansive self-satisfaction hide a profound mental and Spiritual sterility. There is no reason why we should expect it to be different from other States. Fine climates do not necessarily make fine peoples, and the best States in the world, like the most beautiful woman of the French proverb, can give only what they have.

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eS The Nation 488 Railroads and the Mechanics of Social Power [Vol. 117, No. 3048 By AMOS PINCHOT III. The Pools of Power (This is the last of three articles which explain how the control of transportation by a unified group has resulted in its domination of the politics and culture of America.) OWER is the chief desire of men. From the earliest times, it has been their principal preoccupation. It is strange, therefore, that, in a world whose history has been the story of a continuous race between individuals, classes, and nations for the possession of power, we should take so little pains to inquire into its nature. In the last thirty years we have watched the balance of power gradually shift from the hands of the public into those of an industro-financial hierarchy composed of a few hundred persons, representing our trusts, railroads, banks, and insurance companies. And, while these persons are neither better nor worse, nor more intelligent or stupid than the rest of us, they are, nevertheless, for the most part, narrow men, mainly specialists in money making, and ac- tuated by a rather unreflecting instinct of acquisition. For this reason, we cannot accept their control of the country as either inevitable or beneficial. To change this control, to relocate power, is the paramount problem of the people of the United States. In the last two articles we have seen that, despite much propaganda to the contrary, we are justified in expecting that the railroads will be better run under the government than they have been in private hands. We have also seen that there is another and more vital line of argument for government ownership; to wit, that private railroading pro- vides our industro-financial inner group with a powerful weapon which it uses effectively in destroying competition and putting the major basic industries on a monopoly basis, with the result that the consumer is robbed, the oppor- tunity of independent capital curtailed, Sumner’s “equal chance” wiped out in the larger industrial] fields, and vast reserves of wealth, well in excess of what is necessary to conduct business and pay generous dividends, are concen- trated in the hanes of a very few people. In this article I will outline how this concentrated wealth, which is but another name for concentrated power, shapes education, public opinion, and politics, and through them controls con- ditions and events. As things stand now, it seems almost a sheer waste of time for liberals to go on fighting for the various superfi- cial reforms which seem to occupy their attention. With the dominant power in the hands of the industro-financial interests, nothing goes through without these interests’ consent. If, by a lucky chance, the liberals succeed in put- ting a progressive measure on the statute books, it is usually reversed, or turned against them, as was the recall, for instance. If they elect a candidate to Congress, he is generally defeated at the next election. Should he~be re- turned, he finds himself pocketed in a group of vociferous but powerless protesters. Some time, somehow, the liberals of America must unite their forces, now engaged in a hun- dred separate little wars against the effects and abuses of concentrated power, and make a concerted attack upon the power itself. If they do not, they may as well acknowledge the defeat, not only of liberalism, but of democratic gov- ernment as well. How and by what power the United States is today con- trolled may be shown by a few commonplace examples from the writer’s experience—examples which any person who has looked behind the scenes of politics and business can easily duplicate. During the war, I presented to a member of the legisla- tive branch of the government a brief outlining a plan for raising revenue, modeled on that then in use in England. I was courteously received, and the legislator expressed the belief, first, that the plan had merit and would actually raise revenue; and, second, that there seemed no reason to fear it would work less well here than abroad. Later in the day I learned from reliable sources, one of them the legislator’s close associate, that, though the legislator approved the plan, he could not present it to the appropriate committee owing to the absence of a man, not in public office but a friend of the legislator’s, who had gone to California for a six weeks’ trip. This friend headed an industrial monopoly that controlled the principal newspapers and the political machine in the legislator’s State, and through them every nomination of importance; and the legislator felt that to approve, without his friend’s consent, such a measure might jeopardize his chances of renomination. As his colleague pointed out, the legislator was not a young man. He had been scrupulously honest in money matters and, after years of public service, found himself still dependent on a slender salary. No doubt, he would have preferred to tell the gentleman in California to go to the devil; but he was not in a position to raise the flag of revolt. On the whole, it would be unjust to criticize him. He was at once the beneficiary and the victim of a profitable monopoly that made more money than it needed to do busi- ness, and used a modest part of its surplus in purchases at strategic points. Besides, he could truthfully say that rebellion would be useless, since it would merely mean that the trust would nominate another legislator who might well prove less honest and public spirited than himself. There are certainly not over a handful of senators at Washington who have not taken the proverbial King’s shilling and been inducted into service in a manner similar to the foregoing. And you may generally measure the extent of their unfreedom by the eagerness with which they espouse unimportant reforms that at once satisfy their altruistic impulses and commit them to no action unwel- come to the interests they serve. Not long ago a professor in good standing wrote me that in his university, one of the larger ones, no one could teach up-to-date economics, i.e., economics dealing with existing conditions, and feel comfortable in his chair. To be sure, he could instruct his students on the more classic aspects of economics, the theory of rent, the Ricardian acre, and the relation of gold production to prices. But, when it came to such subjects as the relation of railroads to monopoly, and the nature of the foundations of economic and political power, one ran into an area protected by an invisible but appreciable taboo. No professor, he said, would expect to be removed, whatever he might teach. Indeed, it was im- probable that the trustees would quiz him on the content of

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Oct. 31, 1923] The Nation 489 his lectures. But a building, practical and very pleasing to the eye, had recently been erected by a family whose money came from a monopoly supported by illegal transportation differentials; and the trustees were not without hope of a similar building on another part of the campus. Under these circumstances, it would be in questionable taste for a professor to discuss the origins of the fund from which his college had profited, and might profit again. A not unstriking instance of the power of surplus wealth, flowing from private railroading and monopoly, is found in the story of the Progressive Party. It will be remembered by some who were at Chicago in 1912 that Colonel Roose- velt did not decide to leave the Republican fold until two men rose from the conference table and, each putting a hand on his shoulder, said: “Colonel, we will see it through.” One of these men was a director and ex-chairman of the finance committee of the Steel Corporation; the other, a large investor in steel securities and for years an editorial supporter of the trust. These two men did see the party through, financially and otherwise. Incidentally, one of them, before printing and distributing its platform, cut out the anti-monopoly clauses framed by the resolutions committee and adopted by the party’s convention. Likewise, as chairman of the executive committee, he carried on, through a deluge of pamphlets and a campaign newspaper, a nationwide propaganda de- fending the trusts, which was brought to a halt only after an acrimonious controversy focused in the Outlook office. It was he who, in 1916, when the Progressives gathered for their last stand, brought the message from Oyster Bay in which Mr. Roosevelt declined to accept the nomination, but requested that Senator Lodge of Massachusetts be nomi- nated in his place. This virtually finished the Progressive Party, though life flickered in it for a time. It would be absurd to blame Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Perkins or Mr. Munsey for such episodes. Mr. Roosevelt was essen- tially an administrator. He cared nothing about econom- ics; they bored him inexpressibly. Accordingly, he took his views from advisers, and soon became convinced that any one who objected to monopolies, that is good monopo- lies, was trying to reduce the steel industry to the black- smith shop and the railroad to the stage coach. Mr. Roose- velt did not realize that monopoly raises prices, thus reduc- ing the demand for things and lowering the volume of pro- duction; while competition has precisely the opposite effect. Nor did he ever pause long enough to note that huge money accumulations are rarely created except through monopoly; or that, when some genius like Ford makes his millions in open competition, they do not constitute a menacing power; first, because they are scattered when the genius that cre- ates them dies, whereas the wealth concentrations of monopoly go on forever; second, because, since Ford’s profits are due to ability and not, as in the case of the trusts, to illegal privileges, he does not have to join with others in order to control public opinion, education, and government for purposes of self-protection. Mr. Perkins, of course, was a still stronger believer in monopoly and so was Mr. Munsey; and it was the most natural thing in the world that, when these two men saw a new party in the offing, led by a powerful personality, they should seek to guide it into what seemed to them useful channels. Some years ago the editor of the then largest monthly magazine asked me to write an article on government own- ership. I agreed and, after a few months, the article was finished and turned in. The editors were kind enough to express their satisfaction and went so far as to say that it was the most important economic article their magazine had printed. The article was set up and the magazine went to press, when a message arrived from the owner advising the editor that the article must not appear, no matter what it cost to break the plates. Immediately, the editor telephoned me, explaining that, though he would be glad to pay for it, he could not use my article, which dealt, among other things, with the relation between private railroading and the steel monopoly. The editor explained that the owner’s father had been a close friend of Mr. Morgan, Sr. The owner himself was heavily interested in various monopolies. If these examples have interest, it is because they tend to shed light on one of the more usual methods by which an industro-financial hierarchy exerts control in a nominally democratic state. In America, we have, of course, no such thing as tyranny in the sense of an individual, a group or class forcing the government to do things that the people do not want done. Yet the hierarchy’s power is none the less compelling. With its accumulated wealth, it takes charge of the agencies that form public opinion, and with public opinion properly manipulated, it dictates the action of the various agencies of government, thus accomplishing an undemocratic end through a seemingly democratic pro- cedure. And this process of control is generally so uniform and fixed in its progressions, that it might almost be stated as a formula as follows: Private railroading, through un- fair or illegal discrimination, creates monopoly. Monopoly, through destruction of competition and control of prices, produces concentration of wealth or power in the hands of a small minority. And the minority, following a natural instinct of self-preservation, uses this power to protect the sources from which its wealth and ascendancy have sprung. Here we have a vicious circle that can only be broken into when the public understands its elements. And this brings us to the hardest part of the problem. It must not be expected that government ownership of railroads will bring in the millennium. It will do nothing of the sort; there are other kinds of privilege besides trans- portation differentials. Nor alone will government owner- ship destroy plutocracy and restore democratic control in the United States. Yet, it should effect a long step in ad- vance. For let us realize the following point very clearly: When government ownership comes, it will only be (a) after the public has seen the far-reaching reasons for it, such, for instance, as I have tried to outline in these arti- cles, and (b) after it has elected a congressional majority that is of the public’s mind. Now, what sort of men will a successful campaign for government ownership bring into office? Obviously, not the proteges of the interests that flood Congress now; obvi- ously, not the representatives of the railroads, trusts, banks, and insurance companies. On the contrary, they will con- sist of a quite different type, of more thoughtful and truly patriotic men, who have seen the defeat of democracy in- volved in industro-financial sovereignty; and who, under- standing the mechanism by which this sovereignty estab- lishes and perpetuates itself, have decided that the time is ripe for a direct attack upon it. With a Congress of this kind, liberal ideas will have a fair hearing; progress will no longer find itself eternally fighting against crushing odds. And above all, the public will be spared the humili- ating sight of two historic parties going, hat in hand, to

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Sa lla 490 The Nation Vol. 117, No. 3048 ae Wall Street to report, gather funds, and take orders. But how is the government-ownership issue to be brought to the public? There seems but one practicable way: by getting men who understand the question to run for office, with government ownership as the one outstanding issue. The press, as we know, will not ordinarily carry articles on government ownership. Aside from the Hearst papers, there has been no powerful newspaper organization that has, so far, had the courage to come out uncompromisingly on the people’s side of the railroad question. But the speeches of important candidates, running for Congress or higher office, in such hard-fought campaigns as government ownership will precipitate, fall into a quite different cate- gory from mere articles. They are current news and, what- ever the paper’s economic background, it has to publish them. The political campaign thus remains as an avenue of publicity. It is a sufficient avenue, provided men of ability can be found, who will stake their future on a real fighting issue. In a national campaign for government ownership, only one issue should be put before the public—the acquisition of the railroads by the government. Experience has shown that the attention of a nation of a hundred millions cannot be concentrated on more than a single political idea at a time. The method of acquiring the roads, whether by pur- chase or exchanging private securities for government securities netting approximately the same return, should be left to the future. The method of managing the roads after they are acquired should be left to Congress. But one single line of argument should be followed at every political meeting in every State: the government should do nothing that private enterprise can do as well. This principle is at the foundation of America’s vigorous individualistic life. Nevertheless, the government should take over the railroads, for the very reason that private railroading is destroying individualism in industry and building on its ruins a monopoly system that robs the consuming public, concen- trates power in the hands of a few people, and controls, not wisely, this nation. In the Driftway RIVACY has always seemed to the Drifter one of the seven jewels in the crown of wisdom, and at the mo- ment he cannot think what the other six are, He has spent the better portion of his life declining with as much grace as possible invitations to gatherings of more than two per- sons besides himself. He has become thoroughly hardened in the matter of teas; he issued a blanket refusal of all such invitations seventeen years ago and the refusal still stands. Yet his job compels him to see people on occasion; and the exigencies of impecuniosity demand it even more frequently. Privacy costs money; crowded tenements are not inhabited by the rich, and Coney Island on a warm Sun- day is more populous than Deauville. * * * * * OR a good many years the Drifter had been convinced that no one, indeed, was rich enough to buy solitude. Even Mr. John D. Rockefeller, he thought, would have been hard put to it to purchase this pearl beyond price. But Mr. John D, Rockefeller’s daughter has made a gesture in that direction which commands only the warmest admiration. When Mrs. McCormick built a brick wall and a wire fence around her estate on Lake Michigan the Drifter murmured “Bravo!”” When she recently offered to pay $200,000 to make a new public highway a mile from the edge of her property because she could not bear to have the rabble pass- ing so near her house—which is a mile from the present road—he turned slightly green with envy and gave up eat- ing entirely because he could not cook his own meals well enough to justify dining by himself. But when he read that Mrs. McCormick had not stayed overnight in her house for nine years he threw up his hands in despair! There was evidently no mortal use in competing with such a princely outlay of funds and principle. To live in a house and wish to keep out crowds is one thing; but not to live in it, and still to be unable to endure the thought of crowds coming within a mile of it, is so far beyond any of the Drifter’s aspiration that he has given up the contest. * * * * * CCORDINGLY, he wishes to announce that hereafter he will be available for dinner three times a week and for tea every other day. When he is not dining out he will be willing to attend public lectures, concerts, and even —three times a month—a debate. Tickets for football games, wrestling contests, chess tournaments, horse races, performances of trained seals and diving Venuses will be received with pleasure and positively used in every case. If the Knights of Columbus give an amateur rendering of “Seven Keys to Baldpate” the Drifter will be found in the front row; if the Ku Klux Klan stages a rally in Madison Square Garden the Drifter will not be among the eleven New Yorkers who will not attend. No, nothing will be refused henceforth—and yet—nothing? No! He will not, he positively will not, even at the risk of staying home en- tirely alone, attend the recital of a child pianist at Carnegie Hall. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Why the Negro Emigrates To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I have found your journal so impartial in the discus- sion of all questions appearing in its columns that I am im- pelled to ask you to permit me to discuss the exodus of the Negro from the South to the North, from a Negro’s point of view. Many prominent Negroes, and most Southern white men, are meeting in inter-racial confabs trying to work out a plan to stop the Negroes from leaving the South, and to keep them tied to the cotton fields at seventy-five cents a day, and to the lumber camps at a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a day, but in spite of these meetings, and the many tears being shed by their leaders and their good white friends, the Negroes are leaving by the thousands. The real friends of the Negro, who have no personal ax to grind, are glad to see him use his own judgment in trying to better the condition of himself and his family. He has struggled heroically in this section ever since his emancipation to make himself a man and a citizen, but today his chances for a fair deal are worse than at any other period of his history since the Civil War. What is the cause of these conditions? Nothing but prejudice and race hatred. He ac- cumulates property to have it burned when his white friends become offended with him, or to have to leave a when they find they cannot beat him out of it. We have watched the growth of prejudice, and the growing tendency to oppress the Negro and rob him of every privilege for years, but the wave of hatred well-nigh reached its climax at the end of the World War when our Southern friends had to

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Oct. 31, 1923] The Nation 491 see Negroes in the uniform of our country. The Negro became so contemptible in the eyes of the South that many hitherto good white citizens were afraid to be seen in friendly conversa- tion with a Negro. These are a few of the things that are causing the Negro to leave the South. He has learned that there are places where he can get decent wages for his labor; where his dollar is worth a hundred cents the same as anyone else’s dollar; where, not- withstanding race prejudice, he has the right to vote and take a part in the government under which he lives; where he has some consideration before the courts, and is not convicted and then leased to some big corporation to swell the revenue of the State; where he does not see in each morning’s paper in scare- crow headlines some crime committed by a “nigger,” a “black,” or a “Negress.” The principal cause of the exodus is the Negro’s determination to give the little black boys and girls a chance to prepare themselves for life’s battles. The schools in this section would not educate a Negro child in a hundred years. If you leave the cities you will find the schools for Negro children running three to five months, with absolutely no equipment. I began a three months’ term in a school where there are supposed to be approximately two hundred pupils, last week. The county superintendent told me that these people have not had a school before in four years and now he is giving them a three months’ term. I asked for equipment for the school and he gave me a register. I asked for a blackboard and a few desks, and he refused to give anything. We accepted the principalship of the school at a country site where the white citizens have a nice brick school building, and are preparing to erect a high-school building. The Negro school burned four years ago, the Board of Education collected the in- surance, and have been using it to run the white schools ever since. I succeeded in raising two thousand dollars to build a Negro school; we have the promise of fifteen hundred dollars from the Rosenwald Fund, and have been trying to get the Board of Education to put in two thousand dollars and build the school for six months, but thus far they have not done any- thing. This is not an isolated case. Free education for Negroes is a thing of the past in this section. Negroes are heavy tax- payers in this country, but they get no consideration. These are the things that are driving the Negroes out of the South. Monticello, Florida, September 18 C. F. CALL An American Sailor Speaks TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I am an American sailor traveling through Europe, looking for an American freighter to bring me back. I happened to be in Rome the day that the funeral of the Italian officers assassinated in Janina took place. I cannot de- scribe the splendor of it: there were dukes and princes and all kinds of nobles; a wonderful display of gold and decorations and all the magnificence of the military order. The best orators of the country eulogized the dead officers. They died for duty, martyrs to the cause of civilization; the whole world took notice of it and grieved for such a great loss, for a general was killed! Now, gentlemen, just about a week before the great funeral in Rome, another took place in the Island of Corfu. There were over twenty coffins. No princes or dukes to follow them; no guns to give them the last salute; no one to take care of the bereaved families. Very little did the outside world hear about it. No one took their case before the League of Nations, for they were merely human beings. I am referring to the victims of the Italian bombardment. Tomorrow there will be statues in Rome proclaiming to the world that those officers died while serving civilization and liberty. But who will care enough to put a wooden cross on the grave of those poor refugees? I doubt if any will, for they wore no gold on their shoulders nor crown upon their caps. Piraeus, Greece, September 28 J. DENNIS DRAKE That ‘‘American Dinner’’ TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your “Drifter” may have drifted through New Eng- land, but obviously he drifted through the hotels. We don’t eat hot bread at dinner. At supper—yes; and not even the South can match our johnny-cake, but we do not eat baking-powder biscuit at dinner. Burlington, Vermont, October 25 JONATHAN LEE Justice to Chicago TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Does the estimate of the character and significance of Chicago, embodied in the article on Illinois in The Nation for August 22, meet the elementary obligations of fairness and propriety? It rigidly suppresses recognition of every thing which to the intellectual and large-minded Chicagoan is a source of just pride; and grotesquely magnifies the relative place of every area of barbarism and materialism. There is not even mention of the University of Chicago nor of North- western University; nor of the generously endowed Newberry and Crerar libraries, the great Public Library, and the mag- nificent University Library which combine to make Chicago one of the great library centers of the country. The existence is ignored of any other newspaper than the Tribune, not even the News, whose book-review pages hold a foremost place among the literary sections of American newspapers. The Christian Century of Chicago is our ablest religious journal. Robert Collyer, David Swing, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and Frank Gunsaulus were among the great voices of the American pulpit. The miraculous White City, a revelation of intelligent public spirit and beauty on the grand scale, unexampled in America, belongs to 1893, only 30 years ago, but is not remembered. The wonderful Art Institute—for it is wonderful considering its youth—with its great art school is only the most conspicuous expression of Chicago’s care for beauty. The St. Gaudens’s Lincoln in Lincoln Park is the finest portrait statue in America. The wonderful Chicago park system is rapidly encircling the entire city, but no one learns it from this article; nor does one learn how the dismal, old railroad stations are being supplanted by spacious modern terminals of commanding beauty and con- venience; nor of the ambitious plans of Mr. Burnham and his associates, the most ambitious yet broached among American municipalities for the complete reconstruction of the city plan. The continuous support of grand opera, impossible in Boston and Philadelphia, is mentioned only with derogation. There is no notice of the great work of Jane Addams and Hull House, the most important and influential of all American social settle- ments, honored the world over; and so of a score of noble works to which a lover of humanity does not like to be compelled to refer. I am not a Chicagoan with wounded local patriotism. I am an American who loves fair play. Boston, September 25 Lucia AMES MEAD The Kuzbas Indictments To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit me to correct a possible misunderstanding of your paragraph in The Nation for October 10 dealing with the prosecution of the Kuzbas Organization Committee. You state that all but two of the series of indictments have been dis- missed. There were five indictments issued against each of the committee originally. All of these indictments against each individual have been dismissed, except in the case of P. Pascal Cosgrove. In his case the judge dismissed three cases and declined to dismiss two cases. As you say, we will be fortunate if we are able to bring the case of Mr. Cosgrove to trial. New York, October 11 THOMAS BARKER, For the Autonomous Industrial Colony Kuzbas

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The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3043 Books Understanding Mexico The Social Revolution in Mexico. By Edward Alsworth Ross. The Century Company. $1.75. President Obregon—A World Reformer. By E. J. Dillon. Small, Maynard and Company. $3. . The Mexican Nation—A History. By Herbert Ingram Priest- ley. The Macmillan Company. $4. SCORE of books about Mexico have been published in the A United States since the fall of Porfirio Diaz. Mr. Ross’s is the first to give a fair idea of the nature of the social changes that are transforming our southern neighbor. For one thing he chose the earliest opportunity to make such an estimate. He visited Mexico in the summer of 1922, two years after the acces- sion to the interim presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, when the revolution was showing some fulfilment. Mr. Ross rightly forestalls too searching criticism by confessing the limitations of his book: he spent just eleven weeks in Mexico, but was pre- pared by reading, by previous travel in South America, and by his experience as a sociologist and investigator. A remarkably graphic and faithful painting of the Mexican scene and its people is followed by chapters on politics, agrarian reform, the labor movement, the church, and education. The chapters on labor and land touch the quick of these essential elements in the Mexican revolution, penetrating the fog-banks of misconception and misrepresentation. “Small-bore business men,” he com- ments, “shriek that the Mexican labor movement is led by pup- pets on wires pulled by Moscow. The truth is that it is well- nigh as indigenous as the cactus or the maguey. It responds not to foreign impulsions but to the situations and needs of the Mexican working class.” And the land distribution he rightly calls “one of the biggest economic reforms of our time. ... When ... completed, it will take rank as one of the giant agrarian adjustments of history.” As far as it goes his diag- nosis of the “sickness of Mexico” is shrewd and discriminating. To those “who cackle ‘bolshevism’” he retorts, “what confronts us in Mexico is not dictatorship of the proletariat but our old disreputable friend Democracy.” The other chapters are less illuminating. Inevitably in so short a visit Mr. Ross had to depend on hearsay and second- hand information. And nowhere are there more undercurrents and cross-drifts than in Mexican politics. The chapter on the church would be strengthened by specific instances from the conflict between the clericals and the government. The weak- est essay in the kook is that on education. The entirely ex- plainable shortcomings of the present administration in this field loom to Mr. Ross out of proportion to its very considerable accomplishments. Had he visited the country a year later he might have written differently. As it is, not only this chapter but the book misses the spiritual renaissance, the ar- tistic revival, and the cultural reemergence which center about the extensive educational campaign of José Vasconcelos and the intensive labor in anthropology and education of Manuel Gamio. It is in this respect and its implications that Mr. Ross’s book is inadequate. To compensate for the brevity of his sojourn he had to fill in the picture around a series of preconceptions. The essence of the new Mexico cannot be wholly extracted thus. Mr. Ross’s subjectivity based on a vast experience in social phenomena apparently led him to miss those currents for which there is relatively little parallel or analogy today. Starting with a conviction of a proved racial inferiority as measured by a few American-made intelligence tests he forms his judg- ments in the terms and coinage of our own civilization. Noth- ing, he says, would so quickly clear away some of the country’s false valuations and ideals “as a large immigration of bona- fide American farmers.” Doubtless. And it is current among many Americans in Mexico that what the country needs is “to be dipped in the sea for half an hour,” and among Spaniards that “Mexico’s one misfortune is that Cortez didn’t exterminate the natives the way you people did your Indians.” And else where Mr. Ross asserts: “Since Mexico is an undeveloped country in need of a continuous inflow of foreign capital, the flirting with policies which alarm foreign capitalists is eco- nomically suicidal.” But is it? The quintessence of non-alarm for foreign capitalists was achieved by the Diaz Government. A regime which satisfies them 100 per cent will certainly be spiritually suicidal for the Mexican people and not economically beneficial in the long run. Yet despite its sketchiness, a few minor errors of fact, and an occasional contradiction Mr. Ross’s treatise is to date the best book on present-day Mexico in our language. The central figure in Mexican reconstruction is Alvaro Obre- gon. Mr. Dillon’s book is a biography which gives an unquali- fi dly sympathetic and uncritical estimate of the rise of this patriot, into which is necessarily woven not a little that is new and interesting to Americans about the tragic nine years’ strug- gle from which his country is beginning to emerge. ‘President Obregon—A World Reformer” concludes with some chapters on American imperialism which make the book in form some- what of a repetition of the writer’s previously published “Mex- ico on the Verge.” These chapters are accurate. They are related to Mexico’s problems, and the reiteration of these much-concealed facts is a service to the United States, where less is known about them than anywhere else on earth. Never- theless one cannot help wishing that Mr. Dillon’s past writings had given some evidence of opposition to his own country’s imperialism. The discriminating note which made “The Inside of the Peace Conference” so helpful in following European events of its time is lacking in his latest evaluation of progress south of the Rio Grande. This is a pity. His half-century’s study of world affairs coupled with his intimate acquaintance with Mexico would make his views if expressed without inhibi- ticn most valuable to the understanding of present-day Mexico. For real understanding historical perspective is essential— more so in the case of Mexico than of almost any other country. Mr. Priestley’s scholarly “The Mexican Nation—A History,” the product of profound research, gives us the clearest record yet published in this country. Its judgments are carefully ar- rived at and the disparate views of other historians impartially weighed. The history is essentially political. The reigns and accomplishments of each of the threescore Spanish viceroys are detailed as are those of the various presidents, some of whose terms lasted but a few days or hours. The relatively slighter emphasis on social developments becomes more noticeable in the chronicling of the last half century. Especially, in view of Mexico’s recent chaos, would more light on the factors that overthrew the Diaz regime seem desirable. As it is, one gathers that Diaz’s fall was due to his having outworn his popularity by overplaying the game of self-perpetuation in office. There is but the most casual mention of the cruelty and oppression which ultimately brought about the revolution of 1911 and the subsequent turmoil. Such episodes as the massacre of workers in the Rio Blanco textile mills, or the engulfment of Indian villages by the Porfirist land-grabbers are omitted. There is mention of the great prosperity brought about by modern indus- trialism but nothing of its abuses and of its special effects on the peculiar conditions it encountered in Mexico. One misses also references to the still considerable part played by the church after the reform laws of Juarez. The final chapters dealing with Mexico since Diaz’s fall appear to lack the authority and careful research that characterize the history up to that point and are presumably included to bring the book up to date rather than to express a final judgment. A second edi- tion in which the chapters dealing with Diaz and after are expanded to bring them into consonance with the questions that are agitating the third decade of the twentieth century will add considerably to the value of this otherwise excellent work. ERNEST GRUENING

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Oct. 31, 1923] How to Make Wages Go Up The Control of Wages. By Walton Hamilton and Stacy May. George H. Doran Company. (The Workers’ Bookshelf.) $1.50. OST economists think that wages are fixed by God, though they call it His natural law, or productivity, or something of that sort. Most business men, when they think about the question at all, think the same thing. Messrs. Hamilton and May, on the other hand, think that wages are fixed by men, and that men can raise them if they go about it intelligently. They think that the trade unions are likely to raise them very little by the methods hitherto followed, and they have written an extraordinarily suggestive little book for the express purpose of pointing out to the unions possible sources of future wage increases and possible methods of realizing such increases. This is a new sort of wage theory. Old-school economists will probably denounce it as no theory at all, but thoughtful work- ers are likely to declare it not only more interesting, but vastly more useful to them, than the older speculations. If the sober and godly excoriate the authors for their frank attempt to put tools (they can scarcely be called weapons) into the hands of the unions, the “ists” of all sorts are no less certain to damn them for their sturdy rejection of every scheme of salvation by formula. It is a hard job to think, and most people would rather denounce seventy times seven than to think once, not to speak of thinking all the time. The authors hold a highly dynamic wage theory. Denying the existence of a “rate of wages” or even of wage levels in the sense of determinate unchangeable standards, they maintain that every one of the myriad wage rates existing at any given time rests upon “many and varied pecuniary, industrial, and economic factors” of a changeable character. By taking thought for the morrow, workers through their organizations can con- tinuously and cumulatively raise wages, but such a result must be accomplished by intelligent understanding and conscious con- trol of the economic order. There are three possible sources of wage increase: (1) Money wages may be raised (a) through changes in distribution (trenching on interest, rents, or profits) ; (b) through technical improvements in production (better labor, management, or machinery); (c) through changes in the organization of industry. (2) The price of the goods and ser- vices that the laborer buys may be lowered. (3) The laborer’s free income (free services of all sorts performed by the indus- trial corporation or the state) may be increased. In the past, unions have tried chiefly to raise wages at the expense of other incomes, a narrow and relatively barren form of effort. The gains that are possible by the other four methods above sug- gested are vastly more important, and an intelligent unionism will address itself to seeing that they go to swell wages instead of being diverted to other uses. For in this lively theory there is no inexorable economic law that fatally allocates the fruit of new productive power to this or that “economic agent.” Men forever are in control, acting of course through the institutions they have developed, and there is no escape from the endless task of deciding who shall get what. All this, of course, is in the sharpest contradiction to abso- lute theories of all sorts, orthodox and heterodox alike. Con- ventional economic opinion, in conformity with ordinary busi- ness opinion, has always assumed that wages and the other shares in distribution are more or less inexorably determined by “economic laws” beyond human control. If the laborer there- fore asked what he could do about it, orthodox theory grimly replied: “Nothing, except limit your numbers” (in the days of the wage fund), or “except work and save” (in these more urbane modern days of productivity). Not so these cheerful theorists, who declare that economic laws are nothing more than the total workings of an institutional complex every one of whose elements is under human control: “Are your wages too low? Very well; what are you going to do about it? You can do this and this and this, with the probability of such and such The Nation 498 results, but only if you know enough and act intelligently enough.” Truly this is a rattling of the dry bones in the deso- late valley of economic theory. Though this is essentially a book of economic theory, its whole purpose is directly and eminently practical—which is to say that it has the first requisite of good theory. Offering no panacea, it is yet full of suggestions, not only of what to do, but of how to do it. One of the most interesting, both theoreti- cally and practically, is the proposal for the “liquidation of ownership” by the device of buying out investments at their market value with a series of annuities running half a century. The plan is so simple and practicable that of course it will not be adopted; we greatly prefer to pay interest charges forever. Probably a no less unhappy fate awaits this whole stirring ap- peal to the workers to take control of wages. Yet even a har- dened economist cannot forbear wishing the book a happier destiny. HENRY RAyMOND Mussry By One of the Marchers Marching On. By Ray Strachey. Harcourt, Brace and Com- pany. $2. I HAVE been asked to review Ray Strachey’s “Marching On” as one who was born in the midst of two of the great reform movements, anti-slavery and women’s rights, which provide the unusual setting for this novel. The author declares that for the first part of her story, which is a vivid portrayal of the misery that always accompanies pioneer life, especially for women, she is indebted to the famous suffragist, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. It is quite natural, therefore, that the second part of this most interesting historical novel should be devoted largely to the question of the right of women to higher educa- tion, followed, as a matter of course, by a plea for women’s human right to the ballot. This section of the book seems to me to be less forcible in the presentation of its theme because for some reason the author chose to use a fictitious name for one of the Grimké sisters (Sarah and Angelina). It was the latter, not Sarah, who was married. These remarkable women really started the ball of the suffrage movement. When in 1837 the churches refused to allow them to speak from their pulpits on the horrors of slavery, their audiences having over- flowed the limits of drawing-rooms, they appealed to the leader of the Abolitionists to be allowed to speak on the burning ques- tion of slavery on the same platform with men. He gladly wel- comed them and gave them the desired opportunity, losing many of his small number of adherents in consequence. When remonstrances came he said: “I owe a greater duty to the women who are half the human race than I do to the slaves who are happily only a small portion of it, and I must be true to both.” Mrs. Strachey’s delineation, admirable as it is, of the hard- ships undergone by the pioneer suffrage lecturers, for whom the door had been opened by the Abolition movement, does not begin to express what those women actually had to endure. The novel gives in the main a true picture of some of the prominent Abolitionists, among them Frederick Douglass, whose imposing stature and oratorical gifts helped mightily to obtain freedom for his colored brothers and sisters. Mrs. Strachey also fittingly represents the impassioned eloquence of the former slave, Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Stowe’s “Lybian Sibyl,” and recounts the story of an anti-slavery meeting at which Frederick Douglass was giving way to despair when she dis- pelled the gloom that was settling over the meeting by asking in thrilling tones, “Frederick, is God dead?” I became absolutely absorbed in the third part of the story which is devoted to “Bleeding Kansas” and the great conflict raging on its soil between the opponents of the extension of slavery and the Southerners who were determined to secure a safe foothold for the slave system. How this truthful narra- tive of that extraordinary character, John Brown, may affect

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494 present-day readers I know not, but to one who lived through that period it is perhaps the most exciting part of the book. As a non-resistant firmly convinced that human life should be held sacred and inviolable under all circumstances, I could have wished that the spiritual power of John Brown, disarmed and in prison, a martyr to his convictions, at last realizing the futility and the wickedness of shedding human blood for any cause whatever, could have been the climax of the story. FANNY GARRISON VILLARD Louise Bogan Body of This Death. Poems. By Louise Bogan. McBride and Company. $1.50. T is impossible to say what these twenty-seven poems are, and it would be difficult to say what they are like. The temptation is to speak of them only in images, for they are not susceptible to paraphrase; they take effect directly upon the imagination. One thing about them, however, seems plainly, prosaically sure. The thirty pages which they cover are packed as tightly with pure poetry as any thirty pages have been for a generation. The poet would be rare at any time who could achieve so much concentration and so unquestionably sustain it. Practically every one of these bare, stricken lines is sug- gestive of riches; the words dig deep, bringing up odors of earth and life that will live a long time in the memory. There is no rhetoric—hardly a phrase could be reduced by a word—but there is the sheer eloquence of passion; there is no tunefulness, but there is music “from music’s root,’ “a fine noise of riven things.” Under a diversity of forms Miss Bogan has expressed herself with an almost awful singleness. Again, however, it is impos- sible to say what it is she has said; again one must resort to an image—or to her images. One can be certain that experi- ence of some ultimate sort is behind this writing, that something has been gone through with entirely and intensely, leaving the desolation of a field swept once for all by fire. But the desola- tion is not vacancy or lassitude. The charred grass is brilliantly black, and the scarred ground is fascinating in its deformity. There still is life, hidden and bitterly urgent. Robert M. “T burned my life, that I might find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone, Ecstasy come to breath alone. I broke my life, to seek relief From the flarved light of love and grief. “With mounting beat the utter fire Charred existence and desire. It died low, ceased its sudden thresh. I had found unmysterious flesh— Not the mind’s avid substance—still Passionate beyond the will.” This poem alone would establish Miss Bogan’s excellence in her art. There are twenty-six others, all of which ought to be read. There is A Tale, for instance, which says all that can be said on the subject of mutability, and says it in strains of music at once ancient and weirdly new. There is Medusa, with its perfect rendering of a world suddenly frozen: “This is a dead scene forever now. Nothing will ever stir. The end will never brighten it more than this, Nor the rain blur. “The water will always fall, and will not fall, And the tipped bell make no sound. The grass will always be growing for hay Deep on the ground. The Nation ’ with the man [the libéré]. [Vol. 117, No. 3043 “And I shall stand here like a shadow Under the great balanced day, My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind, And does not drift away.” : And there is Fifteenth Farewell, one portion of which pierces with quick genius exactly to the center of an important idea: “T erred, when I thought loneliness the wide Scent of mown grass over forsaken fields, Or any shadow isolation yields. Loneliness was the heart within your side. Your thought, beyond my touch, was tilted air Ringed with as many borders as the wind. How could I judge you gentle or unkind When all bright flying space was in your care?” Miss Bogan has spoken always with intensity and intelligent skill; she has not always spoken clearly. Now and then her poetry comes too immediately from a personal source to mean very much to others. Nevertheless, this first volume places her near the lead of those poets today—Anna Wickham, Charlotte Mew, Genevieve Taggard, and others—who are pas- sionately exploring the endless, narrow paths of woman’s (and man’s) experience. It is absolutely individual, yet it reaches toward the race. It may be a classic. MARK VAN DOREN Paradox Isles of Illusion. Letters from the South Sea. Edited by Bohun Lynch. Small, Maynard and Company. $3. Se an undergraduate outfit of Stevenson romance and Beardsley fantasy but with his stout English heart girded by the triple brass of insular prejudice, the anonymous writer of these letters from the New Hebrides went into a plague-stricken, volcanic, cannibal-infested bush to pit himself against his fate. He loved adventure, of course. “Why weren’t you here yesterday? I have had such fun,” he writes, describing the zeal with which he punished some natives for shooting an “absinthe-drinking libéré.” “We burned their village, cut down their ‘God-tree,’ and then found their gardens and uprooted and stole all their yams. That means that they will starve during the winter. ...I feel no sympathy at all He sells the niggers grog and Win- chesters and then wonders that he gets shot.” In the matter of race “Asterisk” is very sound. “I simply point blank refuse to sit at table with half-castes or niggers. Even at where the ‘boss’ is married to a Kanaka, I persist, and in consequence Madame feeds in the kitchen. . . .” Why bother with him or his book, you ask at this stage. Be- cause in addition to giving us shrewdly intelligent first-hand information, candor of this sort, if more often indulged, would soon destroy whatever rags and tatters are left of the White Man’s Burden myth. Far more important, the book contains a great portrait. For eight years its subject defied disease, appalling loneliness, madness itself, in his effort to win through to a comprehension of things, being in search not so much of the illusively desirable South Sea Island as of his own soul.. And in the end he finds the two together. The same man who chortled over the notion of making na- tives starve repeatedly risked his life to save one of the children of a distant white neighbor. He loved his own half-caste son more tenderly than he had ever loved anything before, yet re- linquished the child. His sacrifices to his code are as heroic as ironical. Although he suffers from the celibacy incurred by the break-up of his menage he feels that he might “fall utterly,” . go back to savagery like other complacent breeders of half- castes if he were to take another “Topsy” to himself, and he is “no Don Juan” who can go in for temporary affairs. In spite of his callousness toward things and people shut off from him by his prejudices he is keenly sensitive to those within the charmed circle of his sympathies. Of the Tahitians he says:

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Oct. 31, 1923] “Their stock of separate words to express the soul, its attri- putes, after-death conditions, night fears, joys and sorrows is perfectly bewildering. Then the number of separate words for describing wind, sunset, states of the sea, and other pleasant South Sea matters bespeaks a people who must have been artists in quite a Greek way...” And gradually many of the prejudices are burned out of him. Here is material for an epic of the beef-eating, globe-circling Englishman, half-Caliban, half-Ariel. ALICE BEAL PARSONS ‘VYour Own Personal View’’ The Art Spirit. By Robert Henri. $2. HE sweepings of an artist’s mind, like those of the United States mint, may yield a modicum of precious substance, if they be sifted and reduced. The unparalleled fecundity and range of Leonardo Da Vinci’s thought amply justify the publi- cation of his notebooks in full. But Robert Henri’s ideas, though vital, have no such scope, and the valuable discussions contained in this hodge-podge of students’ notes, occasional articles, and letters could be given to the public in compara- tively few pages. No one can quarrel with Robert Henri for not himself undertaking the task of reducing to order this repe- titious mass of material. His energies are magnificently em- ployed elsewhere. It is unfortunate, however, that his whole- some and liberating ideas should be lost to the general public for lack of an intelligent secretary. These ideas are not new, but many of them are something better; they are true, important, and neglected. They unite in an unucual and salutary way the independence of the seces- sionist with the academician’s respect for the past. They are expressed with vigor and cogency rather than with authority, for Robert Henri, unlike most successful innovators, wishes his students not to follow in his footsteps but to explore paths of their own choosing. Even in the early steps of the acquire- ment of a technique the student is urged to express himself rather than to copy even his model, to have “courage to go on developing this ability to see in nature the thing which charms you, and to express just that as fully and completely as you J. B. Lippincott Company. can. Just that. Nothing else. Not to do as any other artist does. Nor to be afraid that you may do as any other artist does.” Except in its emphasis upon the complete autonomy of the individual the book can hardly be said to have a point of view. But in this lies its chief interest and the proof of the artist’s sincerity in urging his students to “blunder ahead with your own personal view.” Most of what Mr. Henri says has a wisdom applicable far beyond its immediate reference; for example, “You will never get form till you want it. And wanting to want it is not want- ing it,” or, “It will not do to have your fine thought yesterday, and paint your picture today.” Upon nearly every page occur brief revealing phrases upon which anyone might well meditate; “the tremendous activity of a boy sitting still”; “All nature has power of response”; and the wonderful description of Velasquez’s dwarfs contained in the phrase, “the groping of a puzzled heart.” CLARA M. SMERTENKO Books in Brief Untrodden Ways. Adventures on English Coasts, Heaths, and Marshes, and also among the Works of Hudson, Crabbe, and Other Country Writers. By H. J. Massingham. E. P. Dutton and Company. $4. Able and devoted essays, with entirely too little of that unaf- fected nobility which Mr. Massingham, who is always conscious of writing well, admires in Hudson. The essay on Crabbe’s observation of bird and field is particularly acute and valuable. The Nation 495 Feet of Clay. By Margaretta Tuttle. pany. $2. If this novel had appeared in the spring, one would dispose of it in a paragraph by suggesting its eminent fitness for vacation reading. Now, with a long—and possibly hard—winter in pros- pect, it can only be recommended to those who demand that their fiction shall be lighter than their blankets regardless of the season. Out of the Past. pany. $1.50. This volume comprises a series of footnotes to history, con- cerned with some of the minor figures of history who have been “agin the government.” The author gives a graphic and well- digested account of various episodes related to modern revolu- tionary movements, fitting them into their proper niche in his- torical perspective. More Lives Than One. $2. Miss Wells is a shrewd master of plot, and understands the value of a liberal injection of humor in the most feverish of mystery tales. She assumes that the average reader knows only what he is told, and she is careful not to get in advance of his mental processes. Thus it happens that “More Lives Than One” is a satisfying—but never a stimulating—story. Americanism: A World Menace. By W. T. Colyer. The Labour Publishing Company, Ltd. 6/-. This is a thorough indictment, designed to take all the starch out of the stiff bosom of American patriotism. It examines our institutions in logical order, and measures the exact hiatus be- tween the ideals which are supposed to animate them and the methods which actually control them. The book would be a more devastating arraignment if one did not suspect that the same discrepancy exists between the ideals and the methods of other nations, which are—by that token—minor menaces of the same sort. Little, Brown and Com- By R. W. Postgate. Houghton Mifflin Com- By Carolyn Wells. Boni and Liveright. Drama Importations .... forces in our theater are fast becoming Ameri- canizing agencies of a subtle but powerful kind. I shall not be accused of a lack of fondness for the great drama of the Continent. But in our immediate situation there is something false, there is something meretricious, there is something that will make us look foolish if we do not keep our judgment steady. At the Frolic Theater a fashionable audience—an audience with occasional ropes of pearls—had gathered reverently to see the Grand Guignol players straight from Paris. Straight from Paris! (May I say that I have a reasonable acquaintance with the French language and that not a word of the well-enunciated lines escaped me?) A very praiseworthy, an almost reveren- tial expectancy pervaded the audience. One rarely sees that hereabouts. The curtain rose and the players performed four one-act plays: “Sur le Banc,” “Au Rat Mort,’ “Une Nuit au Bouge,” “Le Court Circuit.” The scenery and the lighting effects had been brought from Paris, too. Straight from Paris. I knew that at once because I know that such scenery and such lighting no longer exist in the reputable American theater. You cannot buy it; I doubt whether you can rent it even from storehouses. That, I gladly admit, is a minor matter. I have seen great plays worthily presented amid bits of second-hand furniture and old-fashioned side-wings trying hard to make six pasteboard trees look like a mysterious garden. In itself that is less than nothing. But the acting of the Parisian players. It isn’t bad; it isn’t even bad. It is of a deadly and conventional mediocrity. You know exactly what everybody is going to do at every moment; it is of the theater, indeed—of a theater untouched by the traditions of a certain Antoine who was a Parisian too. Neither Antoine nor Brahm nor Stanislavsky have lived as far as this theater

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496 The Nation *

is concerned. Thus, undoubtedly, unless some exotic person of genius happened to be around, they acted in the days of the sainted Sardou. They are still at it. The plays, granting their semi-popular character, are not good plays. They are not nearly as good as the better one- acters presented here years ago by the Washington Square Players or the Provincetown Players. They are not nearly so intelligent; they are not nearly so well wrought. Their ingenu- ity belongs to an uningenious age. The ghastly practical joke in “Une Nuit au Bouge,” for instance, is drawn out quite beyond endurance; it is blunted and killed by mere length and deadly iteration. One felt like saying: ‘Yes, yes, we know; we see what you are trying to do; we passed any possibility of thrill ten minutes ago. Go on and get done.” Similarly “Sur le Banc” is dreadfully obvious. Of course the old gentleman told just such an anecdote; of course the little shop-girl determined to remain “sage.” Of course, of course. A little Dumas fils, a little Sardou, both drained of the vitality and timeliness of their day and character. . . . I am sure the Selwyns meant well. Mr. Gest brings great things from Europe. Why not do like- wise? Excellent. But they should at least have insisted on the Guitrys coming in person. New York is the second theatrical city in the world. If Berlin is engulfed by civil war it will soon be the first. These players and their plays are not good enough. It was pleasant to see the Neighborhood Playhouse reopen. Has one spent more truly agreeable hours in any theater? But here too, the foreign fallacy has made itself felt. Undoubtedly M. Boleslavsky is an artist and undoubtedly sketchiness and briefness of rehearsal are glaring faults of the American thea- [ Vol. 117, No. 83048 ter. But either I am obtuse where I have every predisposition to be enthusiastic or I have seen equally good if not indeed better ensemble acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse itself, at the Garrick, in isolated productions up and down Broadway, and at the Jewish Art Theater. And I am quite aware of the charming talent of Joanna Roos, Albert Carrol, Pamela Gay- thorne, Aline MacMahon, John F. Roche, and others. Of the two plays presented, the first, William Butler Yeats’s “The Player Queen,” is imaginative, beautifully written at moments of course, but not a little obscure. It is terribly over- written and therefore terribly dull. The fallacy of “artiness,” of the self-approbation that proceeds from the conviction of liking the right and beautiful and subtle and ultimate thing may warm the bosom of the Playhouse’s audiences. Mine re- mained cold. Life and art are both difficult enough. To be so bored is the last indignity. The second play is Shaw’s “The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet,” not one of his very great things. The roughness in this production was forced and conscious. Mr. Campbell as Blanco was inarticulate at many moments, The grouping and gestures of the women were admirable. It was both instructive and delightful to watch Miss Roos. But during the whole performance I thought, somehow, of Gilbert Emery’s “Tarnish,” of the fact that I could have gone, on this evening, to see a new American play by Maxwell Anderson, that I had deliberately come here instead, and that daily and almost hourly I am becoming more devoted, in the theater and out, to those aspects of life and art that a Middle Western friend of mine used to sum up in the inelegant but telling words —brass tacks. LUDWIG LEWISOHN

= |

The Theatre Guild presents JOHN GALSWORTHY’S COMEDY WINDOWS GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 35th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday

THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Eves. 8:30. COMEDY Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children 2 Moen WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST, The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS. FI S K BE in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO West 44th Street. Evs. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan Henry Hull Theatre i : EB , . RITZ West 48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. at nine THE PLAYHOUSE W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 Matinees: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.” mond, N. ¥. Tribune. “eae teen

LECTURES AND AMUSEMENTS |

HENRY G. ALSBERG will speak on “The Trend of Radical Thought in Europe” Sunday, November 4th, 8 P. M. Open Forum The Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th St., N. Y.

Courses beginning Nov. 9, 7.30 and 8.40 P.M...Scott Nearing “Interpretation of Social Facts” “Dynamic Sociology” RAND SCHOGL Nov: 9)..7.30 32 Mie eae Nellie 8. Nearing “Woman and Social Progress” PAs eee Margaret Daniels “Child Psychology”

466 Grand Street | Neighborhood Playhouse Tel. Drydock 7516 Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:30. Matinee Saturday at 2:30. BERNARD SHAW’S “Blanco Posnet” W: B. YEATS’ “The Player Queen”

YIDDISH ART THEATRE = 27th Street and ; Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Friday evening, Saturday and Monday through Thursday evenings. Sunday Matinees and evenings 66 5 “SABBATI ZEVI” The Seven Who W ere Hanged’ ATOP NEW AMSTERDAM THEATRE, WEST 42nd ST. FROLIC THEATRE MONDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 15th THE SELWYNS Announce First American Appearance of THE GRAND GUIGNOL Pp L A ¥ E R Guignol Theatre, Paris COMPLETE CHANGE OF BILL EA

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International Relations Section Indians in Kenya HE position of Indians in the protectorate of Kenya, on the east coast of Africa, is being discussed wher- ever Indian nationalism makes itself heard. Opposition to the recent settlement of the question has become a fixed part of the Indian nationalist program and may well have important bearings on the political future of India itself. We print below enough of the documentary history of the Indian colonization and of the recent struggle for political equality to explain the sensational resolution of the Indian National Congress, meeting at Delhi September 15-17, which declared in favor of a boycott of all British goods and stated that India could no longer honorably remain a part of the British Empire. Several of the documents in- cluded come from the Oriental Research Library in Wash- ington, D. C., through the courtesy of Mr. Taraknath Das. THE BACKGROUND OF THE STRUGGLE A memorandum submitted to Parliament on July 23, 1928, gives a summary of the history of the Kenya ques- tion, from which we take the following passages: The history of the position of Indians in Kenya up to the end of the late war may be summarized briefly. There have been Indian merchants established along the East African Coast for a long time, and, with the opening up of Uganda and Kenya, and particularly with the development of British administration in those countries during the last thirty-eight years, Indian traders have penetrated into the interior. Many Indian arti- sans and laborers employed on the construction of the Uganda Railway remained to engage in commerce, and at the beginning of the present century the number of Indians in Kenya was greatly increased by the arrival of artisans, clerks, and small traders. There is a limited- number also of professional men and traders on a large scale who have come from India to the Colony. The agricultural Indian is, however, almost unknown in Kenya. It was the question of the ownership of land in the Highlands which first brought Indian and European interests into conflict. The Highlands, less the area in that region reserved for Afri- cans, amount to about one-tenth of the total area of the Colony and Protectorate, and they are in climate unique in the great belt of Tropical African possessions of the Crown. There were a few European settlers from about 1897, but the encourage- ment of their immigration into the country as a matter of policy may be dated from 1902. From that time the influx of Euro- pean settlers increased steadily. The policy of the reservation of the Highlands for Europeans was definitely laid down by the Earl of Elgin, when Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1908. At that time the unofficial element on the Legislative Council was entirely nominated, and in 1909 the experiment was tried of adding an Indian nominated member. This experiment did not prove entirely satisfactory, and the appointment was not “renewed when the term of office of the Indian concerned came to an end. In 1913, a distinguished sanitation expert, Professor (now Sir William) Simpson, furnished a report on sanitary matters in Kenya, in which he advoested strongly a system of racial segregation, both in the residential and in the commercial areas of the large towns. His views were accented, and when the time came for applying them after the war, this question of segregation formed one of the main points at issue between the European and the Indian communities. At the end of the war it was decided to give effect to the long- standing desire of the European community for representation on the Legislative Council by means of elected members. The grant of elective institutions was approved by Viscount Milner in 1919 and took effect at the beginning of 1920. The number of European elected unofficial members of the Council was fixed at eleven, but provision was made for maintaining an official ma- jority in the Council. In 1918, the report of a local Economic Commission of Inquiry into post-war development was published. This contained dis- paraging references to the Indians then in Kenya, and advo- cated strict control of future immigration from India. Although the passages in question were repudiated by Lord Milner as not representing the view either of His Majesty’s Government or himself, the report undoubtedly added to the feeling of bitter- ness among the Indians... . . .. The more general question of the position of Indians in the Empire came under discussion at the Imperial Conference of 1921. At the first meeting, the following resolution was adopted: The Conference, while reaffirming the resolution of the Imperial War Conference of 1918, that each community of the British Com- monwealth should enjoy complete control of the composition of its own population by means of restriction on immigration from any of the other communities, recognizes that there is an incongruity between the position of India as an equal member of the British Empire and the existence of disabilities upon British Indians law- fully domiciled in some other parts of the Empire. The Conference accordingly is of the opinion that, in the interests of the solidarity of the British Commonwealth, it is desirable that the rights of such Indians to citizenship should be recognized. The following observations were appended to the resolution: The representatives of South Africa regret their inability to ac- cept this resolution in view of the exceptional circumstances of the greater part of the Union. The representatives of India, while expressing their appreciation of the acceptance of the resolution recorded above, feel bound to place on record their profound concern at the position of Indians in South Africa, and their hope that by negotiation between the gov- ernments of India and of South Africa some way can be found, as soon as may be, to reach a more satisfactory position. THE TEXT OF THE SETTLEMENT The same memorandum then traces the course of the negotiations which followed the Imperial Conference of 1921 and prints the text of the Wood-Winterton report establishing an equal though qualified franchise for all “British subjects and British-protected persons” in Kenya. It also describes the general purpose of the British Govern- ment to protect against all infringements the rights of the African natives and states on the other hand that “His Majesty’s Government cannot but regard the grant of re- sponsible self-government as out of the question within any period of time which need now be taken into consideration.” The text of the final settlement is then printed and we publish below the most important sections: ... 4. Representation on the Legislative Council. (a) Elective System. In no responsible quarter is it sug- gested that the Indians in Kenya should not have elective repre- sentation upon the Legislative Council of the Colony. The point at issue is the method whereby such-elective representation should be secured. There are two alternative methods: (1) A common electoral roll. (2) Ccmmunal franchise... . Under the former system, Kenya would be divided up into a given number of constituencies, in each of which European and Indian voters on the roll would vote together at an election for candidates of either race, and the qualifications for admis- sion to the voters’ roll would be the same for Europeans and for Indians. Under the latter system, European and Indian constituencies would be demarcated independently, not neces- sarily coinciding in number or boundaries; the qualifications for admission to the voters’ roll would not necessarily be the same

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498 The Nation for the two communities; and while Europeans would vote in the European constituencies for European candidates, Indians would vote in the Indian constituencies for Indian candidates. (b) Qualifications for Voters. . . . Under the communal sys- tem His Majesty’s Government are prepared to grant to Indians a wide franchise. It will be a matter for the Governor of the Colony to ascertain the views of the Indian community and to submit the necessary legislation to give effect thereto. The same procedure will be followed in the case of the Arab com- munity. (c) Qualifications for Candidates. His Majesty’s Govern- ment are prepared to adopt a similar principle in regard to the qualifications for candidates, except that there must be a test which will insure that candidates have such a knowledge of the English language as will enable them to take their part in the proceedings of the Legislative Council. No system which would involve the use of two or more official languages in the Council will be contemplated; but His Majesty’s Government have no ground for supposing that the imposition of this necessary con- dition will create difficulties or limit unreasonably the choice of suitable candidates. (d) Numbers on Legislative Council. The question then remains of the number of seats on the Council to be allocated to each community. As matters stand, there are eleven elected unofficials (Europeans) on the Council, and as a provisional measure authority was given in 1921 for the substitution of four nominated Indian members for the two elected Indian mem- bers contemplated in Lord Milner’s dispatch of the 21st of May, 1920. After full consideration, His Majesty’s Government have decided that provision should be made for five elected Indian unofficial members on the Council; while for the Arabs, it has been decided that there shall be one elected member in addition to the nominated Arab official member for whom provision already exists. The Europeans will continue to return eleven elected representatives. The number of nominated official mem- bers will be fixed so as to maintain an official majority on the Council. ... . .. No articulate expression of opinion can be yet expected from the African tribes in Kenya, and the time has not come to consider what should be their representation on the Council. The educational development of individual natives will undoubt- edly precede the political education of the general body of na- tives; there are, indeed, signs of this already. ... 7. Segregation in Townships. The next matter for consid- eration is that of segregation of the European and non-Euro- pean races. ...It is now the view of the competent medi- cal authorities that, as a sanitation measure, segregation of Europeans and Asiatics is not absolutely essential for the pres- ervation of the health of the community; the rigid enforcement of sanitary, police, and building regulations, without any racial discrimination, by the Colonial and municipal authorities will suffice. ... They have therefore decided that the policy of segregation as between Europeans and Asiatics in the town- ships must be abandoned. : But for the present, at any rate, it is considered desirable, as in other native dependencies, to keep the residential quarters of natives, so far as may be practicable, separate from those of the immigrant races. . . 8. Reservation of Highlands... . After reviewing the history of this question and taking into consideration the facts that during the last fifteen years Euro- pean British subjects have been encouraged to develop the Highlands and that during that period settlers have taken up land in the Highlands on this understanding, His Majesty’s Government have decided that the existing practice must be maintained as regards both initial grants and transfers. An area of land in the Lowlands which can be set aside with- out infringing on native reserves and without conflicting with native requirements will be temporarily reserved in order that it may be ascertained by experience what demand there is for [Vol. 117, No. 3043 agricultural land on the part of Indians who will give suitable guaranties of their intention to develop the land themselves. After the expiration of a limited period, the reservation of this area in the Lowlands will be reconsidered in the light of experi- ence so gained... . 9. Immigration. . . . But the consideration which must gov- ern immigration policy in Kenya is purely economic, and strict regard must be paid to the interests of the African. When the question is reexamined from this standpoint, it is evident to His Majesty’s Government that some further control over immi- gration in the economic interests of the natives of Kenya is required.... In course of time, as the natives progress intellectually, they will no doubt take the place which Africans hold in other parts of British Tropical Africa in mechanical and subordinate cleri- cal work and in small trade, and it must be the aim of the British administration to further this development by all pos- sible means. With this object the Colonial Government must weigh, so far as may be practicable, the effect on native inter- ests of the admission to the Colony of would-be immigrants of any race.... 10. Conclusion. In conclusion, His Majesty’s Government desire to record that the decisions embodied in this memoran- dum have only been taken after an exhaustive review of the several complicating factors which have led to the present un- happy controversy. Their constant endeavor throughout their deliberations has been to relate the principles which must gov- ern the administration of a British Colony in Tropical Africa to the wider considerations of general Imperial policy as enun- ciated in the Resolution of the Imperial Conference of 1921. It is regretted that on certain material points it has not been possible to meet the wishes of the Government of India, whose views have received the fullest consideration from His Majesty’s Government at the instance of the Secretary of State for India. It is not to be expected that issues so grave can be composed to the immediate satisfaction of the several interests concerned, but His Majesty’s Government believe that the decisions now taken, resting as they do on the broad basis of the British trusteeship for the African, provide an equitable adjustment of those interests. It is the confident expectation of His Majesty’s Government, that if the whole matter is viewed in its true perspective, decisions so based will be accorded general acceptance, and it is their earnest hope that a sincere effort will be made to restore in Kenya that spirit of cooperation and good-will so essential to its welfare and development. HOW THE EUROPEANS FELT The anti-Indian sentiments of the Europeans in Kenya, led by Lord Delamere, are expressed in a violent resolution, adopted by the Kenya Convention of Associations on Feb- ruary 26, 1923, some time before the final settlement, when the liberal proposals of the Wood-Winterton report were still supposed to represent the official British position: That this Convention representing the entire European com- munity in. Kenya Colony solemnly affirms its unswerving loy- alty-to His Majesty the King and its determination to uphold his Empire. But in view of the proposals of His Majesty’s Government re- lating to the Indian franchise in Kenya, this Convention feels it to be its bounden duty to place on record that if in consequence of the ill-considered advice of His Majesty’s Ministers his loyal subjects should be forced into action prejudicial to His Majesty’s peace and abhorrent and ruinous to themselves, then the full responsibility for such a calamity must rest upon those advisers who, in their ignorance of or indifference to the true issues in- volved, shall have advised His Majesty to sanction a policy disastrous to the future of white colonization in Africa and to | the welfare of millions of His Majesty’s African subjects; and which this Convention believes to be calculated ultimately to endanger the integrity of the British Empire.

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Oct. 31, 1923] The Nation A PROTEST AND A THREAT The attitude of Indians in India toward the terms of the Kenya settlement is revealed in the resolutions which fol- low, adopted by a mass meeting in Bombay on September 11: I 1. Resolved that this public meeting of the citizens of Bombay under the joint auspices of (1) The Bombay Presidency Asso- ciation, (2) Indian Merchants Chamber and Bureau, (3) Brit- ish Indian Colonial Merchants Association, (4) Imperial Indian Citizenship Association, (5) National Home Rule League, (6) the Indian Progressive Association, and (7) the Bombay Pro- vincial Congress Committee places on record its unanimous and emphatic conviction that the decision of His Majesty’s Govern- ment on the Kenya question is, except on the point of residential and commercial segregation in the townships, in violation of the essential features of the pledges extended to the Indians from time to time by His Majesty’s Government and responsible min- isters of the Crown; and is, in the matter or restriction of In- dian immigration into Kenya, in violation of the rights of free immigration into East Africa of Indians long before the advent of British rule in Kenya; and is utterly subversive of the prin- ciples of equality within the British Commonwealth, and estab- lishes the dangerous and intolerable principle of white domina- tion. This meeting, therefore, demands an immediate reversal of the decision inasmuch as it constitutes a denial of the right of India to develop as an equal partner in the British Common- wealth. 2. That this meeting agrees with the view of the Indians in Kenya that the decision of His Majesty’s Government is unac- ceptable in most matters, and fully shares with them their grief and humiliation; and hereby declares its firm determination to support them in any legitimate steps that they feel called upon to take in vindication of their undoubted rights. II That this meeting regards the scant consideration to the rep- resentatives of the Government of India on the Kenya question shown by His Majesty’s Government as being due to its present subordinate character and declares its emphatic opinion that India will not be able to speak with the just authority due to it unless it is made fully responsible to the people of India and thus become the real mouthpiece of Indian sentiments and aspirations. III That, in order to bring home to the authorities in England and the Dominions, Colonies, and Protectorates of the Empire the feeling of indignation and resentment caused throughout India by the decision of His Majesty’s Government on the Kenya Indian question this public meeting is emphatically of opinion: 1. That Dr. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and H. H. the Maharaja of Alwar should enter an emphatic protest against the injustice of the Kenya decision in the Imperial Conference and should withdraw from it, except in the event of their being convinced of a definite chance of obtaining a reversal of the decision of His Majesty’s Government. 2. That India should not participate in the forthcoming Em- pire Exhibition and the Empire Economic Conference. 3. That in future all colonial non-Indians wishing to enter, reside, and serve in India be subjected to the same restrictions and disabilities prevailing against Indians in the country from which they come, including those relating to the right to trade and to hold properties and mining and navigation licenses in British India or in Indian States in alliance with His Majesty, or the right to vote under the present election rules. 4, That pending the abolition of all preferential rights still reserved for Europeans under the Criminal Procedure Code, these special rights in the case of colonials be immediately abro- gated. 5. That as a retaliatory measure the different political asso- ciations and business bodies calling this public meeting be re- quested to appoint a committee of experts to prepare a scheme of a complete boycott of goods made in all parts of the British Empire except India, showing from time to time which goods should be boycotted and the method and manner of their boycott, according to the condition and requirements of the country. A LIBERAL PROTEST Even the so-called Liberals of India who have been sup- porting the Indian Government are revolting against the Kenya settlement. The most prominent among them, the Right Honorable V. 8. Srinivas Sastri, contributed to Young India, in the issue of September 6, an article in which he said: ... Let us look at Kenya. We have gone there for some centuries now. The British Government came there only to safeguard our interests. Not only did we furnish the occa- sion but we exerted our influence to establish the British Pro- tectorate. The earliest British officers thought that the new territory could be a suitable outlet for the congested districts in India. Our coolie labor built the railway. In fact today not only railways but government offices are run by our clerical labor. The currency system was ours till it was supplanted recently to the ruin of Indian wealth. The Indian Penal Code was introduced; our armies fought on the soil of Kenya more than once to keep the Union Jack flying. We are the only peo- ple new that do anything to teach and train the native in the art of civilized life. Great numbers of Indians were born and bred there after many years during which we were invited, employed, and encouraged, to be now told at the bidding of a few narrow-minded whites that we are a danger to the native, that we are a moral and physical infection, and that our future immigration must be controlled and finally stopped. This is the refinement of ingratitude and tyranny, the thought of which still lacerates my heart though it has been my constant com- panion night and day during some months. It may not be pleas- ing to the Government but it is good for them to know that there is hardly an intelligent or patriotic Indian who does not consider the settlement as setting aside a long succession of righteous pledges in the direction of human brotherhood in favor of an unrighteous pledge made by incompetent authorities and in the face of earnest protests. The Kenya settlement is a grave national humiliation. It shakes the foundations of our public life. Party interests and party shibboleths seem now irrelevant as well as a heavy handi- cap. I am happy to believe that members of the Servants of India Society are unanimous in their desire, while remaining true to their Liberal creed and that of its founder, to cooperate with men and women of all parties in the country trying to get their grievous wrongs righted and in the speedy achievement of Swaraj, which is the sovereign need of the hour. THE INDIANS HIT Back The City Fathers of Madras, at a General Meeting of the Corporation held on August 27, adopted the following resolutions: That, in view of the unjust and humiliating treatment of His Majesty’s Indian subjects by the governments of the Do- minions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire, this Cor- poration resolves: 1. That, in future, no non-Indian born in those dominions or colonies be employed by this Corporation either as agent, contractor, or servant; 2. That, in future, no licenses, facilities, or concessions be granted to any non-Indian born in those dominions or colo- nies, including circus troupes, for any trade or other purpose; 3. That no insurance of the movable or immovable prop- erties of the Corporation be hereafter placed with insurance companies registered in those dominions or colonies; and 4. That the commissioner and the standing committees are hereby requested to give effect to the aforesaid resolutions with strictness.

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THE COMMUNIST VIEW The aspirations of both Indians and Europeans are viewed from the lofty heights of Communist detachment in an editorial printed in the Vanguard, the Central Organ of the Communist Party of India. The representatives of Indian capital and their creatures, the politicians of all complexions within and outside the Legis- lative Councils, are up in arms against the recent decisions of the British Cabinet regarding the status of the Indian settlers in Kenya. Sir Fazulbhouy Currimbhoy, the president of the Bombay Indian Merchants Chamber, threatens that “India will refuse to identify herself with the Empire hereafter.” Mr. Seshag iri Iyer, of the Indian Legislative Assembly, charac- terizes the action of the British Cabinet as a “tragic violation of solemn pledges” and gives a warning that India “will not observe her obligations of loyalty to the Empire.” Mr. Srinivas Sastri, generally a model of constitutionalism, predicts terrible things as a result of this flouting by the British bourgeoisie of the interests of the Indian mercantile colony, some 22,000 strong, in Kenya. The whole Kenya affair, over which bourgeois po- litical opinion in India is so much agitated, is a striking exam- ple of the developing competition of the English and Indian capitalists for the flesh-pots of the British Empire. Kenya is only one of such examples outside India. Within India itself, indigenous capital, in the hands of the Bombay financiers, is pledged to a rapid industrialization of India as a means to- ward a calculated encroachment, with the help of protective tariffs, on the monopoly of exploitation hitherto enjoyed by British capital, either from Lancashire or invested on the spot. The 22,000 Indian merchants settled in Kenya have suc- ceeded in acquiring vast vested interests, a fact much resented by the 10,000 English colonists there. There has arisen be- tween British and Indian capital a keen competition for the right to exploit the 2,500,000 native Africans in Kenya, as well as the natural resources of that colony. As political power is in the hands of the British, the Indian is handicapped in the expansion of his capitalist rights and privileges. The crown colony administration of Kenya, thoroughly alarmed at the audacity of Indian capital, sought to exclude Indians from adequate representation in the local legislative body, denies them the right to acquire land in the fertile and climatically - favorable highlands, and proposes to-enforce measures of segre- gation and immigration restriction on Indians which are ex- tremely derogatory to Indian rights and interests. In the re- sultant fight for political power and commercial expansion between the two rival sets of exploiters, the Indian Govern- ment, conscious cf the growing force of Indian public opinion on this question, constituted itself the champion of the Indian cause in Kenya, and made representations to the London Cabi- net to settle the questions in favor of Indian sentiment. But the British ministers in London have not been able to forget that the British Empire exists principally for the benefit of British capital. The questions at issue have been decided in favor of the British colonists. . . In this connection it is interesting to note that the Indian capitalist in Kenya has developed toward the exploited Afri- cans a mental attitude curiously similar to that of the British capitalist in India toward the exploited Indians. Mr. Jivan- jee, one of the richest Indian capitalists in Kenya, recently addressed a meeting of his compatriots in Berlin. He was shocked at the suggestion that such a thing as an African problem could exist in Kenya, apart from the question of di- viding the Kenya riches between the British and Indian inter- lopers. He could not admit that the interests of the two and a half million Africans, who preceded both the Indians and the English in the possession of Kenya and whose labor power applied to the fertile soil produces the wealth of the country, had any bearing on the question. ... Obviously, exploiters are of a class. There is little to choose between them, except the color of their skin. The Nation — [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Why Doesn’t Washington Recognize the Russian Government ? Do You Know— —That in March, 1918, the Soviet Government offered to resume fighting the Germans if we would furnish munitions and supplies and that our Government ig- nored the offer? —That originally the Red Army was aimed at the Ger- mans and that Allied officers helped organize it? —That the “Sisson Letters,’ which in 1918 caused the American public to execrate the Soviet leaders, are now acknowledged to be forgeries? —That our State Department has pigeonholed reports which, if given out, would have made impossible the poisoning of the American public with lies fabricated by Russian emigres? —That the Russian Division of our State Department has become a nest of persons connected by birth, mar- riage, or fellowship with the Russian aristocracy? —That the Yudenich drive on Petrograd was financed by selling the famished Esthonians at fancy prices food supplied by the American Relief Commission ? —That in Kolchak’s flight from Omsk sixty train-loads of “Whites,” mostly women and children, became stalled in the snow and froze to death? Read E. A. Ross’s ‘‘The Russian Soviet Republic”— —Read the most amazing true story of modern times— how the Allied Governments dealt with the first socialist government in history. The contrast between what the documents show and what the officials and newspapers have lead the public to believe is astounding. These damning facts are not drawn from Bolshevik sources but from documents and non-Bolshevik sources. —Professor Ross is not at all a socialist. He is an old- line economist who has never put faith in the economic experiment being tried in Russia, but he is determined to show up the deceit practiced upon his fellow countrymen. —He exposes the failure of the Bolshevik land policy and nationalization policy as impartially as he exposes the crookedness of Allied diplomats and statesmen. —He explodes the Bolshevik claims to have brought on the German Revolution as relentlessly as he explodes the 49 lies about Russia, given wide circulation in the Ameri- can press up to the end of 1919. “The Russian Soviet Republic” bas just been published by the Century Co., 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City. It is the third volume of Professor Ross’s trilogy on Russia. The first two volumes are “Russia in Upheaval” and the “Rus- sian Bolshevik Revolution.” Each is a full-sized octavo volume of between 300 and 400 pages, fully illustrated; and each is sold by booksellers or the publishers for $3.00.

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The Nation 1865 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1923 No. 3044 FOUNDED Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS. ........sseeceeetececer ec eeseen ec ceerccess 501 EDITORIALS: J Much Ado About Nothing.........----sssseeeeeerseerssesereereees ee International Missionaries........-+.sseeeeeeereereeerreeeeeeeseeees Boe The Personality of Ships.......eeeeeeeseerecrceeres er sererereercees one The Nation’s Poetry Prize......-- pasta sig Pia Ree LIN oie ditayeiexeisyare «id ~ RSE OF WORK. By Walter N. Polakov.......---++2e+e+eee0- CoE MANY'S DARKEST WEEK. By Oswald Garrison VELLA Teta stese to's h~ 507 THE NEW RUSSIAN WOMEN: I. The Working Woman. By Magdeleine EAI cc icleists mle (cil= sfatelesie (6 0 508 LENIN, AND THE PRIZE PIG. By Dorothy Brewster........--+++++> oe MISTER GOD. By Maxim Gorki......------:seserreeeeererees settee: * REUNION. By Edwin Arlington Robinson.....---+++s++s+serreereeres oe HE LAND OF LEISURE. By Max Eastman...... poet crete seen eneees RUSSIA'S ERA OF REVIVAL. By Isaiah J. Hoorgin.........-+--++++- aus IN THE HOUSE OF THE SUGAR KING. By Jessica Smith.........-. ae THE SOVIET PRESS. By L. Talmy......----s.seeereserrrsssscececee ot EUROPE IN WASHINGTON. By William Hard.........+-+-eeeeeeees oat AT NOON SATURDAY. By Clarence Nia EOS Cha ois lovatnta ters isuesee l= =hatiszekayevecn. = CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND THE ARMY INTELLIGENCE TESTS. By Edward A. Lincoln.....-...-seseeesee teers erscereccss IN THE DRIFTWAY. By “The Hiker”......---+-+-+esesrreerererees 524 CORRESPONDENCE ....--e- eee ee cere rece e reese erent cessce se res 524 BOOKS: Wasteland. By J. W. Krutch....... jee ene ceeeeseccenceeeeeccesesess 526 Modern Russia. By Walter W. Pettit......----+-+-seereerererecces 527 Letters of a Scientist. By Clara Millerd Smertenko...............-- 527 The Large View. By William MacDonald........--2seeseeeeeceeces 528 The Public-Health Nurse. By J. Rosslyn Earp.... 529 Tales Out of Russia. By D. B........ pete e se eees 529 Some Modern Essays. By Howard Irving Young. Beye 530 A Novel of the Nineties. By Mark Van Doren.......-..- 530 Books in Brief........2ccecvescereccccecccesaneccscnsserecenesscces 531 AMA: 5 Pe Oedipus Rex. By Ludwig TRE WVIRONT «fe cetitcs eivie eelele ls lalain cides'sls wleleieisiels'e 531 A CORRECTION........--:ecccreecccccer eter nce ecer ener eeeseneececes 532 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION : Workers’ Faculties. By Hannah Pickering’. . 6c. ccclcsss cow tecencces 533 Jews Under the Soviet Regime. By L. T........--++-seeeeeeeeeeees 533 The Russian Cooperatives......+--+.eeseeee crete ee eerereeeererccees 536 Communists in Saxony and Thuringia......-.--++++s+sseereeeeeeeee 538 eee OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpirTor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN ’ MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK Supscrietion Rates: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ergest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. NEW YORK journalist some six years ago wrote an excellent article for a popular weekly about a man named L. Trotzky, a revolutionary agitator who had sud- denly been whirled into prominence on the wings of the Bolshevist upheaval in Russia. The editor of the weekly refused the article, not, he explained, because of any social prejudice, but because the paper was printed in Spring- field, Ohio, and by the time the issue could come off the press Trotzky would quite certainly be dead or out of the news. Well, the popular weekly has been dead now for five years or more, and the editor has gone into advertising, but Trotzky—well, Trotzky, by the strange workings of fate, is at the head of the greatest army in Central Europe, a member of the strongest government on the continent, in the country that may well control the fate of the world. The editor of that ill-starred weekly may be allowed to stand as a symbol for the attitude of the greater part of the world in 1917. The Bolshevik Revolution was a flash in the pan, a revolutionary spasm. And then later, when it refused to subside, it became a disease to be segregated and stamped out. And now in 1923 on its sixth anniversary— what is bolshevism? Modified and molded by outside pres- sure and by the logic of events at home, it has become a method of government and industrial management, a developing system of life. Even the enemies of the Soviet system realize today that a vigorous, stubborn spirit has pulled the Russian people and their government through years of war and famine and that the present situation has in it elements of strength and growth to be found nowhere else in Europe. In a world that is sick with the diseases that breed from capitalist-imperialism, the virility of Russia may hold out the best hope for civilization. HEN Henry Ford grants the hungry newspapermen an audience and imparts his views on prohibition enforcement, concluding that he is “for Coolidge—strong— if he dries up the country,” it is a safe bet that there has been a change of gear in that non-political mind which Mr. Charles W. Wood so entertainingly described in a recent issue of Collier’s. Ford’s language about Muscle Shoals and his earnest yearning to relieve the farmer has always tuned in with the familiar political wave-lengths, and when he adds prohibition one ceases wondering whether Ford wants to be President. He does. Senator Samuel M. Ralston of Indiana, constantly mentioned as the ideal compromise candidate for the Democrats, is still coy. He will not admit that he is a candidate. Neither will William G. McAdoo, though McAdoo henchmen are very busy round- ing up the boys from Washington to Florida. On the other side of the fence there is President Coolidge. He still deprecates public talk of his candidacy. Somehow or other, though, we cannot avoid suspecting that the topic may have slipped out somewhere between the soup and the nuts the other day when Mr. Coolidge invited to lunch with him at the White House Messrs. Fred W. Upham, treasurer of the Republican National Committee; James H. Stanley, a Colorado millionaire; Frank W. Stearns, Mr. Coolidge’s Boston patron; E. T. Stotesbury, a partner in the House of Morgan; and William T. Wrigley, the chewing- gum king and trusted angel of past Republican campaigns. Or did they, perhaps, confine their conversation to the chicle market in Mexico? UCH as our two big political parties object to the in- jection of anything resembling a vital issue into an election, two questions of considerable import seem bound to get into next year’s campaign, both of which the old-line leaders would prefer to see in Hades. Practical politicians, for the most part, do not want to get mixed either with prohibition or the Ku Klux Klan, but events are running too strong for them. Governor Pinchot is exultantly shaking prohibition in the face of President Coolidge and shouting so that he can be heard from Harrisburg to the Grand Canyon: “What are you going to do about it?” At the same time both pro and anti-Klanists are fractious. Through Hiram W. Evans, Imperial Wizard, the Klan has officially read Negroes, Jews, and Greek and Roman Catholics out of American life as “three powerful and numerous elements

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502 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3044 that do now, and forever will, defy every fundamental re- quirement of assimilation.” In Texas the Klan is organiz- ing to beat the Underwood candidacy, while the Senator from Alabama, on his part, is attacking the Klan. In Texas, also, an anti-Klan group is planning to carry the fight against the Invisible Empire into the United States Senate by contesting the election of Earle B. Mayfield. Certainly next year’s election promises to be more interest- ing—if not more satisfying—than that of 1920. ARRY F. SINCLAIR is a man who knows his way H around in the world. ‘He is the owner cf the horse which beat the English Derby winner, and he is reputed to have made a barrelful of money out of oil. Hither one of these things is enough to establish Mr. Sinclair as a “reg’lar feller’ with the American public. But to us he has given a better proof of discernment: he contributed to the cam- paign funds of both the Republican and the Democratic parties last year; he has forgotten how much. Mr. Sinclair not only knows horseflesh and how to make money; he knows politics too. He realizes that Republicans and Demo- crats are the right and left wheels of one and the same axle, and as an expert in lubricants he has more sense than to grease one hub and leave the other dry. You never know which wheel is going to be on the smooth track and which in the rut. It pays to grease both; especially if you are an oil man with so much grease that you can forget in a year how much you put on. HEN Reichswehr troops, acting under orders from Berlin, took possession of the Saxon House of Par- liament and arrested the Saxon ministers, a chapter in Ger- man history that began with the November revolution of 1918 ended. Fritz Ebert, ex-saddler and nominal Socialist, remains the titular head of the German republic, but the new spirit that swept through Germany in the revolutionary days is dead when the Weimar Constitution can be so de- fied and the government of a federal state turned out of office simply because of its politics. Kaiser Wilhelm him- self would never have dared strike so mean a blow. Such arbitrary action at almost any time within the past five years would have called forth a general strike of the Ger- man workingmen, and the reactionaries, despite their mili- tary preponderance, would have been forced to yield to the economic strength of the working class. Today, with hun- dreds of thousands unemployed and mere existence almost a privilege, that strength is gone. The most significant thing about the Saxon coup d’etat is that the working class did nothing. It is not yet clear what dictated Stresemann’s action. He was once leader of the Saxon industrialists; perhaps his ruthlessness is a mere incident in industrial warfare. Or it may be that the Bavarians are pulling the strings, and that the ousting of the working-class ministers in Saxony is the price exacted by the Bavarian monarchists for their non-secession. ERE words are hardly adequate for comment-on the French proposal to lend one billion, eight hundred million francs—more than a hundred million dollars—to Rumania, Jugoslavia, and Poland for the purchase of war materials in France. Senator Berenger, in reporting the bill to the French Senate—it has already passed the Cham- ber—comments upon the money as a protection to “France’s military frontier, which is not only the Rhine but the Vistula and the Danube.” Napoleon’s dreams live again! At a time when France is constantly exhibiting her war wounds to the world, and pleading inability to pay for restoration, much less to pay her debts to her allies, there is a consummate indecency in this deliberate financing of the militarization of Europe. YRAM VAN TREZ—whoever he may be—writes to the New York Times: “With America a notorious and glorious fomenter of revolution in Panama, what license have we to crucify France for encouraging ‘separation’ in the Ruhr?” He recalls the Rooseveltian coup (“I did it,” the Colonel frankly said) which created the independent Republic of Panama and facilitated the digging of an American canal. There is a very real parallelism which most Americans will prefer to forget. The Nation may be permitted, in view of its clean record of protest against Roosevelt’s piracy twenty years ago, to say that the fact that piracy has existed in the past is no excuse for its repe- tition in the present. The French support of the Separat- ists, plainly reflected in the dispatches of the most sympa- thetic correspondents in the Rhineland, is even worse than Roosevelt’s crime of 1903. Roosevelt encouraged, and then supported, a petty revolution which the people of Panama were quite ready to carry through; the French have hired professional adventurers and bribed thin-spirited Germans in an attempt to establish a republic which the Rhine- landers almost unanimously detest. Let Americans, how- ever, take the parallel to heart. We do honestly abhor the present course of French and Italian policy; let us give it no new excuses. It was an Italian diplomat who remarked to an American observer at Geneva: “Why, what we did at Corfu was just what you did at Vera Cruz; why do you object?” We have no right to forget our own past or pres- ent; our marines still occupy Haiti. OW much more turbid world politics are today than a score of years ago may be judged from the hardly perceptible ripple caused by Mussolini’s spring-board dive into the Moroccan pool. When in 1905 the ex-Kaiser un- expectedly precipitated himself into Moroccan affairs by his famous visit to Tangier, he set the whole world by the ears. In the present seething state of Europe Mussolini’s insistence upon a voice in the British-Frenth-Spanish pow- wow to arrange a new government for Tangier is taken as a mere incident in the day’s news. The system of inter- national control set up in Morocco by the Treaty of Al- geciras in 1906 did not work, and was virtually superseded by the German-French and Spanish-French agreements of 1911 and 1912, respectively, which divided control—except as to Tangier and its environs—between France and Spain. But the Treaty of Algeciras is still nominally in existence, and as Italy was a signatory to it, that gives her a technical pretext to meddle in something which she ought to be thankful to be well out of. By the same right—the United States also signed the Treaty of Algeciras—Mr. Hughes sends a note saying that American economic interests must be protected. Morocco is a horrible example of an attempt by “civilized” nations to impose their rule on “barbarians” for the benefit of trade. For twenty years “Christian” armies have been “pacifying” with gunpowder and bayonets the ungrateful natives of Islam. Yet today we are still getting regular communiques of dead and wounded in the Spanish warfare on the Riff front.

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 503 HE New York Commercial does not understand why T The Nation objects to the course of Mr. Hughes in tying up the Department of State and the Federal judiciary with an American banking house’s loan to Salvador. “‘What, may we ask, is the United States Government for, if it is not to back up its own citizens in their dealings with for- eign governments or individuals?” this newspaper inquires blandiy. Well, we do not recall that as one of the purposes set forth in the preamble of the Constitution, and it sounds rather in conflict with the intention, say, to “establish jus- tice” or to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Still the Commercial undoubtedly expresses accurately the view of government held by a part of our business community. It does not sense equally well the opposing sentiment when it continues: “We rather imagine that if American interests in Salvador were in jeopardy and the Government of Salvador showed a disposition to default on its obligations to American citizens, The Nation would be the first to rise up and demand that the State Depart- ment take the matter up.” The Nation would not. On the contrary, we hold that American business must take its chances abroad, as it does at home, and that it is entitled to nothing from the Department of State except insistence that our citizens be granted the equal protection of the laws of other countries. Violation of this principle underlies our whole system of commercial imperialism. HEN we observe newspapers like the New York Com- mercial smilingly defending all the details of a loan like that to Salvador, we understand better some statements in the circular of the bankers in regard to prearranged publicity. In order to impress prospective investors with the excellence of the Salvador bonds the bankers promise “intelligent press propaganda, which will call attention in various ways to the safety and advantages of investing money in Central America, and also to the fact that the income of the customs house will be published weekly in the financial columns of American papers, the same as the earnings of railways, etc.” The bankers’ circular continues: The following item will appear regularly: “Custom-house receipts of Salvador for the week ended the 7th of the month were $ From the 1st of the year to date the total amount collected was $ , being times the amount necessary to pay interest and sinking fund on the bonds held in the U.S.” With our old-fashioned ideas of the freedom and _ inde- pendence of the American press we were at a loss to under- stand how the bankers could promise, in advance, that news- papers would print regular information about the Salvador loan and could even specify the wording in which the news would be presented. But we were forgetting the Com- mercial. Perhaps its pages contain the “intelligent press propaganda” referred to. Possibly in its columns we will find in due time the news of Salvador’s custom-house re- ceipts, as promised by the bankers. OTHING in all our war profiteering seems quite so callous as the graft, intrigue, and chicanery in the service specially organized to assist the broken and discour- aged victims of the European conflict. The inquiry of a special committee of the Senate into the Veterans’ Bureau has only begun, but details have already come to light which more than justify the complaints which The Nation has made against it. Colonel Charles R. Forbes, formerly director of the Veterans’ Bureau, has not at this writing been heard in his defense, but almost incredible charges of jobbery, fraud, and waste have been made against him by various witnesses. A builder’s agent told of one-third of the net profits on the construction of a group of Western hospitals going to Colonel Forbes, and another witness cited an architect’s fee of $64,000 paid for plans that were never used. America has spent money enough on her war wounded to have cared for them adequately, For the fiscal year 1922 alone the Veterans’ Bureau expended $467,000,000. Yet the wounded, the sick, the shell-shocked have been shamefully deceived and disillusioned. They have had to resort to political pull to get less than justice. For them the word patriotism must mean ghastly hypocrisy and greed. UR friend Mr. Christopher Morley suspects us of be- O ing pessimistic at times, but never have we uttered anything so gloomy as the prediction of two professors of Johns Hopkins University that by the year 2000 New York City will have a population of 29,000,000. We prophesy that it will have nothing of the kind, and as we shan’t be alive then to be confronted with our words—if wrong—we feel we can be as emphatic about our position as we like. These two worthy investigators have doubtless spent many weeks in arriving at the figures whose validity we deny offhand; only, like many other statisticians, their arith- metic is good but their assumptions are bad. Their esti- mate rests on the assurance that New York is going on for seventy-seven years at the same rate and in the same direc- tion as now—in other words, that it is not going to learn anything during the remainder of this century. We are more hopeful. We suspect that many people are already beginning to realize, however dimly, that the modern city is one of the monstrosities of an industrial age, and that as we approach a better economic system we shall also find a more rational, more human way of life UT while we refuse to believe in a city of 29,000,000 inhabitants, we sorrowfully concede the probability of another appalling estimate which has come to our notice. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that to file such publications on the World War as have a claim to preservation as source material for the historian would require 200 miles of book-shelves. We not only admit this may be true but we fear that some American collector will one day insist upon bringing them all to- gether in a single building. We don’t know just how the future is going to deal with that 200-mile book-shelf. Per- haps it may perfect standardized processes which can be applied to intellectual quantity production just as we now apply such means to the material world. In that case it would be possible to mobilize five thousand of our college youth to read one hundred days apiece at the 200-mile book-shelf, each sorting out by mathematical formula a few primary facts which would then be mechanically put to- gether in a 50,000-word one-volume outline of the World War, guaranteed by the United States Bureau of Standards to be free from prejudice or untruth. We should not, of course, read such an outline, but we should give it a place so prominent in our library that friends (who do not know us very well) would think we had. We should not read it because we doubt if this rarefied quintessence of the 200- mile book-shelf would give us any more light on the World War than two words—ignorance and selfishness.

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ee 504 The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3044 Much Ado About Nothing AREFUL study of Mr. Hughes’s much-touted aide- memoire concerning possible American participation in a European conference, and of M. Poincaré’s remarks explaining what is called his acceptance of the proposal force us to the reluctant conclusion that, as a matter of fact, Mr. Hughes did not propose anything and that M. Poincaré did not accept it. Colonel George Harvey, who had just resigned as American Ambassador in London, and Premier Jan Smuts, who, after all, holds his office in the Union of South Africa, which is a long way from the Rhine, made excellent and impressive speeches, suggesting that it would be desirable if something should happen. Lord Curzon and Mr. Hughes then made public an ex- change of notes in which they had indulged previous to the speeches, and the newspapers of the world, excited by the Smuts and Harvey speeches, proceeded to shout from the house-tops that the correspondence indicated that great things were about to happen. M. Poincaré then somewhat dramatically agreed to do what he had always been willing to do, and the newspapers humbly choralled Glory, Halle- lujah! It is worth while, however, turning aside from the newspaper racket to study the documents in the case. On October 12 Lord Curzon, stirred to optimism by an exaggerated report of what President Coolidge had said about Mr. Lloyd George’s appeal for action, informed the Government of the United States, with that pompous grav- ity which only a diplomat can maintain, that “There does not appear to be among the European Powers that unity of thought which either renders common action feasible or will be successful in finding an early solution.” This, even Lord Curzon may have suspected, had been observed by many Americans. He continued cautiously that “The co- operation of the United States Government is an essential condition of any real advance toward a settlement,” and “United action... is the common desideratum.” Then in a series of questions he suggested an immediate joint international inquiry. Secretary Hughes replied no less cautiously, somewhat limiting the vague field to which Lord Curzon seemed to invite him. He began by saying that he still believed, as he had believed last December, that Germany’s capacity to pay should be determined by a commission of experts. “Present conditions,” he said, “make it imperative that a suitable financial plan should be evolved to prevent eco- nomic disaster in Europe.” Therefore, “the Government of the United States is entirely willing to take part in an economic conference in which the European Allies chiefly concerned in German reparations participate, for the pur- pose of considering the questions of the capacity of Ger- many to make reparations payments and an appropriate final plan for securing such payments.” Such a confer- ence, he added; should be purely advisory and bind no government; and it must not touch the sacred cow of the Allied debts to America. Lord Curzon, then, seemed to suggest, though his note was perhaps intentionally ambiguous, a general conference of the Great Powers. Mr. Hughes simply reiterated his New Haven proposal as made in December, 1922. He pro- posed a conference of experts named by the governments. Poincaré did not accept even that. He graciously agreed to permit the Reparation Commission to do what it already had the power to do, and had done rather futilely once be- fore—convoke a commission of experts of various nation- alities, to be named by the Reparation Commission, on which the Franco-Belgian group now has a majority vote. The text of this so-called consent has not yet been published ; we must deduce it from Poincaré’s Sampigny speech, in which he specified first, that the experts must not be per- mitted to reduce the French reparation claim against Ger- many; second, that the inquiry must assume a continuing French occupation of the Ruhr; and third, that the experts must not demand new French concessions. In other words, M. Poincaré agreed to the formation of an expert commission on two conditions—first, that he have a veto power in its composition, and second, that it be pledged in advance to do nothing. We do not know why Mr. Hughes did not publish his cor- respondence with Lord Curzon when it occurred. His reply to Lord Curzon reached the public eleven days after it had been transmitted. It was in the intervening period that Mr. Harvey and General Smuts made their speeches. Colonel Harvey, it will be recalled, explained that “We are ready to come in, as the saying is, as soon as we are asked, but surely we cannot be expected to smash in the door.” It can hardly be said that Mr. Hughes did more than try the knob; he certainly did not put his shoulder to it and shove. And M. Poincaré did not do much more than peek through the letter-slot. In the light of this summary of the facts let us return to General Smuts’s speech: Drift will be fatal. Half-measures, palliatives, expedients such as politicians resort to when hard pressed, will no longer avail anything. . .. The time has come for the convocation of a great conference of the Powers who are mainly interested in the reparation question, and at this conference the govern- ments of the Powers should be directly represented. The situation is much too difficult and threatening to be dealt with by any subordinate authorities. Neither the Reparation Com- mission nor even the Council of the League of Nations should be called upon to deal with it. They have not the authority or the responsibility which rests on the governments of the Powers. It is a business for principals, not for agents. General Smuts was right. The sickening decay of Europe was accelerating in those ten days before Mr. Hughes made public his note; it is accelerating while palaver continues about the meaning of M. Poincaré’s conditions; men and women will be starving, and fighting each other in their hunger, while the experts are assembling, and more will die after the experts have reported, when the governments begin discussing the question in how far their purely advisory reports should be accepted. What General Smuts proposed is not being done—not at all. The French will stay in the Ruhr; the ruin will continue; the hullabaloo about the intervention of America has accomplished noth- ing. When it is all over we shall be asked to help feed the starving, and they will sorely need our help. Some day we may be able to take a more realistic part in the European mess. But editorial-writers and statesmen waste breath in talking of effective American cooperation until this country acquires a more unanimous conviction regarding the French crime in the Ruhr, and until we make up our minds to use the inter-Allied debts not merely as a stuffed club but as a bargaining-counter.

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 505 International Missionaries HEN, as Mr. Robson recently testified in The Nation, American college students still ask “Do most people in England wear monocles?” and “Is Czecho-Slovakia a province of Russia and is its capital Vladivostok?” one should welcome every effort to rift the thick fog of igno- rance which envelops foreign affairs. Yet one felt a certain reserve about last summer’s attempts to inform American youth upon European manners, morals, and problems. Columbia University’s list of summer lecturers, for in- stance, while it did not include the names of Bakhmetieff, Admiral Rogers, and the benevolent British imperialists who preached their gospels in Williamstown, inspired scant enthusiasm. The emissaries of Poincaré and Mussolini and their English colleagues among the educational mis- sionaries at Columbia were but exalted press agents, more interested in winning sympathy than in imparting knowl- edge. The thousands of young men and women who gath- ered for their courses learned less what makes up France and Italy and England than what serves as excuse for the questionable activities of those countries. In lecture-halls and in newspaper interviews the profes- sors substituted the stunts of war-time propaganda for academic instruction. Instead of explaining their people and their heroes, they dragged out far-fetched and insig- nificant national common denominators to serve as pleas for American favor; in place of interpretation of each nation’s peculiar contribution to universal culture and civ- ilization, they dusted off the catchwords and the popular prejudices that supplant rational thought. They defended Mussolini, Poincaré, and Curzon, rather than explained them. In all true friendliness we may point out that this is not the way to achieve international amity and understanding. The American people are growing wary of catchpenny de- vices and they may become impatient at betrayed oppor- tunities. It is nonsense to cry that the literary destiny of two great republics is one and inseparable because of the striking similarity in the coiffure of Whitman and Ver- laine, Poe and Prévost; one might as well announce that the ideals of Italy differ not a hair’s breadth from the aims of America because Grant and Garibaldi favored the same brand of Bourbon. What we wish to know and what we should be taught without diplomatic evasion by French, Italian, and British representatives is the temper of a race which will bleed its dearest veins and suffer its leaders to sharpen the knife again and again, which possesses the clearest and the most humanitarian thinkers in the world and yet undertakes one of the most sottish adventures in modern history; the nature of a people that reconciles the ideals of national sentiment and intellectual enthusiasm with jingoistic pride and insensate passion, of love of humanity and worship of democracy with cruel egoism and despotic demagogy, pay- ing equal homage to Dante and D’Annunzio, Mazzini and Mussolini; the character of a nation which is achieving at once peaceful industrial revolution and imperial aggran- dizement. Our international teachers should be men aware of their countries’ virtues, but also recognizing their weaknesses and fighting for their highest ideals. It is significant that a student organization rather than a great and endowed university should have sought men of this character. Such delegates came to America last year as members of the European Student Mission. At the invitation of the Na- tional Student Forum students from Holland, Germany, and Czecho-Slovakia visited some thirty American colleges and universities lecturing on the plight, the struggles, and the aspirations of their fellow-countrymen. Last summer a group of American students returned the visit, seeing what the Youth Movement was doing on the Continent and com- ing home ready to report on the hopes and ideals, not of governments but of the coming generation. There is to- day a constant interchange of students between Scandi- navian and American universities, and Latin American students are coming in increasing numbers to our colleges. Here are the true international missionaries. More than the statesmen and professors these unofficial ambassadors of good-will are helping establish international fraternity. May the good work, unspoiled by governmental guidance and official propaganda, spread. The Personality of Ships F all inanimate objects a ship is the most alive; of all things impersonal it is the most human. It is not, to be sure, the only inanimate object to which we attribute life and personality. A locomotive is commonly spoken of as “she,” although with not the same universality and convic- tion. Nor does a locomotive inspire an equal amount or degree of affection. Such a splendid piece of machinery does, of course, beget respect and fondness from those who handle it, but who can say that it engenders the affection that a sailor is accustomed to lavish on a ship, or the senti- ment that even the world at large is inclined to show toward almost any kind of a vessel? And our more recent inventions—who ascribes to them any personality at all? An electric dynamo is a scientific wonder, but does anybody refer to it as “she”? An auto- mobile is a marvel of mechanical perfection, but does it call forth a spark of affection? An automobile is not en- deared to its owner with the years; age and service give it no claim on his affections. A new car is the only one that can command even the respect of its owner, who has barely purchased one model before he begins to plan to junk it for another. The peculiar attitude which a sailor takes toward a ship is commented on by David W. Bone in “The Lookoutman”’: To him, a seaworthy vessel is quite unlike any other struc- ture fashioned by man. He sees her as a sentient creature with a decided personality; a spirited rover of wide seas, possessing qualities no less resourceful and adventurous than his own; a creature to be humored and admired (or perhaps forced and cursed) as her tricks and moods and tempers be- come revealed to him. For this belief, the circumstances of her birth are sufficient warrant. Conceived in the studious and creative mind of her designer, erected in patient exacti- tude by her builders, trimmed and riveted and fashioned into a complete and wonderful whole by the skill and craftsmanship of her artisans, she comes to the sea world with sponsors and guarantors enough. Surely, some intangible essence, some spirit of all these labors at her birth—the conceptive thought, skilled direction, the sweat and strain of toiling hammermen —must pass into her shapely hull as it grows upon the stocks. And when, at length, she is named and launched, and floats upon the river reach—a noble vessel, powerful, buoyant, in- spired by the stir and circumstance of her baptism—the cheer-

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enna? Gan 506 The Nation ing shipyard workers must feel that a part of themselves goes out abroad with this wonderful product of their hands. And yet do not the circumstances of her use, even more than those of her birth, give personality and character to a ship—inspire for her the tribute of human affection? A man is for long periods closer to a ship, more removed from other things, more dependent on her than is true of any other object. Is not this the cause of a sailor’s peculiar and intimate affection for a ship? And this may explain, too, why a ship must always be “she.” For even the liner, as Kipling says, is a lady. No matter how huge or powerful, a steamship is still feminine. No matter, either, what in- dividual name the vessel bears. The President Grant and the Giulio Cesare are as inflexibly “she” as the Bonnie Kate and the Flying Belle. Personal and feminine a ship is, and is probably destined to remain. So long, at least, as sailors survive. For a sailor is a simple and romantic soul—he would not go to sea otherwise—who despite mechanical progress in seafar- ing refuses to become an automaton. The modern steam- ship, it is said, has turned him from a skilled craftsman into a housemaid; and yet the net of skill, knowledge, and responsibility required of a ship’s company is greater than ever. Today, as always, a sailor is a mystic who must have a religion. He will quarrel with an individual woman, but he adores the sex. He will curse a specific vessel, but he worships ships. Ships are his gods—and they are all feminine deities. The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the - best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier that Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “Ror The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 3. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924. 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. [ Vol. 117, No. 3044 The Curse of Work By WALTER N. POLAKOV HARLES P. STEINMETZ is dead. The big heart in the ill-shaped body has ceased to pulsate. Work killed the brain. Such is the symbol and the last lesson taught us by this engineering genius of the age. “Work is a curse! The chief aim of society should be to abolish work.” Such was the slogan of the “wizard of Schenectady,” as the newspapers unfailingly called him, and it is indeed the aim of every engineer worthy of the title to reduce the drudgery of work, to relegate it to beasts and machines, and to emancipate man, placing him on the dignified level of a human being. Steinmetz was known and loved far beyond the bound- aries of this country. His name carried with it the im- plication of more than an “engineer.” He was a man— therein lay his greatness. Because he was a man, he could not fail to be a socialist, and latterly he freely contributed of the treasure of his knowledge to building up Russia and its promise. Because he was a man and socialist he worked as an engineer. He often stated that the aim of engineer- ing is to control the forces of nature for the well-being of — mankind. What are these “forces of nature’? Are they © limited to “non-human nature,” or do they embrace as well the forces of “human nature”? On this point Steinmetz never wavered. In interviews that were broadcasted across two conti- | nents he sharply defined the goal of success for the engi- neer—‘“to find out how human forces work.” “For only | then,” according to Steinmetz, “can we expect any great — human progress.” That is why he became such a warm supporter of Korzybski’s theory of man; that is why he was so persistent in his condemnation of a form of society © which “is organized about property instead of human life.” — His engineering work was clearly guided by this lucid | -vision of man liberated from the drudgery of daily toil. It | was the system that considered men as “factory hands” | that he indefatigably sought to discredit in the popular © mind. It was the ideal of man as time-binder, as a creator | of the wor!d of ideas, as a director of the incarnate forces — of nature which was the compass of his striving. | Mathematics and electricity were his tools. Mathe- — matics, because it is the only natural method of thinking © for mankind. It does not depend on fickle emotions and | deceiving senses; no potentate or dictator can legislate the laws of mathematics and nature out of human life. Elec- | tricity, because its immaterial field so subtly penetrates our | life, because its power is so serviceable to mankind, because | it replaces with ease the ponderous mass of old, clumsy — mechanical devices requiring so much human toil. With © these tools he hoped to see the work-day reduced to four | hours and to give to the man in the street and the man in the mill time to become truly human. Steinmetz’s achievements are many and mighty. Merely | to enumerate them would be beyond the limit of this brief tribute. It may safely be said that at least one-third of the practical attainments in this branch of engineering within the last twenty years was directly or indirectly due | to his researches or to his method of reckoning possibilities. A beast may leave to his children a will: “Do as I did.” A man like Steinmetz gives a command: “Do better.”

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Nov. 7, 1923] Germany’s Darkest Week (Special Radiogram to The Nation) By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Berlin, October 29 ATURDAY ended the blackest week in the history of Germany with the indefensible ultimatum from Berlin to Dresden which, having been rejected, will now lead to additional dangerous complications, quite possibly to the retirement of Stresemann. It seems impossible that the Social Democrats can stand for the ousting of the Saxon Government deter- mined on last night. It is now perfect- ly plain that the al- leged disorders in Saxony are the mer- est excuse to crush a Government de- voted to the republi- can ideal and really representing the proletariat of Sax- ony. It is just as if Coolidge had sent a general to command Oklahoma because he did not like Wal- ton and his asso- ciates. Whether the Saxon workers will submit without most dangerous manifes- tations is a question complicated by the presence of three hundred and fifty thousand Saxon unemployed. The general belief now is that Stresemann will eventually be succeeded by an extreme militarist dictator, which will probably precipitate civil war. Even now it is hard to believe that the Reds will quietly submit to the ousting of Zeigner, who has been moderate and by his influence has checked the violence of some of his Communist associates. Any action against him must be read in connection with the events in Bavaria which have become very threatening since the ultimatum ordering Bavaria to restore the Reichswehr. The Bavarians threaten to establish a new Reich government and believe themselves divinely appointed to purge Germany of all Jews and Socialists—having already expelled over two hundred Jews, some of long residence—and then to make war on France. It seems a curious time for Stresemann to be showering ultimatums on his countrymen when the Reich is collapsing and the Rhine provinces are lost—they are lost even before French recognition of that preposterous government of ad- venturers and traitors upheld by paid cutthroats which is everywhere rejected by the mass of the population. Already other disintegrating currents are noticeable. Strong in- fluences are at work in Saxony and Thuringia to take them from the Reich and join them to Czecho-Slovakia. Meanwhile the worst immediate feature of the situation The International Puzzle: Who Has the Ball? is the almost complete unemployment in the Ruhr where the starvation of millions is inevitable unless work is re- sumed, of which. there is no prospect today. America must save the innocent men, women, and children who are vic- tims of these terrible forces by sending food and money. The Quakers must come in immediately. The situation in the Ruhr alone would make this coming week blacker than the last. An American correspon- dent said the other day at Diisseldorf that he “would not know a catastrophe now if it came through the door; it has been scheduled and announced so often and has never materialized.” The truth is that the ca- tastrophe here has not come _ suddenly like the Japanese earthquake to hor- rify the world but has come gradually. Hence it cannot be realized in all its magnitude even by us in Berlin. But the collapse is now here and is no longer to be avoided. A small ray of hope came from the move by England and America to call a new conference, but the limitations on this by France devitalize it precisely as the life was taken out of the Genoa Conference. Even if the conference were to be free it is much too late to prevent starvation. Former optimists are now completely pessimistic and say anything may happen, but he is a fool who would prophesy one week ahead. There is no immediate danger of a Com- munist uprising. The Hamburg effort was abortive. If a Communist uprising should come it would be the signal for immediate aggressive action by Bavaria and reactionary East Prussia. The Russians here who supply the German Communists with arms, money, and leadership are not ready for a Communist uprising now. They prefer chaos and Right dictatorship for a while but realize that if French policy continues, together with the total collapse of Ger- many, Russia will herself be menaced by France. America’s duty is first to send food and aid to the perish- ing, next to arouse world opinion against France, the chief offender. As it looks now the German people are destined for suffering and civil war, and to lose millions by bloodshed and starvation. It is impossible to exaggerate the situation or to portray what may come. A large part may yet be averted if the Anglo-Saxons act.

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508 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3044 The New Russian Women™ By MAGDELEINE MARX I. The Working Woman HAVE often promised myself never to fall into the pre- tentious error of describing “the woman” of such or such a country. Nothing irritates me so much as the arbi- trary generalizations which reveal here a faultlessly attired doll passing as the “Frenchwoman”; there the ponderous, matronly, sentimental figure of the “German woman”; or as the authentic product of the British Isles, a blonde, mascu- line, itinerant creature; or the American woman, symbolized simply by a tennis racquet, a shower of diamonds, or a bil- lionaire husband. And yet... I am in Russia, land of the white bear, the reindeer, and the tiger, land of monstrous tropical flowers and Polar lichens, land of Arctic and Oriental peoples, infinite land. In the streets of Sebastopol I encounter exquisite girls with eyes of black enamel and slender ankles who resemble our own girls of southern France. On the shores of Batum I admire, against an Alpine-tropical background, perfect, bronzed bodies stretched naked in the sun. In the cool shadows of Tiflis bazaars are Georgian girls reminiscent of the princesses of the “Thousand and One Nights.” In Azerbeijan I find the furtive silhouettes of women in black charchaf. I come upon the savage descendant of the Kirghizes and the Tcherkesses, upon the Siberian peasant of the shy glance and Mongolian cheek, upon the lily-like girl of Archangel, of the thistle-blue eyes and hair too pale. The months go by. I live the daily life of the Soviet regime. And slowly I come to realize that I was mistaken; that what is superficial and false in other countries is true in this land where new social statutes, affecting the lives of all the women, give them access to full liberty, yield them new privileges and new obligations, give a new spirit to all of them. In the midst of this complete rearrangement of life, what has become of the working woman, the peasant, the intel- lectual who in her youth knew only prison walls? What does the princess think who, only a short time ago, under the triple rod of rank, etiquette, and husband, made Rus- sia the playground of her charms and caprices? To understand any of these classes of women, it is essen- tial to become familiar with the new marriage laws which now order the lives of the women in Soviet Russia. Before the revolution, the religious form of marriage alone existed in Russia. Today only civil marriage is legal. Nothing is more simple or more easy than the marriage formalities— a mere declaration of intention, a certificate of identity. The widest liberty is accorded to both: “If one party changes residence, the other is not obliged to follow.” “The act of marriage does not imply community of property be- tween the parties.” And definite security is accorded to both by the marriage act: “The needy husband or wife, that is, lacking in the minimum needs of subsistence, or the invalid husband or wife, has the right to demand the support of his or her part- ner, provided the latter is capable of giving assistance.” Regarding children: “The father and mother share * This is the first of a series of three articles on women in Soviet Russia. Succeeding articles will deal with The Intellectual and The Aristocrat. their rights over the offspring.” Who can forget the pages in which Gorki, telling of his childhood, describes the awe- stricken mother who helplessly had to watch the play of the knout which was lacerating the flesh of her unhappy child and see the blood spurt from under the whip plied by their drunken lord and master? If it is an easy matter to contract a legal marriage, it is just as easy to obtain freedom. The act of divorce, like that of marriage, is a simple formality. “Divorce can be based as well on the mutual consent of the couple as on the expressed wish of only one of the parties.” And since there are women who prefer to remain outside the pale of mar- riage entirely, the Soviet law takes pains to protect them in case of motherhood, making the father equally responsible for the care of the child. Such a unique atmosphere must lead to the development of a new type of womanhood. Knowing this, we may be able to find, not “the Russian woman” but something at least of the spirit and mentality revealed by the working woman, the peasant, the intellectual, as well as the woman of the old aristocracy and the new bourgeoisie. It is winter. Shod in the traditional valenki of coarse felt which, at a distance, gives them the clumsy, measured swing of plantigrades, wearing sheepskin with the fleece inside and rabbit-skin caps with long ear-flaps, two women are busily sweeping the court, the approach, and the door- way of the main building of the Goujon factory, an im- portant metal works in the suburbs of Moscow. They do not know the visitor who approaches, slipping clumsily on the icy pavement, and yet, from afar, they smile. Here I can safely generalize: this frank, cordial welcome is a characteristic of the women of the Russian masses. I visit the works—a gigantic cavern illuminated at regular intervals by great bursts of flame. After crossing a long shop in which the workers pass cubes of glowing iron from one machine to another with the swiftness and expertness of prestidigitators, I come to the women’s section. Though their work is infinitely less difficult, it is nevertheless trying and unhealthy. In a heavy, oil-soaked atmosphere, among machine belts, greasy lathes, and grimy window-panes, amid the incessant panting of machines, black and grimy them- selves, they file bolts and put the finishing touches to rivets and nails. I have scarcely been among them five minutes when a sudden silence falls. It is eleven o’clock and work has ceased for the luncheon hour. The score of women in this part of the shop rise slowly, each draws from a hidden drawer an oxidized iron goblet or a chipped cup and begins undoing a little package or an old basket. One spreads be- fore her a pickled herring, two huge slices of bread crammed with potatoes and a pickle; her neighbor lays out on her knee a feast of meat-balls, a piece of cheese, and a raw apple. ‘Would you like to take tea with us?” ventures a young girl in a black smock, who comes in carrying a pot of boiling water with which she skilfully fills the cups held out to her. Delighted, I sit down on a bench which seems to be thrust behind me from nowhere. They seem as pleased with me as] am with them. A crust of bread in one hand, a steam- ee See em weg

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 509 eget ing cup in the other, they have formed a circle, and, as my first words reveal my halting Russian and my frightful French accent, they break into laughter like a lot of chil- dren. I warn them that I want to question them. I pass over the question of employment. I know that the workers are exclusively engaged through the Workers’ Exchange by means of a collective or individual contract. But what are their work hours here? Eight hours, as everywhere: from eight o’clock in the morning to five in the afternoon, with an hour’s pause for lunch. Girls between the ages of sixteen and eighteen are obliged to work only six hours, but all are above that age in this shop. And how much do they earn? I am familiar with the collective principle which regulates the production of the Russian proletariat. In every class valuation commissions determine the amount of labor which each worker in each class must furnish daily. Those who produce below this de- termined amount receive a diminished wage. In general these wage standards are fixed by a commission composed of an equal number of workers and employers. One by one the women tell me their wages. Modified monthly by a scale established in advance and keeping pace as closely as possible with the fluctuation in the cost of living, their wages, calculated of course on the same scale for both men and women, vary from 120,000,000 to 160,- 000,000 rubles a month. It is little. At the current cost of living it is enough, but scarcely enough, to assure a liveli- hood. I turn to one of the women whom the others call Natacha, a beautiful woman with regular features but with a com- plexion spoiled by the lack of air and by fatigue. I ask if she has any children. “QO yes, I have three, besides a fourth from the Volga, which we adopted last year. Ah, if you had seen him when we took him! He is much better now and goes to school with our two elder children. The third is here in the nurs- ery. Would you like to see him?” We traverse the court, encumbered with rolls of iron wire, with rusted debris powdered with snow, and Natacha precedes me into the interior of a little house. We enter a warmly heated room. Some thirty babies sleep, chatter, or © squall in as many white little cots. “There, that’s my Petia!’’ And her extended arms indi- cate proudly a tawny little fellow who beats the air with his arms. “I bring him here in the morning, and twice during the day I come to nurse him.” “What are you doing here? This isn’t your time,” scolds a woman in a white smock who rushes out of a neighboring room, whence issues an odor of boiled milk and where one espies rows of nipples on shelves. Natacha, who has been arrested in the midst of her effort to raise the child from its cot, drops him gently, with a parting murmur of galoub- chik (little dove), and we hurry out of the room like two children caught at mischief. As we walk, Natacha tells me that she had nearly died in bearing her child but that she had been lucky enough to re- ceive excellent care. “Where?” “Where do you think? At the hospital, of course.” And she explains that during the last weeks of pregnancy, dur- ing confinement, and for three months after childbirth, all working women receive free care. When we reenter the shop, we find the young girl who had been pouring tea reading a newspaper aloud to the rest. “Our paper,” she explained proudly, showing me the title, “The Working Woman, a newspaper written by and for working women.” While slowly sipping the cup of tea into which an unseen hand had sliced small bits of apple to improve the taste, I listen to them as they sketch their simple lives. Natacha is not unhappy. She is married to a furnace worker who, laboring at night, earns 300,000,000 rubles.a month. They live nearby, in one of the brick barracks in the vicinity of the works. They have two rooms for the six of them, and in the evening, on returning from work, she sets the water boiling on the primus for the tea, with a bit of bread and cheese, and at times an egg, that constitutes their dinner, How can they buy the clothes they require? I have often enough visited the markets of Moscow, studied the shop- windows, and it seemed to me impossible for them to clothe themselves on the money they earned. All speaking at once, they explain that they get their clothes at the Cooperatives, where the price is... Natacha, whose voice dominates, tries to be scrupulously precise. “Let’s see, about half as dear? No, let’s say two- thirds of the prices obtaining in the market. And, besides, it’s easy,” she adds, smiling. ‘We simply don’t buy any clothes.” And I learn that the threadbare caftan which envelops her shoulders and which gives her the air of a female Cossack has behind it a history of fifteen years. And what do they do evenings, Sundays? Have they any distractions? “This evening I’m going to the Grand Theater,” gaily exclaims a young girl who, until then, had been silent. “I’m going to see the ‘Tales of Czar Saltan.’ I’ve never seen it, have you?” “Yes,” says Natacha, then turning to me: “You see, every month the union distributes a certain number of theater tickets, and you can guess what a scramble there is for them. And then there are excursions during the sum- mer, group visits to museums, lectures. But, above all, there are the evening courses where we all try to complete our education. You know, it didn’t amount to an awful lot before.” “But there are also those who do not seek distrac- tion, and who think only of propaganda,” interrupts a woman whose slim, ardent lines are lost in the folds of a khaki frock. I ask a question which has been burning on my lips but which I have forced back: What part do they take in poli- tics; what do they think, from a political point of view, of Russia today? There is amazement in the faces about me. “How can you ask such a question? Is it possible that there are foreigners who imagine any form of government other than the Soviets could exist for the Russian people?” This time it is an old woman who speaks, a woman whose yellow, corroded hands emerge, gesticulating, from an oil- spotted apron. “We don’t live like lords and ladies, that you can see, but at least we have the right to hold our heads up. But before! Look, you don’t know. We weren’t human beings. We were worse than cattle. Ah, I can see you don’t know how things were—before. Look, me, I couldn’t read and they taught me. Things about politics, they ex- plain them to us women now, and we understand. But I’m wrong to speak of myself. I don’t count. I’m too old. But I’ve three daughters. Marie, I haven’t seen her since last summer. She was getting thin, she was pale and always

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i ee 510 The Nation. exhausted. So they made her go to Petrograd, in the Yslands. Do you know the Islands?” Ostrovski, Kamenski, on the shore of the green Baltic, come back to my mind: the leafy islands where flitted the heroines of Pushkin, the sumptuous villas nestling in the foliage, transformed now into nurseries for the young or rest-homes for the workers. “If we still had the Czar, wouldn’t Marie be dead now? Now she’s working in Petrograd, in the pottery works, and she’s going to marry a young fellow in the navy. I have another daughter, Vera, appointed by the union to study at the Pokrovsky Institute. She wants to be a children’s doctor. Would all that have been possible—before? “It’s much more than just that. It’s a pity I can’t talk well, to make you understand. You see us all here, and you think that’s as it should be; for you it’s as though nothing has changed. Look, Moussia, recite your Prolet- cult. Listen, you must. That’s it. She'll tell you.” Shy and obstinate, Moussia amuses herself by making little bread pellets on the table, and it is from her comrades that I learn that she has already “made” a poem which is to be published. I beg her to recite, but in vain. If for the sake of the veracity of my account I feel it necessary to gather the truth from their lips, I am never- theless persuaded, after a thousand proofs, that the Rus- sian working women are devoted with all their souls to the present regime and that the majority of them are even savagely revolutionary. Before my eyes there passes the interminable pageant of working women on the fifth anniversary of the Soviet Re- public. I see them again, arm in arm, forming a wide stream of scarlet heads in Red Square. I hear their songs, their shouts. I see their faces gleam as they pass before the tribune where stands Trotzky. ... Several days before I had called on a working woman in the modest room which she occupies in the Kremlin. She holds an important position in the Communist Party and in the Syndicates. Austere, severe, leading the life of an ascetic, sleeping four hours a night, she is the perfect type of the working woman who has become a Communist leader. She is thirty years old, married to a militant much in the public eye. To the observer she is an alert girl who, having worked for twelve years in factories in New York, retains in her countenance and especially in her handclasp much of the American woman. Her words come back to me now as the logical conclusion to my visit in that shop. “You see,” she said, “from a material point of view, our working women lead a more dismal life perhaps than their French sisters. They are less well fed and certainly less well lodged and more poorly dressed than the American working woman. But what you must understand is that their present hardships represent an enormous advance over the utter poverty of the past. And from a spiritual point of view, as far as liberty and human dignity and faith in the future are concerned, it is as though a whole century had been skipped. “Besides,” she added, smiling and watching the drift of the smoke from her cigarette, “our country is the only one, at any rate, where feminism has no reason for existence. Though there may remain some things which time alone will achieve, there is one question which has been definitely realized—the liberation of woman.” [Vol. 117, No. 3044 Lenin, and the Prize Pig By DOROTHY BREWSTER Moscow, September 27 HE European Student Relief workers said that there was a little pavilion at the Agricultural Exposition where one could sit on Persian rugs and drink Turkish coffee. It was that prospect, not any interest in agricul- ture, that drew us out one afternoon to the grounds of the All-Russian Agricultural Exposition on the other side of the Moscow River. “Agricultural’ means much more than threshing machines and pigs. We discovered that long before we found the coffee—which turned out to be tea. It means Lenin, for one thing. No one can miss his por- trait just inside the gates: giant size, all worked out very cleverly with plants of different shades and colors. One soon becomes convinced in Russia that it is only a matter of time before there will be Lenin ikons. We followed signs directing us to “Lenin’s Corner.” This was a small build- ing devoted to a poster and cartoon history of the revolu- tionary and labor movement, before and after 1917. The earlier posters—pictures of strikes, evil factory conditions, massacres, punitive expeditions—made up a Chamber of Horrors that recalled Gorki’s ‘‘Mother” and Andreev’s “Seven Who Were Hanged.” Those of recent years recorded the fight against counter-revolution, the efforts to stimulate production and to educate the workers. Lenin was speak- ing from every wall in every room. We were glad to escape from Lenin into the attractive “Kustarni” building, filled with beautiful samples of all the peasant handicrafts of Russia: carved wooden utensils and fascinating little boxes, humorously painted toys and nested dolls, colorful embroideries, homespun linen, native costumes, laces and lacquered ware. They were suspicious of their guests here, for they took away at the door not only our brief cases, but even our little handbags. .° Still searching for the coffee, we found ourselves in a sort of village, with huts and cottages and outhouses. The first hut we entered was a dark, tiny, thatched den with a mud floor and bare plank beds—the peasant hut at its worst. The next was larger and lighter, with a separate apartment for the family cow or pig. Another was better still, with a plank floor, several windows, three rooms, and a stove really adequate to accommodate the family. A pleasant-faced peasant woman sat at her embroidery in one corner, under an ikon, with the little lamp burning. There were bright quilts and embroidered towels and other signs of relative prosperity. And so on through this poverty and progress exhibit, until we came to the model of what the peasant cottage should be, two-storied and spacious. This — last was just a dream of the future, if one may trust coun- | tryside impressions from a railway-coach window. A graceful, cream-colored stucco building, with lovely blue minarets, was evidently the home of the Turkestan display. The building was closed. But beyond, near the river, a crowd, and odors of roasting meat on the chilly air, — attracted us to a spacious shed. That Turkish coffee — couldn’t be far off. Inside were long boards on trestles, wooden benches, and charcoal braziers. Dark gentlemen, in brilliantly striped garments like bathrobes, with little embroidered caps on the backs of their heads, strung rings of meat on long sticks and held them sizzling over the fires. Others, powdered with flour, rolled out and molded dough

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Nov. 7, 1923] on rugs that covered the table. Why didn’t the dough stick? That question interested us more than whether the rugs ever saw a vacuum cleaner. Back in the shadows was a big pot-bellied furnace, with a hot fire on its floor. As the rolls were shaped, a half-naked cook skilfully shot them through the jaws of the monster against the inner walls of the furnace, where they stuck miraculously. When the in- side was completely tiled with the rolls, the baker shut the door, wiped off the sweat on his apron, ate a slice of water- melon, and chaffed the waiting crowd. Presently the tiles were perfectly browned and he picked them off with a poker. We took some across to the pavilion, where we squatted on carpets, drank tea from brass pots, and nibbled at dried apricots. They were the best rolls I had in Europe. I should like to import a company of these artists to set up a rival exhibit next to Childs Fifth Avenue pancake window. My Russian interpreter has a young sister studying at the University of Kazan to be an “agronome,” an agricul- tural expert. For her sake we started out one day to find the prize pig. We found nearly everything else first—tex- tiles, fish, leather, wine, furs, music. Re- sisting the temptation of strains of Tchaikovski coming from the big music pavilion, we went on to the exhibit of the Narkompros—the People’s Commis- sariat of Education. Here every graphic device of chart, map, diagram, poster, cartoon, and model is utilized to rouse the interest of the peasant visitor and to reach his intelligence. I liked the contrasting posters of the old life and the new, some tragic, many with a kind of sly humor, all vivid. The ragged chil- dren, the tumbledown cottages, the lean cattle, the poor crops, the vodka shops—all of this, my interpreter assured me, was not exaggerated in the pictures. A priest praying for rain versus peasants intelligently irrigating their fields is a sample of the “look upon this picture and on this” appeal, And I understood the big circular charts divided into sectors to show the proportion of crops harvested in successive years. One didn’t need to be literate to com- prehend them. The potatoes were there, for instance— little pink new ones, deftly stuck on the proper sector. Sec- tors of brown sand revealed the distressingly large areas uncultivated in recent famine years. Models of farm build- ings made a fascinating toy countryside. But I was so much less intelligent about all this than the most illiterate peasant that I left my interpreter to study them, and wan- dered about watching the peasants themselves. They all looked interested, these small groups of peasants, men and women, who were being taken about by efficient young Communist guides. I was told that some six thou- sand of them visit the exhibition every week. They are brought in relays from different sections of the country, at the expense of the government. A country school teacher who had accompanied a party from his own village described their trip. They had been joined by others en route, till they numbered nine hundred. When they arrived in Mos- cow, they were met by members of the trade union that was to entertain them during their stay. The entertainment World Unite” The New Seal of the Union of Socialist Scviet Republics The inscriptions on the wreath contain the words “Workers of the in six languages, Russian, Ukrainian, White Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Turkoman. The Nation 511 began with baths. Part of the program was a visit to the map factory where the hosts worked. This visit particu- larly impressed some of the peasants: they hadn’t really believed till then that city workmen “worked.” One saw these visiting peasants all over the city, as well as at the exhibition, In the large party of workers who occupied all of one gallery at the opening night of the opera, I noted many bearded peasant faces. And if expression counts for anything, they were thoroughly enjoying the fairy tale of the Snow Maiden. But we hadn’t yet found the pig. We turned toward the hillside, which looked more rural, and on our way visited the camels. Up on the hill among the trees was what looked like an Indian tepee, of bark, with smoke curling up through the opening at the apex. Fascinated Russian children and their mothers were peeping in at the Eskimo baby inside, with its mother and small brother. Nearby was a much larger tent, a hemisphere of skins and wood, very snugly put together —airproof, I should think. The shadowy interior, lighted with a lamp or two, was lined with bright carpets, rugs, and shawls; and squatting around a fire in the center was a solemn Bashkir or Kirg- hiz family—I forget which. But all these nomads with strange names, mem- bers of the Soviet Republic, were there in their appropriate dwellings on the hill. One began to understand why ‘‘Russian”’ has been taken out of the official title of the government: instead of “Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic” (R.S.F.S.R.), it is now “Union of Socialist Soviet Republics” (Union of 8.S.R.). When at last we came to the big barns where the animals were, it was five o’clock and cleaning-up time. There were few horses in the stalls. I wasn’t surprised at that, for the Quakers had told me that Russia was nearly ten million horses short. The horses on exhibition were taken away as soon as they were sold. But there were cows and bulls, many of them fine specimens. One huge, white, haughty bull weighed some incredible number of poods. “Krasota! A beauty!” exclaimed a bearded peasant. That bull looked like Zeus when he abducted Europa. And late as it was, there was an admiring throng around the biggest pig, which might have posed as the model for communist cartoons of the bloated bourgeoisie. “Well, what do you think of the exposition?” I asked my interpreter, who had been keenly observant but noncommit- tal. She was not prejudiced in favor of the present Govern- ment. The Bolsheviki had made her sweep the streets for months. They had threatened to put her baby in an insti- tution. They were now blocking her reentry into the uni- versity to complete her medical course. “A very good piece of work,” she replied, “even if the Bolos did do it.” As we passed Lenin’s portrait on our way out of the grounds, we caught one of those glimpses that make Mos- cow the most strangely fascinating of cities—the gold domes of the Cathedral of Our Savior and beyond them the cupolas and towers of the Kremlin, gleaming in the sunset. That, as a background for Lenin, was striking. But why did they turn Lenin’s face toward the setting sun?

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[Vol. 117, No. 3044 Mister God* By MAXIM GORKI T Sestrotsk, the famous watering-place, there was employed an old man, still handsome and strong de- spite his sixty years, by name Stepan Prokhorov. He would gaze strangely at people with his bulging, porcelain- like eyes, which sometimes sparkled with too bright and harsh a luster, but could smile warmly and grow very gentle. Prokhorov’s general attitude toward people gave rise to the impression that he considered himself more wise than any of them. He moved about cautiously and spoke in a quiet voice, as if everyone around him were asleep and he feared to disturb them. He went about his tasks sedately, indefatigably, and willingly; and when his work was done, he would not hesitate to do the work of his comrades. When one or another of the employees of the baths would ask him to assist in some task, Prokhorov, who was in general a man of few words, would reply slowly and reassuringly, “Very well, I’ll do it, brother. I'll do it. Don’t worry.” And he would perform the other man’s work, good-naturedly and without comment, as he might give alms to some good- for-nothing. He kept himself aloof from others, preferring to be alone; and I do not believe I ever saw him in his leisure moments chatting with his fellow-workers. His esteem among those who knew him was not clearly defined, but generally they appeared to consider him tolerantly as a well-disposed fool. When I inquired what manner of man Prokhorov was, they would answer, “So, so—an ordinary man.” Only the butler, after a little reflection, replied, “The old man is very proud, and he is awfully careful of his appearance.” I invited him, one evening, to join me at tea in my room. The room was large as a barn, with two Venetian windows looking out into the park. It was heated with steam. Every evening the pipes would hiss and rumble, and it would sound as if someone were asking in a stifled whisper, “Do you wish some fish?” At last the old man arrived, dressed very neatly and care- fully in a new pink shirt with a gray jacket and new boots. His broad, gray beard was combed straight, and his hair was plastered on his head with some oily paste which emitted a sharp, pungent odor. He drank his tea and red wine and ate his raspberry jelly very gravely, and spoke in a subdued voice, quite coherently and with unusual ease in expression. “You have observed correctly,” he said. “I am a good man. However, I was born and lived half my life with no love for people in general; and it was only when I lost my faith in Mister God that I became good. This was the re- sult of my persistent success in life. Success pursued me from the day of my birth. My father, a machinist of Mtsensk, said himself, ‘Stepanka was born for luck,’ be- cause on the day I was born he began to thrive, and opened a shop of his own. I was successful in all my childish sports, and study was to me as play. I never experienced illness, and no trouble ever touched me. “When I finished school, I immediately obtained a posi- * Translated by William A. Drake and Max Stetsky. tion with excellent people in a rich concern. My employers liked me, and the mistress would say to me, ‘Stepan, have a care for yourself; you have ability.’ And that was true: my capacities were so great that I surprised even myself. I cured horses of diseases, without understanding what it was that made them suffer. I could train the most unruly dog to walk on its hind legs—and this not by force, but through tenderness. “I was as successful with women. Any to whom I took a liking was certain to come to me. At twenty-six I was chief clerk, and I am sure I could eventually have become a director of the company. My friend Markevitch, who was like yourself a writer of books, would go into raptures over me and say, ‘Prokhorov is a true Russian, like Pur- sam.’ Who Pursam was, I do not know; but Markevitch was a stern judge of people, and his praise was not a mat- ter for jest. I was very pleased with myself, and everything was well with me. I had a little store saved up, and was contemplating marriage. I had even fixed upon a suitable young woman. Then suddenly, quite imperceptibly, I be- gan to become aware of the whole peril of life. “The most confounding questions began to arise insis- tently within me. Why was I successful in everything? Why was it only I? Such questions startled me at every turn, until I could not sleep. I would become weary in the middle of the day, like a horse after plowing, and would lie down with eyes wide open, asking myself, ‘Why am I successful? Of course, I have abilities; I say my prayers; I am not a fool; I am modest and sober. Nevertheless, there are so many people around me, so much better than I, yet fortune does not come their way.’ This much was perfectly clear. And I thought, ‘Lord, why do you permit such a condition of things? By these same tokens I lie like a cherry in sugar, and someone may presently eat me up.’ From such thoughts as these I could give myself no rest. I felt that in the very success which had thus far marked my life, there was hidden an uncanny something which was enticing me with dainties—to what did it en- tice me? “T asked in my heart, ‘Where, O Lord, art thou leading me?’ But Mister God was silent, silent. ... Then I de- termined to live dishonestly for a time, to see what might happen. I took 420 rubles from the vault, remembering that for the theft of more than three hundred rubles one is tried in the District Court. Very well, then, I stole. Naturally, the money was soon missed; and Philip Karlovitch, who was the kindest of men, conducted an inquiry. Nothing could be discovered. Then I contrived in such manner that no one but I could be suspected. I could see that Philip Karlovitch was agitated and in anguish. Why should I make a good man suffer? I asked myself. So I confessed to him that I had stolen the money. He did not believe me. ‘You are jesting,’ he shouted. Finally, however, I con- vinced him; and he told the mistress, who became fright- ened. “ ‘What has happened to you, Stepan?’ she demanded. ““Take me to court,’ I replied. “At this she became so angry that she flushed violently and plucked the trimming of her blouse until it tore. ‘To

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 513 court I will not take you,’ she cried, ‘but you are behaving so insolently that, as you yourself will realize .. .’ “T did realize, so I left the place. Then I went to Moscow, and from there I returned the money by mail, under another name.” “But why did you do it?” I asked the old man. because you wanted to experience suffering?” He raised his eyebrows incredulously and smiled into his beard. Then the smile vanished. “No. Why should I wish to suffer? I desire a quiet life. I was simply overcome with curiosity to know why I was successful. And perhaps it was caution that urged me; perhaps I did it to discover how definite my success really was. Then again, it was possibly only youth. So a man sports with his destiny. But it is not only sport. I had lived exceptionally; I was petted and fondled like a lap dog. On every side of me were people who moaned and complained, yet it seemed that I had been sentenced by Mister God to live a quiet life until the end of my days. Every one about me had all manner of trials, yet I had none, as if I had not merited the ordi- nary fate of man. That was all, I suppose. “Well, there I was, lying in a room in a Moscow hotel, thinking. Anyone else they would have dragged to court for one ruble, yet me they had left at liberty with four hundred rubles. It was somewhat comical. Here was luck! But no, I thought to myself; wait! I began to observe the people around me. The hotel was a filthy hole, and the peo- ple in it all of questionable appearance; they were actors, gamblers, and loose women. One of them pretended to be a cook; he proved, however, to be a professional burglar. T contrived an acquaintance with him, and asked him how he was making out. “ *So-so’, he replied. ‘Sometimes thick, sometimes thin. And at other times there is nothing doing at all.’ “We entered into conversation. ‘I am contemplating a little job,’ he said, ‘but I am in need of good instruments. These instruments are indispensable, but I have no money.’ “Was it “Ah, I thought, so that is what he is about! I asked him if he intended anyone’s life. He was offended. “What are you talking about?’ he exclaimed. ‘My head is too precious to me.’ “Well, I gave him the money for the instruments; but stipulated that, for my reward, he should allow me to ac- company him on the ‘job.’ At first he refused and endeav- ored to dissuade me; but in the end he took me with him. “I did not find his occupation to my liking. It appeared that we had gone to visit someone who was not at home. The door was opened by a dark-faced girl, whom appar- ently he knew. He trussed her up at once, hand and foot. Then he began searching the closets. He whistled as he worked. The thing was very simple. We left as we had come, without experiencing the slightest disturbance. The man left Moscow at once, but like a fool I remained. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘success still pursues me.’ The thing was amus- ing enough, yet it exasperated me. “A few days later, I went to the theater. As I took my seat in the balcony, I saw the dark-faced girl sitting a few Seats away. She was watching the stage, drying her eyes with a handkerchief. During the intermission I went over to her. “*Your face is familiar,’ I said. “She did not reply; but when I recalled to her the oc- casion of our first meeting, she begged me to speak more quietly. “‘What is troubling you, that you should weep?’ I asked her. “TT pity the prince so much,’ she replied. some prince was suffering. “After the performance, she went with me to a traktir, and from thence I took her to my room. Thereafter we lived together. She assumed that I also was a professional burglar, and asked me if I had no ‘business’ in view. I replied that I had not. “Very well,’ she replied, ‘I’ll introduce you to a few of my friends.’ She did so, and I found that even if they were thieves, they were excellent fellows. One of them especially, Kotza Bashmakov, was a strange prodigy of na- ture. He was a very child, so bright and jolly a soul was he. I became very fond of him. At length I confessed to him that I really was not in need, but had only become a thief out of curiosity. “““T, too,’ he replied, ‘became a thief because of too much happiness, There is so much that is good in the world, and it is so pleasant to live! Sometimes I wanted to go out into the streets, shouting, ‘Brothers, take me! I am a thief!’ ”’ “He was an amazingly merry fellow, but soon after I met him he broke his arm while jumping from a train, and went to the prairies to cure himself on kumiss. For ten months I frequented this company. There were ten of us in the group. We robbed houses and trains, and every day I expected something to chance amiss. But each adventure was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The leader of the company, Michail Petrovitch Borochov, who was an honor- able and sensible man, once remarked, ‘Ever since Stepan joined us, fortune has come our way.’ “These words abruptly recalled me from my new activity, and once more I became preoccupied with my inner self. ‘What shall I do next?’ I began asking myself. Should I commit murder? The thought entered my heart like a wound; there it remained, until it became corroding as an abscess. At night I would sit on the edge of my cot, with my hands on my knees, wondering. ‘Why is it, Lord God!’ I would cry. ‘Does it, then, not matter to you what I might think? Now I can contemplate murder without affection, and I could as simply consummate it. Why is that?” But Mister God was silent.” The old man sighed heavily and spread some jelly on his bread. “Yet you are a very proud man,” I remarked. Once more he raised his heavy, bushy brows and fixed his porcelain eyes upon mine. Now they seemed vacant and harshly bright. ‘No, not at all,” he answered, mean- while shielding with exquisite care his beard from the stains of the jelly. ‘No man has anything to make him proud, I take it.” And, deftly thrusting the small bits of the bread into his hairy mouth, he proceeded in the same quiet tone, as if he were talking to a total stranger, for whom he had no special liking: “And so Mister God was silent. About that time came an unusually tempting opportunity. We had effected an entrance into a summer house, and while we were ransacking it we suddenly heard out of the dark a sleepy, childish voice, crying, ‘Oh, uncle, is it you?’ “My companion leaped out onto the balcony, but I re- mained; and upon closer observation I saw someone movy- ing behind a door. I opened the door, and beheld a boy about twelve years of age, lying on a bed. He was scratch- ing his head, and I noticed that his hair was uncommonly In the scene

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514 The Nation long. ‘Uncle!’ he cried again. My hands and feet trembled as I looked at him. Here, I thought, was my opportunity. Go ahead, Stepan, go ahead! But I halted myself just in time. No, I protested to myself, I should not go so far as that! Perhaps it was your Mister God who tempted me to crime, even to the murder of a human being. No, no, it should not be. . . . This conjecture filled me with such a blind fury that I do not remember even how I left the house; but presently I found myself in the woods. I was sitting under a tree, and my companion was beside me, smoking a cigarette and swearing quietly. It was drizzling, and the woods were filled with tinkling whispers; and be- fore my eyes in the darkness I fancied I could see that de- fenseless boy, wholly in my power. One moment more, and there should be no boy! Well... “The hallucination consumed me with rage. I could not make peace with my wrath, and began to feel myself like an equally defenseless boy in the grip of my own fury. Just think of it, seriously—here we are sitting, and you do not know what I might do a moment from now, nor do I know what you might do. Suddenly, anything might hap- pen—for all sorts of thoughts pass through one’s head— suddenly, either you or I... “This mental defenselessness is very alluring. And, in general, who directs our consciousness? That is precisely it. In the morning I went directly into town to the magis- trate, Mr. Suyatuchine. ‘Arrest me, please, your honor,’ I said to him; ‘I am a thief.’ He proved to be an excep- tionally good barin, so affable, so thin, and only a little silly, as they all are. “ ‘Why,’ he remonstrated, ‘do you confess it? Have you quarreled with your companions over the booty?’ “T had no companions, I told him; I worked alone. Then, foolishly enough, I told him my whole history, as I am tell- ing it to you: about my odd predicament, and how cruelly Mister God had been sporting with me.” At this point I interrupted him. “But why, Stepan Illych,” I asked, “do you think it was God, and not the devil?” “There is no devil,” the old man explained, with confident assurance. “There is no devil. That is only an invention of the shrewd. People invented him to justify their fool- ishness, as well as for the greater benefit of Mister God, so that His reputation might not suffer. There are only God and man—nothing else. And all those characters who are supposed to be possessed of the devil, such as Cain and the Czar Ivan the Terrible, are likewise the inventions of the shrewd. They were invented that the sins and crimes of all mankind might be burdened in each age upon a single person. You may take my word for it. We rascals of men debase ourselves, and then we invent something worse than ever we can be.... “But let us come back to the magistrate. The walls of his room were adorned with pictures, and the whole atmos- phere of his home signified him to be a man of culture. His face was kindly. But a gentle face means nothing—under this sign much rotten goods are sold. While I was talking with him, someone was drumming away at a piano above my head, and it was very unpleasant to have to listen to this and to the magistrate’s empty chatter. Ekh, I thought, how confused everything was there! “I talked for a long time, and the magistrate listened to me as in church an old woman listens to the priest. He understood nothing. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you must be [Vol. 117, No. 3044 tried, but I can guarantee that you will be acquitted if you tell the jury all that you have told me. And it seems to me that you have before you, not prison, but a monastery.’ “IT was offended. ‘You have not understood,’ I exclaimed, ‘and I shall waste no more words with you!’ He sent me to the police station, and there the detectives busied them- selves with me. ‘We know,’ they said, ‘that you were not alone in the thefts in which you participated. Tell us who were your accomplices? Then come to us when you have been set free, and we will give you employment.’ “Naturally, I refused to betray my friends, and the police beat me for my obstinacy. Truly, I have suffered a little. Then I was put on trial—I found it very dull, and refused to speak to the judges. They were offended, so they com- mitted me to prison. In the prison I was confined among men who were like worms and beasts. I was appointed overseer. Ekh, I thought, this is bad, Mister God; this is very bad! Then I saw that, however man may live and whatever he may do, it is Mister God who orders his ex- istence. “As to prison, just as about a wart, there is nothing good to tell. When I was released I loitered here and there, looking around, and eventually I started to work in a cast-iron mill, but soon gave it up. It was too hot. Be- sides, I do not like cast iron and steel, or any other metal. From metals arise all the hardships of life—weight, dust, and all the forms of rust. Without metals, man would be simpler, and he would live more virtuously. “Thereafter I performed all kinds of labor, even descend- ing, I must confess, to the most menial services. Even- tually I came to work in the bath-house. And now it is seven- teen years that I have been bathing people and trying not to obtrude myself upon them. I have concluded that there is little wisdom in all our agitations, and none at all when one looks at life seriously. I live without God, and I am sorry for people because of their helplessness against Him. My life I find somewhat lonely. That is all.” Reunion By EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON By some derision of wild circumstance Not then our pleasure somehow to perceive, Last night we fell together to achieve A light eclipse of years. But the pale chance Of youth resumed was lost. Time gave a glance _At each of us, and there was no reprieve; And when there was at last a way to leave, Farewell was a foreseen extravagance. Tonight the west has yet a failing red, While silence whispers of all things not here; And round there where the fire was that is dead, Dusk-hidden tenants that are chairs appear. The same old stars will soon be overhead, But not so friendly and not quite so near.

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation The Land of Leisure By MAX EASTMAN Moscow, September 1 FTER a night in a comfortable hotel by the sea, we went back to Riga to secure our tickets to Moscow from the Russian embassy. The passport functionary here was almost magically friendly and gentle, and I think it was due in an indirect way to the unfriendliness of the same functionary in Berlin. He was one of those growling desk-dogs who seemed to think it his function, as repre- senting a proletarian government in a bourgeois country, to be as surly and unobliging as possible. He looked me over and decided that either the cut of my clothing or the indolence of my manner was essentially bourgeois—as in- deed without doubt they both are—and he told me that he did not have any authorization to admit me into Russia. I happened to know that the authorization was in his desk, but he showed no disposition to look for it. I do not know how long he might have found it necessary to demonstrate the class-struggle in the privacy of that office if I had not just happened to meet Chicherin as I was coming into the building, and he had not happened to remember me, and remember that I did a little work of translation for him in Genoa. I asked the passport functionary to telephone Chicherin while I waited, and the result was not only a passport, but a passport bearing the magical word byez- platno the literal translation of which is “without paying,” but which really seems to mean, as far as I can judge from its effects, “In spite of his manners and the bad cut of his clothes, this guy is all right.” We had to wait three hours while our railroad tickets were being “drawn up,” but when we got them we saw that they called for a stateroom in the “diplomatic wagon,” and for that we were very glad, because as the time drew near to be “herded in like animals” we were getting more and more anxious to be numbered among the blooded stock. I ought to explain that my use here of the word “‘we” does not imply the usual editorial duplicity. It refers to the in- valuable company of Albert Rhys Williams, a great creative genius who had invented a language that the Russians un- derstood almost as well as their own, although I never could see any similarity between the two. The train for Moscow was a terrible disappointment. I couldn’t find one single thing the matter with it. The cars are wider than railroad cars in America, and that is delightful. The second-class cars have no upholstery; the bunks are made of hard wood. And as there are two upper ones, the effect is like shelves. It is a little funny to see people arranged on shelves like dishes, but it is not either “filthy” or “congested.” There is certainly less “herding” done all over Russia in a week than there is in New York City in one afternoon. Our own cabin was a great big square room like a two- story tent, with a table between the beds, and an enormous space like a hay-mow upstairs—room there for all family pets and belongings. There was clean white bed-linen at a mild price, and a friendly young host in a workingman’s shirt who came in every once in a while to know if we wouldn’t like some tea. He had a campfire in a samovar at the other end of the car, and on the whole that journey from Riga to Moscow was more like camping out than _ time is worth about one-sixth as much. The absence of a uniform on this young man, traveling. and his easygoing and hospitable manners, had something to do with it—and then the big windows and the extraordi- nary amount of space. But I believe the sweet, benign, sedative influence of the abundance of time was also begin- ning to be felt. We were in Russia and among Russians. I have not calculated the exact variation of the time factor which occurs upon crossing the border into Russia, but I have made some observations which may be of help to future travelers. I think the ratio is somewhere in the vicinity of six to one. The annual convention of the Com- munist International lasted a month and eight days, and the longest political convention I ever heard of in the United States lasted not over a week. The wait between the acts in a Russian theater gives you time to go home and change the baby and come back again. In Russia it takes three minutes after you reach the window to buy a postage-stamp, the stamp being identified, sorted out, and carefully sev- ered from its fellow-stamps with a pair of scissors. It takes, under the most favorable circumstances, five minutes to buy a railroad ticket; no Russian thinks of coming to a train less than an hour in advance. The great mass of the passengers is there a half a day before the train starts, but this is due, I think, to another peculiarity of Russian time—namely, that it is not very accurately divided. The Russians do not pay much attention to the behavior of the planetary system. They each have their own time of day. This is sometimes very convenient. If for some reason you want it to be a certain time of day, you just go and hunt up a clock that tells that time of day, and it is. But ob- viously it is not convenient when it comes to catching trains. There the need for a certain social approximation is met among the general public by taking the household furniture and going and living for a while in the station. From all these facts I infer that there is about six times as much time in Russia as there is in our anxious land; If you know this simple astronomical and economic fact to begin with, it will save you a great deal of nervous anguish, and prevent many erroneous psychological judgments about the Russian peo- ple—particularly the judgment that they are lazy. They are not lazy, they are leisurely. In the house where I am staying now it takes five people a quarter of an hour, or one person an hour and a quarter, to prepare my breakfast of coffee and toast and eggs. But they are all busy all the time they are doing it. I do not begin to get mad until the proper interval according to Russian time is past, and thus I lead a very peaceful life and keep my digestion. There is a girl who comes in and cleans up my room. I never see her, as she comes after I have gone out, and goes away before I come back, but I communicate with her by leaving notes on the pillow. One day I asked her to take my soiled clothes to a laundry and have them done imme- diately as I was leaving town for a few days. That even- ing when I came back I found the laundry carefully put away in the drawer and a note on my pillow, saying that since I wanted it done immediately, she would inquire at the laundry how soon they could do it, and then let me know with a note the next morning, and then the morning after that, if her report was satisfactory, I could leave word for her to take the clothes to the laundry. It is a great mistake to confuse this attitude toward life with indolence. The Russian mind gears in differently with the motion of the planet.

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516 The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 8044 Russia’s Era of Revival By ISAIAH J. HOORGIN S there really an increase of prosperity in Russia now astounding capacity for sacrifice. At last these people can that the years of war, blockade, and famine are finally give vent to their desire; they do now have money. orice The Union of the Sickle and the Hammer is now only Skepticism toward Soviet Russia is by no means the least entering upon the seventh year of its existence. Systems virtue of some people, and all those virtuous gentlemen who of national economy do not arise like Venus out of the sea- firmly believe that the growth of national wealth is incom- foam, and the periods of their creation and development patible with the Soviet regime must be disappointed again. are measured, in the history of mankind, by decades if not For this purpose it is not even necessary to resort to any by entire centuries. Even if the past six years of Soviet complicated statistical calcu- rule had been years of peace- lations. The plain ordinary 7 Sa Hh jaf ful and undisturbed economic facts of everyday life speak SN ae y Ny; endeavor, it would have been for themselves and testify, BioLSR : “ae Z childish to expect that the more eloquently than figures, to the improvement of the ma- terial well-being of the Soviet Republics. The All-Union Agricultural Exposition has recently been taking place in Moscow. The workers and peasants are proud of it and have good reason to be. Daily thousands of peasants from the remotest and darkest corners of the Soviet Republics came to Mos- cow to visit the exposition. These tourists had not the faintest idea, nor have they any now, of that excellent es- tablishment, Thomas Cook and Sons; neither had they the money necessary. In Moscow they were the guests of the workers and clerks of the Moscow factories and in- stitutions. In order to ar- range an exposition, to bring tremendous problem of build- ing up the economic life of the nation on a systematic, integrated basis should be completed by the sixth anni- versary. But the past years have been by no means years of peaceful work. Five-sixths of them were spent in bitter fighting, accompanied by con- stant destruction of vital parts of the country’s eco- nomic fabric. Yet one year of more or less peaceful work has yielded tangible proofs of progress from economic dis- ruption to a revival under a new economic system. The economic history of the past six years should be di- vided into three periods. The first one, until the summer of 1918, embracing altogether seven months, was the period devoted to taking possession, way \\ Jiewarrs*~ wri} Hf ti, thousands of guests thousands | ; rather in a mechanical sense, of miles—all this requires wramce Cersaana Beeere it) CEngiant of the apparatus of the coun- money. It could not have Not in a dark alley; but out in broad daylight in the try’s economic life and of been thought of in 1920 when, presence of distinguished witnesses subordinating it physically to even if they had had the evil (From Projektor, Moscow) the interests of the new mas- intention of doing so, the government could scarcely have ter of the land. Least of all did the theorists and creators broken the law which in the interests of economy of fuel of the Soviet system imagine the possibility of bringing into prohibited the heating of apartments to a temperature of existence a socialist system with one stroke of the revolu- over 47 degrees. tionary sword. It was mainly a question of transferring Another fact. The problem of aviation now engages the into the hands of the new government those branches of mind of the Russian public. The idea of owning airplanes, industry which were already prepared for systematic and conquering the vast stretches of Russian territory, quick- centralized management by their previous economic devel- ening or “Americanizing” the lazy tempo of life inherited opment. as a legacy of czarism, charms and attracts. And volun- Changes of economic systems have always been accom- tary collections for the building of airplanes are in full panied by a definite period of transition, in the course of swing. Everywhere—in the workshop, in the govern- which the growing new system has existed side by side ment institution, in the peasant’s cooperative society, and with the old outgrown system. Such a transitional period in the provincial labor union. The newspapers carry entire was practically necessitated by the domestic and interna- columns of names. One contributes a single dollar, an- tional situation of Soviet Russia. The enormous, numeri- other two, five. All these contributions come from simple cally overwhelming mass of small peasant-producers, and workers and clerks. These facts, of course, do not prove the need of participating for years to come in the economic any considerable prosperity. It is rather proof of an life of the world jointly with the capitalist countries, were

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 517 eee e eee eee eee eee ee ee reer e reer eee eee eee eee ———————————— the determining factors of the economic development of the revolution from the moment of its victory. The first period was molded entirely by these factors. The Soviet Government was endeavoring to map out the economic boundaries of that transitionary period. But this period was of too short duration to yield any substantial results. It was interrupted by the second period, which lasted for three years, until the summer of 1921, and which was marked by the bitter and relentless struggle for the very existence—the mere physical existence—of the new regime. War was waged against the Soviets in all the forms known to mankind today. The Soviet regime had no choice in the matter. It was compelled to take up the fight which had been foisted upon it, and once having taken it up, to fight with all the determination of which it was capable. This was not ordinary war with a defined front and rear. The sparks of war were scattered—in every city, in every village, frequently even within the same family. The war was being waged essentially with the object of conquering economic positions, and the front touched upon everything—every repair-shop, every small store, every provincial market-place. The adversary had to be forced out of every position. This was rather a matter of military strategy than of economics. And at the same time every- thing within the country had to be whipped into line for one purpose—defense. One gave his life, another had to offer his labor, a third his bread. Under conditions of dire privation, this was rather a matter of severe military morale than of policy. If the first period was logically in- dispensable, the second period may be considered theoreti- cally as unnecessary. In a different international situation it might at least have assumed different and less devastat- ing forms. At the first opportunity to lay aside its war weapons, the Soviet Government resumed the work of economic recon- struction. The turn of the tide came even prior to the formal ratification of the peace treaty with Poland, which put an end to the last of the wars in which Soviet Russia had been involved, and the summer of 1921 marks the be- ginning of the third period, known as the period of the new economic policy. If within six years in the history of mankind one can distinguish between new and old, it would be more exact to christen the third period that of the old policy. In fact, this third period was a legitimate and logical sequel of the first. The armed warfare which the Soviet Government was forced to wage for its very exist- ence did not change and could not radically change those fundamental economic problems with which it was con- fronted at the beginning of the revolution. The organiza- tion of the country’s economic life during the period of transition remained the basic problem. However, while the war did not change the essence of the problem, it consid- erably altered the conditions of its solution. While on the one hand the Soviet Government emerged from the period of struggle stronger both physically and morally, while it had accumulated some experience in economic organization during that period, on the other hand the country’s indus- tries had been subjected to a tremendous drain, and the most vital arteries had been badly torn and twisted. Under these conditions the third period was ushered in. This period has lasted somewhat over two years, in the course of which all the efforts and thought of the Soviet authorities have been focused exclusively on its economic problems. But even of this brief period at least one-half should be discounted. The drought which brought about the dreadful famine, more cruel and devastating than the war through which Russia had just then passed, coincided with the first steps of the new economic policy. Some wits are inclined to attribute the drought also to the unnatural actions of the Soviet Government. But if we cast aside these meteorological revelations and estimate instead the cost of maintenance on a mere starvation basis of the famine-stricken regions, not to mention the damage sus- tained by agriculture, it will be apparent that the economic progress achieved during the past year would have been doubled if the famine had not occurred. It is only with these facts briefly recalled to memory that one should estimate the economic results of this first and only year in which the Soviet Government has been at all in a position to concentrate its attention on the task of economic reconstruction. I say “at all’ because the past year like its predecessors had been graced by increasing diplomatic conflicts and tremendous upheavals in the European economic life of which the Union of Soviet Re- publics forms an inseparable component part. The industrial achievements of the Union of Soviet Re- publics are characterized by the following data. For the fiscal year 1922-1923 (in the Soviet Union the fiscal year begins on October 1) the industrial output is estimated at 1,118 million gold rubles.* This is as yet a low figure, amounting to only 32 per cent of the pre-war output of Russia’s industries. Nevertheless, this is a substantial achievement. The year 1921-1922 yielded an industrial out- put valued at 829 million gold rubles, whereas at the be- ginning of the new economic policy the yearly output of the country’s industries was only 511 million gold rubles. Last year’s production has been doubled as compared with the year 1920, and it exceeds by 35 per cent that of the year immediately preceding. The achievements of the past year will stand out in greater relief in the light of the following comparative fig- ures. If we take 100 to express the figures for the first half of the fiscal year 1921-1922, then the output for the same period of 1922-1923 would amount to 141, the number of workers employed to 118, and the productivity of the labor of the individual worker, 124. In the domain of foreign trade the past year had been marked above all by a particularly noteworthy attainment —the resumption of export of Russian agricultural produce, which had always been of great importance to the Rus- sian farmer. As in the case of the industries, the total amount of trade turn-over is considerably below the pre- war level, of which it amounts to only 12.3 per cent. But while in 1921-1922 the imports amounted to 282.3 million gold rubles, they had been reduced in 1922-1923 to 144 million gold rubles, whereas the exports, which were esti- mated at 63.9 million rubles for the year 1921-1922, had reached the sum of 1380 million gold rubles in the year 1922-1923. This last amount does not include all those large quantities of grain which are now on the way to the various foreign markets. Within the next year it is expected that the trade turn-over will be doubled with a decidedly large excess of exports over imports. But the most outstanding results are revealed by a review of the financial work of the Union. At the begin- ning of the last fiscal year the outstanding item of the Union’s revenue was the issue of currency, which provided *1 gold ruble equals 51.4 cents.

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518 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3044 46.3 per cent, while taxes composed 24.4 per cent and the profits from state industries and commerce yielded 29.3 per cent. Nine months later the issue of currency covered only 26.8 per cent, the taxes rose slightly to 29.3 per cent while the revenue from sources other than taxation increased to 43.9 per cent. At the same time the monthly average revenue increased from 65 million gold rubles to §8.3 million gold rubles. During the past few months the relative importance of the issue of currency has sunk still further, having been reduced to 15 million gold rubles per month, or about 15 per cent of the total income, and in the budget of the next year its role will be of practically no significance. Within those rigid limits which are dictated by the financial poverty of the Union this signifies an ap- proach toward a real stabilization of the budget. Simultaneously, within the past ten months, a new stable monetary unit—the chervonetz*—has been created in Rus- sia and is growing in stability. It has won a firm position on the exchange and it is successfully supplanting, for in- ternal circulation, the dollars and pounds which found their way into Russia on account of the collapse of the paper ruble. Another feature—during the past year the number of paper rubles increased 83 times while prices increased 56 times. The leaders of the Union of Soviet Republics are not in- clined to overestimate these results. The famine in funds greatly obstructs all progress. Economic decay is tighten- ing its grip on Europe. But the Soviet Union which took shape this year under the guiding sign of economic revival has the strength to safeguard its further development. It is now both economically and politically many times stronger than it was when it entered the struggle for its existence. In the House of the Sugar King By JESSICA SMITH HIRTY versts outside of Moscow, through tall pine trees hiding the gaily frescoed dachas where sugar and cotton kings of Russia used to while away their sum- mer hours, converted now into rest homes for the workers or vacation homes for the children of Moscow, you come to a station bearing the name of Pushkin. The station swarms with children, from the dozens of childrens’ colonies nearby, and the air is filled with shrill happy voices. A high sweet call sounds insistently above the merry clamor on the sta- tion platform. We send back an answering “halloo!’— nimble-footed, fleet figures come flying toward us down the railroad track. Suddenly we are smothered in vigorous embraces as Shura and Varya and Katya and Alexey and Ivan throw themselves upon us, clinging to our arms and hands, showering us with bright flowers they have just gathered, and tall Pavel comes shyly up behind and greets us in quaint English. We turn off into the woods where the ground is soft with pine-needles, and the air rich with the smell of them. More calls ahead, and answering calls around us, a burst of song—elves and fairies dart out from behind the trees, and spring from the ground beneath our feet. And so we come to the yellow and white mansion where the children and teachers of the Musical Art School of Pushkin live. On the wide balcony in front a black-haired little fellow * Par $5.14; recent quotations are $5. with the face of a prize-fighter is practicing on the flute. He is utterly oblivious of the hullabaloo we are raising below. “He’s only been playing the flute a week, and he can’t think of anything else,” the other children explain. From somewhere inside come the notes of a Chopin waltz. We are pulled in ten directions. ‘Come, climb the mete- orological tower!” the boys-insist, “we built it ourselves,” and they urge us toward a high tower hung with garlands, and flying a red flag, from the dizzy heights of which they observe the heavens and the surrounding landscape, and test the rainfall and the temperature. ‘Come, see the new stage we are building! We are getting ready to give ‘Boris Godounoff’—Pavel there is to be Boris.” And we are swept around the corner to the big side piazza where some of the boys are carrying on a great hammering and pounding, while the girls sit and sew curtains and costumes out of old sacking which they have dyed bright colors. We are led into the big central room, hung with sketches and paintings by the children, battle-axes and shields from their plays, pictures of Lenin and Trotzky. Big Colia, who is a scientist as well as an actor and a musician, pulls us away to his museum in the attic where he has collected and classified all the birds and beasts and flowers and stones of the neighborhood. In our progress through the various rooms and corridors we run into the Princess of ‘Prince Igor,” Snegurotchka of the “Snow Maiden,” Tyltyl of the “Biue Bird,” and other famous characters. Sounds of music are everywhere in the air. “You see,” the children tell us, “summer is the best time to practice. In the winter we have our school work, and so many other things—-and then Comrade Tsibin, our director, can be with us so little, for he has to play the flute in the orchestra at the Bolshoy Theater every night. But now he is with us every day, and we have lots of time to practice.” After tea there is a concert by these future artists of the Bolshoy Theater. The boy orchestra plays the merry ‘“Mel- nitza” in which you can hear the mill-wheel going around and around, and feel the flour-dust sifting through the air, the march from “The Hump-Backed Horse,” and a variety of other selections rendered amazingly well. There are voice, violin, and cello solos, choruses, dances. The light is very bad, and two flickering lamps have to be carried here and there, but they do not seem to be in the least daunted by material difficulties. Every child has something to con- tribute to the program, they are beautifully trained, and some of them very gifted. After the concert we leap into the Russian folk dances with the children, and go swinging and whirling around with them to their great delight. Then the room is trans- formed quickly into a dining-room, we eat soup and kasha and black bread. The tables cleared, the younger children are sent off to bed, and the Soviet assembles. Directors, teachers, and children participate equally in the discussions and decisions. There are serious problems to be considered tonight. First, there is the question of two of the boys who are so interested in their music that they refuse to do their share of the other work of the community—one of them a gifted pianist, the other the black-haired little flute player we had seen when we arrived. Then there is the problem of where and how they are to get sheets, blankets, heavy cloth- ing, violin strings, wood for the winter—for the Soviet government has not the means to support such institutions as it had hoped to be able to, and the local educational de-

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Nov. 7, 1923] partments are also poor, so they are badly pressed for means to carry on. At last all the children have gone to bed. Tovarish Tsibin and his wife, who is manager of the school, are very weary. But even yet they feel they have not done enough. Tovarish Tsibin is a gentle, bearded little man in a Tolstoi blouse, and besides being the director of the Musi- cal Art School, he is the foremost flute player in Russia. He plays a little now, exquisitely—apologizing that he is too tired to play more, and his sweet-faced wife, who has the voice of an angel, sings for us. As Vera, their daughter, a pale, golden-haired girl of fifteen, is arranging the mattresses and bedding for us on the tables in the concert hall, she tells us how they came to be living in this lovely spot. When the school was first started, three years ago, they had lived in a much smaller house a few versts nearer Mos- cow. But it was very crowded and uncomfortable. They had to eat and sleep and have lessons all in one room. Be- sides, winter was coming on, and none of the stoves worked. They appealed to the Department of Education, and they received a paper ordering the Sugar King, who was at that time occupying his dacha in Pushkin, to let the Musical Art School move in. A deputation of children went to him with the paper, saying: “You are one, and we are many. You use your house only for pleasure, and we must have it for work.” The sugar magnate was deaf to their pleading, and turned them away. But while the children were there they had discovered a wing of two rooms which were not in use. A group of the older boys went back and requested him to open up this wing for them. He refused, so they broke in and took possession. They brought all their things, and even held their classes there, while the girls brought food twice a day from the other house. They begged for more room—for the use of the kitchen. But the Sugar King was adamant. The children grew desperate. It was getting so cold in the other house that their fingers were too stiff to play. One day the boys at the big house heard that the Sugar King was planning a concert for that evening. They went over to the other house and held a council of war. That night the Sugar King’s table sparkled with silver and glass that had escaped confiscation, and his table was laden with the good food and wines that he was somehow able to get when everyone else was starving. The Sugar King and his guests ate and drank and made merry far into the evening, and then the musicians and guests re- paired to the big drawing-room for the concert. The lights were switched on, and there, filling the room were rows and rows of little wooden beds—in each one of them a sleeping child. There was no concert that night. The Sugar King raged. But he could do nothing against somany. He locked the kitchen against them—they climbed in through the window. They needed more room; when he refused, they calmly took possession, and soon they were carrying on the organized life of the school. From one room to another the Sugar King retreated before the ad- vancing hordes of the children. At last he could stand it no more. He gathered together as much of his furniture and precious possessions as he could in a nearby cottage, and fled to a hospitable border state. All he left behind was a great heavy safe. To this day it stands unopened in the concert room. They do not know whether it is full of gold and jewels or not, and have never taken the trouble to The Nation 519 find out. But now at last Tovarish Tsibin finds that he needs it to keep things in, and is beginning to talk of having it opened. The Sugar King came back last summer to have a look at his dacha. He was delighted at the good condition in which he found it, and said he could imagine no tenants he would rather have had. He is probably banking on happier days when the old order will return to Russia, and his dacha will be returned to him in good condition. But I bank on this vigorous young generation of proletarian musicians and artists and scientists who have come into their own because power has been wrested from the Sugar Kings—and who will not lightly give up what they have won. The Soviet Press By L. TALMY F the many things which the bolshevik revolution “wiped out of existence” in Russia the press is one of the most lamented. It is still the popular notion that the Soviet press is made up of a few goverament-owned official sheets faithfully carrying out the dictations of the powers that be; that the Soviet journalist is a mute slave of whom only blind obedience is required or expected. Somehow this conception of the Soviet press does not bear out the fact that of the score of leading dailies pub- lished in Moscow and Petrograd alone no two are quite alike in character. Each one of these newspapers has its distinct individuality which makes it easier to distinguish between two newspapers in collectivist communist Russia than in individualist America. The individuality is mani- fested not alone in the external appearance of the papers, their size, make-up, print, etc., but even more in those things which give a newspaper its soul: contents, style, treatment of news, editorials, reaction toward the thousand big and little things which come up to the surface in the everyday life of the republic. The only thing which all the news- papers in Soviet Russia have in common is their loyalty and allegiance to the Soviet form of government and the ulti- mate aim it stands for—the organization of society along the lines of communism. Within these limits they retain the highest degree of independence, indulging in sharp and bitter criticism of persons and institutions without regard to their standing and position. They retain their different character which, it is true, is not shaped by the personality to their standing and position. They retain their different ent groups of readers to which they appeal and whose inter- ests they serve. However, this very fact tends to put the different characteristics of the newspapers in bolder relief, since the individuality of a group is more pronounced than that of an individual. In Soviet Russia more than anywhere else it is not the journalist who makes the press, but it is the press which makes the journalist. In fact, in Soviet Russia this rule (with only a few exceptions) is true in a literal sense. When the Soviet Government was confronted with the prob- lem of creating the new labor press, representative of the proletarian dictatorship, there were no journalists to begin with. There are a number of brilliant writers among the leading Communists but for the most part they are not identified as such. Lenin, Trotzky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and even Radek are not thought of as journalists, although they

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_ by the Soviet authorities. 520 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3044 still devote a great deal of their time to journalistic work. Before the revolution there was no labor press amounting to anything. When the Soviet Government suspended the publication of the bourgeois press and the press of the socialist opposition parties and nationalized their plants, the old-timers in the journalistic profession—most of them —left Moscow and Petrograd in a hurry and went to those parts of Russia which were under the occupation of the dif- ferent white and interventionist armies. This happened as late as the summer of 1918—about ten months after the October revolution. Until then the opposition press, al- though frankly counter-revolutionary, had been tolerated Only when the English landed troops in Archangel and Kolchak became active in the Volga region while General Krassnov threatened the Soviet forces from the Don, were the opposition newspapers suppressed. The new Soviet press was then created in great haste to meet the requirements of the fierce civil struggle which en- sued. It was created through a virtual mobilization of all Communists and sympathizers who could muster a pen and it was subject to all the limitations of war time. It was under strict military censorship. Its scope was limited to striving and aiming at one goal—to overcome the enemy. The Soviet journalist was really a soldier, fighting with his pen and called upon to provide the army with the morale and the consciousness of a just cause which frequently supple- mented the lack of real firearms. These conditions often led to excesses of naivete. Viewed today, the editor of some tiny town newspaper, debating political problems in dead earnest with Lloyd George and Millerand, would cut a comic figure. But in Russia even this sort of thing was born of necessity and served definite ends. For the worker, the peasant, the Red Army soldier, the premier of Great Britain was a reality incarnated in the white guards whom he met in active struggle. When the civil war ended and the army was demobilized the press also was demobilized. It lost a great deal of its impetus and it began to deterioriate. Besides, the new economic policy was soon introduced, which meant that the newspapers were no longer provided for by the government but were forced to pay their own way. It also meant that the newspapers would not be distributed free of charge any more. The immediate results of these changes were disas- trous for the press. Both the number of newspapers and their circulation fell with alarming rapidity. According to the data published in the Moscow monthly Journalist, the circulation of the newspapers immediately before the introduction of the new economic policy was about 4,000,000. It fell to about 2,600,000 in January, 1922, and kept on fall- ing until it reached its lowest figure in August, 1922, when the circulation of all the newspapers totaled about 1,000,000 copies. ‘The same applies to the number of newspapers which fell from 800 in January to 300 in August, 1922. Since then, however, conditions have been constantly im- proving. The figures for each succeeding month show a steady growth in the number of newspapers and their cir- culation until, in February, 19238, at the time of the Fourth Congress of the Union of Journalists in Moscow, the num- ber of newspapers had reached 500 and their total circula- tion was 2,000,000 copies, and is still climbing steadily up- wards. The congress decided to initiate a campaign to give the newspapers a circulation of 10,000,000 copies daily by the end of the year, and, from later figures, it seems that the Soviet press is well on the way to achieve this lavish number. The total circulation of the Russian press before the war was about 2,500,000. This marked improvement is accounted for by the fact that the Soviet press was quick in adapting itself to the new conditions which arose with the termination of the civil war and the period of military communism coincident with it. The Soviet press is more and more becoming representative of the laboring masses, establishing an intimate contact with them, and voicing their sentiments and needs. The growth in the number of newspapers and their circulation is accounted for by the fact that they are more and more reaching into the farthest corners of the Soviet federation, to the workers in the shops and the peasants in the villages. In pre-revolutionary Russia the newspaper was the com- panion of the few who had the privilege of living in the big- ger centers. The villages and most of the smaller towns knew almost nothing of the existence of newspapers. Some- times the village teacher and the small-town intellectual would subscribe to a metropolitan daily but that was sel- dom. The press was chiefly metropolitan. Outside of Mos- cow and Petersburg only the bigger centers of industrial, commercial, and intellectual life, such as Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Rostov, had newspapers of any considerable merit. Even the provincial capitals had for the most part only the official Gubernskie Vedomosti (Government Communica- tions) containing official notices, and prikazi (orders) of the administration. The news was confined to the social events in the governor’s palace and the Dvorianskoye Sob- ranye (the Assembly of Noblemen). The Soviet press, on the contrary, is establishing itself in most of the smaller towns where it can better serve the neighboring community. The press is striving to become not only a press for the masses but also by the masses, to be intimately associated with them. It is in fact becoming a weapon in the hands of the new labor democracy which is being forged in the Soviet republic. The new Soviet journalist is, for the most part, recruited from the ranks of the workers and peasants. Outside of a few special newspapers which appeal to a rather limited audience of specialists, the press in Soviet Russia is becom- ing a tribune of labor. In the industrial centers the news- papers have full staffs of workers’ correspondents who are writing of the life and sentiments of the shops and factories. These correspondents are not outsiders in the factories. They live and work there. In the rural centers the news- papers establish their contact with the villages through the peasant correspondents. Russia is now in a period of reconstruction in which all the forces of labor must be taxed. In this work the press plays a considerable part as an organizing and controlling factor. The journalist, both the professional and the work- ers’ correspondent, enters the fabric of state construction as a component part performing a definite function. . Ven « LO ak - eb ah wh Rive From the Projektor, Moscow.

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Nov. 7, 1923] Europe in Washington (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD NCE more Europe has drenched Washington with a visit from the best-known of all European public men and with a new revival of plans for American participation in the settlement of the reparations question, together with a considerable political disturbance ensuant upon the ap- pointment of a confirmed pro-Leaguer, Mr. Frank B. Kel- logg, of Minnesota, to represent this anti-League country in the American Embassy at London. People who are for- getful of American history see in these recurrent deluges of Washington by European affairs a sort of modernistic novelty. They are forgetful indeed. In the administration of George Washington the affairs of Europe became so engrossing to the United States that it is validly possible for Mr. S. E. Forman in his history of the United States called “Our Republic” to say that “for © twenty years the principal question to be asked about the politics of an American was: Does he belong to the French faction or to the English faction?” Today in Washington, underneath all the formal public open talk about “helping Europe,” or about refusing to “intermeddle” in Europe, the basic fact is increasingly com- ing to be that an American point of view regarding Europe is largely frustrated by personal factional preferences for a point of view French or British. Statesmen come back here from Europe and in their pub- lic utterances call for an “American policy” toward Europe or assert that the United States should continue to maintain its “neutral aloofness.” These utterances represent the ideas which statesmen are willing to put forth to the elec- torate with their names attached. Their utterances in pri- vate are usually of a much more revealing sort. Some of our returning statesmen are deeply impressed by the difficult problems of the British and by what they regard as the valorous efforts made by the British to subdue those problems manfully. Such statesmen will say in private that they feel that the British are quite right in their op- position to the French in the matter of the Ruhr. When asked, however, if they are going to urge the United States to help the British pry the French out of the Ruhr, they remember that in their constituencies there are many per- sons, particularly in American Legion circles, who do not care to have the French pried out of the Ruhr at all. Contrariwise, there are returning statesmen who are ‘deeply impressed by the sufferings of France during the war and by what they regard as the heroic endeavors of the French to efface the results of those sufferings now in the devastated region and in France in general. Such states- men think really that the United States should help France to collect from Germany the last pfennig of almost any in- demnity which the French think they ought to have. When asked, however, if they will urge the American people to set forth on this emprise, they usually remember that in their constituencies there are many persons of German descent .and of English descent and also many persons who simply, irrespective of descent, disagree with the French. It is accordingly to be noticed that the statesmen who ‘demand a policy in Europe are for the most part exceedingly careful to avoid saying what that policy should be. They may be willing to advocate an entrance into the League but The Nation 521 they are virtually invariably unwilling to say what they think we should do after we get into the League. They will say that they are willing to go to Europe but for the most part they will not say one word for publication as to what they would do in Europe after they had got there. The reason for their reticence is that they thoroughly realize that no matter what they did after getting there they would displease a considerable fraction of their po- litical followers. They are as devoid of a policy toward Europe as an “irreconcilable” could possibly be. The “ir- reconcilables” and the “participationists” are in fact in the end in one way exactly alike. The “irreconcilables” refuse to “participate” and the “participationists” refuse to say what it is they would seek through “participation” to do. Each position is in fact as negative as the other. This truth can be seen from another slant if statesmen are asked just what it is that they expect to see come out of an international reparations meeting attended by the United States. Suppose that in that meeting the represen- tative of the United States votes with the representative of Britain to reduce the present demanded total of reparation payments. Suppose then that the French Government re- fuses to consent to that reduction. What will the United States do? In response to that question the usual answer from “participationists” is to the effect that no country can afford to refuse to accept the verdict of the United States. If then it is pointed out that Germany in 1917 refused to accept our verdict on submarine warfare the final response elicited is usually a refusal to be quoted. It is further to be remarked that no matter how emphati- cally an American representative might vote with the Brit- ish on the subject of reparations he would utterly fail to gain the support or sanction of those Senators who believe that the French are right. No such thing exists in Wash- ington as an American policy toward Europe to which the American friends of the British and the American friends of the French are willing to subordinate their factional per- sonal views. President Adams at the beginning of the last century thought it necessary to pass a sedition law and to put people in jail in order to subdue the sympathizers with France. President Madison, in the War of 1812, found the Union almost disrupted by sympathizers with England who came near preferring the extinction of the government at Wash- ington to a war with the government at London. We are de- veloping fast into an era of the same sort. Three years ago we were divided really only into those who wished to help the Allies enforce the Treaty of Ver- sailles and those who did not wish to help them. Now among those who wish to help the Allies we have those whose help- fulness would be extended to France and those whose help- fulness would be extended to England. In these circumstances Mr. Hughes confines himself to offering to allow an American to take part in a reparations meeting which shall confine itself essentially to calculating Germany’s capacity to pay—to doing, that is, a sum in arithmetical economics. If he essayed to bring pressure on the British or on the French to accept the results of that sum, he would turn the floor of the Senate into a sort of col- lision between the city of Paris and the city of London un- der an American roof. The American friends of Britain and the American friends of France are stronger than any American perception of any outrightly and merely American interest and policy toward Europe at large.

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[Vol. 117, No. 3044 522 The Nation At Noon Saturday Tokio, September 10 EAR The Japan that you and I knew and loved crumpled up and died at noon Saturday, Sep- tember first. It would grieve you to see what is left as it would grieve you to see the funeral of a mutilated loved one. The Japan that you know, as it means Tokio, Yoko- hama, the seaside and mountain places, has simply ceased to exist. It will be very dreary and depressing during the years of building something to take its place. Karuizawa and Nikko are the only ones of our favorite holiday places, with the exception of South Japan which is undamaged, that are not destroyed. Kamakura, Myanoshita, Hakone, Atami, Dzushi—all—were simply bumped off the cliffs or sunk into the sea. The Fuji-ya Hotel at Myanoshita, where we have spent so many happy week-ends, was left marooned, a junk heap, many persons buried beneath the wreckage, with a chasm in front and one behind making escape impossible. Rescue parties from Tokio got there five days later. We know nothing whatever of the rest of the world and we know nothing whatever of how the rest of the world got our story and what it knows of us. You can understand the agony that is to newspaper correspondents. Of course we have no lights, water, gas, or trams. In fact I can’t think of anything we have had but canned stuff and free food for the refugees at the Imperial Hotel —and earthquakes. The quakes, mild by comparison, have continued with nerve-trying regularity every half hour or so. Most of us are dressed in very disreputable garb and are greatly in need of a bath. O-Chio-san, my old cook, goes out and gets water in a bucket from somewhere. Wells and taps are running here and there. I don’t mean that anyone is dying of thirst. You can get water somewhere. Yokohama, however, has none at all. People have almost perished from sheer thirst—those few who hadn’t perished before—and of course the vast thousands of unburied dead make the health situation perilous. The quake itself was terrible here but it was ghastly in Yokohama. Yokohama simply doesn’t exist—nothing. It crumpled instantly—the Bluff, all the foreign settlement, Japanese sections—all gone. There’s nothing—wires, railroads, cables, trains— nothing except the ground where Yokohama used to be, and that’s so cluttered with dead and wreckage you can’t see it. This must be more or less bulletin stuff. Everything is chaotic. I must stay on the job and nothing but my legs to do it with. Quakes continue and there is little sleep and utter exhaustion for all of us all of the time. The houses of most of our friends were destroyed. Go- ju-ichi-banchi, my own house, stands. But it’s a horrible mess. The roof seems to have gone to hell—that small part of it which is not out in the garden. There are typhoonish rains all the time. All together I own two cocktail glasses and several spoons. There’s a moratorium now. Nobody has any actual money except what was in his pockets when the quake came. But you can sign a chit for a million. I was at Shihotsu’s desk, third floor of Nippon-Dempo building, when the quake began at two minutes to twelve, Saturday, September first. We were doping out a story about the new Cabinet—a story that never went. Suddenly there was a vast thud, a sort of vague universal noise. I can’t quite describe it. It wasn’t huge in actual volume, but it sank in on your consciousness that it was literally universal—that it was the cracking and twisting of all creation. The entire building was swinging and swaying about, bricks and mortar and debris falling. I remember being tremendously impressed with the fact that the floor, always immaculate, was an awful mess and for the first time had the littered and disreputable appearance that a newspaper floor ought to have. The place was a trap. I realized that this was an earthquake—a regular old he- earthquake with hair on its chest. I was conscious of the fact that everyone in the room (some twenty Japanese men) was leaping for the doorway. I was aware that Uyeda called to me to “Leave! There is great danger” as he disappeared, and that the little news editor—the same who rubbed his forehead on the floor when he met us that first night at the dinner at the Maple Club—was screaming something at me as he flew out the door. Of course this was all in a very few seconds. Shihotsu and I were silent. He was very quiet and impassive and my one dominant emotion was that I’d be damned if I’d let him have anything on me in poise. At the same time my brain which seemed to be operating as a remote and impersonal affair, was registering the facts of the situa- tion; that the window behind Shihotsu’s desk was three stories high, opening on a paved alleyway beneath and that it would be disastrous indeed to jump out; that to get to either the front or the rear flight of winding stairs I would have to run through two or three rooms and the chances were entirely in favor of the building crumbling before I could reach the ground. I don’t suppose it was more than a few seconds. . . . Anyway we sat there looking at each other with the office wrecking all around us. Then Shihotsu said: “I think it’s time to go,” and I said: “I’ve been thinking that for some time.” The most curious sensation was that of the stairs and balustrade swaying and pitching like the steps and hand- rail of a ship’s ladder at sea. I had to cling—actually cling, to hold on—and this a big office building on solid land! It was no way for solid things in which you put your confidence to act. The ground and street were sway- ing. Wreckage was everywhere. The entire Nippon Dempo staff huddled there. The swaying stopped. I don’t know how long it had been, perhaps a few minutes, and I ran up- stairs to get off an urgent flash over Nippon Dempo’s wires. But there was no operator and the wire wasn’t working. Shihotsu had tested it. Then the quake started again, as big as before, and I leaped back down the stairs with debris falling all around me. Shihotsu had not left the building. I thought he had been right behind me after he had ob-. served that it was time to go. And I thought he had beat me back upstairs. But not so. He had been there all the time, the only person in the office. And, as I learned several days later, he remained there until one o’clock, with the building gradually going to pieces around him. I asked him why. “I am on duty until one o’clock,” he replied very simply. “It is my custom to remain at my desk until that hour.” I objected that he was risking almost certain death, to no purpose. “I am always prepared to die,” he replied, “and I did do something. I answered two telephone calls before the last wire went down.” MHis house was burned, his family saved. Two mornings later he was at my house before daylight to make a report on the situation. CLARENCE DU BOSE

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 523

Conscientious Objectors and the Army Intelligence Tests By EDWARD A. LINCOLN HE publication of the results of the intelligence test- ing in the army during the World War has brought much dismay to a number of writers. Magazine and news- paper articles, and even whole books have appeared which use the army results as the basis for all sorts of misgivings and dire predictions as to the ruin of our civilization. The assumption upon which these foretellers of calamity base their evil prophecies is that the army tests showed the average intelligence of the country to be on a much lower level than even the experts in mental measurement. had suspected. The army psychologists rated the men by let- ter grades, ranging from “A” for the superior down to “EK” for those who were practically useless for even the simplest army work because of their low mental ability. The results of the army testing have been published many times, but it will be well to set them forth again. About two million men were given the various tests, and from these records the army psychologists made a chance or random selection of about 100,000 cases for special study. The men in this group, which was probably quite repre- sentative of the army as a whole, attained the various let- ter grades in the proportions shown by the percentages in the table below: Pee CB er LOLUMIAS So SADC), LOse 8.0 4.1 Qur pessimists, pointing to the low percentage of “A” and “B” men, cannot see how we can produce the leaders to make the progress necessary for the survival of civilization. The fallacy of this reasoning is, first, that the tests were purely arbitrary and hence the relation of the percentages must be likewise; and, second, that a man’s value to society depends solely upon his general intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Social value is much more a matter of what use a man makes of his talents than of what talents he may possess. The “A” man may become a great educator, inventor, or political leader, or he may turn his abilities to war grafting, profiteering in sugar, or lobby- ing against social legislation. He may build wonderful bridges or organize a labor-crushing trust. He may solve the mysteries of science, or he may edit a truth-suppressing newspaper. While it is probably true that the great re- forms of the past have come as the result of the labors of superior men, it is none the less true that there is no his- tory of any progress or attempted progress which does not tell of bitter and ruthless opposition by men who would test in the “A” group on any intelligence examination. Supe- rior men have fought savagely and untiringly against Christianity, religious freedom, the destruction of feudal- ism, the abolishment of slavery, shortening of the workday, the American Revolution, progress in the sciences, eradica- tion of child labor, enactment of prohibition, and the estab- lishment of woman suffrage. There is, in the army report, a scrap of evidence as to the whereabouts of some of the “A” men, which, although apparently of tremendous significance, seems to have escaped the notice of the previous writers. There is a chapter in this report which deals with military offenders, and in this chapter may be found the intelligence records

made by the conscientious objectors who were confined in the army prison at Leavenworth. These records, shown in the accompanying table, indicate that the religious and political objectors stand out intellectually as a separate race. “A” grades were three times as frequent among the religious objectors as in the general run of the draft army, and among the political objectors the “A” grades were ten times as frequent. In “B” grades also these groups show themselves far superior to their fellows in the army: Grade “B” Grade “A” Percent Percent Wihitevdvatt "ATMY cies cccss « 8.0 4.1 Religious objectors ........... aL sjanb 12.8 Political “objetcors ............ 13.2 39.3 In their education there is also an indication of the superiority of the conscientious objectors as shown by the following figures: High School College College graduate graduate post-graduate Percent Percent Per cent White draft army, native PMEUEOMEEOS sens nie ol Ais)<taxahele 4.1 eH 0.1 Religious objectors ...... 5.3 1.5 1.5 Political objectors ...... 9.2 Pa Zee Here then was a group of men, small to be sure, but endowed with superior mental ability, and possessed of superior education. Their qualifications were such that we should have looked to them for guidance and leadership; yet their lot was persecution, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Where are the “A” men? Some of them are in the seats of the mighty, where they intend to stay, resisting with all the means at their command every attempt of the average man to make his life fuller and sweeter. Other “A” men are in the courts of Michigan, the bull pens of Los Angeles, the cells and dungeons of the State and Federal prisons. There is perhaps in the army-test results evidence of danger to our civilization. This danger, however, lies not in the mediocrity of the masses, but in the false leadership of those who use their talents for their own advantage and in the waste of a portion of our intellectual resources by the persecution of our idealists of superior intelligence. Contributors to This Issue MAGDELEINE Marx is a French writer of fiction and arti- cles, best known for her novel “Woman.” DorotHY BREWSTER is assistant professor of English at Columbia University. She has recently spent several weeks in Moscow. Max EASTMAN, formerly editor of the Liberator, is at present living in Russia. IsatAH J. HoorGin, formerly Soviet representative in Poland, is at present in the United States as director of Derutra (Deutsch-Russische Transportgesellschaft) in which Soviet interests participate. L. TAuLMy is the editor of Reconstruction, the organ of the Jewish Public Committee in America. JESSICA SMITH is in Russia with the American Friends Service Committee. CLARENCE Du Boss, an American correspondent in Japan, contributed The Moon Shines on Chang-chung to The Nation last year. Epwarp A. LINCOLN was an examiner in the army during the mobilization of the conscripted forces.

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524 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3044 In the Driftway 2 O THE DRIFTER: “Sir: I have been chewing a cud of protesting reflection upon your discovery of romance on a Vermont road. To you, dull, settled city-dweller as you evidently are, an inn with no food but pork, and three city girls steal- ing rides far from home constitute Adventure, Romance, Mystery. You remind me, sir, of the people who talk of the beautiful Zanzibar landscape after reading Mr. Stod- dard’s travel books. * * * * * - OMANCE is not to be found in a Ford car. The automobile is almost as deadly an enemy of adven- ture as the telephone and the radio. All of these horrid instruments destroy loneliness, and there can be no romance, no adventure, no mystery, no poetry—none of the things which make life worth living—without loneliness. Com- pany destroys the individual. Solitude alone is creative. Can you imagine Shelley whizzing along the Bay of Naples in a crowded touring-car and writing ‘I could lie down like a tired child’? With ear attuned to that jump in the motor he would never have noticed that ‘The City’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s.’ Can you conceive Keats stepping back into his car after five minutes in a museum and pen- ciling ‘Thou still unravished bride of quietness,’ or blind Milton listening to an impatient honk-honk-honk? No auto- mobilist would think to write ‘Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’; he never hears the birds except when he stops to pick up a hitch-hiker. * *& * + % 66 would not deny all virtue to the automobilist. Now that he has polluted the roads he may as well be used. There is no longer any pedestrian pleasure in a white ribbon of road; instead of stretching one’s legs into the long, re- laxed stride that comes as a rest after uneven country one must step uneasily, with ear tense and muscles ready for the jump across the ditch when such city-folk as you scoot past. I have no protest to make against those who use you, who wait at the hill-top or the railroad crossing, the only points where you slow down, and demand a lift. But I pity those who think of this as romance. We who have done it know better. ro * % * * Fi ITCH-HIKING is no thoughtless expression of the untrammeled pioneer, but one of the most desolate ef the exact sciences. From the point of view of the dull motorist it may have an element of adventure. Even the girls who sleep at the “Y” must be exciting to those victims of civilization, like yourself, who know only the type that ride in automobiles and sleep in hotels. But from the point of view of the pedestrian all automobilists fall into dead categories. There is no use hailing a car with two young folks of opposite sexes on the front seat, even though there be five unoccupied places in the rear. There is no use try- ing to stop a driver who wears goggles; they are all flinty- hearted. A lone man hiker need never trouble to hail a car with only men inside and a lone girl hiker wastes time in appealing to women. It takes a quick eye to appraise a car and its occupants before it has passed forever—whether one had best appeal to the driver or to the woman (or in these days man) beside him or her, how much room there is be- hind, and whether one had best ask a lift only to the next village or admit that one has fifty miles to go. Like all sciences it seems fascinating to the amateur, but it becomes dull and disappointing after a little experience. The auto- mobilists are so uninteresting. * % * * * ‘ ; HERE is romance, there is adventure, there is mys- tery for the hiker-afoot who, with an all-sufficient pack upon his back, is free to desert roads and even paths, can cross any stream and scale any mountain, and follow any inviting vista without consulting the blue-book. Those Adirondacks and Green Mountains which looked so beautiful to you from the road—what do you know of them now? You might as well say that you understood candy because you had gazed at it through a plate-glass window. Moun- tains must be climbed as surely as candy must be tasted. But what is the use of explaining this to you? Probably you are old, rheumatic, and dyspeptic. “THE HIKER” Correspondence RAIC Declares a Dividend To THE EpIToR OF THE NATION: Sir: The Russian-American Industrial Corporation has just announced its first dividend of 3 per cent. The investment of our corporation in the Russian clothing industry has proved to be profitable, the All-Russian Clothing Syndicate having been operated on a sound basis. The results of its work for the past six months indicate quite convincingly that the Russian workers know how to run their clothing fac- tories. The letter from Chairman Bograchev of the Syndicate, re- ferring to the operations of the last half-year, inform us that “from the figures in the balance sheet it is apparent that the expected profits of the Syndicate have been exceeded.” So it appears that those doubters who scoffed at the Russian-Ameri- ean Industrial Corporation when it ventured to help build up a branch of industry in the Soviet Republic have now to face facts that show them to have been in error in their opinion concern- ing the ability of the Russian garment workers to carry on profitable business. It so happens that during the past year the activities of the Syndicate, in which we have invested, have spread over the territories of the Soviet Union. The Syndicate has opened sales agencies and stores in 25 cities, as far south as Tiflis and as far east as Irkutsk in Siberia. The membership in the Syn- dicate which now employs over 15,000 workers has been in- creased by the entrance of several new city trusts, so that the Syndicate now comprises, in addition to our corporation, the Supreme Council of National Economy, the Moscow Experi- mental Factory, and the clothing trusts of the following cities: Petrograd, Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Kazan, Kharkov, Tam- bov, and Egorievsk. During the period of the civil wars in Russia the clothing industries worked almost exclusively on military uniforms and equipment. Now the growing purchasing power of the peas- ants, stimulated by fair harvests, has increased the demand for the clothes manufactured in the factories, which are now work- ing 90 per cent on the wholesale manufacture of civilian clothing. The presence in Russia of several score of ex-members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers—men who have gained valuable experience in the American needle industry—has contributed much to the success of the Syndicate’s factories. The manager of the Moscow Experimental Factory, one of the most up-to-date clothing shops on the continent of Europe, was formerly an ac- tive Amalgamated member in Baltimore. The representative

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Nov. 7, 1923] of our corporation in Russia, Mr. D. Petrovsky, was one of the first organizers of the Amalgamated, having worked in the Rochester market in 1915, later returning to Russia to become the mayor of a city of 80,000 in the Ukraine. The close association of these men with the American indus- try has contributed much to the splendid technical organization of some of the Russian factories. The efficiency of these fac- tories has risen steadily during the last twelve months. “When I was in Russia last fall it took 16 to 19 hours to make an average quality men’s suit (about $25). Now it takes only 12 to 13 hours to complete a suit of this kind. With the introduc- tion of further modern technical equipment in the factories of the Syndicate the efficiency of the shops will be increased still more,” writes the Chairman of the Syndicate in a recent letter. When the Amalgamated at its biennial Convention in 1922 voted to help Russia by organizing a one-million-dollar corpo- ration, the American friends of Russia whom we called upon to subscribe to stock had the pledge of the highest Soviet authori- ties that the capital invested in Russian enterprises would be guaranteed as well as a dividend of 8 per cent payable to our corporation on the capital stock so invested. Now, however, with a year’s experience and the announcement of the first divi- dend, we have something more tangible-than even the contract of the Russians, something that ought to increase confidence in Russian industry and stimulate others to a genuine desire to help her in this very practical way. The capital stock of the corporation has not yet been fully subscribed. There is still some for those who want to join in a movement to give credit rather than charity to the Russian workers. Approximately five and one-half thousand shareholders are now participating in our enterprise and will benefit by the first dividend that has been paid out of Russian industry to a large group of investors since the adoption of the new economic policy. New York, October 29 SIDNEY HILLMAN A Plea from Haiti To THE EpiToR oF THE NATION: Sir: The situation in our republic has reached a new phase. Senator McCormick and the National City Bank wanted the loan, and imposed it upon the Haitian people against their will. We were not opposed in principle to a loan to facilitate the liquidation of our foreign debt, but we wanted any loan to be made under conditions which would not exhaust the re- sources of the nation as has the present loan. What we foresaw has occurred. The loan voted, it became necessary to impose new taxes. The people protested every- where against the Borno Government and against the military occupation of the United States. When M. Bouchereau, the Minister of Public Instruction, went to Jacmel to defend the policy of the Government he found the population of that im- portant city so hostile that after four days throughout which he kept himself in hiding he returned to Port au Prince without having come into direct contact with the people. On the other hand the editors of the opposition journal, the Courrier Haitien, received continued ovations in the Department of the South. In order to direct this wave of discontent and to prevent it degenerating into a blocdy conflict we have undertaken a cam- paign for the restoration of the legislative bodies. We are ask- ing a return of the legal regime established by our constitution. Since the United States military forces dissolved our legisla- tive chambers in 1918 we have had no election. A body of officials in the so-called Council of State named by the President and revocable at his will has usurped and exercises legislative functions. Even the pseudo-constitution prepared by your Mr. Franklin Roosevelt which was imposed on us under the Darti- guenave regime provides for elections every two years. But a tiny phrase, ‘“‘s’il y a lieu,” seems to withdraw with one hand what the constitution grants with the other, and as the duty of decreeing elections in accordance with the constitution falls upon the president of the Republic, his legal advisers have main- The Nation tained that he may indefinitely suspend the exercise of the right of suffrage, contrary as that is to the fundamental principle of democratic and representative government. We ask that the Government of the United States, since M. Borno derives his powers from it alone, should ask our presi- dent to permit our citizens freely to exercise their right to vote under an electoral statute to be established by a commission of impartial jurists. If we do not have such a reform of the elec- toral law we are determined to go to the polls anyway on Jan- uary 10 next. It seems to us that the time has come for President Coolidge to carry out the only experiment which has not yet been tried: to bring his government into touch with the authorized repre- sentative of the Haitian people in order to establish a modus vivendi satisfactory to both. It is neither just nor reasonable to treat Haiti and the Dominican Republic differently. Port au Prince, Haiti, September 25 GEORGE SYLVAIN A Company Dinner for Lloyd George To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your article What is an American Dinner? in your issue of October 17 awakes in me a responsive chord. I have often wished that we might have in each of our large cities at least one restaurant making a specialty of typical American dinners. One can now get everywhere good French dinners, Italian din- ners, Spanish, German, and Russian dinners, Chinese meals, and also Arabic and Hindu, for all that I know. But most American restaurants, as you rightly indicate, do not even know what American dishes are. Good corn on the cob, for instance, is by no means easy to get. Your menu for Mr. Lloyd George is pretty good, but it con- templates offering him what I should call a “good home din- ner.” Why not give him something extra, like terrapin and canvas-back duck? By the by, in serving him pumpkin pie care should be taken that it is made out of real pumpkins and not of squash. Squash pie is good, but, as Kipling says, “that is another story.” Your condemnation of pie 4 la mode shows insufficient dis- crimination. It depends on the pie. Americans have always eaten cream with apple pie and freezing the cream is a mere detail. Did you ever taste a molasses-lemon pie? It sounds queer, but it is one of the most delicious dishes ever concocted on American soil. To add ice cream to it, however, would in- deed be monstrous, as you say. St. Louis, Missouri, October 20 ARTHUR E. Bostwick Elijah and the Clowns TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In reading your editorial note on the death of Al Miaco the clown, it occurred to me that you might be interested in the following translation of a Talmudic passage found in “A Book of Jewish Thoughts” (edited by the Chief Rabbi of England): Rabbi Baroka, a saintly mystic, one day as he was walking through the crowded market-place of his town, met Elijah, the wandering spirit of prophecy in Jewish lore. ‘Who of all this multitude has the best claim to Heaven?” asked the Rabbi of his spirit companion. (Elijah points to a disreputable weird-looking creature, a turnkey.) ‘That man yonder, because he is considerate to his prisoners and refrains from all unnecessary cruelty. In that miniature hell over which he presides he has suppressed many a horror.” ‘And who else is here worthy of eternal life?” continues the rabbi. Elijah then points to two motley-dressed fellows, clowns, who were supplying amusement to the bystanders. The rabbi’s astonishment knew no bounds. “Scorn them not,” ex- plains the prophet, “it is always their habit, even when not per- forming for hire to cheer the depressed and the sorrowful. When- ever they see a sufferer they join him, and by merry talk cause him to forget his grief.” ... A jester may be first in the kingdom of heaven... Highland Park, Ill., September 27 Louis A. MISCHKIND

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526 The Nation’ [Vol. 117, No. 3044 TEE ltl... A Request To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: May I ask in your columns for the loan of letters writ- ten by the late Miss Louise Imogen Guiney? I am preparing a volume of these for immediate publication, and any material lent would be gratefully acknowledged and quickly returned. GRACE GUINEY, Literary Executor 10 Holywell, Oxford, England, September 21 Casuistry and Strategy To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: A peculiar problem of casuistry has arisen in the af- fairs of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Cali- fornia Branch. Eugene V. Debs was to speak at the Municipal Auditorium in Long Beach, and the American Legion and other super-patriots got after the city authorities and caused the can- celing of the engagement. The organization of which I am director has been formed for the purpose of opposing such inter- ference with free speech, so I went to call upon Squire DuRee, who is the custodian of public property in Long Beach, and applied for the use of the Municipal Auditorium to discuss whether or not Long Beach should have permitted Debs to speak. Permission was refused us. We then applied for per- mission to speak in Bixby Park, an open-air meeting. This permission was also refused, but Squire DuRee finally decided to permit us to hold a meeting there, provided we would pledge ourselves to make no reference to the barring of Debs. So you see we were in a dilemma. If we held the meeting under those conditions we would gravely compromise our prin- ciples; on the other hand, if we did not hold the meeting, the people of Long Beach would not learn anything about what had happened. Our executive committee finally decided to com- promise and hold the meeting. We figured that while we couldn’t discuss the barring of Debs we could discuss the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union had been barred from mentioning a certain subject. Everybody in the audience would know what that subject was, and they would not be barred from discussing the matter all over the city! So we held the meeting, and about five hundred people at- tended. That day the Long Beach papers were full of discus- sions of the fact that the director had censored the list of speak- ers, and had barred Mrs. Fanny Bixby Spencer, whose father gave Bixby Park to the city of Long Beach. Mrs. Spencer’s crime was that she was a pacifist, like Debs. She went to the mayor, and the mayor countermanded Squire DuRee; so then there was more talk in Long Beach, and there were long discus- sions in the newspapers next day as to whether we had kept our pledge or had not kept our pledge. We went to see Squire DuRee about it, and he professed him- self as satisfied. Also he told us that we might have a meeting in the Municipal Auditorium if we would accept the same con- ditions. Our executive committee thereupon decided to compro- mise again; they take the position that next to making us appear upon the platform with a padlock upon our lips or with chains about our wrists, Squire DuRee has done the most significant thing we could have imagined. He has put us in a position to compel everybody in Long Beach to keep on talking about the question of the barring of Debs. We write this letter in the hope that you will publish it and give still further impetus to the discussion of this forbidden topic. For one thing, you may be the means of letting other people in Long Beach know that we are in business at 540 Wil- cox Building, Los Angeles, and that we can be tempted to com- promise our principles if we can thereby accomplish our purpose of making the American people think about the protection of their civil liberties. Los Angeles, October 5 CLINTON J. TAFT, Director American Civil Liberties Union, Southern California Branch Books Wasteland Kangaroo. By D. H. Lawrence. Thomas Seltzer. $2. a latest product of Mr. Lawrence’s restless febrile intel- ligence suggests the reflection that he is the best example of that drifting rudderless state of mind, without settled aims, beliefs, or standards, of which this age is so proud. That Wasteland which many have attempted to describe and of which Mr. Eliot, not to universal satisfaction, proclaimed himself the laureate, Mr. Lawrence describes most accurately without, like the laureate, finding the task gay or amusing but only because he finds himself in the land and can’t get out. Like the rest of us he has enthusiastically destroyed illusions in the hope of arriving at truth, but having torn away the veils he is not sure that there is anything to see and so he either turns away in disgust or babbles orphically something about “the God you never see or visualize who stands darkly on the threshold of the phallic me”—rationalizing his bafflement into the semblance of a mystic system. He is a purely intuitive artist even when dealing with intellectual concepts, but all current thought, aspirations, and disgusts seethe in his spirit. “Kangaroo,” said by the publisher to be strongly auto- biographic, has points of difference from the rest of his work. Love between man and woman plays little part in it, and the distance which he has been rapidly putting between his current style and the clear-flowing definite narrative which was the backbone of “Sons and Lovers” is here even further increased. The new book is not quite his best work, for it carries a heavy burden of mysticism, but the familiar manner and the charac- teristic passion are there. It is one more study of love and hatred between man and man or man and an idea, in which the reason for either emotion is less important than the passions themselves. Intellectually it may be not quite clear but all is tense. Phrases flash back and forth between the characters like lightning strokes in the heavily charged atmosphere about them, and they all beat the air in vain. However much or little the outward events-of the book may be autobiographical, the hero who flies from Europe because it is too old and rotten and then flies from Australia because it is too new and crude is the essential Lawrence. The picture which the author gives of the Australian Main Street with its vast stretches of iron-roofed bungalows, so easy, so slack, and so empty, is a masterly externization of the soul of a country, and from the conversations between the hero and the fantastic Nietzsche-Mussolini who dreams of conferring upon the Aus- tralians the benefits of rule there emerges a brilliant phantas- magoria of political speculation ending in no conclusion; but, when the hero cuts and runs to America, a land which he does not want to see, simply to get away from the people he knows, the whole becomes more interesting as a symbol of Lawrence and his attitude toward life than in itself. The mutual irascibility which always subsists in his books between man and wife or lover and mistress and which consti- tutes with him the chief outward symptom of love gives one of the keys to his character. A nervous irritability is almost his dominant trait and he can never make up his mind about anything, be it religion or government or love, any more than he can long be attracted to people without wanting to be rid of them because everything gets so frightfully on his nerves. Petulantly sensitive to all appeals he is unable to get anywhere without being seized with revulsion and wanting to escape into some far country or to draw his quivering soul back into his shell and be done with the whole wretched business of living and feeling. He never stretches out that he does not draw back so that perpetual frustration keeps him perpetually tense and nothing is constant with him except excitement. Yet this mor- bid sensibility is the source of his strength as well as of his weakness. It gives the peculiarly modern twang to his writings,

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 527 and it enables him to feel with unusual acuteness those sudden eager enthusiasms and quick passionate revulsions which con- stitute the inevitable reaction of a sensitive mind to the con- fusion of the modern world. Under a magnifying glass, as it were, he studies the emotional attractions and repulsions which affect us all, and he describes them more accurately than any- one else because he feels them more strongly. The man is a genuinely tortured spirit and no mere player at disillusion and despair. There is, or he thinks there is, at the center of his being a desire for a contact with men and a chance, as his hero phrases it, to be something in the world of men. But in the center too is a cold little demon who lays a chilling finger on every love and every enthusiasm. No sooner does he find the love of a woman than revulsion sets in and he longs for the sturdy friendship of men; no sooner does the desired comrade stretch out his hand than something fastidious in him recoils as from the back-slap of a Rotarian; and no sooner does the cause to which he had hoped he might devote himself appear, than he realizes that it is not for him with his hesitance and his relenting. From everything he turns away or bolts and in his novels we have no conclusion but only thun- derstorms of passion. What may one say of him except that he is the most interesting and the most unsatisfactory of novel- ists writing today? J. W. KrutcH Modern Russia The Russian Soviet Republic. By Edward Alsworth Ross. The Century Company. $3. M® ROSS carries the story of modern Russia (a story which he began in two earlier books) almost up to the present day in “The Russian Soviet Republic.” He disclaims any intention of writing a history; he has written, however, a fascinating narrative in which events of world-wide signifi- cance are presented at cinematograph speed, with the author’s comments for captions. He has sifted great quantities of ma- terial, documents, propaganda, newspaper clippings, accounts by “eye-witnesses,” and government reports. His story is not going to please everyone. The Russian aristocracy and former members of the Russian division of our State Department are going to feel that the book is too pro-bolshevist; our socialist and communist friends are going to object to Mr. Ross’s mani- fest opposition to their economic philosophy and their fanaticism in carrying it out. In an introductory chapter the philosophy of the leaders of the Russian revolution is presented briefly but with the sympa- thetic understanding of one who has met and admired these men. Their idealism, their devotion to a reorganized society free from exploitation, with equal opportunity for all, their fanaticism annihilating opposition are all depicted. Mr. Ross, after discussing the peace of Brest-Litovsk and the bolshevist propaganda in Germany which followed it, con- cludes that the latter did not contribute perceptibly to the de- feat of the German army. He rehearses rapidly the events of the spring of 1918 when the Allies discarded the opportunity of utilizing the disillusioned Russians against the Germans and when the fabric of falsehood originating in counter-revolu- tionary sources gradually enveloped the whole world. It was at this period, he recalls, that the bugaboo of German and Austrian armies of ex-prisoners of war marching back and forth across Russia was offered with our morning coffee, pro- viding additional thrills to our already overworked emotions. He refutes the accusation that the Soviet Government was closely allied to the German Government and minimizes the amount of bolshevist propaganda abroad which, according to the newspapers of the day, resulted in demonstrations in Bris- bane, strikes in Manitoba, protests from miners in South Africa, and plots against the Uruguayan Government. Perhaps the best part of the whole book is the fascinating story of the Czecho-Slovak migration across Siberia. Mr. Ross shows clearly the sinister forces at work on both sides to bring about the Czecho-Slovak attack upon the Russians in the spring of 1918 and the resulting occupation of Siberia by the Ameri- cans in August of that year. He goes on to tell the story of the conspiracy of the representatives of the Allies in Russia to bring about a counter-revolution, admitting that he has to depend almost wholly on Soviet sources, for naturally the Allies have never made public their part in this unsuccessful and dis- graceful affair. There are chapters on the Allied participation in the Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel, and Yudenich bubbles. Then when Uritzki was assassinated and an attempt was made on Lenin’s life he does not spare the Soviet Government, but charges it with horrible retaliation, retaliation which called forth Major Allen Wardwell’s protest to Chicherin against the “in- tentions upon the part of the government to wreak a bloody vengeance upon a whole section of the people for no other reason than that they are suspected of holding political views different from those of the authorities.” In a chapter on The Poison Gas Attack, Mr. Ross has col- lected some fifty of the lies current in almost the entire Ameri- can press regarding the situation in Russia. From the Rev. Dr. Hillis’s confiscation of Y. M. C. A. property, through Chi- nese executions, to that crowning absurdity, nationalization of women, the whole galaxy of calumnies is represented. The persistence of these stories is indicated by the fact that the writer of this review was accused by one of the government divisions as late as the summer of 1919 of undue sympathy with the Soviet Government because he denied that he had seen in Petrograd (from which he had just come) placards national- izing women. The government division was sure that these placards covered the walls of Petrograd, for had not a govern- ment official in Copenhagen so reported? There are interesting chapters on the political system, Com- munist Party, peasants, production, justice, education, and the church, and perhaps a little too much generalization in describ- ing the inefficiency of Russian schools under the Czar. The writer had the good fortune to spend many days in schools in the southeast of Russia just previous to the first revolution and in some of them teachers trained in Germany and England were doing excellent work in well-equipped schoolbuildings. Mr. Ross brings his narrative to a close by discussing some of the probable world effects of the Russian revolution in the decades to come. He thinks its influence will be not in abolish- ing private capital but rather in training production for profit to subserve the general welfare. WALTER W. PETTIT Letters of a Scientist The Story of the Development of a Youth. Letters to his Parents, 1852-1856. By Ernst Haeckel. Translated by G. Barry Gifford. Harper and Brothers. $3. ooo that which people despise and tread under foot as contemptible, inferior dirt, the green slime on old wood lying in the water, the turbid foam on the surface of the mire, does not my microscope prove these things to be just the most magnificent and most marvelous forms of creation? Never, by the way, have I missed my beloved microscope so painfully as in those days when the waters of the mountains offered me so much and such new material, animal and vegetable, for my microscope. So, thereupon, I took a solemn oath never, no matter how great the possible difficulty in the way, even on journeys, to let the dear companion of my life, which opens to me an infinitude of organic life where the unassisted eye sees nothing but rubbish and rottenness, out of my sight.” Such rapturous outpourings as this from the pen of a uni- versity student of twenty-one years do not often reach the eyes of parents, especially concerning so unromantic a theme as a microscope. They express, however, not the exalted mood of a moment, but a profound and permanent passion for nature, given lyric utterance with a hundred variations, intermixed

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528 re The Nation with a minute account of daily happenings, meals, expenditures, and ailments, as well as with reflections upon life, upon God, and upon human destiny. During the four years of his student days at Wiirzburg, the period covered by these letters, Ernst Haeckel sketched micro- scopic forms and preserved mosses and insects, “my hay and vermin,” with an ardent devotion incomprehensible to ordinary minds. The gift of Berghaus’s Physical Atlas made of his eighteenth birthday an exciting adventure among geographical plates. Literature, too, was no terra incognita to him. He read Goethe and Lessing for pleasure, and Homer in the orig- inal. A letter dated New Year’s eve, 1853, contains the fol- lowing postscript: ‘When I asked you to send Homer to me, I meant the original in Greek, which affords me quite another pleasure than the translation. However, I am quite fond of reading it once more in that form.” For painting and sculp- ture he had an enthusiastic appreciation, but, an unusual thing in a German of culture, little enjoyment of music. “My musical sense is in reality equal to zero. The only music in which I take any interest is the popular song.” It would be a mistake to assume that this youth was an average German university student of the early fifties. His isolation from most of his fellows is evident. In their jollifica- tions, their Studentenspritze, their drinking bouts, he was both unable and unwilling to join. He recounts some pathetic at- tempts to enter with ease into general social life. Concerning an excursion at which young ladies were present, he comments: “T have learned how to navigate safely around such rocks [namely the task of entertaining these ladies] so I did not speak a single word to one of them throughout the day.” After two years of residence in Wiirzburg he remarks that he is “not conscious of knowing, with the exception of Frau Pro- fessor Schenk and Frau Dr. Gsell-Fels, any female soul in the whole of Wiirzburg, even by sight.” He has nevertheless quite enough in common with the life around him to make the letters valuable as a picture of the university life of the time. They are still more important to the psychologist for the revelation they contain of a growing mind, and in particular the growing mind of a man of undoubted genius. No laboratory could furnish data half so significant, and none of the many recent studies of youth in fictional form escapes the unconscious dis- tortion which mature reflection inevitably gives. As literature, neither in the original nor in this fairly good translation does the book quite merit Professor Schmidt’s enthusiastic preface. For, in range of ideas and experience, in variety and richness of expression, many collections of letters are superior to these, though few equal them in candor, in depth of feeling, and in the completeness with which the heart is “shaken out.” Possibly, however, the chief interest of the volume lies in the light thrown upon the career of the mature Haeckel, the impassioned apostle of Darwinism, the poet-prophet who made materialism a religion, the zealot who led the German pro- fessors in their pronouncement regarding Germany’s innocence in the Great War. Haeckel’s American friends apologized for his war hysteria on the score of his advanced age and failing powers. But he had earlier shown the same docility in making his powerful intellect the servant of an intolerable govern- mental policy. In 1870 he cut from one of his books a passionate protest against militarism with its waste of precious human life, and during the Kulturkampf he inserted an attack on Catholi- cism. The real explanation is based upon that combination of indifference to politics with deep-seated respect for authority which was the price consciously or unconsciously paid by many German university professors for their boasted Lehrfreiheit. When Haeckel first read Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” he remarked that he could have written much of it himself. In these letters it is evident that for him the dividing line be- tween plant and animal life is already growing dim. Indeed the final step in this process of thought, a completely monistic philosophy in which all nature is regarded as the working out of uniform laws, a step which Darwin himself seems never to [Vol. 117, No. 3044 have taken, is already present to his mind. In the letters, Monism, which ultimately became a religion to Haeckel, is in continual conflict with a devout pietism that had been deeply instilled by parental training, and evidently was as nearly native to his temperament as religious feeling can be. Like many other devout souls, he staved off the crisis of the conflict by separating the spheres of religion and science. “Also I my- self can only find comfort and peace in this Christian belief, which is contemplated by so many and such important minds to be mere ridiculous foolishness, by my admitting this life of faith as a sphere quite apart from the life of knowledge and understanding based on the evidence of our five senses, which is not only possible side by side with it but also necessary, just as justified, and even infinitely more important.” This two- fold truth subterfuge begins to wear thin in the latter part of the correspondence, and only a few years subsequently the open break with Christianity came. We actually find him in middle life issuing a challenge upon the subject to his former teacher and friend, the great scientist Virchow, against whose materialistic views he had struggled throughout his university years, but who in later life turned apologist for institutional Christianity. The less unusual traits of personality revealed in the letters: artistic sensitiveness, eagerness and impatience of temper, pas- sionate loyalty to family and friends, susceptibility to partisan prejudice, sincere concern for human welfare, emotional fervor in the discussion even of abstract subjects, add greatly to the reader’s interest and are by no means unimportant in explain- ing the extent and specific character of Haeckel’s influence throughout his remarkable career. CLARA MILLERD SMERTENKO The Large View Building the American Nation. An Essay of Interpretation. By Nicholas Murray Butler. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $2.50. Peo BUTLER continues to speak and write, but he seems pretty much to have given up publishing anything that is new. With only such variety as naturally comes from the choice of different subjects, almost any one of his recent books is of a piece with its companions. The same sententious style, the same conventional thought, the same elementary gen- eralizations resting upon an unimpeachable but modest body of data, the same dignified assumption of the large view, and the same complacently hopeful tone, characterize them all. The president of the greatest American university is unquestionably the best American exponent of commonplace observations on what are comprehensively classed as “public questions.” We have linked together President Butler’s writing and speaking because they are, as a matter of fact, hardly to be separated, most of his books being little if anything more than collections of addresses; and since he has been successful in “drawing” rather more lectureships of a quasi-public kind than any Ameri- can now living, the announcement of a new appointment is practically equivalent to the announcement of a new book. “Building the American Nation” is a good illustration of what has just been said. The volume comprises the lectures given in Great Britain by President Butler during the present year on the Sir George Watson foundation for American history, litera- ture, and institutions. The last of the lectures was delivered on June 11, and the book was off the press on August 24— quickly enough to reach any probable American public be- fore the English audiences would have had time completely to forget. Only to a British public, however, notoriously ignorant as that public is of American history, do the addresses here collected offer anything likely to be regarded as novel. There is nothing new in the book for American readers. The “builders of the nation” whom President Butler introduces are the same that any informed American would naturally expect him to intro-

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OO Nov. 7, 1923] duce: Samuel Adams and Franklin for the days of Revolution, Washington for independence and the period of constitutional establishment, Hamilton and Madison for Constitution-making, Jefferson as the “spokesman of the democratic spirit,” Marshall, Webster, and Jackson as “welders of the nation,” and Lincoln as “defender and preserver of the nation’s unity and power.” Of each of these leaders President Butler says the well-known things that a lecturer in his position is usually expected to say, with the addition of enough comment and generalization to make it clear that there has actually been some development. That is all. The nature of the closing lecture, Fifty Years of Growth and Change, can be sufficiently gathered from the title. Nothing in the substance of the book calls for comment. The lectures are proper, well mannered, agreeable, and tailor-dressed, in every way the offering of a busy man who evidently thinks very highly of the only America that he perceives, and who knows perfectly how to give to an entirely respectable audience the kind of intellectual performance that it expects. WILLIAM MacDoNALD The Public- Health Nurse The Evolution of Public Health Nursing. By Annie M. Brain- ard. W. B. Saunders Company. $3. LTHOUGH the earlier Christians insisted upon due morti- fication of the flesh, so that the holier among them disap- proved such an obvious aid to hygiene as the bath, yet it was, paradoxically enough, from an impulse of pure Christianity that the nurse was derived. The first Roman deaconesses lived in an era when charity meant love. The same spirit, free from sec- tional prejudice or sectarian propagandism, animated Pastor Theodor Fliedner, who laid the foundations of modern nursing in the little German village of Kaiserswerth am Rhein (at any rate it was German a hundred years ago). The Kaiserswerth institution owed something of its inspiration to a great English- woman, Elizabeth Fry, so that Florence Nightingale had every right to borrow ideas therefrom. After she comes on the scene the history of public-health nursing must be transported to England, there to mature for the benefit of humanity through the next generation. In England the idea of professional bedside care was devel- oped and scientific training was gradually recognized as of greater importance than the ability to distribute material re- lief. There was at least one English doctor, born before his time, who realized the educative possibilities of a visiting nurse, but it was left to an American to found the first society for Instructive District Nursing. This society, founded at Bos- ton in 1886, may be said to have introduced the present era in which the visiting nurse has come to be regarded by Pro- fessor Winslow and many other socially minded people as “the most important figure in the modern movement for the protec- tion of the public health.” The question now arises whether the public-health nurse can compass all the manifold duties demanded of her. Must she cease to give bedside care as she has already forsaken the dis- tribution of relief? A medical delegate (he was, if I remember rightly, a representative of Sweden) at the General Council of the League of Red Cross Societies, held in March, 1923, insisted that efficiency demands this sacrifice which in his country had already been made. There are many good reasons for hoping that the example will not be generally followed. An alternative relief is given by the process of specialization discussed by Miss Brainard in Chapters xvill and xIx. Besides the tuberculosis nurse we already have the baby-welfare nurse, the factory nurse, the hospital social-service nurse, and the contagious- diseases nurse, to whom will be added perhaps one day that extremely important person the birth-control nurse and a spe- cialist in eating and drinking. May the American of the future find it in his heart to make friends with all these people! . J. ROSSLYN EARP The Nation - The Cheka looms large. 529 Tales Out of Russia Russia Before Dawn. By F. A. Mackenzie. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. Unfinished Tales from a Russian Prison. By Marguerite E. Harrison. George H. Doran Company. $2. Tae Soviet authorities have put the stamp of approval on Mr. Mackenzie’s book by asking to have it translated into Russian. This leads one to suspect propaganda. But there is no propaganda—simply honest, competent, well-informed jour- nalism. Mr. Mackenzie records many facts that most govern- ments would not care to have stressed: the corruption and red tape, for instance, that curse the new regime as they cursed the old. The weary pilgrimage from department to department, from official to official, to secure a permit to take photographs or carry a few books out of the country, is the chief outdoor sport of Moscow; and swapping stories about delays and hindrances is one of the chief indoor sports. Mr. Mackenzie doesn’t mince matters in his account of the treat- ment accorded foreign firms who have tried recently to do business in Russia: “until the spirit and methods of the Mos- cow Officials are radically changed, big business will not come in.” He regards the “definitely and actively anti-religious” attitude of the Communist state as a piece of folly that is happily not succeeding. The Young Communist carnival against religion last Christmas in Moscow, with all its “rough stuff” of effigies and cartoons, had few spectators, while the churches were crowded as never before. But what appalling difficulties this government has grappled with! Mr. Mackenzie’s survey covers the period from Sep- tember, 1921, to January, 1923; and takes in not only the big cities, but many country districts, the famine area, and Siberia —‘the Outer Marches.” We have all read statistics about Rus- sian railways and the breakdown of transportation. They come to life in Mr. Mackenzie’s lively narrative—in such little episodes as that of the engine-driver mending a broken coupling- rod with a piece of rope. As for the famine, read A Corner of Samara and The City of Death, and then try to forget it all, if you can. Mr. Mackenzie, a Canadian, pays generous tribute to the work of the American Relief Administration. The government has faced all these conditions, and has learned by experience to modify its policies. The steady improvement in many directions during the later months of Mr. Mackenzie’s survey is very marked: the increasing reliability of the train service, the greater degree of personal security, the revival of private enterprise, the repainting and repaving of Moscow, the more abundant food supplies, and the dissolution of the Cheka, whose operations kept alive the atmosphere of terror. In Petrograd especially “one rarely attended a party where there were not some recently released from the Cheka prison.” “At least one-half of the people with whom I came in contact had been in prison at one time or the other during the past four years, some for only a few days, some for over a year. Most of them had been incarcerated for no special offense, but as suspects.” Mrs. Harrison gives us a “close-up” of one of these prisons in Moscow, and fourteen fascinating unfinished tales of the Suspects who shared her imprisonment. Each story ends abruptly with the entrance of the guard who tells the prisoner to pack up her clothes and get ready to leave—for another prison, for trial, for the death sentence, or perhaps for free- dom. There is the ballet-dancer who had been a political Com- missar with the Red army, and had signed many death war- rants herself; the young spy, the prostitute, the frivolous aristo- erat, the Jewess, the Social Revolutionary, and others. One gains from these stories a picturesque impression of the strange disturbed life of the Russia of the last seven years, and the hazards of individual destinies. They are convincing, one feels, in spite of some pardonable journalistic heightening of effects. D. B.

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The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3044 Some Modern Essays Extemporary Essays. By Maurice Hewlett. Oxford Univer- sity Press, American Branch. $2.20. On the Margin. By Aldous Huxley. pany. $2. On. By Hilaire Belloc. George H. Doran Company. $2. George H. Doran Com- FTER reading these three volumes I have realized how mis- A used is the word “essay” and how neglected is the true function of this important division of literature. Between the writing of novels almost every author becomes what he calls an “essayist.” Because he fancies himself as a eritic of other authors he writes book reviews, inconsequential little pieces that in the journals serve their purpose as guides to the busy reader who seeks counsel in the purchasing of books, but hardly worth serious attention once their value has been dissipated by time. Among the books that have provoked these remarks is Maurice Hewlett’s “Extemporary Essays.” Hewlett says: “If one had to define the essay it would be as the written, after-dinner mono- logue of a well-read, well-satisfied man of, at least, five-and- forty. Years don’t matter: the spirit of years matters very much.” This is a good, workable definition but judged by it there are few essays in Mr. Hewlett’s own volume. Most of the fragments are book reviews, saved from mediocrity by the eru- dition that Hewlett has brought to his little tasks but rather dull reading because of the commonplace nature of the tasks themselves. This is unfortunate, for Hewlett possessed much of the charm of the elder essayists. He looked upon life with a knowing eye and had some humor. The few real essays that the book contains are excellent. “Junketings New and Old” and “Daily Bread” can stand the test of his own definition. They should agreeably affect any group of dinner companions. When the author quotes from the Greek it is not in the fashion of the young literary prigs but in the manner of one to whom the lan- guage is a living delight. Aldous Huxley also suffers from the ambition of his publisher to put everything that he writes into book form. Now that “Chrome Yellow” and ‘Mortal Coils” have met with some popu- lar success we may be sure that the author will not be able to write a letter to the Times without furnishing his publisher with a copy for inclusion in some future book of “Essays.” You may forgive him much, however, when you come upon such a remark as this: “Among the minor makers of oriflammes there is our own Mr. Chesterton, with his heroic air of being forever on the point of setting out on a crusade, glorious with bunting and mounted on a rocking-horse.” The essays—the real ones are few—are written with a great deal of skill but are not dis- tinguished by choice of subject. The book shows none of the volatile imagination of “On” by Hilaire Belloc, who never seems to be engaged on a journalistic stint. Belloc avoids the ordi- nary “literary” subjects of his contemporaries. He skims over life, examining, commenting with suave irony. He and Max Beerbohm are almost alone in modern letters in reviving the essay from its state of neglect and in making it serve as a medium for original observations upon men and manners. Belloc shows us something of what the essay may become when written by a man of intelligence and understanding. The essay, properly used, is a vital form of self-expression, equaled per- haps, but not surpassed by the lyric. And it is less hampered by traditional rules. To suggest that it keep within its special province is not to seek to limit its powers but rather to inten- sify them. The essay is not the place to mold mankind, nor, despite the august example of Matthew Arnold, is it the place to pound the pulpit that was worn smooth by his heavy fist. The writer who is actuated by a stern moral purpose may preach his creed in sermons and treatises, but the essay should be the personal vehicle of the civilized and genial man who takes the reader into his confidence when he reflects upon life. Howarp IRvING YOUNG A Novel of the Nineties Fan. The Story of a Young Girl’s Life. By Henry Harford (W. H. Hudson). E. P. Dutton and Company. $3. Pee novel by the late Mr. Hudson, first published in 1892 under an unobtrusive pseudonym, is quite unlike any other piece of fiction that he wrote. The scenes of “The Purple Land,” “Green Mansions,” and “El Ombud” are set in distant places. “A Crystal Age” is concerned with the distant future, “Dead Man’s Plack’” is concerned with the distant past, and “A Little Boy Lost” is sheer fantasy. But “Fan” is as local and con- temporary as the then recent “Esther Waters” and “Robert Elsmere,” and indeed it shows the influence of those two books. The heroine rises from a London slum almost as terrible as that which Mr. Moore described, and in the course of her adven- tures she meets several provincial persons who are finding it as difficult to keep their religion as Mrs. Ward’s clergyman found it to keep his. Fan is a pure and beautiful girl of the tenements who at fifteen discovers that her real father had been a gentleman. Her drunken foster-father abandons her at her mother’s death, and she is in a pitiable plight until she is taken under pro- tection by the rich and passionate Mary Starbrow. The love between these two women is the central story, and it is perhaps unique in fiction, though it may derive in germ from the rela- tions between Esther Waters and her benevolent London mis- tress. Mary is as tempestuous as Fan is calm, and in a fit of jealousy casts her off because it appears that her love is being diverted to Constance Churton, a tutoress in the west of Eng- land, to whom Fan has gone for a winter’s instruction. After many vicissitudes, during which Fan becomes possessed of a fortune and the knowledge of her father, she is able to prove that she can love both Mary and Constance with her whole nature, and their reconciliation makes the end of the book. There are men; each of the three women loves a man; but these affairs are nothing to their feelings toward one another, just as the relation between Esther Waters and William finally becomes subordinate to the relation between Esther and her kind mistress in the country. The book may borrow from this or that source, yet essen- tially it comes from Hudson’s own character and observation. Fan is as much like her creator as a heroine could be. She has his purity, his simplicity of spirit, his perfect reasonableness, and his lack of salty humor. Indeed she conspires with him to. make the book not altogether a success as a realistic study. She is too good, and she forces the other people to be tco good, though Miss Starbrow is not too far from being the “demon” her brother called her, and Merton, the husband of Constance, remains an unregenerate charlatan till his death. “Fan” is not a perfect novel for the very reason, perhaps, that it is so good a book. It is an excellent book, and every reader of Mr. Hudson will wish to see it. The writing is impeccable, of course. But read- ers of the posthumous work “A Hind in Richmond Park’ will be especially interested to observe that portions of “Fan” are taken directly from the author’s experience. In “A Hind in Richmond Park” Hudson tells how once on a windy street in London the vision fluttered before his face of a beloved girl whom he knew at the time to be eighty miles away. He had been wishing he could adopt her as his daughter, and she was more or less constantly in his mind; but at this particular instant, as he later discovered, she was in painful difficulties with her parents in the country—people whose narrow religion she found no longer tolerable—and was contemplating flight to him. In “Fan” the gentleman father has a similar vision of his daughter just before he dies, and Constance in the country struggles similarly with her mother over a cruel and ridiculous creed. Hudson often complained that he forgot most of the things in his life that would have made good reading. But he remembered much. e MARK VAN DoREN

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Nov. 7, 1923] Books in Brief America and the Atlantic. By Vice-Admiral G. A. Ballard. E. P. Dutton and Company. $5. It is to be feared that the critical reader will hardly discover in Admiral Ballard’s volume any very distinctive contribu- tion to American history, notwithstanding that the maritime episodes which are dwelt upon, chiefly such as relate to coloniza- tion and the naval phases of wars, have some novelty of interest when grouped together. The most interesting part of the book is the few concluding pages in which Admiral Ballard points out the inevitable dependence of the Monroe Doctrine upon a fleet “powerful enough to insure its defense against reasonably possi- ble risks.” The strength or weakness of a navy, however, seems to depend very largely upon its position, and the summary view which the author gives of the comparative weakness of a modern navy, especially in the matters of fuel supply and repairs, when operating far from its base, contains suggestive material for a reply to the big-navy advocates who are forever talking of how easily the United States might be invaded, and shows pretty clearly that the maintenance of naval “superiority” serves no particular end except that of aggression. It is to the credit of Admiral Ballard that his final word should be a commendation of the disarmament policy which inspired, if unhappily it failed wholly to control, the Washington conference. Ventures in Book Collecting. By William Harris Arnold. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3.50. This is a far more delectable volume than its title might indi- eate. Mr. Arnold may have been primarily a collector of letters and first editions, but the motive force behind his zeal was that of a genuine lover of literature—this is evident from the wise and generous inclusion which he has made in this volume. He kindles the ardor, not alone of the connoisseur, but that of the mere student of literary history as well. His selection of topics is catholic, and he has brought to them a background of culture which makes a personal hobby doubly fascinating. The Nation MDevitt-Wilson’s Booksellers Hudson Terminal Building GO Church Street New York ORIENTALIA The Only Shop in America Dealing Exclusively in Books on the East The following catalogues and lisis may now be had free on application: Books on the Arts and Crafts of Asia Books on China and Japan Books on Mythology and Folklore Books of Voyages and Travel to the East from Earliest Times New Holiday list of books List of Oriental art objects and textiles suitable for gifts ORIENTALIA 32 West 58th Street New York City 531 The House of the Enemy. By Camille Mallarmé. McBride and Company. $2. Robert M. Despite the difference in setting, this novel has certain marked resemblances to the work of Bojer, particularly in the directness and the pace with which its story is unfolded. The scene is laid in La Mancha, and the complications grow out of those insoluble conflicts which arise when a child of the soil is thrown into the alien life of a fading aristocracy. Here the material has been handled with competence and vigor, and with a fidelity to human motives and relations which lifts the story above the commonplace. The Best Poems of 1922. Selected by Thomas Moult. Decorated by Philip Hagreen. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2. An admirable volume which it is to be hoped will inaugurate an annual series. Mr. Moult prints his choice of all the verse which has appeared within the year in both British and Ameri- can magazines. Drama Oedipus Rex Hos years scholars and dramaturgists of a definite pseudo- intellectual variety have pointed to the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles as the first thoroughly well-made play in the history of the drama. As they justify the money-grubbing of the Broad- way hack through the fact that Shakespeare and Moliére needed food and clothing, so they have justified the base ingen- uity of the followers of Scribe by an appeal to the great and commanding name of Sophocles. Point by point it has been hard to break down the arguments thus advanced and the cul- tured public—the public that is only cultured—awed by the name of Sophocles, has swallowed Mary Roberts Rinehart and Sam Shipman without inner discomfort. It is high time that the war be carried into the country of this particular enemy. From the point of view of plot and ex- Pt 2s \ r v 3 ans vas TH b Aveat International Book and Art Shop 3 Christopher Street, New York City We have the largest and _ choicest selection of PRINTS in the city. Etchings, lithographs, water-colors, drawings, original and reproduction, framed and unframed. Prices, the lowest in the city. Also a large stock of BOOKS on art, current fiction, drama, poetry, etc..—new and second-hand.

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532 The Nation - ternal fable the Oedipus Rex is melodrama; it is mystery melo- drama of that well-recognized type in which the hero turns out to be the villain. Any schoolboy can see at once how this central device of the hero-villain results naturally in an action of gath- ering suspense and gradual unfoldment and has therefore been found grateful and lucrative by dozens of modern playwrights of infinitely varying gifts and qualities from the days of Kleist’s “Der zerbrochene Krug” to those of “The Sign on the Door.” Not only is the Oedipus melodrama. It is upon the whole not very good melodrama. It is not possible to suspend disbelief sufficiently to accept anything so monstrous as that Oedipus and Jocasta, during many years of marriage, never exchanged such simple confidences as would have brought out the entire story. It may be pleasingly romantic to marry a gentleman with a mysterious past; the woman never lived who, after mar- riage, did not seek to render that past the reverse of mysterious. In brief, the Greeks of the fifth century did not care particularly for verisimilitude or for the logic of life or the concrete facts of human character. Absolutely their dramatic poetry remains great; relatively these are vital and, indeed, insufferable defects and the justification of bad modern work by an appeal to these defects is dangerous nonsense. Their dramatic poetry remains great. What forevermore divides Oedipus from “The Sign on the Door” is its spiritual elevation and its poetry and its wisdom. Sophocles wrote a well- made melodrama. But what he was interested in was not pri- marily the plot and the suspense. It was the saga and its il- lustration of the inscrutable dealings of the gods with mankind. He had not the granite piety of Aeschylus nor the bold specula- tive intellect of Euripides. Yet he was a poet to whom ingen- uity, though he possessed it, was of least concern. Sir John Martin-Harvey’s production at the Century Theater is dignified and pictorially satisfying and insufferably unrhyth- mical. Its only thrilling moment is the first in which the Theban populace throngs, suppliant, to the feet of Oedipus. But this thrill is a thrill provided by Max Reinhardt and its organic connection with the play and with the Greek theater remains more than doubtful. The rest is coldly formal. Nothing of the heat and mystery and terror is communicated, nothing of the gradual oncoming of an intolerable woe. The enunciation of all the actors is good; their gestures are correct. But what per- suaded so hopelessly pedestrian an actor to attempt Sophocles? Of the precision of Sir Gilbert Murray’s translation I am no judge. But I know that Sophocles was a great poet and that Murray, despite his inveterate imitation of Swinburne, is an exceedingly accomplished one. The actors do everything in their power to destroy the verse. They wrench it, break it, jangle it. The chanting choragus is interested only in his uninteresting tune. I listened for the beat of the verse; it was mangled. For the rich and emphatic rhymes; they were huddled out of sight. But the soul of poetry is in its form. Sophocles created through rhythm. Strip him of that and there is left a horrible nursery tale. It may make the flesh creep; it cannot elevate the mind or refresh the heart. This production aims at neither effect. It has cold, prosaic dignity. It is sober. It may be considered instructive. It does not live with the life of a great poet; it illustrates the Attic drama as conceived of by Professor Personalities are useless. But no wonder that this actor was knighted. Lupwic LEWISOHN A Correction By a regrettable typographical error in the October 24 issue of The Nation, the last sentence in Johan J. Smertenko’s re- view of Burton J. Hendrick’s “The Jews in America” read as follows: “The author’s purpose seems eminently laudable: he has sought a goat for the accused members of his race and found one in the Polish Jew.” It should read: “The author’s purpose seems eminently laud- able: he has sought a goat for the accused members of the race and found one in the Polish Jew.” [ Vol. 117, No. 3044 LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS The Theatre Guild presents JOHN GALSWORTHY’S COMEDY WINDOWS GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 85th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Eves. 8:30. COMEDY Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children & Moon WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST. The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS. Fl SKE in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO west 44th street. Evs. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan Henry Hull RITZ Theatre, Evening 8:80 West 48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. at 2:80 W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 Ma THE PLAYHOUSE tinees: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.”—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. 466 Grand Street Neighborhood Playhouse Tel. Drydock 7616 Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:30. Matinee Saturday at 2:30. W. B. Yeats’ Bernard Shaw’s “THE PLAYER QUEEN” “BLANCO POSNET” 27th Street and YIDDISH ART THEATRE 2%th, Street and Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Friday evening, Saturday and Monday through Thursday evenings. Sunday Matinees and evenings 6é 99 “SABBATI ZEVI” The Seven WhoWere Hanged Courses beginning RAND Nov. 9, 7:30 and 8:40 P. M. .Scott Nearing “Interpretation of Social Facts” “Dynamic Sociology” SCHOOL Nov. 10, 11:00 A. M Scott Nearing “Labor Economics” Nov. 14, 8:40 P. M...George Grover Mills 7 East 15th Street Garten eee Nov Clement Wood “Contemporary Fiction” Write for bulletin

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International Relations Section Workers’ Faculties By HANNAH PICKERING N Moscow, along one of the principal streets, there is a large stone building, part of Moscow University. It might be one of the buildings of any city university in America except that the street in front is lined with second- hand bookstalls and the students going in and out are dressed in working clothes and are less healthy in appear- ance than the average American student group. Just inside is the ever-present bust of Karl Marx and above, the red banner “Workers of all Lands, Unite.” This is the largest of the Workers’ Faculty schools and has at present about twenty-five hundred students. The Workers’ Faculties, or “Rabfacs,” are part of the general movement for the education of the workers and the peasants. They were started in 1919 with the idea of taking the “workers from the workshop and the peasants from the plow” and giving them three years of training preparatory to entering the university. This theoretical training added to their practical knowledge would fit them to go back as leaders of their various groups and would give Russia within a short time a large number of educated workers and peasants. No person can be sent who has not been doing some definite work and he must go on to the university when he has finished his Workers’ Faculty course. The number of schools has increased rapidly so that today there are eighty with over 35,000 students. Ten thousand of these students are in Moscow, four thousand in Petro- grad, and the rest in schools throughout the provinces. Of this total, 70 per cent are workers and 30 per cent peasants, 75 per cent men and 25 per cent women. The ages of the majority range from eighteen to twenty-five years but there is no age limit set. There have already been 11,000 gradu- ates who are at present in the universities. The workers are chosen by their unions, the central office of the Workers’ Faculties stating how many each union can send. The peasants are chosen by the village committees and go to the district Rabfac. Selection is based on (1) length of time in factory or field—it must be not less than three years; (2) ability; (3) social capacity. The student must be able to read and write, to have a certain amount ef ability in expressing thought, and a knowledge of ele- mentary arithmetic. During the time he is at school he is supported by the state, receiving a monthly ration of food (1 pood of flour, 2 pounds of fat, 5 pounds of corn and meat), a small monthly wage, and, during the year, clothing. Most of them live in communal houses, some in private rooms. Certainly none are living in any great degree of comfort on the rations they receive, but they can exist and study. Prior to this fall the burden of supporting the students in the universities fell to the unions and the districts. Now this expense is being taken over by the Department of Educa- tion. The Rabfacs are nearly always in university buildings and most of the university professors teach there. All teachers must have a university degree. Only 2 or 3 per cent of them are members of the Communist Party. About 30 per cent of the students are Communists. In general the student has three types of courses from which to choose: technical, which are taken by a majority; biological, for the agriculturists and those who will study medicine; and social science. The whole tendency of the educational system in Russia today is away from dulness in academic study. The curriculum of the Workers’ Fac- ulties offers to the students a few general subjects for the year from which to choose one. Then all his studies for that year are related to this subject. Suppose, for example, he chooses the Evolution of Technique. Under this he would take up the study of man and his implements of pro- duction, man and the machine, bringing in problems in mechanics, and man and water, under which he would get his knowledge of physics and chemistry. In this way dur- ing his training he gets his knowledge of biology, literature, economics, language, history, etc., related to the general subject chosen. In most of the schools the faculty have formed commit- tees to represent them before the students. Each week the teachers and students meet together to discuss various methods of teaching and studying, the students telling the teachers where they are at fault and the teacher commend- ing or criticizing the student in his method of study. When the end of the term comes thirty students in the group taking the same general subject are chosen by the group to examine the rest. The teachers give a report of each student. Then a committee of three students is chosen to complete the reports of individual students. After each report the teachers and students express opinions as to whether or not the student can be promoted. If the teachers and the group fail to agree, the directors of the school preside and the student has the right to be examined. In the general meeting he is judged by his knowledge of the ~ subject, his ability to work, his activity at home and at school, his general development, and his ability. In one beginning class of forty-five which we visited a poll was taken as to the authors read by the students. All had read Tolstoi and Gorki, thirty had read Goethe, four- teen Dostoevsky, and four or five each Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Wells, and Mark Twain. It was after this class that the students gathered around us and one youth who rivaled Trotzky in his oratorical ability sent “Greetings from the working youth of Russia to the working youth of America, with the hope that they, too, will soon throw off the yoke of capitalism making it possible for all to gain an education!” Jews Under the Soviet Regime By L. T: N September 9, the Jewish workers of Moscow cele- brated the opening of the Jewish pavilion at the All- ‘Russian Agricultural Exposition. The significance of this pavilion was thus summed up in the speech by M. Frumkin- Esther, the representative of the Jewish sections of the Communist Party (as recorded in the Moscow Yiddish daily E'mes of September 11): The modest products of Jewish agriculture which you see here are the first green blossoms from a soil which has been fertilized by centuries of suffering. You will see here the map of our Soviet land showing the number of pogroms perpetrated by the counter-revolution in hundreds of Jewish cities and

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towns. You will find them marked with the colors of all the white-guard bands which have passed through them, leaving ruin in their wake. . And now this earth, saturated with floods of blood, is being fertilized by the producing hands of the Jewish agricultural worker who puts into it his hope for a better future. The significance of this pavilion is great in that it marks the historical turning-point of the Jewish masses. For more than a thousand years the Jews were forced out of every productive occupation. It took them hundreds of years before they re- gained the right to engage in manual labor, but still they were rigidly kept away from agriculture. There have been some attempts to settle Jews on the land. .. . But only the Soviet power has thrown the way wide open for the Jewish masses to work and create on the land which has for so long been soaked with their blood. . . . Equals among equals, hand in hand with those Ukrainian, White-Russian, and Russian peasants who had been separated by a wall of prejudices and darkness and who now extend a brotherly hand to each other. Another Jewish exhibition which was recently held in Moscow and which attracted much attention was the exhibi- tion of the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee (known as the “Yidgescom”) which closed on September 15. Ac- cording to the Moscow press this exhibition may be brought to America some time during the next winter. Both of these exhibitions give a fairly complete summary of what the Jewish masses have recently achieved in Russia, at the same time plainly indicating the lines along which their further cultural, economic, and social development may be expected to progress. The Jewish population of the Union of 8.S.R. is centered chiefly in the Ukraine and White Russia which, up to the summer of 1920, were the battleground where the civil war was fought. In this civil war the Jewish population passed through a veritable hell before it found itself, ulti- mately and definitely, under Soviet rule. When life, under the aegis of the Soviet power, became secure at last, the Jewish population was confronted with the unequaled tasks of rehabilitation from the utter ruin it had suffered. Chief among these were the tasks of eco- nomic reconstruction and of providing for the orphaned children. According to the figures made public by the Child-care Commission of the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee, the number of Jewish children who became or- phaned during the war and the pogroms reached the stag- gering figure of 300,000 in a population of about 3,000,000. The number of refugees who left all their belongings to the mercy of the bandits and fled to the bigger cities where life was more safe, exceeded 500,000. Even that part of the Jewish population, which had not suffered physically, was economically in deep water, since trade, which had been the main occupation of the Jewish population, was prac- tically at a standstill during the period of civil war. The Soviet Government was quick to organize immediate relief work on an extensive scale. This work was carried out through the government organs, such as the specially organized commissions for the relief of the victims of the counter-revolution, the Jewish sections of the Comissariat of Public Maintenance, the Jewish Division of the Commis- sariat of Nationalities (in the Ukraine—the Jewish sections of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs and of the local executive committees), and the Jewish sections of the Com- missariat of Public Education, in close cooperation with the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee. The latter was organized in Moscow in July, 1920, for the relief of the war and pogrom sufferers and soon became the leading Jewish public organization in the Soviet Federation with branches in every city and town with a considerable Jewish popula- tion. By virtue of the fact that the problem of constructive relief has become, of necessity, linked with every other problem of Jewish life in the Ukraine and White Russia, this organization has come to be identified with every Jewish public activity in the Soviet Union. The chief concerns of the Jewish Public Committee are the uncared-for children, particularly the war and pogrom orphans. The data from its exhibition in Moscow show that at one time the Jewish Public Committee maintained and subsidized about 1,500 children’s institutions in which 150,000 children were taken care of. At present the com- mittee is maintaining upward of 1,000 institutions with 80,000 children. Most of these institutions are educational in character, intended not only to provide the children with food and shelter but to bring them up as useful citizens of the Workers’ republic. Accordingly they are organized along the lines of the Soviet school system. Great stress is laid in these institutions upon the children’s self-govern- ment and upon manual training. <A large part of the ex- hibition of the J.P.C. is devoted to samples of the work done by the children in the institutions. Much of this work is of high artistic quality. Together with the hundreds of Jewish schools under the supervision of the Jewish sections of the Commissariat of Public Education these orphans’ homes form a widely dis- tributed network of institutions for elementary education which, although not sufficient, still represent a remarkable achievement. Before the revolution there were practically no modern Jewish schools with Yiddish as the language of instruction. In addition to these institutions of elementary educa- tion there have grown up a number of other Jewish cul- tural institutions of considerable merit. Chief among these are the Jewish art school and music school in Kiev, about ten normal schools, a few high schools, the Jewish depart- ments at the universities of Moscow, Odessa, and Minsk, besides a hundred professional trade schools. Special mention should be made of the Jewish Kammer- theater in Moscow, which is the first Jewish state theater in history. The Jewish Public Committee has been generously sup- ported in its varied relief work by the Soviet Government. However, when Russia was confronted with the famine catastrophe the Soviet Government was obliged to reduce its material support to a minimum, and the Jewish Public Com- mittee had to fall back for its funds upon the sympathetic cooperation of the Jewish masses of America. The com- mittee, through its American representation, established close relations with the Jewish relief organizations in the United States, chiefly with the so-called Landmanschaften. It also organized the shipment of relief packages from private persons and the transmission of food remittances. The proceeds of these transmission operations went into the funds for the general relief work of the committee. Ac- cording to the official data published by the American rep- resentation of the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee, it has transmitted from America clothes, food, and money to the amount of almost $3,500,000. This does not include the funds spent for relief work in Russia by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Commit- tee. Out of the $6,000,000 spent by the J.D.C. for relief

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 535 The Russian-American Industrial Corporation annownees its FIRST DIVIDEND payable to Five and a Half Thousand Shareholders Don’t wait for Russia needed industrial credit Our major investment is in the All- Mr. Hughes— We provided it Russian Clothing Syndicate, Ltd. aeaien deduct anid. foruie R A I Cc OGNIZE 25 factories, 15,000 workers, 25 retail a stores Our first dividend is 3 per cent It’s a paying enterprise. RUSSIA! OUR BOOKS ARE STILL OPEN FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE BALANCE OF OUR CAPITAL STOCK OF $1,000,000.00 DO YOU WANT TO HELP RUSSIA, AND GIVE HER WHAT SHE NEEDS MOST— INDUSTRIAL CREDIT? ‘DO YOU CARE, TO SHARE IN ONE PRACTICAL WAY TO REHABILITATE RUSSIAN INDUSTRY? Shares sell at $10.00 each. Buy as many as you can. Bring or mail this blank to our office RUSSIAN-AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION SIDNEY HILLMAN, PRESIDENT Amalgamated Bank Building 103 East 14th St. New York a Ng ee RUSSIAN-AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CORP. Amalgamated Bank Bldg., 103 East 14th St., New York Mater. vac te hte. Se eae Ae eee Having seen your latest announcement in The Nation, I want .................. shares of RAIC stock at $10.00 a share, for which I enclose $.................. payment ion taser ee. nace shares. ee EAM ole io wy alm vis apps ene ec cee ceed NROGAG, BM siisit ss cAiae va oe Dia oct Mes Mets view as ae Send me more information about RAIC. | (Make all checks, drafts, or money orders payable to the Russian-American Industrial Corp.) |

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536 The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3044 work in Russia in conjunction with the work of the ARA, a considerable sum went to the children’s institutions of the Jewish Public Committee and for the constructive re- lief work which the J.D.C. is carrying on in close coopera- tion with the Society for Spreading Handicraft and Agri- cultural Work among the Jews in Russia (known as the Russian “ORT’’). The constructive work of the Jewish public organizations in the Soviet Union has contributed considerably toward the establishing of sounder economic foundations for the Jewish population. It has saved from complete ruin the old Jewish colonies in South Ukraine which, after they had undergone all the terrors of the civil war and the pogroms, were in danger of being wiped out by the famine. It has stimulated the organization of producing cooperatives and other forms of productive associations. The Soviet Gov- ernment has lately decided to lift the burden of taxes from artisans who do not exploit labor. This measure is already showing its effects in increasing the number of Jews en- gaged in productive labor. But the most significant achievement in the economic life of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union is the rapid spread of agriculture among them. The Jewish pavilion at the Agricultural Exposition in Moscow shows that the number of Jews engaged in agricultural work is at present about 77,000. Before the revolution the number of Jewish farm workers in Russia was only 52,000. The significance of these figures is not in their absolute num- bers. It should be borne in mind that during the civil war the little there was of Jewish agriculture in Russia suffered a heavy setback and the number of 52,000 was reduced by many thousands of killed and refugees. The real growth of Jewish agriculture has therefore far exceeded the num- ber of 25,000. Since the Soviet Government is heartily en- couraging Jewish agriculture and since among the Jews themselves the tendency toward agriculture is assuming the proportions of a strong popular movement the future pos- sibilities along these lines are most promising. The Russian Cooperatives HE following is part of a statement issued by Centro- soyus, the Russian Cooperatives’ central organization, on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary: The opinion that all pre-war establishments in Russia have been completely wiped out appears to be prevalent in America. This belief is probably due to the fact that too much thought has been devoted to the political aspect of the Russian situa- tion, and not enough to its commercial and industrial activities. The Centrosoyus, however, which today proudly celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary can boast of great accomplishments. It was born amid a most unhealthy and antagonistic atmos- phere, progressed despite the repression of the Czarist Govern- ment, survived the most cataclysmic war the world has ever witnessed, withstood the severe hardships caused by the revo- lution with its consequent iron blockade, and through it all emerged more firmly intrenched than ever before. The co- operative movement is today the outstanding factor in the com- mercial and industrial life of the country, and in fact might well be considered the backbone of the entire business struc- cure... . On this account it might be considered appropriate to chroni- cle the growth and progress of the Centrosoyus. .. . EARLY STAGES OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT The early cooperative societies developed as an outgrowth New Crowell Books CHILD LABOR AND THE CONSTITUTION By RAYMOND G. FULLER A study of the legislation past and present dealing with child labor; together with present working conditions both urban and rural, in the factory and in the home. By a recognized authority. [Price, 2.50] MOTION PICTURES IN EDUCATION By DON CARLOS ELLIS and LAURA THORNBOROUGH “It is difficult to see how any book of information could be better planned or be more comprehensive than this attractive handbook. It tells a teacher (or even a school board) everything education can ask about the subject or about discussion upon it.”— New York Herald. [Price, 2.50] A STUDY OF INTER- NATIONAL GOVERNMENT By JESSIE WALLACE HUGHAN, PhD. “Dr. Hughan has traced the gradual development of international government from classical times _down to the present, identified the factors which permitted and retarded this development, and pre- sented a systematic analysis of the forces which enter into the problem of effective international or- ganization to-day.”—Pror. Sepa E prince, Um- versity of Kansas. [Price, 2.75] MAN AND CULTURE By CLARK WISSLER, Ph.D. “Tt is the fullest, simplest and most fascinating ac- count of culture I have ever seen. Such wealth of illustration, firmness of touch, and clearness of statement bespeak the master. I am delighted to see what Dr. Wissler has made of this province of anthropology.’”—Proressor E. A. Ross, University of Wisconsin. [ Price; 2:75] THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO. ‘NEW YORK

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Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation 537 PIONEERS IN SHIPPING LIEBESGABEN (shipments) Make Up Your Own Combinations in accordance with the special wishes and requirements of your relatives and friends abroad. Our Warehouse in Hamburg Assures Quick Service In Case of Loss, we Duplicate the Shipment at Once Ask for our Price List G & CHR All Cases and Packages will be delivered FREE HOUSE! $10.00 M B F $10.00 MUTTER’S BESTER FREUND 24% lbs. Wheat Flour, 10 lbs. North Carolina Rice 5 “Best Lard 10 “ Best Premier Farina 5 “ Premier Roasted 1 “ Cocoa Coffee 10 “ Granulated Sugar 1 “ Ceylon Perri Walla 5tins Condensed Milk Tea 5 “ Premier Evap Milk $5.00 HANSA $5.00 10 lbs. Flour 1 Ib. Cocoa 2 “ Roasted Coffee 3 Ibs. Rice 5 pkgs. Macaroni 5 14-0z. tins Cond. Milk 5 lbs. Sugar 2 Ibs. Crisco GOOSE FOR THE HOLIDAYS GOOSE—Finest (Vierlander oder Pommern) 12 to 14 Ibs. $5.00—Frei Haus POTATOES Feinste Esskartoffeln, 110 Ibs. net................000. $ 3.90 LARD 55 lbs. in airtight tins, Finest Export Lard......... $11.50 MILK Cond., 48 large tins, Borden’ s or other Stand. Brands. $ 7.75 Evap., 48 16-oz. “ 6.50 FLOUR Gold Medal Flour, Wheat, in double bag, 110 pounds net.$ 6.00 COFFEE Ba@ottee, im: 5-Ib. tins, roasted io:.c. fc ceid ccm wcisee oe cicer $ 2.75 HAM One Ham, about 16% lbs., specially smoked for exp.$7 00 BUTTER Pinest ‘Table: Butter in tins, 10 Ibs. .6.¢./........0.. $ 6.00 SUGAR “4 pounds finest American Granulated Sugar...... ee “ “cc “c “ Fs oe Are eS 5.7 Orders by Radio, an additional charge of 75c. per order, to be delivered in five to ten days, according to location. Orders for Austria, Czecho Slovakia, Hungary and Switz- erland, add 10%. SELF-PACKED PACKAGES are FORWARDED WEEKLY and at rates commensu- rate with efficient service. 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DUTTON & COMPANY Publishers 681 Fifth Avenue New York

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of profiteering by the local storekeepers. They were organized on a very modest scale by groups of villagers aimed to combat these gorging storekeepers. . . . The first Russian cooperative society was established in 1865, almost sixty years ago. The numerous previous applications for charters to form Coopera- tive Societies were rejected—the Government regarding them with suspicion. The movement progressed for about a decade, and societies were organized in rapid succession in all parts of the country until the Government was again aroused, when it saw fit to check the movement by inaugurating the famous “Administration Measures,” which for a time diminished the hopes of its supporters. During the period from 1875 to 1891, only 186 local coopera- tive societies were approved by the Government—the insig- nificant average of 11 per annum... . Repeated efforts were made to form federations of cooperative societies, and even attempts to hold conventions for this purpose proved futile. The necessity for the federation of all societies throughout the country into unions in order to carry on their work with any real measure of success became so keenly manifest that it was felt urgently necessary to center every effort upon this phase of development. In 1891 the country was faced with famine, and the poorer classes, as a means of improving their intolerable position, turned in great numbers toward the cooperatives. This added strength and its consequent pressure, resulted in more liberality on the part of the Government in granting charters between the years 1891 and 1900. During this period 517 societies were approved, an average rate of 65 per annum... . FORMATION OF THE “CENTROSOYUS” In 1898, an exception was made with regard to the formation of federations of cooperative societies, and permission granted to the Centrosoyus to form a union of the Moscow societies. This field, however, was very limited inasmuch as it was re- stricted exclusively to the Moscow district... . From this date until the beginning of the World War the cooperatives made smooth and steady progress. In 1905 the total number of cooperative organizations had already reached the number of 5,801. In 1914 they had expanded to the num- ber of 30,842 societies. Practically all of this growth may be attributed directly to the formation of unions of cooperation which enabled the scattered societies to concentrate their activi- ties, and thereby gain the advantage of larger and more economical purchases, and better results in the sale of the produce of their combined members... . ACTIVITIES DURING THE WORLD WAR AND REVOLUTION The beginning of the World War may be regarded as the turning-point in the history of the Russian cooperative move- ment. The Czarist Government in order to gain the full sup- port of the country in waging war against Germany was induced to show a greater degree of tolerance toward the cooperatives. New cooperative societies thenceforth were organized at a phenomenal rate, as may be noted by the fact that on January 1, 1917, the number of societies had increased to 46,149. The consumers societies alone claimed a membership of 20,000,000 householders, representing a population of ap- proximately 100,000,000 people. ... The cooperatives were intrusted with important tasks of sup- plying the army and the population with foodstuffs and sup- plies. The ability and results produced by the cooperative organizations during this period became generally recognized, and even the Department of Agriculture of the former Imperial Government intrusted them with many important tasks. When the Czarist Government was overthrown, the Provisional Goy- ernment intrusted the regulation of the entire food supplies of the country to the cooperative organization. Throughout the war and the subsequent revolution the cooperatives served as the largest factor in maintaining the production and distributive system. It may be definitely stated The Nation ~ [ Vol. 117, No. 3044

that were it not for the remarkable organization which they built up, far greater and more serious consequences might have been expected. Their organization enabled the population to survive the chaos caused by the revolution. PRESENT FACILITIES OF THE CENTROSOYUS According to the most recent statistics, which contain many omissions, the cooperative system is composed of the following:

Consumers Societies’... .:'..... Seteaie ap ene 23,852 Agricultural Societies... .: . c's ciate «ssn 37,636 Industrial™ Societies ee 2c... « «selene cee 18,461 Total: <teje cibbdic. cus lehe alae cle 0 aueaee Se 79,949 Each of the above organizations operates one or more stores, branches, factories, etc., and it is therefore safe to say that the cooperative structure is composed of over 100,000 centers for the distribution of supplies, collection of crops, factories, and artels. Furthermore, the above figures do not include numerous credit and banking societies, nor the non-commercial activities of the Centrosoyus. It numbers among its non-com- mercial activities such organizations as schools, libraries, re- search and experimental laboratories, museums and exposi- tions, dramatic and musical studios, hospitals, dispensaries, and sanitariums, clubhouses, dormitories, orphanages, sum- mer camps, printing plants, and many other facilities of a simi- lar nature.... The proportion of merchandise handled by the cooperative societies compared with that of the whole country since 1914 is as follows: LON Wacrageee «oe Rusignaitvars, unio eee 7 per cent 19TD) eRe ante pe ohne, ~~ ee Dia dae POVG iio rg dereget eh < Ryceaite Syst aes i » igiene LeMans <2 WOT Secs coe omit Dees ete ont ce ee ene AGI STShe ks MM ik soy se. ccwete capebetatis ores ac eee CN iat DOO ee oe ect yetle tice wlio sahe,.o ek cue etanenee: arenes AOE ust hiss No reliable comparisons are obtainable since 1921, but it is safe to assume that in view of the fact that during the past few years the cooperatives have been allowed a greater degree of freedom by the Soviet Government they have gone far ahead of the proportion shown for 1921. With its enormous facilities in every verst of the enormous territory comprising Russia and Siberia, together with its branches and agencies in all principal centers of the world in which it carries on its international trade, the cooperatives form the most practical commercial link with foreign countries under the present circumstances. Their large operations in con- nection with the exportation from Russia to all foreign lands of raw materials, and the importation of all sorts of manu- factured articles are carried on through these facilities in for- eign countries. Communists in Saxony and Thuringia HE policy of the Communists and their stand in enter- +r ing the governments of Saxony and Thuringia which has brought about the present conflict between the Saxon Cabinet and the Central Government in Berlin is set forth in an article by Paul Boettcher, one of the Communist ministers of Saxony, and in a declaration by the Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Germany, both pub- lished in the Internationale Press-Korrespondenz of Oc- tober 12. Paul Boettcher writes in his article: Step by step the dictatorship of the industrialists is advanc- ing upon Germany. The first attack of the reaction which began with the declaration of a state of emergency and was intended to end with the establishment of a directorate was not met im- mediately with a wide counter-attack by the working class of Germany. Many workers have still been led to believe that the

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DERUTRAS @CTIVITIES 1921-1923. IMPORT INTO RUSSIA L. 14345327. Loseit47 WMoetiacy W4arzia+ 47% 16 Yo 383556.9r. :51°% EXPORT FROM RUSSIA 1 2921s7 Di28t6e7, 11108562. 27. 1.24573 fat 84%. 2%. 11%. 53 % . S R Forwarding end Warehousing Nov. 7, 1923] The Nation | eae e ___539 MAIN OFFICE, HAMBURG Branches throughout Germany and Russia Equipped to execute all phases of freight and passenger movement to and from the United States, Russia and Germany, including attending to all customs details and 310032.711. 149 % the securing of steamship tickets. TOTal Special permission granted by _the Soviet Government L.146374.2-7. 10.111434.0 7, 1.20527 7.17. 2905J03. st. 38 % for all its activities. 19% 10% 5 23% oe se as ‘ (=. For detailed information apply to DERUTRA AMERICAN BRANCH 35 WATER STREET NEW YORK Telephone: Broad 2480-2481 Dogs PU PIs OE OK Pes POR SOLIDS OR OK PA ORO (ake Xmas a fFleast of INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY 3 Help Send They are Starving Units of Education For Educational Facilities to Russian Children— Form an F. S. R. Xmas Club For Vocational Apparatus For School Supplies THE BACKBONE OF THE FAMINE 1S BROKEN—BUT A New Famine Is On FRIENDS OF SOVIET RUSSIA, 32 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois. RRREIGRMECIETIC ot gies aicwinde sss sees to help buy Education for Russian children. Please send me your illustrated booklet telling how to forman F. S. R. Xmas club. l I I | | | I | | | | | I | I | | | | | | I ] | ] I ] | ] | J J | | | ] J J J J | J ] ] J | ] | : SeaDtee iia ain ene toe eee) Chane dew © wie ¢ ces « © 6 8 sc MAUR See VALI ke sees cos eee ee eo eee eet tae Nation 11-7-28 PIE POE DSL GOR POA DOA OR BOA OK aR PaO DO NGG DOS oe we a oko OP Tk. OD) be WO 2 a an a ty: ae a as Go. Be Apo

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540 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Cee ener ee ee ne TT —————— state of emergency was a necessary measure adopted against the drive of the counter-revolution in Bavaria. But the prole- tariat now clearly realizes that the state of emergency 1S directed against the left. The proletariat of central Germany, menaced by the Hitler guards from the south and by the legal and illegal Reichswehr formations in the north, was the first to prepare for the counter-attack. The Communist Party has taken the initiative of creating a labor government in Saxony. The Communist Party came to the workers with an emergency program to meet the emer- gency state. This emergency program found enthusiastic re- sponse among the workers. The seriousness of the situation was fully realized in the factories. Spontaneously executive committees were organized for defense against any attacks on the part of the Fascisti. The centralized coordination of the executive committee all over Saxony is well under way. The masses of workers are streaming into the defense organizations. They build and fortify their cadres and they demand arms for the hundreds. Surely and steadily the mass movement is grow- ing from the bottom up. The counter-revolution has completed the preparations for its blow. It may be expected to attack now at any time. Each hour lost by the proletariat in organizing its defense is a loss irreparable. The situation calls for quick action. The Com- munist Party has therefore proposed the immediate creation of a workers’ government. The basis upon which this govern- ment is created is the struggle against reaction and counter- revolution with all means. The Communists are entering this government not as opportunists but as the representatives of the workers who are ready to fight. This government will come into existence as a government of struggle carrying out the mobilization of the masses and working for the establishment of the united front of the proletariat on a wide basis. Even before the workers’ government has come into existence the whole bourgeois press has raised a cry. The concentrated at- tacks of the counter-revolution against Saxony and Thuringia show that it is intended to destroy the last positions of the Ger- man workers. The Saxon workers above cannot counter this attack. The whole German working class must declare its soli- darity with the advanced lines of the proletariat in Saxony and Thuringia. It should not permit any attack of the counter-revolution against central Germany. The immediate future will be decisive. Central Germany has been handed over to the military commanders who have already organized their action against the “hundreds,” the control committees, and the factory committees. Even tomorrow they may try to destroy the organizations of the proletariat. The workers of central Germany will not yield one foot of ground without offering resistance. The leadership in this struggle is now in the hands of the workers of the governments of Saxony and Thuringia. It lies with the masses to destroy the plans of the counter-revolution which are intended to sabo- tage the labor bloc in central Germany. The declaration of the Central Committee of the Com- munist Party follows: The Central Committee has agreed to the entrance of the comrades Boettcher, Brandler, and Heckert into the Saxon Cabinet. The labor population is united against the bloc of the industrialists, the great landowners, and the monarchist gen- erals. The capitalist military dictatorship is out to put chains on the working class. The Communist members of the Saxon Government are in- structed by the partly to organize, together with the Social- Democratic members of the cabinet, the most energetic defense against the menacing danger. The Communist members of this Government are under the constant control and leadership of the party. The entrance of our comrades into the Saxon Government is not the result of a parliamentary business transaction. It is conforming with the decisive will of the labor masses to meet the attack of capital with a strongly united front. The government of the working class in Saxony is a signal for the working class of all Germany. It needs the active support of the proletariat of all Germany. ; The Saxon experiment of creating a coalition government with the left Social Democrats in the hour of extreme danger and to organize the defense forces of the proletariat will prove successful when our party mobilizes the workers all over the country into a united fighting front against the class enemy. CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GERMANY Berlin, October 10 THE LATE DR. STEINMETZ & KUZBAS A year ago Dr. Charles P. Steinmetz, the electrical wizard, was interviewed by Charles W. Wood of the New York “World.” Talking of the Kuzbas Colony in Siberia Dr. Steinmetz said: “I wish I could go to Kuzbas. That is the place for the working class to concentrate its activities.” Since that time Kuzbas has made Industrial History. It is succeeding. It is mining coal, making coke and chemicals, farming, constructing. How it does this is described in the “Kuzbas Bulletin,” which is issued monthly. We will send you a copy on receipt of your address. KUZBAS, Room 301, 110 W. 40th St.,. New York, N. Y. In Your Home Town in Russia there are children who have become orphans during the pogroms. The All-Russian Jewish Public Committee is maintain- ing such children in homes where they are provided with food, shelter and education. But thousands of children are still out of the homes. New homes must be built in order to take care of all of them. Your organization may do its share by maintaining from its funds a children’s home in your home town. You will be in direct contact with the home your organization maintains. Communicate with the American Representation of the All-Russian Jewish Public. Committee and get all the details. Money for individuals is received by the German Office ‘of the Jewish Public Committee, and forwarded, in Cher- vontzi, the new Soviet unit for 10 gold rubles. The ex- change value of the Chervontzi is guaranteed at $4.80 and is usually higher. Address, Yiddisches Gesellschaftliches, Hilfskommittee, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Leibnitzer Str. 25. For All Information Apply to the American Representation of the All-Russian Jewish Public Committee, .. Room 1901-3, 110 West 40th St. New York

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The Nation FOUNDED Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS .....cccc ccc ee cer ccc ceeseneseccseccesseces 541 EDITORIALS: aa PAteORTC ELTA te: OG sc sieie chew sc rele) e nue oie bileinieiniele © see mialn.c.nleieloieis: aleiee{sie/eeie 6 ae Poincaré’s Bargain .......-ccecccccncecsncsececccssssssvseceecsces Labor and Its Money...........ccccccserecssccncccscsccersseseses 545 Men, Women, and Books........ccscccscceccsssseeeserscccrececcrcs 545 iseneeliacuy, s fe's. ce clekcaiec sc oo eislsth Sie sinleiin wleleis ce biels reise iste s seiner ee : 546 ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES. By Marvin ACERT rc ic tee nic fe citiclsictisin sloe boss wicis scien sree siaiveicwcsce ces THE NEW RUSSIAN WOMEN: II. The Intellectual. By Magdeleine Marx........--.++e+seeeeeeres 549 THE NEW ARCHITECTURE: Temples of Mammon Supersede Those of Ammon. By Henry S. Merrett ere ate teieie = = cilsvats & aveletele «se ele) vis)s)a'wlntalle|sisje\'e/e\e 0,0 « 552 ASBIRTH. By James RoOrty. conc. cc ccc een cw ce erences ccccnesessces 553 PARADOXOLOGY. By William Hard..........seeseeeeeecee eee eeenees 554 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter............csseeereececercecees 55d SOR ESPONDENGE! | 2)... occccllcbisisle sacs evlalec enlawivieccsicesiessaccenncces 555 THE NATION’S POETRY PRIZE..........cecerccccccn re ccccncececes 556 BOOKS: The Exploitation of Turkey. By Carl Becker..............+++++0+> 556 A Gift to America. By B. Charney Vladeck..........eeeseeeeeeees 557 Sea Foam. By Arthur Warmer..........cescosccecccsevccccsecsoes 558 The Background of Literature. By Ludwig Lewisohn.............- 558 A Shavian Sacrifice. By Harry Salpeter..........cccceeccereccveess 559 Victoria’s Laureate. By Samuel C. Chew.............eee eee eeeees 559 Children and Gentle Beasts. By Dorothy Graffe............-+-.+++5 560 IDOI UETESETOL oo nrein ciacintieh eicinisie|s cisisieclcsies os cine ccclieowce@avenccciacacs 561 DRAMA: Eleonora Duse. By Ludwig Lewisohn............cscccssscesscees 562 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Oskar Jaszi and Other “Traitors.”” By Emil Lengyel................ 564 Mn GMIAN OL PASHIVE FUGESISCANCEs ccc vccccccccaccctcsdececssccccccens 565 Sides) CHEMIN TNMMEETR LI ral rate fatichs inllsv sftrover'oxs! aviaiel wPoteymae.ey'6 i» (oy ersiep blades W.G/eiwe @ e/e'eje 2,0 00 566 eee CTT MMELGTIAS 1el cys teteretl ava nie'r a’ en's sivinleele vicleeis\elcin'e’e\ec,S:cie.c ccs to's 566 inc mmnerivied nt) Ca DIC@EANIN aro.d s eieisisis: ov rie. cele «Giel eis slr iorle oieinls\)s\a%,e'e0.0 © 566 CSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Ep!tTor ASSOCIATE EDITORS a LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. LOYD GEORGE has gone home after a speaking trip through Canada and the United States which was more valuable than seemed likely. Lloyd George, as much as any other one man, must bear the responsibility of the withering Treaty of Versailles and of that post-war diplo- macy of hate and blindness that has brought Europe to the verge of disruption. There is no reason to be sure that if allowed a free hand today he would prove very different. But as the preacher of an evangel of more realism and more reason in the effort to save Europe his speaking tour was most notable. Americans listened politely to Clemen- ceau’s defense of French aggression; but, except to a lim- ited degree, they did not accept it. To Lloyd George they listened enthusiastically, and they seemed to believe. What will be the eventual effect on public sentiment and govern- ment policy is another question, not easy to discern. HY not do by Mexico as we have done by Canada? For more than a century the United States and the Dominion have lived at peace under an agreement whereby t* entire boundary is free of forts or garrisons, of bris- tung armament or clanking swords. During this period NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1923 1865 No. 3045 there have been many sharp disputes between the two gov- ernments; there will be more. But with each year the possibility of war with Canada grows more remote, the idea less thinkable. An unfortified border has been a psy- chological influence toward peace between the United States and Canada, just as it is between two States of our Union. Bishop Wilbur P. Thirkield of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whose field includes Mexico, Central America, Panama, and Peru, proposes that we apply to the Mexican border the same doctrine of common sense and good-will that has been so signally successful in the case of Canada; he suggests that we dismantle the twelve forts along the border, with their 8,350 soldiers.and 450 officers, substi- tuting for them an organization of boundary police. Bishop Thirkield’s suggestion is a splendid and practical one. Mexico, which has just been reducing its military forces to the extent at least of dropping 180 generals, would un- doubtedly cooperate in demilitarizing her northern boun- dary. We commend the suggestion to progressive civic bodies. Disarmament of the border between Mexico and the United States would do more for mutual friendship than a dozen treaties, or a million after-dinner speeches on “cordial relations with our southern neighbor.” -y OBERT LANSING approves of Mr. Hughes’s “ex- change of formal diplomatic notes” promising a New York banking firm certain assistance in connection with its $6,000,000 loan to the Republic of Salvador. Indeed, Mr. Lansing is almost dithyrambic in praise of Mr. Hughes’s work on that loan. “Such a forward-looking step,” he calls it in an interview printed in the New York Times, “so fine a demonstration of the mutual confidence between the two countries.” It could never have been consummated, he says, “had not both governments acted in the greatest good faith and with the utmost spirit of cooperation.” The good old Times, in printing this little blurb, to use the advertising phrase, for Mr. Hughes’s and Messrs. F. J. Lisman and Co.’s Salvador loan, refers to Mr. Lansing as “Secretary of State under Mr. Wilson.” Curiously enough, in the literature of the loan put out by the bankers, we find mention of him in quite another capacity. We find noted as counsel for F. J. Lisman and Co. “Robert Lansing and Lester H. Woolsey, Washington, D. C.” rHNHE Argentine Chamber of Deputies has just voted an appropriation of $100,000,000 for military purposes, accompanying this rather silly vote with a very sensible resolution requesting the government to undertake friendly negotiations with Brazil in the hope of reaching an early agreement to stop the armament race between the two countries. They might at the same time have suggested that negotiations be undertaken with Mr. Hughes in the hope of persuading him to recall the diplomatic mission of American naval officers which is building up the Brazilian navy. This is the root of the trouble, and Mr. Hughes could stop it. The Brazilian craze for armament, which Mr. Hughes aids and abets, was the rock on which the generous hopes of the Santiago Conference were shattered. Armament rivalry is

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542 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3045 always silly, but the Argentine response is somewhat less silly than the Brazilian provocation. Mr. Hughes is a fervent believer in international agreements to limit arma- ments; why does he not recall Admiral Vogelsang’s mission and thereby promote such a limitation in South America? He might even suggest a general agreement to call in no foreign military or naval missions of any kind. LD King Coal continues to be a topic of conversation and of thought among his subjects, the consumers. In spite of the brief strike of the anthracite miners, there is said to be a plentiful supply of hard coal on hand, but the short interruption and the slight advance in wages to the miners are being used as excuses by dealers to juggle with prices and by landlords as reasons for failure properly to heat their houses. In New York City a report to the United States District Attorney says that dealers are profit- ing through buying wholesale by the long ton of 2,240 pounds and selling to the public by the short ton of 2,000 pounds. The Coal Commission, on the other hand, relieves retailers, at least relatively, of the charge of profiteering, scoring this: evil almost exclusively against the whole- salers. Of these there are too many, coal being sold among wholesalers two, three, and even four times. Reports to _ the commission indicate that during the last decade, except in 1921, wholesalers’ net profits have every year amounted to more than 15 per cent on the investment and to more than 18 per cent on the proprietor’s equity. In the banner year of 1920 reports from 333 wholesalers showed net profits of 55 per cent on investment and 66 per cent on proprietor’s equity. Meanwhile cooperative movements are doing something for the consumer. The recently organized Cleveland Cooperative Coal Company hopes to save its members $5 a ton on their fuel. ECRETARY HOOVER has some excellent ideas, from an engineering standpoint, for the development of superpower, but from the standpoint of the welfare of the public his conception is characteristically shortsighted. In speaking recently before the chairmen of the public-service commissions of eleven States, the Secretary of Commerce showed how New England and the Middle States might get together in developing water power to an extent which would effect an annual saving of 50,000,000 tons of coal and $500,000,000 in money at an investment of about $1,250,000,000. To do this, Mr. Hoover pointed out, the States concerned would have to agree on certain uniform regulations and would have to permit unrestricted trans- mission of power across their boundaries. So far, so good. But Mr. Hoover’s idea is to turn these vast power possi- bilities over to private companies for exploitation. Why so? Why save $500,000,000 a year merely to distribute it as dividends among stockholders in public-utility corpora- tions? The province of Ontario has done better. As we pointed out in an editorial in our issue of October 3, its publicly operated system is furnishing 600,000 horse-power at cost to 369 Canadian towns, and has cut the bills-of con- sumers of electricity by one-half and two-thirds. HIS limitation of immigration is a curious and diffi- cult job. A number of the commentators on Charles P. Steinmetz have noted that he would be denied entrance to the United States under existing law. An unexpected effect of the new 3-per-cent-quota law is now in evidence. That law was designed to reduce immigration from the Mediterranean countries without cutting off the flow from Northern Europe, which parochial American opinion still persists in regarding as a superior stock. For the first two years of its operation the law did work in that way, but the first four months of the present fiscal year reveal a marked change. The British quota of 77,342 for the year 1923-24— the largest allotted to any nation—was more than exhausted with the November arrivals, and some 2,000 excess immi- grants were allowed to land by a special ruling of the Secre- tary of Labor which possibly would not have been made but for the fact that most of them arrived on the Leviathan of the United States Lines. Exact compliance with the law might have made it necessary for the Government to fine itself about $400,000. At this writing figures in regard to the November arrivals from other countries are not avail- able, but the outlook is that the 1923-24 quota for Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland is about or entirely exhausted, while that for Denmark, France, and Norway will be used up before Christmas. Thus we are cutting off so-called ‘desirable immigration” as well as “undesirable.” HEN the United States Steel Corporation declared an extra dividend the other day it admitted that Judge Gary’s complaints of the high cost of the eight-hour day and the difficulty of obtaining adequate labor were mere steel-trust propaganda, without relation to the facts. The steel trust is now putting the eight-hour day into effect; business is not exceptionally good, yet it slices a five-million dollar melon. The most favorable inference is that Judge Gary did not know the facts about his own business, but had a sort of mossback conviction that any change must be bad. It is well to remember this; the American people have a sort of blind faith in the superhuman wisdom of their busi- ness executives. When a railroad president says that this or that is impossible, most people think that he must know what he is talking about, whereas in fact he may be just another Judge Gary. When the American Federation of Labor appropriated a few thousand dollars for the organiza- tion of the steel workers, the steel trust, theretofore recal- citrant, suddenly discovered that it was technically possible to abolish the twelve-hour day, and nevertheless finds profits so big as to justify an extra dividend. ATURALLY the end of the twelve-hour day takes one issue away from the union organizer. But there is an even more serious obstacle to the unionization of the steel workers, and that is the color line drawn by many labor unions. The colored man has acquired a conviction that a drive to organize an industry in which many of his race work ‘is likely to be a drive to force him out, The Crisis publishes a circular issued by the Indiana Foundry Com- pany of Muncie, Indiana, which has imported Negro work- ers to replace white strikers. This company says: Our shop is operated on the open-shop basis. The majority of our skilled workers, the molders, are colored men, who have been taken into our plant as inexperienced men and taught all they know about work. The molders’ union has never permitted a colored man to mold in our city and is attempting to stop us from adopting this policy now. There are four shops in our city that are closed to all but union molders and three shops like our own that are open to any workman. Ours, however, is the only local foundry that has ever attempted to employ colored men on skilled work. . . . The union demands that we

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation take every colored man that we have off of skilled work, re- place them with white men, and have these white men work under union jurisdiction. The Nation believes in union organization because it be- lieves in democracy in our industry, and sees in union labor organizations the greatest hope of achieving it, > But when a union deliberately bars from membership a whole group of workers it abolishes its own excuse for existence. We are well aware that “open shop” is a pretty name for non-union shops and realize that the foundry’s devotion to the Negro is merely devotion to cheap labor. Nevertheless in such a case—if the facts as represented are correct—our sympathy goes to the open-shoppers. We hope they establish the right of the Negro to work. ND while we are taking to task molders we may as well include the journeymen barbers, who have re- fused to open their ranks to women, and the American Federation of Labor itself, which has declined to grant a separate charter to the organized women barbers of the country. Let us warn them, in the language of their pro- fession, that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. The women have plenty of weapons at hand and may easily decide to cut up—skilled barbers though they be. In fact, if they take our advice they will begin at once to slash their prices with a merciless blade and to undercut their male competitors until they shout for help. The presi- dent of the journeymen barbers says that women do not know how to wield a razor or push a clipper. This, of course, is bosh. Women were never kept out of any trade organization for lack of ability; quite the opposite. They are kept out only when they are looked upon as dangerous and intruding competitors. Their remedy is to make them- selves a little more dangerous outside than in. THICK, sticky fog—the ancient enemy of fishermen —drifted between the schooner Bluenose and the race committee at Halifax, so that Captain Angus Walters quite lost his way and headed for home when he ought to have remained and finished the races with the Columbia for the cup. But nobody should take the incident too much to heart, nor fear that this flurry of bad weather will injure the future of what is at once the most professional and the most amateur of sailing contests—the most professional because the participants are bona fide fishermen and fish- ing vessels; the most amateur because this competition, like all of the best sport, is not an end in itself but a bit of play at the close of a hard day’s work. Captain Ben Pine of the Columbia saved the situation by his fine sports- manship in refusing the technical victory he might have had by sailing the course alone; and Captain Walters is sorry already for his display of pique. It should not be laid against him. His life is among realities, not regulations. His years on the fishing banks have given him in a high degree independence, contempt for public opinion, and obsti- nacy. These qualities unfit a man for modern gregarious society, but they are the essence of our pioneer American- ism and not met with in such excess today that we need shed any tears at their occasional appearance. O sit at one’s desk with the radiator whistling in one’s ear and to read along with other cabled and wireless dispatches in the paper a story sent direct from a schooner locked in the ice of Smith Sound seven hundred-odd miles from the North Pole and in the darkness of the Arctic win- ter—this is to experience an authentic modern thrill. The sun is gone for the season, we learn; the bear and caribou hunting is not very good, but Captain MacMillan, leader of the latest polar expedition, asks us to imagine the party seated around the fire eating a tasty fox pie. There is a motion-picture machine on board and the Eskimos from shore come out over the ice to see the films and to hear the nightly radio concerts. Is this romance or is it the end of romance? We hardly know; but we know that some chord is stirred in us at the mere thought of that handful of ice- locked humans on the bleak top of the world listening in on the stock market reports from WGY, Schenectady, while the winds from the Pole rattle the rigging and ice thickens around the ship. HE League of Composers is beginning its second sea- son with redoubled energy and excellent plans. What is so important about this undertaking is primarily neither the exact programs of its three subscription concerts nor the contents of its magazine bulletin. It is the spirit of creative cooperation with the art of music that makes the work of the league invaluable. Here, as in literature, there is a striving after new moods and forms. But the works that embody these find it almost impossible to get a hear- ing. Neither the average critic nor the average conductor stops to remember that the later works of Beethoven were once thought unintelligible and all of Wagner both cacoph- onous and immoral. At its first concert of the season the league will present a new quintet by Ernest Bloch; it will introduce a young English composer, Arthur Bliss; it will play Stravinsky and Roussel. Harold Bauer and the Lenox Quartet are giving their services. as EK have the dead, and America wants them,” wrote Mr. J. C. Squire to the Manchester Guardian. He felt, he added, that an opportunity was being neglected: It is quite conceivable “that a commodity so eagerly sought would fetch as much as an old master. .. . Any guess at what a really determined American would offer for Sir Walter Raleigh must be wild, but six figures seems to me a moderate estimate. . .. I honestly believe that for the single body of Shakespeare we might secure the cancelation of the entire American debt. So he suggested the formation of a company, to be given a national monopoly, to exploit the dead. The next day the Guardian printed the following letter: Sir: Can you put me into communication with one Mr. J. C. Squire who announced in a recent issue of your paper that he is forming the Posthumous Exploitations Company, Ltd., for the purpose of selling the illustrious dead of England to America? I am a self-made American business man with a great many millions but with no ancestors—to speak of. I should like some ancestors—to speak of. I will pay Mr. Squire any sum within reason for a Crusader, so that he be Norman and Warranted Entire. I should reinter him with appropriate ceremonies on the part of the Ku Klux Klan on my oil lands near Oklahoma City. DONALD R. P. Marquis And the next morning the colyumist, who had meanwhile swathed his left foot in gouty bandages, was besieged by British antique dealers, to whom he explained his theory that the Oglethorpe incident was but a trick by Egyptian- Americans to get back at the British for unearthing Tut- Ankh-Amen.

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5A The Nation ~ [ Vol. 117, No. 3045 America in the Fog HE vagaries of Washington policy are difficult to chart. T When we wrote our editorial, Much Ado About Noth- ing, last week, Washington was still insisting that Poincaré had really accepted its proposal. On the day following Senator McCormick’s classical challenge to the “lotus-eat- ers” in the State Department we were still informed that the French reply “in the opinion of Secretary Hughes con- stitutes an agreeable acceptance.” Suddenly the wind veered and the temperature dropped. The Government, after a week of blithe optimism, discov- ered that it was “quite useless to undertake an inquiry if the commission is to be so restricted in advance that its efforts are likely to prove abortive”; and it also discovered that Poincaré’s limitations constituted such a restriction. What had happened? Did Senator McCormick’s speech frighten it, or Hiram Johnson’s common-sense statement that the Government already had a hotel-full of experts in Paris, who either did not know what Germany could pay, in which case they should be recalled, or did know, in which case they ought to tell? Or had administration officials really failed to read Poincaré’s notes and speeches? It isa mystery which we cannot solve. This we do know: it is useless to expect effective diplo- matic aid from Mr. Hughes. Poincaré insists that the con- ference shall not discuss limitation of the German debt, and Mr. Hughes finally, quite rightly, has protested. But Mr. Hughes had already insisted that the conference must not treat of France’s debt to us, and that is to be as blind as M. Poincaré. A conference which is to be of use to Europe must have its hands free, and be in a position to discuss any influence which may bear upon Europe’s restoration. Mr. Hughes set the first limitation when he barred discus- sion of the Allied debts to us. Mr. Hughes had to make his limitation. Congress had tied his hands. Congress suspects him and will not trust him, Congress knows very well that Mr. Hughes was and is at heart for the League of Nations, for what it calls entangling political alliances; and it suspects that any half- way step he may take toward Europe looks toward that end. Yet the plain fact is that we cannot help Europe by mere gestures, and that the one strong card which we hold is precisely those inter-Allied debts. M. Loucheur has told us quite frankly that France will never pay them. That is probably true, but they still constitute a card if we will play it. The debt of France to us is as unreal as the major part of the German debt to France, but Poincaré has shown us that even an impossible debt may be trumps in the hand of a good player. Meanwhile, with Congress too suspicious of Mr. Hughes to let him play our cards, the United States is, diplomati- cally speaking, negligible. Despite all the hullabaloo about our supposed return to Europe, we cannot, so long as Mr. Hughes is at the helm, play an effective political part. There remains relief. We have given much and we are tired of giving. But the need grows ever greater, and we alone can meet it. Misery is increasing in Germany, and the formation of a national committee for German relief, headed by General Henry T. Allen, and distributing through the Quakers, marks the real American statesmanship of the day. Its address is 19 West 44th Street, New York City. We urge our readers to help it. .ment.than appears in the dispatches. Poincaré’s Bargain HY should Poincaré be disturbed by the storms and cloudbursts of trans-Channel or trans-Atlantic opinion? Krupp and Stinnes are making terms with him, and who are Coolidge and Baldwin, Mussolini and Jaspar, or even Stresemann and the workers of Germany, compared to these men grown fat on ruin? These are the lords of Germany, the organizers of industry, the owners of coal, coke, and iron ore; and if they bow the knee to the blue- coated soldiers of France, what does the diplomatic dis- approbation of the rest of the world mean to the victor? So, at least, it must seem to Poincaré. If his prophecy of vic- tory in May has proved a most egregious and costly error, at least he has saved his face and held his office while other statesmen and prophets have wandered into oblivion. And in the end, Krupp and Stinnes have yielded to him. The agreement, as reported, is an extraordinary docu- ment. The German Government has declared its inability to pay further reparations; Krupp and Stinnes take the burden upon their own shoulders, confident, apparently, that they can pass it on to the German workers, even if the Gov- ernment could not. They agree to pay back instalments of the coal tax, and a tax on all coal mined in future; to de- liver coal and coke according to the schedule in force in 1921; to supply the French railway system in the Rhine- land and the Ruhr and all the Franco-Belgian services with such coal as they need, “without any consideration of pay- ment and against simple requisition slips’; and to “accept the jurisdiction of the Franco-Belgian Industrial Control . Commission on all matters of Ruhr industry.” With this agreement goes a contract for the ten-hour day. Before the French invasion Stinnes and his fellow-indus- trialists sought in vain to impose the ten-hour day upon the German workmen. Now, broken and beaten by the long resistance, the workers have to accept from Stinnes, allied with French bayonets, what they refused before the iron- masters had bartered away their national independence. The completeness of the surrender is overwhelming. It is the more amazing because Stinnes has hitherto been the backbone of those who resisted payment of reparations by Germany. He, as much as any man in Germany, has ob- structed the “policy of fulfilment’; he, more, probably, than any other one man in the world, has profited by the debacle of his fatherland, making millions by gambling in paper marks while his compatriots were being ruined; he, by his domination of the press of Germany, has fed the fires of hate of France and has encouraged the spirit which breaks out in petty putsches and riots. Yet today he makes terms with Poincaré. Doubtless there is more behind the agree- Behind it, probably, is a Franco-German industrial agreement which means po- litical subserviency to France for the Ruhr and the Rhine- land, but which also means production, and markets, and profits for Stinnes. It means that his pocket-nerve is stronger than his patriotism. No wonder Poincaré was willing to let the Independent Rhineland movement, which he had fostered, go still-born. Stinnes in harness means more to him. He is as confident as were the Germans after Brest-Litovsk. But, like them, he is mad. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they do grind. A bargain that will involve the reprobation of the world, that depends upon the continued weakness of Ger- POA 2

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation 545 man labor and upon the continued dominant power of a few individuals, is only a temporary solution. Its success depends upon the assumption that German workingmen will remain doubly slaves: slaves to Stinnes and slaves to France. In the long run such a bargain, like Brest-Litovsk, is likely to cost a thousand times its immediate gain. Poincaré might well reflect upon the apparent German position early in 1918; his own today is no stronger. Labor and Its Money O workers’ movement of recent years has had the spectacular and galloping growth of labor banking. Even workers’ education, which probably comes next in rate of progress, does not match it quantitatively or quali- tatively. For several years the idea that labor should con- trol its own money and credit was a pretty theory—the sub- ject of considerable pious discussion. But in realization the thought just simmered. It was not until November 1 three years ago that labor established its first commercial bank: that of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Cleveland. Six months earlier the International Associa- tion of Machinists had opened the Mount Vernon Savings Bank in Washington, but the functions and scope of a sav- ings bank are so different that such an institution is hardly to be reckoned in the same category. It belongs more prop- erly along with building and savings societies, of which various groups of workers have had successful organiza- tions for many years. Even after the organization of the Brotherhood’s bank in Cleveland, it stood virtually alone for more than a year. Then the pot which had been sim- mering so long suddenly seethed and boiled over. The de- velopment of labor banking in the last year and a half has been phenomenal not merely in extent but because it has occurred in a period of assaults upon the union shop, of efforts toward lower wages, and of considerable unemploy- ment—a time, in fact, when workers generally were still victims of the backwash of post-war business depression and of reactionary public opinion. Yet see what has happened! At the convention of the American Federation of Labor just ended in Portland, _ Oregon, the executive council reported twenty-three labor banks actually doing business or about ready for it, and some twenty more in course of organization. The labor banks actually opened have total resources of nearly fifty million dollars and include institutions in every section of the country—from New York City to San Bernardino, California, from Minneapolis and Chicago to Birmingham, Alabama, and Tucson, Arizona. It is curious, too, that the development of labor banking in America has seen no similar growth in England, where trade unionism is in most other respects far stronger and more progressive. This is perhaps due to the greater inflexibility of British business life, but as English leaders are now calling for the entrance of labor into banking, the movement will probably not be long delayed. It is worth while to note, also, that the growth of labor banking in America has been accomplished against the indifference, if not the hostility, of the old-line leadership. At the 1921 convention of the American Federation of Labor the executive council gave a warning against labor banking. The organizations most influential in laying the founda- tions of the new movement are the Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Engineers, the International Association of Machinists, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers. Two of these unions—the second and the last—are affiliated, it is true, with the A. F. of L., but all belong to the progressive wing of the Ameri- can labor movement and are tolerated rather than liked by the Gompers machine. Opposition to labor banking by the old-line leaders is probably less due to the idea itself than to a sense that the movement is outside of their peculiar abilities—likely to carry power away from the walking- delegate type of men and into the hands of more construc- tive and better trained persons. Still, the old-school lead- ers evidently recognize that they must fall in line, proof of which is found in the establishment of the Federation Bank in New York by the Gompers group in New York labor and the announcement that John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, is to become the head of a new labor bank in Indianapolis. There has been much speculation lately in regard to the tendencies and influence of labor banking. In opposition to the views of its sponsors that labor banking means the gradual control by labor of capital, there are some who see, instead, the eventual submersion of the interests and ideals of the workers in those of business. Again, certain social students who look forward to eventual control of credit and banking by government, think that labor banking will hold back such a movement. We confess that both these bases of opposition seem far fetched and of nothing but academic interest in any event. The future course of labor and of government is going to be influenced by a thousand other considerations. Labor banks will at most be only a factor and possibly merely an incident in the course of progress. What seems of paramount importance at the moment is that labor by going into banking can, on the one hand, give banking facilities to numerous groups now deprived of them and, on the other, save to itself enormous amounts that are now exhausted in extravagant profits. Can any sincere friend of labor urge that it should not save or absorb this drain on its earnings? Allowing for inefficiency and actual graft—there will be instances of both all too soon in labor banking—is there any reason to suppose that la- bor’s money cannot be more effectively handled by its friends than by those who, in general, are only its ex- ploiters? Men, Women, and Books T is easy to generalize, and being easy we like it. Con- sequently we have spent a pleasant week-end in making a couple of generalizations. One of them is this: Men writers of novels, being interested only in women, spend a wholly disproportionate amount of time discussing and speculating on the subject of women. And the other is this: Women writers of novels, being interested only in them- selves, do exactly the same thing. The result is rather depressing, and there seems to be no hope for a change until women scramble into a more com- fortable and sun-warmed spot in the civilization of the world, and forget their troubles, and begin writing books about beautiful, aspiring, puzzling young men. Certainly in almost all the recent novels that have dealt with the rela- tions of men and women, it is the women about whom the

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546 The Nation * [Vol. 117, No. 3045 ane ee eee ee ee ee eee ee ee theme and the problem and the difficulties have revolved. This has been true even when the chief character is a man; his problems and larger problems such as Puritan culture, sex impulses, personal freedom have all been bound up in the character and attitudes of some woman. But here, we suspect, generalizing must cease; because here the pattern of the modern novel breaks up. It breaks up into the uncounted needs and interests of the men and women who write. The man writer makes an image of the woman he has not found; the woman writer of the woman she would be. And all the writers tell divergent and usually painful stories about marriage. A recent novel describes the love of a girl for a man who has nothing to offer her but physical charm. The girl wants him even though he has no brains; presently and inevitably she grows bored with him, but still he is her husband and the attraction that made her seek him out and win him persists strongly enough to hold her to him. We suspect that all through the book a desire for verity warred with sheer perversity in the author’s mind and that his commentary on marriage and women and love is a little shadowed by the pleasure he took in making his girl the opposite of all the heroines he has hated. But the commentary on marriage is there none the less, and a picture of the rather dusty fate that must assail a matching of unequals. Another novel appearing at almost the same moment in- sists that marriages must crumble unless a tender inequal- ity be their base. On the part of the woman: childlike trust, maternal care, admiration, gentle stupidity, enough passion. On the part of the man: protective strength, and plenty of time and peace of mind to seek his larger destiny. There is nothing brutal in this egoism, nothing domineer- ing or arrogant. It is simply the expression of a childlike need for reassurance and admiration in a world too large, too hard to impress. If there is not one person to whom a man may feel sure of appearing greater than he is, greater than he knows himself to be, how can he face the emptiness of eternity and the long way that leads toward it? What he wants is a lesser self that can be counted upon to speak up and defend him in the face of his own doubts. And he needs this rather tiresome reassurance more than he needs beauty or humor or color or excitement. These two books show clearly the pattern and its varia- tions. Both deny the validity of any moral code which binds men and women to an empty contract; both repudiate the assumption of unity where only difference is real. But where one author insists that his woman sink her identity to make that unity a fact, the other laughs at the idea that unity is either possible or desirable. Well, take your choice. There are all sorts of books to read, every sort of woman to pin your hope to, every sort of relationship to be found, Moral standards are crumbling here and hardening there, and only those minds are to be pitied that find no interest in the flux and surge of impulses and ideas. Women, especially, are not to be pitied, for theirs is the central role in this modern drama. The future of per- sonal relationships seems to be in their hands. In the free air of easy equality and companionship they may discover varieties of pleasure and intimacy that were not known in the world before. If anyone is to be looked upon with com- passion it is those men who still reach out hopefully for that little dole of reverence needed to keep their complacency alive. Day by day it grows harder to find—even in books. Bonar Law F Lloyd George had been able to hold out a few months longer, Bonar Law would not have been buried in West- minster Abbey, and his obituary notices would have been shorter by 75 per cent. So slight a margin of fortune sometimes determines the grade of fame attained by an individual in public life. To become Prime Minister gives a British politician at once an eminence which can other- wise be reached only by men of unusual powers. And to such endowment Bonar Law, certainly, could not lay claim. He was a man of ability, doubtless, but not of that out- standing ability which gives its possessor an unquestioned title to supremacy. It was as a stop-gap, at a moment when acute party rivalries made it necessary for harmony’s sake to elect a compromise candidate, that Bonar Law was chosen to lead the Unionists in the Commons. The accident of the party situation in 1911 put him first in the line of succession to the Premiership when the Lloyd George Gov- ernment fell last year, and thus set his name on a roll of honor from which the more distinguished names of Har- court and Chamberlain are missing. The traditions of the Conservative party in Great Britain are, above everything, aristocratic. It is the party of blue blood. The object of its existence is to preserve as far as possible such relics of the feudal system as have not been submerged by the rising tide of democracy. It is the cham- pion of privilege, and the guardian of the sacred rights of the established church and the established land system. Its natural adherents are the members of the upper classes and those plebeians who aspire to become patricians before they die. But, in his practical endeavors to preserve the old order, the British aristocrat shows a good deal of horse sense. Just as the life of the peerage itself has been pro- longed by constant recruitment from the people and by matrimonial alliances which have saved historic but impe- cunious families from bankruptcy, so the aristocratic party has been shrewd enough to recognize the benefit to be gained by utilizing the political talent of men who, by birth and breeding, were alien from the caste of Vere de Vere. For a generation it suffered an adventurer of Jewish extraction to lead it by the nose, rightly understanding that the intellect of Disraeli would be worth more to it than the slow-moving wits of the typical scion of the stately homes of England. And in later years, by a no less profitable condescension, it has allowed its councils to be dominated from time to time by representatives of vulgar trade in the persons of Chamberlain, Law, and Baldwin. Another reflection suggested by the career of Bonar Law is that the steady-going matter-of-fact politician of solid rather than showy qualities sometimes gets his chance through the very superfluity of cleverness of his more nimble rivals. The time comes when the country tires of stunts, and turns with relief to a leader whom no one can suspect of the ambition to excel as a contortionist. That sobering of the public mood gave Bonar Law his oppor- tunity when he followed Balfour as leader of the Opposi- tion in 1911 and Lloyd George as Premier in 1922. Dull he might be by comparison, but his deficiency in esprit was more than counterbalanced by his reputation for level- headedness and sincerity. “Honest to the verge of sim- plicity” was Lloyd George’s summary of him, and many a more brilliant politician might well envy him that epitaph.

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The Nation Anti-Semitism in European Universities By MARVIN LOWENTHAL N Berlin last winter I read a brief newspaper report of the demand of the students’ corps of the University of Jena that the first four rows in all the lecture halls be re- served exclusively for students of “pure German stock.” I later set out on a swing through the chief university centers of Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland; and I found myself in a great battlefield, which stretches from Germany east to Russia, where each campus is a front-line trench, and where the Jewish students, organized almost to a man, with practically no weapon but their organization, are lustily fighting for what to them is chiefly the privilege to study, but what for the world is the essential principle of academic freedom, Even the freedom to teach is not so fundamental as the right to learn. I arrived in Vienna the day after a major engagement. The German nationalist students had gone on a two-day strike, and with long canes and thick rubber clubs had per- suaded the Jewish students not to attend classes. The pur- pose of the strike was embodied in three demands: (a) Restriction of university officials to men of “German stock and mother-tongue”; (b) restriction of Jewish students to 10 per cent of student body; (c) restriction of Jewish pro- fessors to 10 per cent of the faculty staff. This 10 per cent is the famous nwmerus clausus; students can talk of little else. The demand for a clausus has spread now to prac- tically every campus in Central and Eastern Europe; it has. been taken up by the legislatures of Austria, Poland, Hun- gary, the Baltic States, and Rumania. During my stay in Vienna I used to go daily to the head- guarters of the Judaea, the Jewish student organization of the University of Vienna, through which all of the smaller Jewish Vereine and corps are welded into one body, and of which 5,500 out of the 6,000 Jewish students are members; and there I watched the reports come in from the wide- spread front: In Jassy a bloody scuffle; in Czernowitz the university senate refuses the demands of the Rumanian na- tionalist students, there is a strike and bloodshed; in Riga a Jewish student is killed. The Polish students of Lemberg march en masse to the Plac Maryacki and before the statue of the poet Mickiewicz take an oath to drive the Jews from the university. The Jewish students of Kronstadt form battalions for self-protection. In Vilna “the movement against the Jewish students grows.” Klausenberg, where there is a medical college, brings forth what was then a novelty but is now a commonplace: the Rumanian students demanded, with the usual rioting, that the Jews be excluded from the college unless the Jewish community furnished corpses for dissection. This is all in one week’s news. Meanwhile I managed to catch a few glimpses of the battle from within. I noticed that workmen were putting up wooden shutters before the windows of the Jewish mensa, or dining-hall, in Vienna; and the students explained that this was no academic precaution—their dining-hall and kitchen had been cleaned out only the year before by a mob of Frontkampfer, and now they had the waiters and student employees drilled to sweep all dishes, food, and furniture into the deep cellars, within a few minutes’ notice. While visiting the Jewish mensa at Prague, I casually asked if any Gentile students ate there. Three, I was told, and they ate free. The explanation carried the battle to Budapest, three hundred miles away. It appears that after the Hun- garian authorities put into effect a nwmerus clausus of 2 per cent, the University of Budapest refused to give the departing Jewish students their university records. Where- upon three liberal-minded Gentile students broke into the record offices one night and carted away all the student records in one swoop and fled with them to Czecho-Slovakia, And these were the three, eating free in the Jewish mensa. The trick of tampering with the records is not confined to Hungary. One morning, during my stay in Vienna, the students told me that German nationalists had the night before gone through the records of the School of Tech- nology and had torn up all the Jewish records. Up to the present time the Jews have found no weapon but protest. This is a rather empty satisfaction, for there is no one, with both good-will and power, to whom they can protest. The only other defense, if such it may be called, is flight; and again, as in medieval days, student bodies are preparing to trek from one far town to another. I was sitting in one of the leading coffee-houses of Prague, and there entered two Vienna students whom I had last met on an electric train going from Bratislava to Vienna. I was greatly surprised to see them, for they possessed rather less than the nothing which is the usual worldly goods of Jewish students. After they had explained to me the sys- tem of this particular coffee-house—whereby when the waiter comes for an order the student tells him “later,” and the waiter never returns—they explained their presence in Prague. They were Slovakian born, and hence citizens of the land, and, like the spies of Canaan, were come to inter- view the Czech minister of education to learn what the atti- tude of the authorities would be if a large immigration of students set in from Vienna. Happily they were to return to Austria with big grapes—Prague would welcome them. Italy too has come forward with an offer to throw open her university doors to foreign students and to assist their coming by means of reduced railway fares. This sounds like salvation but—and a big but—for the comparatively high cost of living in Czecho-Slovakia and Italy. In Austria the University of Vienna authorities have, it is true, turned down the numerus clausus as unconstitu- tional, but they have announced, quite gratuitously, that in matriculating new students extra efforts would be made to keep up the high scholastic standards of the school. That this is an indirect promise to keep out Jewish students (who number about one-third of the entire student body) be- comes apparent from the statements of Dr. Diener, presi- dent of the university. “The progressive Levanticizing of Vienna must at least be stopped at the doors of the uni- versity,” says Dr. Diener. “The university surely cannot be expected to welcome as guests... an element foreign to us in race and habits, whose culture, education, and morals stand on a much lower plane than that of the Ger- man student body, constituting a cancer in our academic life.” This attitude might be kept in mind by those who are moved by pleas of the University of Vienna for finan- cial aid (such as that put forth by ex-Premier Nitti in The Nation last winter) on the ground that it is an institution Bw Rv ir PU iG

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548 open for all. “The number of foreign Jewish students can easily be reduced by statute,” continues Dr. Diener; but the faculty of the School of Technology is not waiting for legal measures and has announced that it will not accept Jews in excess of 10 per cent of the total enrolment, unless this excess is Austrian citizens, which they well know is most unlikely. Limitation of students is equally unconstitutional in Po- land, but the parliament is endeavoring to overcome this obstacle; the National Democrats who have been fos- tering a bill to this end are now in control of the ministry. Meanwhile the Lemberg medical students’ association has shut out Jews and demanded that none be allowed to study without—the usual Jewish corpses. Cracow has demanded one Jewish for every ten Christian corpses and has given a date, together with an ultimatum, when the first corpses are to be delivered. In Warsaw the Jewish student quar- ters have been wrecked. The Baltic States behave like miniature Polands. The minister of education in Riga explains that the Jewish students “have offended the soul cf the Latvian youth,” and the educational commission of the Diet of Latvia has adopted a resolution calling for the payment of special fees by Jewish students who are in ex- cess of the proportion of Jews to the general population. Kovno and Dorpat have been the scenes of student strikes against the Jews. Hungary is unsatisfied with the 2 per cent clause; it is 2 per cent too many. So the students of Budapest have rioted, sent a half-dozen Jewish students to the hospital, and demanded complete exclusion of the rest. Rioting and violence have reached their height, so far, in Rumania, where throughout last spring there were a succession of bloody encounters. In Bucharest the students demand: (1) A numerus clausus of 10 per cent for Jewish students and faculty; (2) a quota of Jewish corpses; (3) no further extension of rights to Jewish citizens in Rumania; (4) no further Jewish immigration into Rumania; (5) the censor- ship of the “conscienceless” (liberal and radical) press. II A mere recital of these outward manifestations against the Jewish students reveals only faintly the nature of the driving forces behind. A Central or Eastern European university, one must first understand, is set atmospherically against the Jew. As a student he works and plays in an academic Ghetto; the walls shutting him out from social and professional intercourse with the general student body are high and rigid. He sits beside the Gentile student in class—except where, as proposed in Jena, he sits behind him—but he does not sit with him. He has the same inter- ests as the other students but he never shares them. The universities of Austria, Poland, etc., generally have a com- mon dining-hall where food may be had comparatively cheap —a great boon these days. The Jewish student is univer- sally excluded from these halls, not by law or rule but by making it too unpleasant for a self-respecting Jew to eat there. Student organizations are of two types—social, which embrace dueling corps and various sorts of Verbinde and Briiderschaften much like American fraternities but on a larger scale; and professional, which include medical, legal, philological, historical, literary, and scientific Vereine, which often maintain special libraries, offer their members facilities to buy books cheaply and seek positions for graduates, and afford a forum for discussing technical The Nation * [Vol. 117, No. 3045 matters. From both these types of organization the Jew is excluded. Finally there have grown up since the war large student relief organizations (such as the Bratnia Pomoc of Poland) which distribute food and clothing, provide bar- racks for shelter, and make loans to cover urgent needs; and in this relief work with a few honorable exceptions the Jew may give but not receive. In Poland, it is true, the Jew may become a member, second-class, with no vote. Five minutes’ stroll through the halls of the University of Vienna will tell the whole story. The bulletin boards of the various student organizations hang on the walls, and it is customary to affix the constitution of each society upon its particular board. Here we have the Germania which invites “German-Aryan students” to use its reading room, and assures the university world that it is the “national duty” of every student, meaning Aryan student, to join up. The Deutsche Akademische Gemeinschaft “unites all Ger- man-Aryan students who strive for spiritual and moral © uplift.” Typical is the Akademischer Verein der German- isten who further German culture. Their old constitution, dating from before the war, reads that “members can be only Germans.” The new constitution (1920) amends the matter. Membership is now “open only to those of German- Aryan stock and consciousness.” In some of the old con- stitutions the article on membership is left unchanged, ex- cept for the introduction in red ink of the one word, “Aryan.” The same restrictions are expressed, almost comically, in purely professional societies. The Naturwissenschaft- licher Verein “has for its object the study, on the part of German students [German underlined in heavy red crayon], of all branches of natural science.” Societies for the study of history, Slavic tongues, and romance languages are open only to ‘““German-Aryans” and, indeed, in order to be privi- leged to study the romance languages with these Aryans one must in addition “belong to a German Schutzverein.” The Akademischer Orchester Verein, in a handsome poster, invites any student “who can play a wind or string instru- ment and who has Aryan ancestry to enter.” In imitation of this Gilbertian nationalism, the Jewish students create their own societies duplicating, in detail, the ground cov- ered by the German organizations. So, in the law depart- ment, one can see on the right of the main door a bulletin board, labeled in black, “Deutsch-akad. Juristen Verein,” and on the left another board labeled in blue “Jiidisch-akad. Juristen Verein.” The only society I noticed open to all students, without qualifications, was the society to combat syphilis. Behind the student and his attitude against the Jew is the professor. Formerly a member of a highly respected and comfortably situated class, accustomed to adequate pay from the state and honor from society, he is, today, for the most part a wistful aspirant for the return of the old order and an implacable hater of the new. In the states formed or enlarged since the Treaty of Versailles the professor is generally a supporter and so far as he is able provider of that exaggerated patriotism and nationalism which these states require in order to keep the populations at a fighting- point against the large alien minorities within and poten- tial enemies without. And behind both the student and professor are the nation- alist political movements of Central and Eastern Europe. Their case can be put in a few words. The people of Cen- tral and Eastern Europe are hungry. And more cruel than | ‘ 4

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the absence of a real meal, they are without economic secur- ity or hope. Something must, in their desperation, be done. And the only two things to be done are to go communist or monarchist, forward or backward; anything else is merely another form of standing still and hungering. The rally- ing-point for those who wish to go backward, and they are perhaps in the majority, is nationalism. Whether the nationalists are aiming for a literal monarchy, as is likely in Germany, or merely for a “strong” government, as is probable in Poland or Austria, they must, to effect their purposes, demand huge sacrifices from the people, and the only way they can conceive of securing them is through an appeal to national love. And the love of one’s own nation is inextricably bound up with the hate of other nations, especially if those other nations be within the gates. So the easiest way of making an Austrian, Pole, or Rumanian feel more like an Austrian, etc., is to induce him to hate the alien, i. e., the Jew. We had a similar psychology oper- ating in America during the war when we heated up our Americanism by hating the Germans. And it was for the same ideals, to induce people to make sacrifices, to save the country, to preserve civilization. Warfare is too expensive for the Hungarian, Pole, Rumanian, or German today, so the cheapest and most available “enemy” becomes the Jew. Political parties come forward with programs for disfran- chising the Jews, merchant classes proclaim economic boy- cotts, and, correspondingly, universities are putting up the numerus clausus. The drive against the Jew in the university is not merely a part of this general effort at boycott; it is, in a certain sense, that boycott concentrated in a single blow. For if the Jew can be kept out of college, he can ipso facto be kept out of the professional classes, and he can also be excluded from the administration of the government, for it is car- ried on almost exclusively by university-trained men. The intimate relation between anti-Semitic student riots and these general and serious political considerations is no more clearly revealed than in the relation between the student corps and the nationalist parties. They are both recruited from the same ciasses. When the Vienna students kept the Jews from the university grounds for two days, many of the university supporters armed with rubber clubs, were middle-aged men, and the general cry was not “Down with the Jewish students” but ‘Down with Jewish politics.” It was a high-school student who planned and largely university students who executed the murder of Rathenau. Central and Eastern Europe is saying “The Jew must go.” He won’t, of course, and he can’t. And the struggle will lead no one knows where. One thing seems certain: in those lands where toleration and freedom could be waters of healing, the universities are poisoning the wells. The New Russian Women By MAGDELEINE MARX II. The Intellectual ERVANT and mother of the “cause” at once, an angel in rags, unswerving in will, unfathomable of heart, aus- tere, searching, assimilating, a true demon for work, the Russian intellectual does not present merely the tragic as- pect with which the refugees abroad have acquainted us: one discerns in her a new woman, a human type utterly un- familiar to us, the type which the revolution has created. I have known many of them, young and old. I have lived among them. If it is true that the revolution has left its indelible stamp on all of them, if the horizon of their country has endowed them all with a sense of the infinite, if the yoke of centuries has trained them to selflessness, it is not that which impresses one most. What impresses one is the difference existing between the two generations of women now at work. I believe that nowhere in the world is this difference so marked. Let us begin with the older women, those who were ap- proaching the forties when the revolution broke out, whose education was completed, whose personality was stamped, and who had behind them twenty years of struggle against the law, of imprisonment, and of hope. Ranking first among these is the woman who devoted herself to politics. The ideal type, and also in certain respects an exceptional and fascinating one, is Alexandra Kollontai. Daughter of the aristocracy, the wife of a general, she struggled through- out her youth for the liberation of the Russian masses. After participating actively in the events of the revolution,. she was for two years People’s Commissar for Public Health. A brilliant writer, an agitator of the first rank, a stinging satirist, speaking English, German, Spanish, the Scandinavian and several Oriental languages perfectly, she is perhaps one of the most richly endowed individuals in Russia in point of eloquence. On the eve of her departure for Christiania, where she now occupies the post of Ambassador of the Soviet Gov- ernment, I spent a whole evening with her in the small room that was allotted to her on her return from Odessa. It is not so much regarding politics that I wish to ques- tion her. I am familiar with her written works, her ac- tivities. I am eager to know what she thinks, as a woman and a leader, of the relations that may develop between men and women in a community evolved along communist lines. It appears to be a question which she has studied pro- foundly. In her view, family and marriage constitute an historical phenomenon uniquely the result of a transient era of production and are therefore ephemeral. She goes into greater detail. The family, formed in its early stages for the purpose of production, subsists in modern capitalist society for the purpose of consumption. Individual con- sumption being supplanted by community consumption in public kitchens, and the manufacture of clothing, the main- tenance of homes, laundry work, and even mending wearing apparel having become a part of community economics, the economic unity achieved by the family has no longer any reason for existence in a republic of workers. Deprived of its economic aims the family is destined to dissolve and to assume the form of a union between man and woman based on a reciprocal agreement. I ask Alexandra Kollontai what, in her opinion, will be the dominant factors inspiring the new laws regulating marital relations.

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590 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3045 SS “These two factors,” she replies: “first, public health; second, the increase or diminution of the population.” “Besides,” she said, “as communist society accords to men and women the same rights and the same obligations, the double standard now prevailing will disappear. The sexual act being the fulfilment of a natural instinct, it will no longer be considered as a sin. On the contrary, com- munist morality, ‘setting the highest store by the cultivation of the many spiritual activities of youth, will help each in- dividual to conform perfectly to the needs of the community. Instead of wasting their sensibilities in the emotions of sex, the women of the future will dedicate them to service of the community.” The hours pass and I listen. She has amazing gray eyes, with soft shadows. She has a sensitive, mobile mouth, made for smiling. When she laughs, her head thrown back, it is like a cascade of gaiety. The play of her gestures is so alive, so young and winged. Let us enter the office of Kroupskaia, the wife of Lenin. Orator, author, revolutionary from her earliest days, she directs at Moscow the Political Department for Public In- struction. On the first floor of a building occupying a cor- ner of the Sretinski Boulevard, buried in a hive echoing with the rattle of typewriters and the tinkling of telephone bells, we find the room in which Kroupskaia works. On the walls, a map of Russia, a portrait of Karl Marx, another of Trotzky, a few of the educational charts. Two tables overloaded with documents, a telephone, three or four chairs, and a total impression of bareness, of extreme sim- plicity. A woman with white hair is seated before a desk. She rises to receive the visitor. Her back is slightly bent. She wears a black wool coat with frayed edges, almost trans- parent at the elbows, hanging at the shoulders; a cheap black skirt, shoes that gape frightfully, a waist of white cotton which, from too much washing, is turning rust-color at the neck, green over the bosom. That is the wife of the tyrant, the woman who has been reported as decked mag- nificently in precious gems and jewels. Bending forward far over her desk, for her ailing eyes can scarcely see, she apologizes for her poor French. And yet she speaks the language faultlessly, with here and there just a momentary hesitation, as she tells me of the vast effort in every part of Russia to wipe out illiteracy. An overwhelming kindness glows in her countenance, a kindness such I have never before seen in any face. And this kindness invades me as she explains to me the basic ideas of a report which she has just completed on the edu- cational program of the schools. Kindness, and with it a steadfast desire to remain anonymous! Everything about her seems to say: “I am nothing. Over and above me, over and above all of us, whether we will it or not, there is the inescapable fatality which is mastered only by those who, by their unconquerable will, confront it.” Poorly dressed, inadequately nourished, confined to a sin- gle room in the Kremlin, where the only luxuries are a few flower-pots on the window-sill, the lot of Kroupskaia, her hope, her reason for living, is work. - Let us view more closely the women who more accurately represent the average woman among the intellectuals of the same generation. All, or nearly all, have been revolution- aries from their fifteenth year. The youth of nearly all of them has been passed in the prisons of the Czar. And they nearly all belong today to the Bolshevist Party. Which of them shall I describe? Shall it be the doctor’s wife, who has an active role at once in the Communist In- ternational, in the Section of Women of the Party, and in the Section of Women of the Orient; who speaks almost every day at some meeting; who with two or three other women edits a newspaper for peasant women, inspects foundling asylums, visits factories, receives foreign dele- gations, and reveals, under her graying hair, soft maternal eyes and a wearied countenance martyred with fatigue? Or shall it be Pokrowska, sweet of face, choice of spirit, companion of the historian Michel Pokrowsky, who is an official in the People’s Court of Moscow? Or shall it be Dr. Lebedeva, who directs the Maternity and Children’s Bu- reau in Moscow and brings to her duties her tireless energy and her extraordinary far-sightedness? They all have the same long day, the same superhuman task, the same small room, the same telephone at their bed- side which rings at all hours of the night: “Get up. At such and such an hour you must be at such and such a place. Your sleep, your rest, your person, nothing belongs to you.” And what role does love play in the lives of these women? I know that each of them has a profound tenderness for her companion in the struggle. Many of them are married. But for each of them, the breath of their life, the passion of their heart, is their work for the cause. In this work they have spent their youth, worn out their hearts, and in this work they will die. Not that they condemn, hate, or judge love: they are merely like so many immune women in the midst of general contagion. Their recreations? There are no recreations for these martyrs. They do not know the meaning of the word rest. When they arrive at the point of exhaustion and their bodies can no longer bear the strain, they protestingly permit themselves to be sent off to a little villa in Moscow or in Petrograd, whence they return to their tasks two or three weeks later with a bulky tract or monograph completed, hardly more rested than when they left. I said a little while ago that the intellectuals of their gen- eration are nearly all militant Communists. However, there is a certain number which is either neutral or hostile. Preeminent among the neutrals are the majority of women teachers. Without failing to maintain perfect loyalty to the Soviet Government and frankly declaring that in all matters touching education the bolshevist program is incom- parably superior to the former method of instruction, they preserve in their hearts an aversion for the new regime. In the first place, the revolution brought a great change in their material lives. There has,been much suffering in Rus- sia during the past few years. There has been hunger. Without the advantage of the social mysticism which sus- tained those whose lives I have described, preoccupied solely with their personal fate, it is easy to understand why they have preserved a hatred for the upheaval which deprived them of their former tranquillity. And now for the young. “You will see what an interesting generation is in process of formation among the: women,” I was told upon my arrival in Russia. “But you will find them somewhat arid, pursuing the dictates only of cold reason.”

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Nov. 14, 1923] But where is the coldness, the aridity, of those younger girls? There is Lena, for instance, whom I should like to describe because she appears to me to be the prototype of all the others. She was twenty years old last summer. Born in Siberia, of parents deported because of their political persuasions, she grew up on the shores of Lake Baikal and her childhood was passed in the region of Irkutsk and Tomsk. Her blond silk hair is pretty only in the sunlight, when her fruit-like cheeks and limpid blue eyes come into notice. She cannot be described as beautiful or charming or ugly. In looking at her one does not think of beauty; one thinks of something else, something inexpressible. Despite her pathetic garb, her man’s sweater, her velvet beret worn to a rag, her cloddish shoes, her threadbare skirt, she remains angelic in appearance. From Siberia she came to Kiev, where she began her studies. At the time of the Denikin offensive, she left for the front, leading the life of the Red soldiers. During the famine that raged at Rostov, she ate rat meat, grass, even straw, and found the energy to minister to ailing babies. She is now completing her studies at the University of Mos- cow, and, while learning English, French, and German, pur- suing sociological research, taking active part in political life, following every congress and attending all the lectures, joining every demonstration, she is specializing in the his- tory of art. What is her environment? A small room on the extreme outskirts of the city, an iron cot, a table, a chair, a tea kettle, walls covered with portraits and posters—a room often providing shelter for five and sometimes even seven when necessary. Throngs of young people hungry for edu- cation arrive constantly at Moscow. What matters it if the universities are already overcrowded, rooms impossible to find, the cost of food forbidding? They know (and I be- lieve this condition exists only in Russia) that somewhere in the vast city they will find a compassionate spirit who will share his crust of bread and his crowded room. Lena is always making room for some comrade in her pinched quarters, generally for some young girl, but if it happens to be a young man that seems to have little impor- tance. And despite the poverty, the hunger for study, the consuming faith in the future, the little groups find time for innocent, sparkling gaiety. Tea is drunk out of the house- hold’s one glass, Lena’s trifling ration is shared with her less fortunate comrades, the faucet in the hallway is the common bath-tub, and all wearing apparel is common prop- erty, stockings, dresses, shirts, shoes, the first to rise in the morning donning whatever garments he first lays hands on and the others take what is left. They adore the theater and they go by turns. They love music and there is always some girl who can dance and perform for the others. And they laugh so easily. Sometimes, in the warm days, they leave on foot for an afternoon in the country, and they sing in chorus the whole length of the tramp. And, if they have the good luck to find a lake or a pond along the route, they all tumble in, nude, pell-mell. The joys of intimacy, private pleasures? For these crea- tures pleasure can only be a communal matter. In truth, the collective instinct has permeated the blood of this gen- eration. It is evident not only in the desire to share but even in the manifestation of joy. The mere labor of load- ing and transporting whole pine trees, of draping wood The Nation 551 with chintz, of preparing for a parade, of rehearsing with a chorus, gives them the sparkling eyes and flaming cheeks ascribed to heroines in the first flush of love by the old- fashioned writers. I say “old-fashioned,” for the drama of the individual seems to have ceased, to have receded into history, giving way to the mass drama which alone grips and inspires the spirits of the young girls. Is Lena a Communist? If being a Communist merely means having made a choice between one belief and an- other, it cannot be said that she is one, for that is saying nothing. Daughter of the era of the machine, true sister of the proletariat, she is a Communist as involuntarily as she breathes. Communism is to her neither a theory nor an ideal. It is the warmth of her youth, it is the air in which she bathes. And therein, precisely, lies the difference between the two generations. When one knows the women of the older generation, one senses that they are revolutionaries by virtue of all that is “superior” within us. At once above and outside of ordinary mortals, they are appalling in their fine qualities. The heart is pinched and the spirit humili- ated by the spectacle of their laborious days. There is a vague feeling of revolt before their sacrifices and mutila- tion. The Lenas are the living product, altogether natural, of this revolutionary soil. They are the vigorous plants which grow in the free atmosphere and could not grow elsewhere. They represent the moment in development when, in order to adapt itself better, the species differen- tiates. In this instance, certain spiritual elements have become atrophied in order to permit others to develop and reach higher altitudes. Lena writes strange poems and she excels in the sciences. Her temples pulse with love, but never does a cry of enthusiasm spring from her lips. No impulse that cannot be converted into action ever emerges. All her actions comprise the total gift of herself, and yet she never reveals the least external élan. Her companions are only reflected images of her. Lola, a daughter of the nobility and twenty-two years old, carelessly dressed, hair bobbed, always barefoot, with her urchin’s laugh, she too is amazingly talented. She can dance and drive an automobile, she writes and composes music, she does stage decoration, she has studied scenic effects with Meyerhold, acting with Stanislawski. She has worked in factories, can translate five tongues, with great ability manages one of the government executive offices, and, if brought face to face with death, she would reveal her genius even then, skipping toward death as she would to a ball. The common sense of Lena, her self-mastery, is found once more in Niourina, who for eighteen months was polit- ical director with the military forces, lived the life of a soldier, and even today still wears a military cap and a khaki coat with purple bars while fulfilling her duties in the Women’s Section of the Party and in the army teaching staff. I have been present at the lectures on contemporary history which she gives regularly at an officers’ school. What Frenchwoman, however little sex consciousness she may possess, however feeble her instinct to please, would not have felt at least slightly embarrassed with sixty pairs of male eyes fixed upon her? Cool, logical, scrupulously precise, entirely unconscious of her person, she was the victim only of her anxiety to make her audience understand and to transmit her knowledge.

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552 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3045 The New Architecture Temples of Mammon Supersede Those of Ammon By HENRY S. CHURCHILL HE New Architecture is with us, inexorably forced upon us, whether we will or not, by economic law. The relentless drive of economic necessity, the governing law of modern, even if not, as some maintain, of all life has created and is creating the architecture of today in actual structural fact. Aesthetically, where that law has been accepted and expressed, we have a living art; where it has been denied and disguised, we have a dying art. Architecture has always been a reflection of the age that produced it. The hope of Egypt, the clarity of Greece, the pomp of Rome, the faith of the Middle Ages, the license of the eighteenth century, the acquisitiveness of the twentieth are faithfully mirrored in the temples of the times, whether these temples be of Ammon or of Mammon. Nor is there any doubt that as the material side of life has developed more swiftly in the last hundred years than in all the pre- ceding historic centuries, so the structural side of archi- tecture, which corresponds to the material side of life, has undergone greater changes in the last generation than in any preceding period of its history. A hundred years ago New York was a charming, if muddy, city of red-brick houses with white doorways and cast-iron balconies, spired churches, and low warehouses and wharves, situated on a rocky island. Farm-houses dotted the open spaces between the villages of Yorktown and Harlem, Manhattanville and Bloomingdale. The fate- ful shadow of the gridiron had not yet fallen across it. As population, wealth, and ostentation increased, there came brown-stone fronts in endless rows, and more and more massive office buildings. In 1880 the first elevated railroad trailed its blighting way out to Harlem, elongating the city, choking its cross-town expansion, relegating the river fronts, the city’s natural outlets to air and beauty, to com- merce and squalor. Land in the Battery section became immensely valuable. Investors and owners, endeavoring to squeeze every drop of increment from their land, found that by building higher they could get greater returns. The height limit, however, would have remained that of conveni- ent walking had ‘t not been for the invention of the ele- vator. With its advent vertical transportation became a reality and the skyscraper a possibility.* But limitations to the first high elevator buildings were soon discovered. It was found that the increase in thick- ness of the bearing walls necessary to carry great height ate up rentable floor space too rapidly to make a very great number of stories profitable, and besides cut off too much light. To take the place of these clumsy walls, cast-iron columns came into use, and various systems of long-span fire-proof floor construction. These were gradually devel- oped to relieve the walls of practically all weight but their own. As the steel industry developed, steel columns came into use on account of their greater strength. The steel shapes were slowly standardized for lightness, convenience of design, and most of all swiftness of erection. It was found that by riveting an angle to the wall-beams it was pos- sible to erect masonry from floor to floor independently of *The first real skyscraper was erected in Chicago, but under analogous conditions. There high property values were artificially created by the ele- vated “Joop,” which still effectively strangles the city. a masonry base, or to start it on many floors at once. The self-supporting wall thus went out of existence, as the floor- bearing wall had gone before, and the true skeleton frame came into being. ‘Walls became simple fillers between floors, without any structural value whatever. This permitted reducing them to the least thickness compatible with their staying in place and keeping the weather out, and not only saved space, but weight and, consequently, steel. Just as steel frames and curtain walls came into being through economic reasons, so brick has largely replaced stone as the material for those walls. Stone walls on a sky- scraper are an anomaly. They do not carry themselves; they must be backed by some material to be weather-proof; they must be deviously anchored. In our industrial cities they deteriorate in the gas-laden atmosphere. The use of stone is an aesthetic tradition; the monumental material of the past, its use was appropriate in wall-bearing con- struction for monumental and sumptuous edifices. Today it persists as an example of the theory of conspicuous waste. That stone has so largely gone out of use in recent years except for trimmings is due, however, not to a realization of its essential unfitness for its purpose, but to prohibitive cost occasioned by a combination of circumstances chiefly arising from the war and trade-union regulations. Under the pressure of these conditions, and not from any aesthetic choice, it was discovered that brick could be beautifully laid in patterns as a colorful and decorative surface instead of as an imitation masonry wall. And the logical successor to brick—especially if the brick manufacturers succeed in combining themselves out of business—is terra-cotta. Another change, the most recent and obvious, in the archi- tecture of New York, has been brought about by the zoning and set-back laws. Economic dictates, of course, were be- hind the enactment of these laws. When the greed of prop- erty owners and speculators in exploiting the space above their lots threatened not only to become a menace to public health but to reduce rentals by cutting off light and air, it was found desirable to limit an owner’s rights to do what he pleased with his own. The Rights of Private Property were invaded ostensibly for the protection of the public— and one of the most beautiful and characteristic effects of New York architecture has been the result. With the practical modern office-building essentially a steel frame requiring, logically, an entirely new exterior expression, a fair question is: Why are our streets lined with specters of the outworn past? In a measure it is because aesthetic development must always lag behind structural changes which demand such rapid visual read- justments as are involved in the change from wall-bearing to skeleton steel construction. A generation is a short time for the eye to get accus- tomed to new dynamic relationships. One of the most im- portant of these relationships is the immensely greater strength of steel as compared to the materials formerly in use. The experience of ages had taught that so much masonry was needed to support so much weight; that a stone could reasonably span such a distance, a wood beam such another distance; that too slender a support would

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation 553 buckle and break, too long a lintel sag and crack. Steel and reinforced concrete have changed all those long-accus- tomed balances, The eye must come to new realizations of what is safe, and therefore what is comfortable, and there- fore what can give pleasure. Other changes are the elimination of shadow brought about by shallow reveals in the thin curtain-walls, and the consequent emphasis of surface as opposed to mass; and the tremendously increased importance of the silhouette under the application of the set-back laws. These adjustments are gradually taking place. The trend of the new design may be briefly and cursorily traced by considering the Park Avenue Hotel, the World Building, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, any loft building in the Fifth Avenue twenties, the Plaza Hotel, the Woolworth Building, Pierre’s and Sherry’s, the Fisk Building, and the new Shel- ton Hotel on Lexington Avenue. It should be noted that while economic pressure tends on the one hand to make buildings structurally modern, on the other it tends to hold back aesthetic progress through fear that “novelty” in appearance may hinder rentability. It is for this reason, as well as for aesthetic ones, that so many of our commercial structures are clothed in ill-fitting garments. Although there is slow but evident progress visible in our commercial work it is nowhere visible in our public edi- fices, where the question of expense is not so fundamental, the desire for conspicuous waste often a ruling motive, and the dead hand of academic tradition falls most heavily. With the exception of the design for the Nebraska State Capitol, none of our recent public buildings show the slight- est attempt to develop an architectural expression in accord with either the structural system or their surrounding civilization. Their steel frames are swathed in mummy- cloths. The absurdity of steel-framed masonry domes! The sterility of rows of useless columns! Endless modil- lions and garlands taking the place of imagination and suitable invention! How can they be other than ostenta- tious, dreary, and monotonous? Almost as little evidence of change is to be found in our domestic architecture. Characteristically enough, the more expensive the work, the more time expended upon it, the less the progress. The reason here is not only the comparative lack of economic pressure; there is a simple psychologic factor involved. A man’s house is what he lives with, and to most men the most usual is the most livable. Anything “different” in the way of a home would make him feel as ill at ease as a purple shirt with lace ruffles. Then, too, the rich man sees a villa or a palace abroad, and because it costs more to build, and looks it, he must have it reproduced here—the Palazzo Massimi on Fifth Avenue, a Tudor mansion on Long Island, a Brittany farm-house in Westchester. Of course structural methods in the domestic field have not changed so radically as they have in larger building; it is not, perhaps, so heinous an offense to build a modern brick house in imitation of an old one. However that may be, our most living—if not livable!—domestic work is to be found in the model-hous- ing industrial villages, where rigorous elimination of waste and the need for quantity production have prevented the aping of a long-dead craftsmanship, and simple, good effects have had to be obtained by the use of machine-materials, “untouched by human hand.” In the same way, the notice- able increase in restraint and “good taste’ in the specu- latively built apartments in New York, which has received favorable comment in many quarters, has not been at all due to an increase in good taste, but to the prohibitive cost of gimcrackery. Economic forces will thus in time bring about a new architecture aesthetically, as they have already done struc- turally, replacing mass and shadow by surface and silhou- ette. Proportion, the basic factor of good design, wiil always remain the chief factor. However, good proportion and its concomitant, good “scale,” are not absolute, as the academicians like to think, but depend on inter-related re- lationships—the size and shape of the building, the relation of its many parts to the human figure and human needs, the materials used, and the system of construction. Good classic, gothic, and steel proportions are very different things, although many architects seem to think they are interchangeable. A rhinoceros skin does not fit a giraffe, nor even a cow, though all are mammals. When modern structural methods are followed out to their logical conclusion, the results are progressive and in- teresting architecture. When eclectic aestheticism is fol- lowed, when “art” is the inspiration, the result is only pre- tense and puerile copying. Only from a building which answers inevitably to our modern needs do we get a modern emotion, a feeling of hardness, steel, vibration, discordant beauty, an emotion satisfying to our modern spirit. It is not beauty as the Greeks understood beauty, nor emotion as the builders of Chartres understood emotion, but it is life as it is understood today. We need fewer artists and more architects; less art and more architecture. When we finally get that, we shall not need to look either humbly or reverently toward Athens, Rome, or Paris. A Birth By JAMES RORTY After the rain, the morning breathed a soft Annunciation. When I glanced aloft I saw the sky dreamed blue, while on the sea The foam caps shook in bright impersonal glee. A gallant day, I thought. I said as much To Gertie, munching mustard tops and such Beside the fence. For Gertie, too, has heard, I thought, the mild omnipotent Word That moves in majesty above the fields, Where everything that grows attends and yields The praise of life rejoicing ere it pass: The psalming insects, the obeisant grass. If Gertie heard, I saw no sign. She stared Across a field of ripened oats, where fared That fecund Wind whose casual will again Compelled the genuflecticns of the grain, Then sought the sea, and combed the horizon’s verge That frothed beneath its vast, indifferent urge. An hour later when I passed again, She stared unmoved, in her clear eyes no stain Of fear or worship. By her shrunken side A something stirred: her calf, new-born, that tried Fumbling and tottering to suck, and feebly mooed, Scenting, no doubt, the storm the Wind had brewed.

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Paradoxology (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD OW God be praised who has made the politics of our dear country so far from fixed, so far from dull! Ob- serve, for instance, the Grand Old Party! It is supposed to be tethered by its left hind leg and a stout chain to a hy- drant of fast-flowing campaign contributions in Wall Street. Bucket-carriers of that life-giving stream thereupon come down to Washington and demand that the Republican ele- phant shall cross a bridge which they have designed from America to Europe. The elephant, thus adjured by his alleged keepers to pro- ceed across the Atlantic, turns his face toward the Pacific and busies himself with the affairs of the Far East. Ad- ditional emissaries thereupon arrive in Washington from the fastnesses of finance. They denounce the anti-League and anti-international publicity of the Republican National Committee. They threaten violent disturbances within the committee. They attempt to produce changes in policy and in personnel which would divert the committee from its anti-international tendencies and activities and bring it into harmony with the pro-international views dominantly held among the gentlemen who provide the elephant’s fodder. The fodder-furnishers indicate that in their opinion he who feeds the elephant should call his pace. The elephant rejoins that the feeding has been far from good lately. Attention is called to the prolonged existence of deficits in the food supply. Attention is further called to the pau- city of food in the great endeavors of last fall when the Democratic donkey outran the elephant in so many locali- ties. It is moreover pointed out that even if food in full quantities were forthcoming, the elephant would still be more interested in avoiding getting stoned to death by the populace than in acquiring banquets from the elite. Convinced that the populace is opposed to traveling to Europe, the elephant rejects the admonitions of his ma- houts from Manhattan. He flaps his ears also at the League World Court aspirations of his President from Ohio. He warns his succeeding President from Massachusetts that League World Court aspirations in him will have a suicidal sound. He brings it about that the broad bridge planned toward Europe by the American Bankers’ Association and the United States Chamber of Commerce is narrowed to a single plank along which individual Americans may pro- ceed, if they will, toward being appointed by the Reparation Commission at Paris to serve on a committee to make a study of Germany’s financial situation and to report that study, in the wake of a score of previous similar studies, to the members of the Reparation Commission who thereupon, if they wish to do so, may communicate with the Allied governments which thereupon, if they so choose, may act to reduce the reparation indebtedness of Germany in case they find themselves unanimous in desiring reduction. To such modesty of deportment has the elephant reduced his alleged owners that in this one narrow plank toward a non-committal arithmetical participation in the calculating of Germany’s capacity to pay they see and applaud a con- version of the elephant to their views. They are deceived. The gentlemen who constitute the inward workings of the elephant may consent to an occasional trumpeting of the The Nation - [Vol. 117, No. 3045 blessed -words “helpfulness to Europe” but they most of them have no intention whatsoever of causing the legs of the elephant to stir from their rooted stand on American soil. The elephant may be living off the elite, and he may be the favorite political animal of the overwhelming majority of the graduates of our best universities and of the mem- bers of our best clubs, but he hears that the lowly are anti- international and he loves the lowly and its life. He also, if a sound distinction be drawn between him him- self and his campaign contributors, is just simply person- ally indisposed toward what his professional groomers and scrubbers and trainers call “internationalism.” The own- ers of the animal may be in favor of American participa- tion in Europe. The professional politicians who operate the animal are for the most part opposed to it, and the fact develops thereupon that it is they that are the real owners. One of them, a Senator, a Tory, a believer in the rights of capital and a doubter of the claims of labor, a firm enemy of virtually all “progressive” legislation, has made two his- toric remarks on this point. The first was to a group of delegates from interests which in American political lan- guage are commonly honored by being called “the interests.” They desired him in peremptory terms to go along with them in voting the United States into organized interna- tional endeavors. He replied: “T happen to think it treason and if you are going to talk about it you must talk about it to other people. My limit in crime is the tariff.” A year or so later, having continued in the interim to resist all radicalism, he remarked one day to this writer: “Well, I hope the lower and baser and more radical ele- ments are going to be strong enough long enough to help me lick the League.” Meanwhile the Democratic donkey, who naturally brays at the Social Register, finds himself becoming a society animal. His chief official trainer, Mr. Cordell Hull, causes him to lift up his voice and utter great noises against “the interests.” He also causes him to utter great noises against the Republican foreign policy of “isolation.” Together the House of Morgan and the donkey pine for European travels. Together the elephant and the new farmer-labor Senators stamp upon the proposal. In the headquarters of the party of “the interests” the most loathed, the most feared, the most denounced element of our life is “the international banker.” In the headquarters of the party of “the masses” the conscience of the party managers holds them true to a foreign policy which “the masses” have rejected. Politics thus ceases to be as easy as political science; and calculations of the behavior of the elephant and of the donkey from an analysis of their diet become hazardous. Eating peanuts from the hands of saloon passengers, the elephant resolutely steers the ship away from where the saloon passengers want to go. Living on thistles in the steerage, the donkey demands a turn at the wheel in order to go to the port where he and our very best people long to be. For “the interests” and their international hopes the donkey is a gratuitous volunteer and the elephant is a shameless ingrate absent without leave. So God be praised who has made it impossible to explain the drama of politics purely by the box-office.

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation a $e In the Driftway HERE is something almost incredibly brilliant in the red of our autumn foliage. There is nothing to equal it anywhere in the world. We talk of “tropical” richness of color; the tropics have nothing to match an American hillside in October. Europe’s beech trees flaunt a radiant orange that our beeches do not know, but neither Europe nor the Equator can rival the living red of our maples, our sumachs, our sour gum, sassafras, and dogwood, or even of our woodbine, blueberry, and—despise it if you must— poison ivy, that trail fire across our autumn clearings. Even our oaks, dull beside the flaming maples, have a glow beyond their European peers, What is it in our atmosphere that burns such thrilling colors into the hillsides and swamps? * * * * * EW YORK’S soot seems to clog the pores of color. Sumach will not thrive in a New York backyard, and none of the trees that best endure soft-coal smoke turn red. Horse chestnut affects a rather dull yellow and quickly fades to brown; the ailanthus, catalpa, sycamore, and pop- lars are all sober autumn trees; the gingko—that curious Chinese immigrant which looks like a tree fern left from the coal age, yet thrives in our ultra-modern cities—has as brilliant a coat as any, but without a hint of red. * * * * * HE birds, however, make no protest. The Drifter never ceases to be amazed at the bird life of downtown New York. Somehow the migrating birds discover every tiny oasis of green amid those appalling stone canyons. The most retiring forest birds seem in migration-time to have a fondness for the busiest squares. A pair of hermit thrushes lingered in City Hall Park for a week this autumn, silent among the noisy English sparrows. Kinglets lisped in the struggling oaks, brown creepers crawled up the tree trunks, juncoes hopped about the feeble grass, catbirds, white-throated sparrows, a Maryland yellow-throat, and a flicker slipped from shrub to shrub within a few yards of hundreds of thousands of bustling city-dwellers. Did any- one notice them but THE DRIFTER? Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. Inany case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. ] Hero or Murderer? To THE EpiIToR oF THE NATION: Sir: General Haller, Poland’s notorious anti-Semite, has been accorded a royal welcome to these shores by President Coolidge, the American Legion, and various public officials. Directly re- sponsible for the torture and murder of innocent Jews, he is acclaimed a hero by men prominent in American affairs. Are we to continue to kowtow to a man whose hands are stained with the blood of a people who dared remain true to the faith of their fathers? We speak of the crucifixion of Christ, but what of the Jews who were buried alive in Poland by soldiers com- manded by General Haller? A traitor to civilization, he should be treated as such by the American people. Let us brand him as he deserves. Dorchester, Massachusetts, October 20 Victor GERTLIN What Lloyd George Missed To THE Eprror oF THE NATION: Sir: The Middle West is where American dinners are served. Mr. Lloyd George should have had: Cream of celery soup; Channel-catfish steaks, cucumber sauce, and balls of browned mashed potato; Roast turkey, cranberry sauce; Succotash of lima beans and corn boiled and dried in the sun, candied sweet potatoes; Hot biscuits; Salad of tomatces stuffed with shredded lettuce and picked walnuts; Pumpkin pie, apple pie; Coffee. Mary ALicIlA OWEN St. Joseph, Missouri, United States of America, October 30 [A symposium on the Great American Dinner will appear in a later number of The Nation. Contributions will be made by various writers of the series on These United States—among them H. L. Mencken, Maryland; Clement Wood, Alabama; E. E. Miller, Tennessee; Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, and others.—EpDITOR THE NATION. ] The Extinct Orphan To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Are there any bona fide orphans extant? My wife and I desire to adopt an orphan of decent parentage (age 3-7) or two, if they are of the same family. We visited a home in this county where there are 110 children, only two of whom are orphans. The rest are semi- or “divorced” orphans. The majority are Italians whose parents regard the orphanage as a kind of college—probably it is. It is amazing what an enor- mous number of children ought to be orphans. I shall be grateful for information. Whippany, New Jersey, October 23 ALBERT F'ARR A Sailor’s Offer TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your letter of September 12 received, and in reply will say that I will be unable to get any readers for The Nation on board the ship because my shipmates are not interested in any- thing that happens in the world so long as it happens outside of their own little world, which is limited to the deck of a steam- boat. When I finish reading The Nation I leave it on the table in our quarters, and seldom do I see anyone as much as look at it, much less read it. They would, and do, spend from five to ten cents to buy the daily paper, for that is what the daily press costs on board ship when we can get it. I do not blame them for that, for I used to do the same thing. I still buy the daily paper when I can, not because I am interested in what it says, for it is mostly bunk, but from force of habit. Coming back to The Nation, I have thought out a plan that would be better from my position than getting readers. I suggest that I make a small donation of, say, $10 or $15. Probably the editor knows some workingman that he could send The Nation to, and he in turn would be in a better position to get new readers than I am. I do not know whether or not this plan would be accepted by The Nation. It is, however, the best I can do. I do not agree with the editor when he says that America can cure the sickness across the pond. To my mind the same forces that control things there control also in America. Those forces on the other side have decayed and will soon go into history. It will only be a matter of time when this same decay will take place in America. There are plenty of straws that point the way the wind is blowing. Detroit Marine P. O., Michigan, October 12 eee Ge

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A Challenge to The Nation To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The most educated and intelligent political minds simply do not see the operations of a mind like Ford’s. Of course I can’t speak for Henry, but I just can’t imagine his becoming, as your editorial, A Challenge to Henry Ford, sug- gests, a “dollar a year man” in the political government for the purpose of demonstrating anything. He is a great little demonstrator; but the only thing he demonstrates, so far as I can see, is that the Ford way of doing things is much simpler and much more to the point than the usual business way, and certainly much more so than the way the government under- takes to do things, limited as it is by a mass of politically de- vised restrictions and regulations. Mr. Ford, so far as I know, has not the slightest quarrel with the principle of private profit. He believes that there is more profit in giving maximum service than in not doing so. If an enterprise isn’t yielding a profit, he would suspect that there was something functionally wrong with it and that it is not giving the public service which it should. Challenging him, therefore, to run Muscle Shoals as some group that doesn’t understand industry tells him to run it, and then to “prove his good faith” by accepting low wages for the job, when he doesn’t believe in low wages either, would seem to him to have no par- ticular point. — The Nation has already pointed out how “ignorant” Mr. Ford is. That being the case, The Nation should see that he is too ignorant to understand such a challenge; and The Nation, it seems to me, should prove its good faith by at least making its challenges intelligible to the persons challenged, especially when it knows those persons to be “ignorant.” Excuse me. I like The Nation. But I can’t help riding it for its political-mindedness at a time when industrial thinking is SO necessary. New York, October 25 CHARLES W. Woop The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “Ror The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 3. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4, No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear Feb’y 138, 1924. 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. The Nation ~- [Vol. 117, No. 3045 Books The Exploitation of Turkey Turkey, The Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway. A Study in Imperialism. By Edward Mead Earle. The Macmillan Company. $2.25. a IFTY years hence it may be that the historian will regard the Great War primarily as an acceleration of the dismem- berment of the Ottoman Empire. Certainly, the division of Turkey into spheres of influence since 1918 is only completing frankly what was already well begun indirectly before 1914. In March, 1914, Sir Mark Sykes said in the House of Commons apropos of the Franco-German convention of 1913: “In practice, loans, kilometric guaranties, monopolies, and a financed native press must . .. pave the way to annexation. I submit that this is not the spirit of the Entente. The British people did not stand by the French people at Agadir to fill the pockets of finan- ciers whose names are unknown outside of Constantinople or the Paris Bourse. .. . The Ottoman Empire is shaken, and the cosmopolitan financier is now staking out the land into spheres of influence. An empire may survive disasters but it cannot survive exploitation.” For whatever reason Britain may have stood by France at Agadir, she immediately proceeded to secure her part of the spoils by the conventions with Turkey and Ger- many in 1913-1914. Whatever the “spirit of the Entente” may have been, in practice the Entente Powers had, in 1914, forced Germany, as the price of withdrawing their opposition to the Bagdad Railway, to admit them to the game of partitioning the Cttoman Empire. Then the war came, Germany and Russia were eliminated; and since the war France and Great Britain have gone on with the old arrangements, modified to suit the changed conditions. It is the merit of Mr. Earle’s book that he brings out the importance of the Bagdad Railway as a central and coordinat- ing influence in this pre-war imperialistic scramble for the wealth of Turkey. He has carefully examined a great mass, it must be nearly all, of the available printed material, and in ad- dition he has obtained, from persons “intimately associated with the Bagdad Railway,” many records and documents not hitherto available. He seems to have mastered the material well enough to handle it with ease. Without emotion or notable bias, but clearly without any belief in the reality of the white man’s bur- den, he has told his story in a clear, straightforward, and read- able manner. The result is a reliable and an admirable study in contemporary imperialism—the best account, so far as I know, of the Bagdad Railway and its political and economic implications. From this story it does not appear that the exploitation of Turkey was artfully or brutally imposed upon an innocent Otto- man government. Old Abdul Hamid was himself one of the first to dream of a great system of Turkish railways, and from first to last he welcomed foreign aid. Knowing well that he was mortgaging his empire, he did it because he saw no other way of developing the resources of his empire, and because he be- lieved that only by developing thcse resources could his empire be held together under a single scepter or become a powerful state in the modern world. Whether the mortgage could ever be cleared was a gamble; but he, and his Young Turk succes- sors, took the gambler’s risk with their eyes open. Nor does it appear that the Germans, with deep political de- sign for the mastery of the world, stole a march upon the un- suspecting Entente Powers. In 1888 Sir Vincent Caillard tried to organize an Anglo-American syndicate to finance a Bagdad railway. When it failed the Germans took it up, obtained con- cessions, and began to build. In the negotiations of 1899-1903, French financial interests were given the same share as Ger- man. The Germans were eager to include the British interests in a scheme that would have internationalized the project. The Balfour Government approved, dallied with the scheme, but at last, on account of opposition from British shipping and other

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation 557 ee LL interests, withdrew. Again, in 1908-1909, during the pro- Entente and anti-German phase of the Young Turk movement, the British and French governments were given an opportunity to become the financial and political elder brothers of the Turks. They refused, and the Young Turks had to fall back on Ger- many again. The truth is that in the early years—until about 1908—Brit- ish and French opinion was either indifferent or favorable to the German project for a Bagdad railway. It was not until the Germans had taken the risk, begun the road, and were reaping the profits, that opposition developed in France and England. Opposition in France was partly sentimental, partly due to fear that the road would divert British trade from the Calais-Mar- seilles route, partly due to the opposition of Russia. In England opposition came partly from British shipping interests, and partly from British vested interests in Turkey. But in addition, there was from first to last the fear that such a road under German control, with a terminus on the Persian Gulf, would menace India and the Empire. This opposition of the Entente Powers lasted until 1910-1914. Between those dates “bargains” were struck. The agreements reached in 1913 between French and German interests were for- mulated in the secret Franco-German convention of February 15, 1914. By this convention northern Anatolia and Syria were recognized as French spheres of influence in railway building, leaving the regions of the Anatolian and Bagdad railways as German spheres of influence. It was also agreed that “appro- priate diplomatic and financial measures should be taken to bring about an increase in the revenues of the Ottoman Empire, sufficient, at least, to finance all the projected railways, both French and German.” Meantime, British financiers were “already joining the scram- ble for concessions.” The result of this scramble was (1) a series of contracts between British and German financiers, “wit- nessed” by representatives of the governments; (2) the Anglo- Turkish convention of 1913; (3) the Anglo-German draft treaty of 1914. The substance of these arrangements was (1) inter- ests represented by Lord Inchcape were given monopolistic privileges in Mesopotamian river navigation; (2) interests of the British-owned Smyrna-Aidin Railway were safeguarded; (3) oil rights in Mesopotamia from Mosul to Bagdad were con- ferred upon the Anglo-German syndicate known as the Turkish Petroleum Company; (4) the British control of the Sheik of Koweit was recognized, and the terminus of the Bagdad Rail- way was to be Basra, without privilege of extension to the Persian Gulf except with the consent of the British Government; (5) Great Britain withdrew further opposition to the construc- tion of the Bagdad Railway. These arrangements, incluaing the draft treaty, were formally ready when the war broke out. One thing which stands out is that the scramble for Turkey was no clear-cut struggle between Triple Entente and Triple Alliance with cpposing political objectives, although, toward the end, this aspect of the struggle becomes more important. It was rather a struggle between the financial interests of the differ- ent countries, backed by their respective governments, all seek- ing the same objective—the exploitation of Turkey for private gain. The interests of the taxpayers in Turkey and in Europe were apparently thought to be negligible. From the point of view of British “interests,” Mr. Earle thinks that the refusal of Great Britain to accept the German proposals of 1903 was a “colossal blunder.” The project, he says, would have interna- tionalized the Bagdad Railway, and the “Entente of 1904 with France would have taken the control of the enterprise out of the hands of the Germans.” It may be so. But this was the time, as Eckhardtstein assures us, when Great Britain was seek- ing a German alliance. If the Bagdad Railway project had gone through, is it not conceivable that some kind of Anglo- German entente might have been arranged? In which case the Anglo-French entente might not have come off. But the “ifs” of history are unknown quantities. CARL BECKER A Gift to America From Immigrant to Inventor. By Michael Pupin. G. P. Put- nam’s Sons. $4. HIS book has been intended evidently as a record of the Americanization of Michael Pupin. Instead it turns out to be a record of the Pupinization of America, at least in the fields of invention, physical research, and study of natural phenomena. This vast, rich, self-satisfied country of one hundred per cent Americans has been compelled by the genius and persistency of Mr. Pupin to accept his methods and his conclusions and to act upon them. His observations as a boy-herdsman on the pasture lands of old Serbia are now incorporated in appliances which are used all over the world in sound transmission. It is because Mr. Pupin has contributed vastly more to America than Amer- ica has contributed to him, that his book is so entirely different from similar books by immigrants who have succeeded. The lat- ter always love America for what it has given them; Mr. Pupin loves his new country with the love of a giver. It is a fascinat- ing story and a more stimulating argument in the debate on immigration than any other I know. Mr. Pupin was born in the Serbian village of Idwor to a silent and sturdy peasant father and to a highly intelligent, though illiterate, peasant mother. This peasant woman whose somber picture fills the pages of her son’s book knew more about the real value of science and religion than many a learned dean, and however indifferent one may be toward religion he must be impressed by the kind of religion which Olympiada Pupin transmitted to her son. This is a religion based not on dogma but on a deep cosmic yearning for the understanding of the world and of life, and when this yearning met with condi- tions of modern life in the surroundings of a new world and in contact with the truths of modern science, it became an active force for the study and solution of the problems of nature. While guarding the precious oxen of his native village from the cattle thieves of a neighboring Rumanian village, the little Serbian boy observed that the best signaling is effected through the ground and that the harder the ground the more audible the signal. Most of Mr. Pupin’s book is occupied with the fascinat- ing story of how this simple observation led him to his inventions in the field of sound transmission, and, as a story of the meta- morphosis of an observation, it has few equals in the biograph- ical literature of the world. Mr. Pupin brought with him from his native land a sense of reality, a love for observation, and a devotion to truth of which he found little in the academic circles of this country. He was destined to be one of the first to estab- lish the study of nature and nature’s laws in American universi- ties on a basis of research rather than on one of books and ab- stract formula. In this as in many other activities of his mind he very naturally met with the opposition of tradition and dogma. When a boy he was in danger of being declared a heretic because of his recital of Benjamin Franklin’s experi- ments with a kite and a key for the purpose of discovering the nature of lightning. Many years later he was told by a very influential witch-hunter that his advocacy of the use of the alter- nating electric current in the distribution of electricity was detrimental to the interests of the electrical industry which had adapted itself to the direct current and that for this reason he had better resign his professorship. Mr. Pupin knew better and today both the direct and the alternating current are used in all electrical activities. It would seem that the education which Michael Pupin, now of Columbia University, received as a boy in the village of Idwor and the adjacent town of Panchevo contained elements of higher value and greater worth than the education of the average boy in this country. Was it the fervent love of his mother for the eternal truth? Was it the song of the stars which watched over him during his long vigils beside the village cattle and imbued him with the greatness and sweetness of cosmic laws? Was it that he was not an average boy and that his mind had been

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558 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3045 renee a ese ees ees eae nnn ee ee a sharpened and refined by the struggles and hardships of a peas- ant boy in an oppressed but not subdued fatherland? No one can tell. But we can be grateful to Mr. Pupin for proving that achievements in science are important to one’s happiness and growth. Ironically enough, under the present immigration laws Mr. Pupin could never have entered this country. He had only five cents, a suit of clothes on his back, and a Turkish fez when he landed at Castle Garden in 1874. Then, too, the Serbian quota might have been exhausted. B. CHARNEY VLADECK Sea Foam The Lookoutman. By David W. Bone. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $3. robe Sailor Town Days. By C. Fox Smith. Houghton Mifflin Com- pany. $2. H ERE are two glimpses of the sea: one that of a deep-water skipper from the bridge, or as he prefers, more modestly, to phrase it, “a view of ships and seafaring as seen from the deep-water viewpoint of a man on lookout”; the other that of a salt-water enthusiast regarding the sea wistfully from the shore. Skipper Bone gives us the sea from the sea; Mr. Smith gives us the sea by way of that “amphibious country” known as Dock- land or Sailor Town, which “the world over is a realm apart,” one that everywhere has a certain cosmopolitan likeness because it takes its character from that universal trade which seafar- ing is. “The Lookoutman” is not such another volume as “The Brass- bounder,” which was the author’s story of his own initiation into sea life and will doubtless always remain his best writing. At the same time the new book is considerably more than the sur- vey which it purports to be of the principal types of craft now afloat; it is a description beguilingly briny with salt air yet tempered with the restraint of professional knowledge and ex- perience. The author of “Sailor Town Days,” on the other hand, approaches his subject with a strictly amateur attitude, devoting most of his pages to lore of the sea as reflected in the marvelous waterfronts of London and Liverpool. There is af- fection, observation, and knowledge in his chapters, but the amateur attitude leads him, like so many others writing from that standpoint, to a too sentimental insistence upon those as- pects of seafaring which are past or passing and too little ap- preciation of the newer forms. True, he is not so immersed in the age-long poetry of sailing craft as to deny beauty to the steamship, but he refuses to admire the ocean giants of most recent design. “Had I all the wealth of the movies,” he de- clares, “I would not spend some hundreds of it on a suite in one of these bloated, lumbering floating hotels and paradises for profiteers, which cannot berth without a swarm of tugs to haul them about, and wallow as helplessly as stranded turtles on the slightest provocation. Of their magnificence I say noth- ing; as ships I maintain that they are, and always will be, atrocities.” Skipper Bone is more professional and more generous. He too deprecates the tendency so to construct the interior of the great liners that they lose their character as ships and become only an extension of the land to the sea; but in a chapter de- voted especially to the world’s ten biggest steamships—all over 25,000 tons—he notes that in addition to Persian rugs and ormolu fittings one finds wonderful safety devices and naviga- tional equipment: automatic fire alarms, water-tight doors oper- ated from the bridge, motor sounding machines, stability indi- cators, gyroscope compasses not subject to deviation, hydro- phones bringing the warning of submarine bells from a dis- tance, direction finders, and radio apparatus. “We like him [the passenger] to have his electric elevators and marble baths,” Skipper Bone decides, “for has he not as- sured us, the sailors, a comfort and safety that, without his assistance, would perhaps be overdue?” Again, viewed strictly as ships and subjected to a sailor’s tests, these enormous ves- sels more than pass muster. “Has she good power? Does she steer well and easily? Is she reliable and tractable in the great testing seas of an Atlantic hurricane? Is there assurance of quick and precise response to a sudden demand in maneuver? Power, strength, stability—in a word, seaworthiness is the quality to arouse our enthusiasm, and our ocean sovereigns are seaworthy above all. They make their regal progress across the oceans with about the exactitude of a rail-bound express; the worst that wind or sea can do holds little to be feared by them; they come and go on their appointed schedules, dignified, precise, powerful, compelling the homage of lesser craft.” Yet for his ideal of a “pure-bred steamship” Skipper Bone deserts the Atlantic Ocean and picks the 3,053-ton Anglia of the Holyhead-Dublin cross-channel service. ‘‘To my eyes she is the most beautiful mercantile steamship afloat... . Her masts and funnels are spaced apart at distances that are proportion- ate to the height of the hull above water (a becoming arrange- ment that is rarely possible in the very large vessels) and she has no multiple range of decks and vertical erections to con- fuse the vision by a checked and serrated perspective.” Finally, Skipper Bone’s professional attitude enables him to foresee (and accept) the impending passing of the steamship for the motor ship—the vessel in which oil is converted directly into power in an internal-combustion engine without the inter- mediary of furnaces and steam. The motor ship is already with us—destined to bring strange changes to those who go down to the sea in ships as also to those who merely regard them from the shore. The oil-burning steamship has already destroyed the tradition of ten years ago that the vessel of high pedigree must have three or four smoke-stacks; it has reduced the num- ber to one or two. Now the motor ship is about to banish alto- gether the smoke-stack, with its trailing cloud of black in the heavens, removing from the sea a mark as distinctive of the age of steam as were towering masts and billowing canvas of the age of sail. ARTHUR WARNER The Background of Literature Midwest Portraits. A Book of Memories and Friendships. By Harry Hansen. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2.50. R. HANSEN has written a most excellent kind of book. “ He is quite right in his philosophic indifference as to the ultimate literary fate of the figures he describes. These men are living deeply and characteristically and expressing a sec- tion, a country, an age to itself. Their human fates and ges- tures and the tale of the soil whence they sprang and the air they breathed have the perennial interest of things profoundly and articulately human. Schlogl’s in Chicago is no Mermaid Tavern. Yet no one whose good fortune it has been to sit and eat and drink there but once with some of the company that Mr. Hansen describes can fail to feel that from here, too, if there has been, perhaps, too little traffic with the stars, there has been traffic with the earth and the winds and the causes of things and the eternal effort of the shaping mind. It is well, too, that Mr. Hansen has not quite confined himself to the chief figures of his city and his movement, but has men- tioned,-at least, minor figures, figures related to literature some- times only through intelligence and appreciation and a certain creative intrepidity of life. For these are as necessary to any rich literary movement as the actual writers themselves and are often, in the perspective of time, almost as significant and quite as delightful. I hope, therefore, that he will not cease chroni- cling with this volume and that he will be even bolder in set- ting down the human, even the apparently trivial. From such records as his or as F. P. A.’s imitation of Pepys or Burton Rascoe’s ‘‘Bookman’s Daybook” those who come after us will learn what we were like and we, in the inevitable days of age to come, will have a source of both knowledge and pleasure. We are thus getting our own Pepys’s and Henry Crabb Robin- all

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ee COU Nov. 14, 1923] sons. And there is this to be said for our diarists and intimate chroniclers, that they are utterly without the drop of poison that often embitters the personal accounts of former periods. Mr. Hansen’s execution is unequal. His first chapter, Of an Ancient Tavern, is an uncommonly limpid and agreeable piece of writing. In his actual accounts of Sandburg and Anderson and Masters and the others he alternates between a terse sim- plicity of statement and vague Babbittish clichés in which he cannot himself quite believe. Thus he tells us on the one hand that Sherwood Anderson is a man “who gathered into himself all the torment of life” and, on the other, that Carl Sandburg’s first volume of verse had a “clean outlook.” Of the actual portraits those of Sandburg and Anderson are not only the longest but the most interesting. We have here, as we have also in Dreiser, something in literature that is, if not new in its origin, new in its development. Sandburg once drove a milk-wagon; Anderson was, during several years, a common laborer. Artists have had such beginnings before, Keats, for instance, and Hebbel. But these Europeans strove, almost from the beginning, to rise out of their early environment intellec- tually and to connect themselves by instruction and reflection with the central literary and philosophical traditions of West- ern civilization. Keats became ardently Hellenic; Hebbel de- veloped his dramatic theories by an appeal to Plato and Hegel. Sandburg, Anderson, Dreiser have been content to remain in the deepest sense of the American peasantry from which they sprang. They want, of course, to turn a stream of fresh ideas upon their land and people. They will sit, like Dreiser, cursing and blaspheming against the intolerable stupidity of their folk. But they do not, by an acquired and aristocratic culture, seek to remove themselves from that folk. Hating it, they remain of it. Something of the spirit of Whitman, something of a new way of conceiving of both life and literature is undoubtedly here. And it is truly an American way. A great way, too, irrespective of the momentary aesthetic perfection or imperfec- tion of this or that product, if it can indeed be summed up in some such excellent way as Mr. Hansen sums up the basic atti- tude of Sherwood Anderson: “He was trying to apply his phi- losophy that life is not a mean thing to be tamed and held to hard and fast canons, but a beautiful wild thing of ecstasies and dreams, something that must be lived deeply to be under- stood.” And that attitude and that conclusion is, curiously enough, nor in such very different phrasing, the attitude and the conclusion of Faust, of Goethe, of whom Mr. Anderson probably knows little or nothing. So that the spirit of creative freedom is found to be the same by men coming from different ends of both the physical and the spiritual world, and this Mid- Western peasant movement in American literature allies itself naturally and hearteningly with the wisdom of the great sages of the past. Lupwic LEWISOHN A Shavian Sacrifice The Sacrificial Goat. $2. yen most astonishing fact about The Sacrificial Goat is that it is a first novel. The virtuosity of the writing, the ease with which fullbodied characters (in a limited milieu, it is true) are made to express individuality, the witty dialogue, the easy mastery with which Miss Lascelles wields the baton over her ensemble—all acquit the writer of the offense of being a novice. Indeed, impeccable as is her craftsmanship, one misses the quick- ening of the tempo, the cry in the dark, the aspiration to untried heights that mark the achievement we call a promise in our younger novelists. The pains of spiritual growth, the epic strug- gle of youth to reconcile life to principle, the falterings on the wayside are, for Miss Lascelles, occasions only for sharp and mirthless ridicule and veiled contempt, pity being discarded as démodé in a modern novelist. She does not permit herself to sanction an uninterrupted rapture. The bubble must be pricked. By Ernita Lascelles. Boni and Liveright. The Nation 559 Miss Lascelles is tireless in paradox, unwearied in her flashings —even if they be only in the pan—and as cerebral as only a pamphleteer turned novelist can be. Perhaps that is why The Sacrificial Goat is called a Shavian novel. Apart from the fact that the best lines in it—Shavian to the core—are assigned to Edward Moreby, who is made to act and talk in a manner that we instinctively associate with Shaw in his salad days, the entire treatment of the novel is Shavian. It is sincerely so, for Miss Lascelles does not imitate; having naturally inhaled Shaw, she as naturally exhales him in Moreby, no inconsiderable part of the book. The plot is based on the too familiar triangle, with Joan Candler as the wife, David Tasker the husband, and Edward Moreby the pursuer and pursued, and with a supporting cast of divergent types that would give verisimilitude to a richer and more original conception. It is in the picture she draws of David Tasker that the pamphleteer in Miss Lascelles emerges. Some- what in the character of a feminist Shavian, she grips David and pushes him into the faces of her readers as the quintessence of male illusion and fit subject for the liberated woman’s mock- ery. David and Joan meet as members of a provincial company and marry at the end of the tour. David, a feeble poseur, is rendered somewhat too pitiable for acceptance, and in the battle with Moreby is simply extinguished, except in a muscular con- flict, to which Miss Lascelles succeeds in giving a total effect of unreality. The assumed love between Joan and Moreby seems too cerebral for credence. Joan, become a successful actress and ‘something of a social favorite, succeeds in putting her husband out of the picture altogether. He returns, blown to London from New Zealand—whither he had gone to make a home “away from it all”—by gusts of jealousy, and finds her yet his, Moreby having virtually repulsed her. And Miss Lascelles leaves her puppets locked in embrace, with the tart and inconclusive com- ment: “Well, well! Poor devils.” ; HARRY SALPETER Victoria’s Laureate Tennyson. Aspects of His Life, Character and Poetry. By Harold Nicolson. Houghton Mifflin Company. $4. ij hed admire the eminent Victorians is no longer to court re- proach; to sneer at them is a slightly outmoded conven- tion—the attitude “dates” a man. Mr. Nicolson is, as he admits, a product of “our scavenger age,” and is therefore in no posi- tion to blame Tennyson for being a product of his age; yet he cannot quite forgive him for not escaping the faults of the mid- nineteenth century, when matrimony was regarded as a sacra- ment, the church was a divine institution menaced by atheistic or agnostic science, and the British Empire was an institution hardly less divine. In choosing this subject for the exercise of his critical talents he has made himself a Balaam, for though he apparently came to curse he has, on the whole and with cer- tain restrictions, stayed to bless. His book would have been better had he taken to heart the wise words lately uttered by Mr. A. C. Bradley to the effect that to be incapable of enjoying poetry because the poet’s opinions and ideas are not ours is “an altogether perverse attitude toward poetry, or, for that matter, any other product of imagination.” Judged by such a standard where would Dante be? Where Duccio? Botti- celli? Palestrina? Shelley? Perhaps the Victorian era is still too near us to permit of criticism of its greatest poet untram- meled by dislike of the characteristics of Victorianism. The act of faith by which when reading Dante we become four- teenth-century Florentines, when hearing Palestrina Tridentine Catholics, and when reading Shelley Godwinian revolutionists, is an irksome task when we turn to Tennyson. The Victorian garments sit uneasily upon us. Yet for the nonce we must adopt the poet’s thoughts and emotions, must look at life—at morals and politics and science and religion—from his point of view. This Mr. Nicolson has not done; there has been no “will-

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3045 ing suspension of disbelief.” He divorces the poet from his time; blesses the one and condemns the other. As one result of this unnatural severance his book presents us with a vast and yawning lacuna; the Tennyson of the middle years, of Farringford, of the domestic poems and the “Idylls of the King” appears before us as no more than an insubstantial ghost. Alas for this gray shadow, once a man! The critic actually and deliberately ignores the Arthurian cycle; he thinks it fairer and wiser “to leave this period for the judgment of future generations.” Yet he recognizes “the magnificent poetry which the ‘Idylls’ contain.” Surely this is the gran refuto of Tennysonian criticism. The “Idylls” are, on the whole, a fail- ure, and are likely to be judged a failure when the age in which they were written has sunk into the remote past; but the failure is one that should be inquired into on aesthetic and poetic grounds. The mere current ideas that have been woven into the texture of the poems have nothing to do with the matter. We do not all subscribe to the doctrines embodied in St. Ber- nard’s hymn to the Virgin; but we all recognize the supreme poetry of the last canto of the “Paradiso.” Moreover this abrupt and unphilosophical dismissal of the work of Tennyson’s middle period produces a curious effect from the biographical point of view, an effect which it is difficult to describe. Tenny- son seems suddenly to become old. At one moment he is young, unknown (or known only to be ridiculed), introspective, melan- choly, mystic, glooming upon the Lincolnshire fens or haunting dim and noisome London taverns, wreathed in tobacco smoke. We turn the page, as it were, and find him illustrious, com- placent, visited by the nobility, bothered by tourists, wreathed in a somewhat tinsel majesty. How the change came about is not made very clear. In particular the “ten silent years” be- tween 1832 and 1842 remain almost as much a blank, almost as open a field for speculation, as the “seven silent years” of another and greater English poet. The attempt to separate Tennyson and his age results, how- ever, in another and more welcome contrast: the contrast be- tween Tennyson the lyric and mystic poet and Tennyson the voice and “prophet” of his period. All that is excellent in his verse Mr. Nicolson attributes to the former; all that is com- placent, ephemeral, optimistic, domestic, in the nature of a com- promise—Victorian, in a word—to the latter. The greater Tennyson appears in much of his earlier work; in the earlier sections of “In Memoriam”; in the songs in “The Princess”; in “Maud” (where the old genius again flamed out); and it re- appears in some of the work of his old age. The lesser Tenny- son held undisputed sway over the “reading public” and over his own genius during the years, roughly, between 1860 and 1880. Mr. Nicolson considers that in his views of sex and of politics Tennyson reached an unworkable compromise, charac- teristic of his time; whereas in his religious opinions he in- quired far more profoundly and was more at one with the genius of his earlier years. For the change from “the black, unhappy mystic of the Lincolnshire wolds” to “the prosperous Isle of Wight Victorian” Mr. Nicolson blames the Cambridge group of “the Apostles” who first inculcated in Tennyson the doctrine of the poet’s “mission” and convinced him that it was his business to guide and to teach. His knowledge of Shelley’s failures and Keats’s triumphs should have taught him better; but for better or worse the apostolic doctrine fastened itself upon him and shaped much of his later verse. When free of it he could write “Ulysses” and “Tithonus,”’ “The Bugle Song” and “Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white.” Burdened with the Words- worthian duty to shed benignant influence upon his fellow-men he could but accomplish such things as “Enoch Arden” and “Aylmer’s Field.” Following in the steps of the late Thomas R. Lounsbury Mr. Nicolson has accomplished some admirable pages on the subject of contemporary criticism of Tennyson; it may surprise some Georgians to learn to what an extent their strictures were an- ticipated sixty years ago. The critic is genuinely moved to enthusiasm in dealing with aspects of Tennyson’s art. He has drawn a convincing and on the whole sympathetic portrait of the solitary brooding young poet and of the majestic figure of the last years at Aldworth. The “scavenger work” has been exercised mostly upon the central period; and the scattered sneers and deprecatory remarks are generally pardonable for the neatness with which they are turned. One may forgive much in the critic who does not stoop to deride Tennyson’s love for Hallam and who delights in the lyric triumphs of his inspi- ration. The portrait that is finally achieved is that of a great personality and a great genius; more imposing, more majestic than, perhaps, Mr. Nicolson intended or quite realizes. SAMUEL C. CHEW Children and Gentle Beasts A Century of Children’s Books. By Florence V. Barry. George H. Doran Company. $2. The Story of Mrs. Tubbs. Dr. Dolittle’s Post Office. By Hugh Lofting. Frederick A. Stokes Company. $1.25. $2.50. The Kitchen Perch. By George Philip Krapp. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. Knee-High to a Grasshopper. By Anne and Dillwyn Parrish. The Macmillan Company. $2.50. MISS BARRY’S account of children’s books begins at a time when Cinderella and Robin Hood and Goody Two-Shoes were names as yet unspoken. And it would probably astonish children who regard those names as somehow associated with the foundations of the world to hear how recent that time was. In the middle of the seventeenth century children’s books were still moral, instructive, and grave; for example, the “Token for Children,” containing “an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful deaths of several young chil- dren,” or the “Wyse Chylde of Thre Year Old,” who was not at a loss when asked: “Sage enfaunt, how is the skye made?” Even in those days there was the “Gesta Romanorum” and Aesop; but until “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Gulli- ver’s Travels’—none of them really intended for children by their authors—children were compelled to be quietly edified — rather than amused. Miss Barry has told her story with pos- sibly too much detail and unfortunately has omitted an index, but it is a valuable record of various theories of education and their effects on juvenile literature. She does not, however, clear up the mystery of Mother Goose, and until that is done the last, last word will not have been said on the subject. Without apparent theory, moral purpose, or a desire to be instructive, Hugh Lofting has proceeded joyfully to the making of literature. In this third volume of the admirable Dr. Do- little’s adventures, and in “The Story of Mrs. Tubbs,” a shorter story for smaller children, he has added to that rare list of juvenilia which includes Alice and her companions. Like Alice, Dr. Dolittle’s friends are animals, and such animals: Dab-Dab, the accomplished duck housekeeper; Gub-Gub, the appealingly greedy little pig, and Speedy the Skimmer, the swallow who almost succeeds in annihilating time and space. Their adven- ture this time is a bird post office on a house-boat just off the coast of Africa, where tea is served every afternoon with cu- cumber sandwiches on Sundays, and where care is taken to provide the very best pens to write with because, of course, post-office pens are usually so bad. The enterprise is uncom- monly successful, as anyone might have foreseen; “the post- office safe could hardly hold all the money taken in and the overflow had to be put in a vase on the kitchen mantelpiece.” The book is filled with excellent suggestions for householders: pincushions served with the fish, for example, to stick your fish bones in instead of having them spread along the edge of your plate, and a speaking tube which leads to the open-air outside, into which any conversation, imperative but hardly suitable for the table, can be spoken. A thoroughly delectable book, in short, and rendered more so by the illustrations, done

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Nov. 14, 1923] The Nation The BOOK of SPORTS and GAMES Edited by WALTER CAMP Author of “The Daily Dozen” 400 pages. 8vo, illustrated, cloth $2.00 Probably there is no better author- ity on the subject of athletics in the United States than Walter Camp. The book is well illustrated and invites perusal on every page. T. Y. CROWELL CO. avenettees: NEW YORK y' | Verse for Young Folks Compiled by B. E. Stevenson Decorations by Willy Pogany Recommended for every child’s bookshelf by the Ameri- s a can Library Association, i ee, $3.00 By Mail, $3.10 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 19 West 44th Street New York STORIES from the CHILDREN'S BOOK WEEK November fith Wh, ges ROOTABAGA C. B. FALLS | , A book for children by the “foremost color printer in Amer- ica.” “We may well feel proud ah that an A.B.C. Book so admir- able in design and in color printing has been produced on this side of the Atlantic.” Cc $2.00 at Bookstores DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CQ. BOOK “Ghe Aldventures of MAYA the BEE By Waldemar Bonsels Hugh Walpole—“This is one of the classics of mod- dern literature for children— and not only for children but for everyone.” JIIlustrated in full colors. $3.00 THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street New Yerk The Adventures of Don Quixote EARLY WORLD By R. M. Fleming The brave stories of high deeds that have thrilled the people of twenty-four nations from the earliest times, bril- liantly retold for Illustrated. children. $2.50 THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street |New York PIGEONS By Carl Sandburg Author cf Rootabaga Storizs Last year Carl Sandburg’s “Rootabaga Stories” eaptured the hearts of thousands of children from New York to California. The New York Times said that it showed that America was “keeping abreast with Swift and Gulliver.” The new ‘“Rootabaga Pigeons” is the same kind of a book, and it is even more entertain- ing. It has something of the appeal of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and of the “Just So Stories.” 2.0 HARCOURT, BRACE & CO. 383 Madison Avenue By MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Abridged and adapted by Edwin Gile Rich With colored jacket and eight full-page illus- trations in color by Thomas Derrick. An edition of the world classic by the great Cervantes for young people! ‘‘Among those books which it is part of a parent’s moral obligation to place before a child, Don Quixote is one of the first; while the appealing ar- rangement of this volume gives it an added claim to candidacy.”—The Dial. Net $2.00 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY by Mr. Lofting himself and as merry and gentle and wise as any child could wish. Mr. Krapp, too, has written pleasantly of animals (“The Kitchen Porch’). His Little Red Hen is the barnyard phi- losopher, and if at times she is a trifle smug and moralistic, she is also divertingly clever at getting herself out of scrapes after she has got herself into them. An account of a gar- den party, of which Little Red Hen is the only witness, is a charming and sympathetic tale of the diversions of Carrot Man and Potato Woman, neglected by the children at the end of the day, but hosts at moon-rise to as gay a company of dancers as ever stepped a measure. In “Knee-High to a Grasshopper,” Anne and Dillwyn Par- rish have done a more sentimental and self-consciously pretty job. Their animals are too complicated and ornamental, their Little Man has many adventures, some of them not uninterest- ing, but on the whole he lies or floats in an uncertain middle ground which is neither earth nor fairyland. Children like Hugh Lofting because he is matter-of-fact and homely. Their fairyland must have smudges of reality upon it; even fairy wings become weary, and need the earth for a resting place. DorotHy GRAFFE Books in Brief Dethronements. By Laurence Housman. The Macmillan Com- pany. $1.25. On the theory that statesmen cling to their pedestals inside the four walls which symbolize their private lives and address their wives from an invisible domestic rostrum, these three imaginary portraits “done in dialogue” are ingenious and de- cidedly poetic. Parnell, Chamberlain, and Wilson are the sub- jects of Mr. Housman’s sketches, each being depicted at the moment when the full significance of his political frustration dawns upon him. They are projected vividly, and, in the case of Chamberlain particularly, with pathos and ireny wisely blended. Persian Letters. By Montesquieu. Translated by John David- son. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3. “Translations,” said Montesquieu, “are like copper money, which have quite the same value as a gold piece, and are even of greater use among the people; but they are base coin and always light.” Mr. Davidsen has not been deterred in his en- deavor by this comparison, however, and has accomplished his

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562 task with care and competence. The book includes a valuable introductory sketch of Montesquieu’s life, and adds another volume to the diversified—but curiously named—Broadway Translations. Famous Single Poems and the Controversies Which have Raged about Them. By Burton E. Stevenson. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2. A by-product of Mr. Stevenson’s labors in compiling “The Home Book of Verse,” this is a work of real research into the more obscure corners of common literature. With constant humor but with no condescension Mr. Stevenson has written the intimate histories of such poems as Casey at the Bat, Ben Bolt, Nothing to Wear, Rock Me to Sleep, and A Visit from St. Nicholas, reviving the almost incredible controversies that have arisen about their authorship or their value, and incidentally composing one of the best commentaries in existence upon popu- lar taste. The Markenmore Mystery. By J. S. Fletcher. Alfred A. Knopf. $2. There is something about the presence of a butler on the opening page of a detective story which augurs well for the breathless nature of the ensuing chapters. A butler is sym- bolic of leisure, and people with leisure have time to be baf- flingly murdered; hence the basic elements of a good thriller. Mr. Fletcher has contributed another to his ample list of lively narratives, soundly plotted and adroitly unraveled. A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away. By Irvin S. Cobb. George H. Doran Company. $2.50. These anecdotes are as hilarious as a pot of paste and a pair of shears can make them. Three hundred and sixty-six jokes— even when clipped in what the jacket calls Mr. Cobb’s “inimi- table style’—are quite enough to keep the doctor away. Without Clues. By Jeanette Helm. Boni and Liveright. $2. Forewarned is forearmed—everywhere except in a detective yarn. The master criminal who announces his purpose in ad- vance merely compounds the mystery and puts a double burden upon the baffled forces. The reader of “Without Clues” is assured more than 300 pages of excitement—quite enough if he wishes to be in bed at a reasonable hour. Cloud Castle and Other Papers. By Edward Thomas. With a Foreword by W. H. Hudson. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3. Posthumous sketches by one of the gravest and most graceful of modern English poets. “Morgan” and “Aunt Anne’s Cot- tage” are altogether beautiful, but most of the other pieces, especially those written as long as twenty years ago, are precious and thinly Pateresque. Drama Eleonora Duse ee was against the great Italian actress. The dice could not have been more heavily loaded. Far more heavily, in all likelihood, than she dreamed. Norse in Italian! Ibsen’s frugal Two incommensurable worlds of the soul, even of nature. “Fiordi” ...I heard the lapping of the Tyrrhene wave. “Amore... liberamente...” No, Ellida Wangel, the Lady from the Sea, knew nothing of the connotation of those words. “Amore” may be magnificent. It has neither yearning nor reverence. Those are of the North. The very gesture of an Italian hand drenches the scene in an atmosphere that turns the gray and silver and faint dawn glints of Ibsen into a rich and alien glow. The actors who supported Signora Duse showed, with one exception, no sense even of the insurmountable difficulty that faced them. One, Memo Benassi, who impressed certain local critics, acted almost like a tenor. I expected him to break out The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3045 He should into the famous sobbing aria from “I Pagliacci.” have had a romantic cloak. Alfredo Robert as Wangel was obtuse in a South European and shopkeeping kind of way. The one was operatic; the other had wandered upon this scene from some Latin comedy in which he was deceived and beaten. All this, against a most indifferent and mechanical scenic background, on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. An intimate theater play, badly. acted in a foreign language— here! The thing was preposterous. It was not art. It was a peep-show. “Ten dollars and down, ladies and gentlemen, to get a peep at the great Duse, the illustrious Italian actress whose tragic adventures have been rumored over half the world and who probably will never be seen again! Your last chance, ladies and gentlemen, positively your last chance!” No “barker” at a county fair could have put it more plainly. And the great crowd came and each paid his money to take the peep, and Mr. Morris Gest took in more dollars than had ever been taken in for a single theatrical performance since the world began. Yes, literally, since the world began. I had said all that to myself. And it was all true. Also, I had never before seen Eleonora Duse and the unanimity of the Duse legend had filled me with cool skepticism as a unanimous legend always does. And then—then she appeared. A very fragile, almost wraith-like, quite white-haired lady of sixty- four. She uses, as is well-known, no make-up. If you sat near enough the stage you could see the wrinkles on her emaciated cheek and throat and hands. But she sat, bending forward, playing with her sun-shade as though she were quite alone— oh, immeasurably removed from that huge, gaping crowd; she smiled and the smile was a little plaintive and yet it had in it all of youth, both the bloom and the pathos of youth. She moved about; she leaned her head against a pillar; she leaned it against her arm. What was it that, against one’s will or almost against one’s will, irrevocably persuaded one to join those other plaudits that were given to fame, alas, rather than to art? She unites in every gesture and every intonation the highest distinction with the utmost simplicity. If I were to describe her art in the ordinary verbiage I should say that its method is soundly realistic. And that would be quite true. Nor is there any conscious stylization. Signora Duse intends, I believe, to be delicately and soberly veracious. What she adds is her inimitable grace. It is a classical grace, a Latin grace. It is the spirit of simplicity and restraint which, without undue sad- ness or austerity, we find in the noblest of Latin verses. She is—I use the phrase advisedly—a tragic muse. Her mask is very human; it is not distorted by pain; it is spiritualized and grave and sometimes full of woe. It is always noble. Eleonora Duse does not yearn after beauty. That is Ibsen; that is of the North. She possesses beauty. Her acting is perfect as the verse of Vergil is perfect. And that perfection is an easy one because it inheres in her personality, in her inmost self. Her associates are florid, Italianate. If she is like Vergil, they are like Ariosto. She, of course, does not act Ibsen either. She is not Ellida Wangel. Neither, however, is she merely herself. She has uni- versalized her inner tragedy and I dare swear that the same essence will reach one from her whatever role she plays. She has the grace of autumn in an Italian garden. The landscape is a little somber. Laughter and love have fled. Winter is com- ing; youth whose very sorrows are triumphant is no more. A draped statue, severely beautiful, restrainedly melancholy, stands near a pool. Bronzed leaves cover the surface of the water. Against the base of the statue leans a figure in a simple drapery of blue. It is Eleonora Duse. The sadness, the irre- vocableness, the tragic beauty of life are written on her fore- head, expressed in her posture. She demands nothing, yearns for nothing now, hopes for nothing. She possesses beauty. She possesses a sovereign sadness. It is her ultimate gift. LUDWIG LEWISOHN

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Nov. 14, 1923] LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS The Theatre Guild presents JOHN GALSWORTHY’S COMEDY WINDOWS GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 35tb Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Eves. 8:30. Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children 2. Moon WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST. COMEDY The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS ISKE in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” kK A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO West 44th Street. Evs. at 8:36 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:80 Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan’ Henry Hull RrtZ Theatre, Evening 8:30 West 48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. at 2:30 48th St. East TARNISH Evs. 8:30. Mats Thurs. & Sat. 2:30 of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.’—Heywood Broun, Wor.p. W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 THE PLAYHOUSE Bee ee Wicd sind sae A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.’”-—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. BELMONT Neighborhood Playhouse Tel, Drodock 7518 Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:30. Matinee Saturday at 2:30. W. B. Yeats’ Bernard Shaw’s “THE PLAYER QUEEN” “BLANCO POSNET” 27th Street and YIDDISH ART THEATRE = 27th. Street and Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Friday evening, Saturday and Monday through Thursday evenings. Sunday Matinees and evenings “é 9 “SABBATI ZEVI” The Seven W hoW ere Hanged 239 East 14th Street LABOR TEMPLE SCHOOL, Pe iecton: aren announces three new courses: MR. SPENCER MILLER, JR.: “GREEK ee os Tuesdays, 8.30 p.m., Nov. 13-Dec. 11, $1.5 Prof. H. A. OVERSTREET: “PSYCHIC FACTORS IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION”; Thursdays, 8.30 p.m., Nov. 15-Dec. 20, $1.50 Prof. H. W. L. DANA: “NATIONALITY and LITERATURE”; Saturdays, 8.15 p.m., Nov. 17-Dec. 15, $1.00 The Nation 563 A professional Course in Play Writing is offered under the personal supervision of THEODORE BALLOU HINCKLEY Editor of THE DRAMA Individual [Instruction and Criticism The Drama’s course in play writing teaches in detail the technique of the professional play. It takes you step by step from the simplest rudiments to the actual completion of plays. Your work will receive the individual attention of Mr. Hinckley. His criticisms will be directed toward your specific needs. He will dissect your plot, your char- acters, and your dialogue, and give you definite, construc- tive criticism and help. You are encouraged to develop your own talent and indi- vidual style of expression. No attempt is made to lead you along any cut-and-dried plan. Not one form letter is used in the discussion of your plays or plots. Each piece of creative work receives = personal attention of Mr. Hinck- ley. Producers Will Read Your Plays Throughout the course, the aim is toward the completion of plays for professional production and not toward mere amateurish effort. Your plays will be analyzed by Mr. Hinckley with the idea of production in mind, and plays of real merit will be brought to the attention of producers. If your manuscript has the endorsement of The Drama it will receive a reading by managers. Thoughtful Plays Require Technique As a reader of The Nation, you probably are interested in writing a play of ideas rather than a popular success. Technique is essential to the thoughtful play if it is to escape didacticism. Your play should present your opin- ions in such an attractive and skillful manner that the audience will absorb them without effort. Even though you scorn conventional form and dream of a style as individual as Shaw’s or O’Neill’s you must be soaked with technique before you can ignore it without losing your audience. Limited Enrollment Since the work is so carefully personalized, the enrollment is limited to people of real promise. ination will be sent upon request; our decision as to your eligibility. mail it for complete information. An enrollment exam- upon this will be based Fill out the coupon and mmr tet te settee sk te te Department on Instruction THE DRAMA CORPORATION 579 Athenaeum Bldg., Chicago Please send information regarding your play writing. personalized course in .

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International Relations Section Oskar Jaszi and Other ‘‘Traitors”’ By EMIL LENGYEL T may not be known in America that among the reac- tionary countries of Europe Hungary furnishes the greatest number of political émigrés. Tens of thousands of professionals as well as laborers fled to the neighboring countries rather than submit to the autocracy of Admiral Horthy and Captain Gombés. To give an idea of the num- ber and the intellectual qualities of the émigrés it should be mentioned that in Vienna alone they have eight papers of their own, two of which are dailies. Another charac- teristic fact of the emigration is that the number of books printed in the Hungarian language, treating political sub- jects, published in Vienna, exceeds by far the number of books of the same kind published in the capital of Hungary. A glance at the names of the émigrés suffices to show that the list includes some of the representative men of science and letters, who are not unknown beyond the boundaries of their country. Foremost among them ranks Dr. Oskar Jaszi, professor at the Budapest University, Hungary’s most prominent sociologist, who is’at present on a tour of lecture and study in the United States. Hungary’s great- est philosopher, Professor Bernhard Alexander, lives in exile, too, as well as Professor Tibor Peterfy, interna- tionally known authority in anatomy; Louis Biro, author of the “Tzarina,” Alexander Brody, author of “Liza Timar,” and Baron Hatvany-Deutsch, one of Hungary’s foremost journalists. Among the prominent politicians are Count Michael Karolyi, former president of the Hungarian re- public, Erno Garami, former leader of the right wing of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, Martin Lovaszi, member of several cabinets, and the Right Rev. John Hock, popularly known as “father of Hungary’s bloodless revo- lution.” As the press is muzzled in Hungary the papers of the émigrés undertook the task of supplying reliable news about the terroristic acts of the reactionaries to that part of the Hungarian public which they could reach. As the circula- tion of their papers is prohibited in Hungary proper they have to be smuggled into it. But their chief circulation is among those Hungarians who are living in the territories ceded by Hungary to the Succession States. After a successful war of extermination upon the ae. mestic liberal and democratic papers the Hungarian authori- ties tackled the much harder task of silencing those Hun- garian papers that are published outside of the territory subject to Hungarian jurisdiction. In order to discredit these papers in the eyes of their readers it was found con- venient to proceed along traditional lines and to indict for “high treason” those Hungarian émigrés who have been contributing articles about the white terror to the Hun- garian papers published abroad. This indictment was recently drawn up by Dr. G. Strache, “royal Hungarian chief prosecuting attorney,” and was returned by the “judge of investigation,” as is prescribed by the Hungarian laws. The indictment includes among others the name of Count Michael Karolyi (whose estates, it will be remembered, have already been confiscated on another charge of “high treason”), Professor Oskar Jaszi, Father John Hock, Baron Hatvany-Deutsch, Erno Garami, Martin Lovaszi, and covers articles printed for the most part in the leading paper of the Hungarian émigrés, the Vienna Hungarian Gazette, edited by Professor Jaszi. This most recent attack of the Horthy-Goémbés system on liberal thought is an eloquent example of present-day Hungarian methods and deserves special notice on account of the diplomatic complications to which it gave rise. It may be seen from the following extract from the indictment that it refers to the states adjoining Hungary as the “enemy” states, a designation which is very often found in the vocabulary of Hungary’s self-appointed rulers, side by side with “high treason” and “traitor.” After speaking of the “calumnies” of which Hungary was the innocent victim during pre-war times the indict- ment continues: We [the Hungarians] did not care much that the newspapers of the world devoted considerable space to complaints that a “minority,” by which they meant the Hungarian race, oppressed cruelly the “national majorities” and that it was only the Hun- garian reign of terror that prevented the falling to pieces of that artificial contraption called Hungary. Thus it came about that the Allies impudently adopted as one plank of their peace platform the dismemberment of Hungary which was actually effected through the Treaty of the Trianon. It can be deter- mined, however, that up to the reply given by the Allies to the note of President Wilson of December 19, 1916, the dismember- ment of Hungary had never been mentioned by them. The propa- ganda along these lines was and is being engineered mostly by the Czechs. The representatives of the Vienna Hungarian press are the mercenaries of this service of propaganda which menaces the very existence of Europe and, more particularly, that of Hungary. As the Hungarian émigrés have not sufficient means to operate their presses they are dependent upon the material assistance of the enemies of Hungary. Therefore it is their aim to convince the enemies of the Hungarian state that they are the only depositaries of that political thought which, if permitted to be translated into action, would enable the “victors of the Trianon” to enjoy the possession of their loot. The émigrés proclaim that if they were in power the Succession States would have no reason to be afraid of any complications arising from territorial questions, because they are not extreme “jingoes” but protago- nists of the idea of reconciliation, conceived in the spirit of in- ternational democracy. Consequently, the basis of the political existence of the Vienna fugitives is their hatred against Hun- gary. Their interests are identical with those of the enemies of Hungary. The aims of the Vienna Hungarian press can be summed up as follows: It makes every effort to represent Hungary as a country con- stantly engaged in military preparations and conspiracies against the neighboring states. Furthermore, it represents Hungary as a country where life is insecure, a country the very existence of which is a danger to European civilization, so that, as a logical conclusion of these premises, international interven- tion would be an inevitable necessity. With their malevolent accounts about the white terror, the persecution of the laborers, and the attempts to restore the Hapsburgs to the Hungarian throne, they wish to provoke the disdain of the world toward Hungary, thus depriving her of the possibility of being the beneficiary of the moral support of the foreign nations,

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- Nov. 14, 1923] The newspaper articles signed by the defendants prove beyond controversy that the intention of their writers was to injure the credit and good name of Hungary abroad. That the articles were written with a view to induce foreign countries or organi- zations to commit hostile acts against the Hungarian nation is proved by those proclamations, addressed to foreign countries and organizations, which were published in the newspapers of the émigrés. The general tenor of these papers furnishes an- other evidence that they are in the service of that hostile propa- ganda whose aim it is to have the independence of Hungary crushed, its national existence annihilated, and to find some pre- text of an armed intervention in Hungary. On the basis of the foregoing the criminal intention of the defendants can be proved. The indictment is, therefore, justi- fied. When considering the criminal responsibility of the de- fendants the provisions of the press law could not be applied, inasmuch as the validity of this law is restricted to press mat- ters published on the territory of the Hungarian state. The indignation of public opinion and the foreign offices of the states adjoining Hungary which were referred to as “enemy” states carrying on a “hostile” propaganda against Hungary compelled the Hungarian minister of justice to declare that he did not “identify himself with some parts of the explanation of the indictment” drawn up, by the way, by one of his subordinates, the chief prosecuting attor- ney. Despite this statement the wording of the indictment has not been changed so that its monstrous absurdities will form the basis of the criminal prosecution of the lib- eral émigrés. : As it seems unlikely that the persons indicted, who are living abroad, will present themselves at their trial, provi- sion has been made to convict them in their absence. How criminal processes of this type are handled in Hun- gary was recently illustrated by a trial which was held before the Hungarian Royal Tribunal at Budapest in the case of two “fugitives from justice,’ Father John Hock and Martin Lovaszi, in connection with a “criminal offense” similar to those mentioned in the indictment. Both of them contributed to the Chicago Hungarian weekly Magyar Tribuna articles about the white terror which, in the opin- ion of the prosecuting attorney, “were calculated to induce a foreign country to an armed intervention against Hun- gary.” Translated into everyday language this means that the articles of Father Hock and Martin Lovaszi, published in a Chicago Hungarian weekly paper, had the purpose of inducing the Government of the United States to declare war on Hungary on account of the white terror prevailing there. The court, which apparently shared the opinion of the public prosecutor regarding America’s belligerent in- tentions, convicted both defendants in contumaciam. The proceedings did not take more than an hour because the presiding judge declined to admit evidence on the part of the lawyers for the defendants proving the correctness of the statements of their clients concerning the excesses of the present regime. The refusal of the court was explained by the laconic pronouncement that “the assertions of the defendants are generally known to be untrue.” What happens when a “traitorous” journalist presents himself at his trial is shown by the outrageous sentence which sent Zoltan Szasz, one of Hungary’s most respected journalists, to prison for four years. Zoltan Szasz, who is the author of several popular books, sprang into political prominence during the Hungarian bolshevist regime when, in a public speech, he very courageously attacked the ter- roristic methods of Bela Kun. Utterly dissatisfied with the equally terroristic methods of Messrs. Horthy and The Nation Gémbés he contributed a number of critical articles to one of the papers of the Vienna émigrés, the Jovo. After hav- ing been indicted for the articles, he returned from Vienna to Budapest and presented himself at the trial of his case. He was found guilty and sentenced in the first quarter of 1922 to two years in prison. He appealed to the higher court, which, setting aside the verdict of the lower court, sentenced him to four years in prison. He, too, was charged with having written articles which “might have provoked some foreign country to an armed intervention in Hun- gary.” This sentence, pronounced in September last, raised a storm of protest on the part of newspapers and journalistic organizations in many European countries. Scores of tele- grams have been dispatched to Count Bethlen, Prime Min- ister of Hungary, asking him to extend amnesty to Szasz. In each case, however, the stereotype answer of the Pre- mier has been that he cannot interfere with the verdict of the “independent” Hungarian bench. Learning from this lesson the Hungarian émigrés will keep out of the way of what is called in the succession states, “Horthy justice.” The End of Passive Resistance HE text of the imperial proclamation announcing the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr, issued on Sep- tember 26, 1923, was as follows: To the German People! On January 11 French and Belgian troops, in defiance of justice and of the treaty provisions, occupied the German terri- tory of the Ruhr. Since then the Ruhr and Rhineland have had to suffer the severest tribulations. More than 180,000 men and women, old folks and children, have been driven from house and home; for millions of Germans the conception of personal free- dom no longer exists. Countless acts of violence have accom- panied the occupation. More than a hundred of our citizens have had to sacrifice their lives. Hundreds are still lying in prison. Justice and patriotic sentiment protest against the unright- eousness of this invasion. The population refuses to work under foreign bayonets. For this loyalty and devotion to the German Reich in its hardest days the entire German people is grateful. The Federal Government undertook to care for its suffering fellow-citizens to the extent of its resources. That has caused a constantly increasing drain upon the resources of the Reich. Last week the expenditures for relief in the Rhineland and Ruhr reached the sum of three and a half trillion marks. For the current week at least twice that amount will be required. The former production of the Rhineland and Ruhr has ceased. The life of occupied and unoccupied Germany has been thrown into confusion. There is a serious danger that continuance in the present policy will make it impossible to establish a sound currency, to maintain economic life, and to assure the mere existence of our people. In the interest of the future of Germany as well as in the interest of the Rhineland and Ruhr this must be avoided. In order to maintain the life of the people and the state we must face the bitter necessity of ceasing the struggle. We know that this means a greater moral sacrifice by the people of the occupied region than we have hitherto asked. Their struggle has been heroic, their self-discipline unexampled. We shall never forget what those who have suffered in the occupied dis- trict have borne. We shall never forget what they have sacri- ficed who left their homes rather than violate their loyalty to the fatherland. The principal task of the Federal Government is to see to it that the prisoners are set free and that those who have been deported return to their homes. The struggle for these ele- mentary human rights stands above all economic and material

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566 The Nation considerations. Germany has declared herself ready to bear the severest material sacrifices for the freedom of her German citizens and the German soil. This freedom, however, cannot be made the object cf bargaining and exchange. The President of the German Reich and the Federal Government give their solemn assurance to the German people and to the world that they will not give their consent to any agreement which de- taches the smallest parcel of German soil from the German Reich. The responsibility lies upon the invading Powers and their Allies whether through recognition of this determination they will restore peace to Germany, or whether by refusing this peace they will precipitate the inevitable consequences of such a policy upon the relations of the peoples. We call upon the German people in the coming days when their souls will be tried and they will suffer physically loyally to hold together. Only so can we defeat the efforts to destroy the Reich. Only so can we maintain the honor and life of the nation. Only so can we win back for her that freedom which is our inalienable right. EBERT, President of the Reich The Federal Government: Dr. STRESEMANN, V. RAUMER, SOLLMANN, SCHMIDT, Dr. RAD- BRUCH, Dr. HILFERDING, DR. GESSLER, OESER, FucHs, Dr. BRAUNS, Dr. LUTHER, Dr. HOFLE Berlin, September 26, 1923 Labor in Turkey IBERAL labor standards have been established by law in the new Turkish republic. The following regu- lations regarding work in the mines were printed in the Swadesamitran (Madras) for September 16: 1. Any person or company working the mines must construct, according to plans provided by the Ministry of Economics, houses, baths, fully equipped dispensaries, kitchens, schools, and mosques for their workmen and their children. Working clothes must also be provided. 2. All forced labor is forbidden. Children under 16 cannot be employed below the surface, and children under 13 cannot be employed at all. 3. Two per cent of the amount of the total salaries must be set aside by the mine-owners for the purpose of maintaining hos- pitals. This 2 per cent is, however, not to be deducted from the wages of the employees. _4, Free medical attention must be given to all employees injured or sick as a result of their duties. The hospitals must be supervised by a sanitary commission. Meals must be provided by the proprietor at a uniform price. 5. The working day is fixed at a maximum of eight hours with double rates of pay for overtime, which must be worked voluntarily. 6. In cases of non-payment of salaries the existing stocks of coal, and if necessary any other assets of the proprietor, can be seized and sold on behalf of the workmen. Mexico in Russia HE Rosta News Agency in its Peking bulletin of Sep- tember 21 prints a dispatch from Moscow describing the visit of a Mexican delegation sent by the Mexican Gov- ernment to the All-Russian Agricultural Exposition at Mos- cow described in the last issue of The Nation. It was led by Mr. Ballesteros, counselor of the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture and Public Welfare, who is quoted as follows: “The Mexican Government,” declared Mr. Ballesteros, “re- grets very much that it could not, through lack of time, send exhibits of Mexican industry. [ Vol. 117, No. 3045 “Mexico has passed through the same hard experiences as Russia, and foreign interventionists have striven to enslave her just as they have tried to do with Russia. This common lot of both our countries has led the Mexican people to the study of the revolution and the post-revolutionary construction work of the new Russia.” The Mexican delegate further stated that within a very short time, he felt assured, his Government would send plenipoten- tiary representatives to negotiate with the Russian Government for the establishment of mutual relations. “The attitude of Mexico toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” remarked Mr. Ballesteros, “differs greatly from the aims and views of other countries with regard to the latter. While these countries, in their intercourse with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, pursue but their commercial aims and profits, Mexico wishes to be acquainted with the regime which has been established as the outcome of the social revo- lution.” Two Sigaificant Cablegrams HE following cablegrams to President Coolidge were recently printed in the Courrier Haitien: (1) PRESIDENT COOLIDGE, Washington: The Haitian people, with the Constitution of 1918 in hand, go to the polls on January 10, 1924, in order to reestablish the legislative chambers and the legal existence of Haiti. The American Government will bear the whole responsibility for any consequences that may arise in case M. L. Borno seeks to oppose the exercise of the rights of the people. (Signed) CiTIzENS OF PORT AU PRINCE (2) PRESIDENT COOLIDGE, Washington: Should the gendarmerie, commanded by American officers, act as the accomplices of M. Borno and oppose the peaceful manifestations of the Haitian people—parading through the streets, holding meetings in public places—by attacking and imprisoning the demonstrators, the American Government will have the entire responsibility for the bloodshed. The whole world is thus advised by cable. (Signed) CITIZENS OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI P.S.—These cablegrams have been sent to the American, French, and English press. Now, armed with the Constitution of 1918 adopted by a plebiscite, let all the citizens go and register for the coming election. One man cannot check a people of nearly three million. Contributors to This Issue MARVIN LOWENTHAL is the associate editor of the Menorah Journal. ’ HENRY S. CHURCHILL is a New York architect. CARL BECKER is professor of history at Cornell University. B. CHARNEY VLADECK is manager of the Jewish Daily Forward. SAMUEL C. CHEW is professor of English at Bryn Mawr College. EMIL LENGYEL is a Hungarian journalist at present in the United States. ; MAGDELEINE MARX is best known in this country as the author of “Woman,” the only one of her novels which has been translated into English. In France she is known as one of the leaders in the Clarté group of dis- illusioned intellectuals, founded in 1918 by Henri Bar- busse and other ex-service men. She has recently re- turned from a long visit to Soviet Russia.

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The Nation FOUNDED

Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS .......-...seceeeee cere eee esnecseccseces 567 EDITORIALS: si The Klan and the Bottle. ..........2ccccsecssscencccsecceacccercess ay ahr eri Vtam Gv Fuca ey; a a cretaeiaiad wis ois iabeke sy a dcy os oer aie Dhaka eV syzyeie)piciesieye' ees ¢ ou The German Famine .....----++-sesseeecessssrs reteset settee He The Languid Generation .......--.:s-sssereersteeer setts RED SAXONY. By Oswald Garrison WUral leur Ai svotets aera herein! cia'ealetolarelseln iste) « 573 ERNST ZEIGNER. A Cartoon by Leo Kober......-.++++ssseereseeeres 573 THE TALE OF THE TEAPOT. By William areal eee tiene) ni eucll sauarnialausys!.< 575 THESE UNITED STATES—XLIII. NEW MEXICO: A RELIC OF ANCIENT AMERICA. By Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant. .......2-+20- 577 THE NEW RUSSIAN WOMEN: Ill. Aristocrats. By Magdeleine Marx.......+-+s+sereeseereecerns 580 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter.......--.seeeesereeereeereecrccs 582 (CORRESPONDENCE SEP ete cya lelcitsieVelc a\eiels 6,» eie|siaieiela nis/eiesiele (es o;els 582 BOOKS: k } Ludwig Lewisohn. By Ludwig Lewisohn ..........+++++sssseeerees 583 Personality and the Press. By Robert Morss Lovett........+.--+++++ 584 Tales of Revolt. By Johan J. Smertenko.......+..-eesseeeeeeeecers 585 The World We Want. By George Soule. ......+-+seseeesereeeesesecee 585 A Hamlet in Politics. By Herbert W. Horwill.........-.+..++-+-++: 586 THE NATION’S POETRY PRIZE.......-.---eseeeceecc cece rene seccees 586 DRAMA: Scramble. By Ludwig Lewisohn ..........++seeeeeeeeeserresececes 587 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: The Hunger Strike in Ireland. By 7E..........++++seeeeeeeeeeeeeee 589 The Republican Plea .........ceee cece ce er cence rere eee senecesececes 590 The Military Heel ..........cceee cree cence eer eeeserereeeeseesceaes 592

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UDENDORFF, at least, is henceforth out of the game —that is one consolation to be drawn from recent events in Germany. The expected monarchist putsch took place—but the monarchists were divided into Wittelsbach and Hohenzollern, South German and North German camps, and accordingly the first coup failed. Ludendorff, after all, was a Prussian alien in Munich, and Hitler, leader of the fascist forces, is an Austrian. Theirs was a strange alli- ance, and their beer-house revolution a singularly uninspir- ing performance. Hitler, firing melodramatically into the air to force attention from a feverish crowd, and escaping from an unheroic encounter with the police wounded only by the violence with which he threw himself on the ground when the firing began, has lost his glamor; and Ludendorff, once commander of an empire’s forces, is an unsympathetic figure spending the night in a police cell and obtaining re- lease by a promise to be good—which, once released, he interprets to mean nothing. ITLER and Ludendorff were not defeated, however, because they were monarchists, but because they were the wrong kind of monarchists. The civil officials whom they arrested, and who soon turned the tables on the short-lived revolution, were no devoted republicans. They are Wittelsbach monarchists, devoted to Crown Prince NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1923 1865 No. 3046

Rupprecht of Bavaria, whom they hope to crown emperor of all Germany. They distrusted Hitler as likely to play a lone hand, and Ludendorff as too close to the old Kaiser. This conflict possibly explains Dr. Stresemann’s readiness to permit the former Crown Prince and Kaiser to return to Germany. Discredited as they still are by their flight to Holland—and the Kaiser, curiously, by his second marriage —the return of the Hohenzollerns must increase the division in the royalist forces and weaken the cause of the Wittels- bachs. It is playing with fire, but fire is sometimes the best weapon against fire. The Allies will do well to make no protest which will restore the martyr’s halo to Hohen- zollern brows. Pictures of their lonely life in exile have helped restore a sympathy which they lost in 1918, and new measures are likely to help rather than hurt them. HIS flurry of excitement about the return of the Hohenzollerns and about the beer-hall revolution has permitted the international reparations conference to die almost unnoticed. We called the pother about it a Much Ado About Nothing when it began, for it was plain from the beginning that M. Poincaré would accept no limitation of his freedom of action. He does not want to save Ger- many from collapse and Europe from decay. Day by day he is advancing in his negotiations with the big German industrialists who are more powerful than their Government, and completing treaties for the subjection of conquered economic provinces. That these treaties have no sounder footing than the wrecked Treaty of Versailles does not con- cern him; in his mind’s eye that tragic ruin still stands in- tact, and when President Wilson in an armistice-day address asserts that France and Italy have torn it into waste-paper he is only angry. We prefer the blunt if cynical honesty of Bethmann-Hollweg in August, 1914, when he declared, of the invasion of Belgium, “This is contrary to interna- tional law.” It was no more so than the conquest of the Ruhr. M. Poinearé refused to join in an international ex- pert inquiry which would concern itself with anything more far-reaching than Germany’s present capacity to pay— which, we all know, is nil. We are proud that Mr. Hughes. refused to stultify himself by sharing in so piffling an en- terprise. M. Poincaré is now planning a study by the Reparation Commission of this limited field; on that com- mission his representative, no technician but a hack poli- tician, Barthou, holds the casting vote. ' LOYD GEORGE’S American tour seems to have given him a sort of springboard from which to dive back into British politics and to have healed the feud between him and his former chief. If anything was needed to com- plete the reconciliation with Mr. Asquith, the announcement of an election on December 6 upon the tariff issue provided it. An election upon the tariff issue means a return to the good old days for many Liberals who have found themselves rather at a loss in the wilds of post-war politics. Not one of them but won his diploma in the school of free trade in his younger days. A high tariff is always an alluring issue in hard times, and it would be rash to predicate a

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Liberal victory upon the free-trade tradition of Great Britain. But at least the Liberals will enter this election with their ranks united, and if Labor and the Liberals can avoid too many three-cornered contests they should be able to avoid the anomaly of the present Parliament, in which the Conservatives, with less than 40 per cent of the voters behind them, have a majority of 87 members. SRAEL ZANGWILL continues his habit of blunt truth- telling. “It would have been better for the world as things have turned out,” he writes, “if you had never gone in [to the World War] at all. There would then have been a draw and militarism would have been killed instead of reviving in other countries.” This is, perhaps, speculation, but the evidence is increasingly with Mr. Zangwill. “You shut out immigrants, instead of holding out hospitable hands,” he said in a speech which some of his auditors re- sented. “And how did you get your country? You took it by force from the Indians, and your duty is to hold it in trust for humanity. You call it ‘God’s own country.’ For God’s sake make it so.” Newspaper comment does not in- dicate that Mr. Zangwill was altogether right when he said of America: “You can stand criticism. ‘Main Street’ and ‘Babbitt’ have proved that. . . . You are too big for flattery, so big that you can hear the truth. ... You are so good that, like Ford, you become the easy prey of crooks and cranks.” And yet, essentially he is right. We are tired of toadying foreign speakers who disguise their propa- ganda in insincere flattery. Mr. Zangwill’s bluntness may sting for the moment, but in the long run we will thank him for it. The man who gave us the mirror of ourselves as a melting-pot has a right to be shocked by our present- day attitude to our immigrants. ECRETARY MELLON’S proposals for changes in Fed-. eral taxation are perhaps put forward as much in the hope of preventing a soldiers’ bonus as with the idea that Congress will enact them as they stand. To defeat the pro- posed bonus is certainly worth accomplishing in itself, al- though it is a question how far an executive department should go in propagandizing in that way. Of course Mr. Mellon is correct in insisting that the country cannot have both lower taxes and the bonus, and the reductions that he suggests are well devised to obtain support both from those with small and those with large incomes. The proposed cut in the normal rates to 3 and 6 per cent, instead of 4 and 8 per cent, will appeal to persons of moderate earnings, while the suggested reduction for surtaxes from a maxi- mum of 42 per cent on $200,000 and over to 25 per cent on $100,000 and over will commend itself to persons with larger incomes. A change in surtax rates will doubtless be opposed by agrarian elements in Congress, but Mr. Mellon’s belief that his plan would produce as great a revenue through checking investment in tax-exempt securities is probably well founded. In any event the scandal of that kind of tax-dodging ought to be ended by forbidding further issues of tax-exempt bonds. HEN Charles F. Murphy, grand sachem of Tammany Hall, ordered Hearst’s “filthy, lying newspapers” out of his home it was a symbol that Tammany no longer felt the need of even the Hearst newspapers. It controls New York City without benefit of the press. The most The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3046 interesting aspect of the election in New York State was the knockout blow delivered by the voters to Hearst’s polit- ical ambitions. In New York City the Republican nominees for justices of the Supreme Court, sponsored by Mr. Hearst, were snowed under by majorities of more than 100,000, despite Hearst and the other newspapers. In Syracuse the Hearst candidate for mayor was badly defeated, and the Hearst newspapers of the morning after election day were | reduced to featuring the fact that the Republican candidate for mayor, supported by the Hearst newspapers, had carried Rochester. But it is a very old citizen of Rochester who remembers the day when Rochester did not elect the Repub- lican candidate for mayor, and the palmiest days of Roch- ester Republicans long antedated the advent of Mr. Hearst’s afternoon newspaper. Politically speaking, Mr. Hearst is dead. It does not matter whether he calls himself Repub- lican, Democrat, Independence Leaguer, or what-not in the future; the politicians will no longer fear him. Mr. Mur- phy’s announced determination never again to permit the Hearst papers in his pure home, however, is not likely to affect their circulation. Perhaps the most extraordinary teature of the extraordinary growth of some newspapers in recent years is that they grow most when their editorial pages have least influence. Thirty thousand women employed in the confectionery, paper-box, tobacco, collar, and shirt industries and in mer- cantile establishments in New York State are receiving less than sixteen dollars a week. More than one-fourth of the women employed in these factory industries and more than one-fifth of the women employed in the State’s mercantile estab- lishments are receiving less than twelve dollars a week. Thou- sands of women in these industries and in mercantile estab- lishments are receiving less than ten dollars a week. HESE figures are taken from a study made by the Bu- reau of Women in Industry of the State Industrial Commission of the wages earned by 60,000 women work- ers in New York. Let us see what this means. The lowest wage that will support a family of five at a minimum level of health and decency is about $2,200 a year—forty-odd dol- lars a week. Almost all women workers, married and un- married, contribute practically every cent they earn to the upkeep of the home. If a woman had only herself to support she would come near to starving on ten, twelve, or sixteen dollars a week. With children, parents, younger brothers and sisters dependent upon her, the figures printed above present a picture of utter desperation. O turn an institution of scholarly and advanced re- search into a business college specializing in commer- cial geography would be easier if it were not for attach- ments from the past that call out in protest. There are graduates whose professional standing is injured, whose memories are disturbed, whose love of true scholarship is outraged. Thus, following the protest of the Washington Alumni Club against the commercialization of Clark Uni- versity, comes another signed by a score of persons promi- nent in education on the Pacific Coast. The Pacific Coast alumni, like others, demand the retirement of Wallace W. Atwood, the president of Clark, because they say his poli- cies do not command the confidence of faculty or student body, have led to the loss of certain of the best teachers, and have lowered the scholastic standing of the university. The signers of the protest include the deans of three

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— ee ee Nov. 21, 1923] The Lost Leader NOTHER gallant adventure in labor journalism is dead. The New York Leader, for a few weeks heir to the old Call, has furled its sails. At least it closes with its books balancing, able to pay its staff and meet its debts— thereby establishing something very like a record. The unions which took over the Leader inherited from the Socialist owners of the Call a bankrupt paper, more ruinously in debt than its own managers had realized. They made an attempt to transform this little paper, with a brave record of courageous battling but a terrific burden of dis- trust and debt, into a real daily newspaper. They gave their new paper a sporting page, a women’s column, comics, “colyums.” Before they had their new craft fairly launched they ran into the storm of the newspaper strike. They attempted to capitalize the strike situation by printing huge editions of their paper to fill the gap. Circulation boomed, but their distributors sabotaged them. Their returns, and accordingly their losses, were tremendous. Before the paper changed its name they had spent more than half of their slender capital—only about $75,000 net. The new paper found itself after the strike boom with 20,000 circulation—more than double the number of readers of the Call in its latter days. That was not enough to bring in much new advertising. The pledges from the unions which had taken over the paper were slow in coming in, and the management had committed itself to a more elab- orate paper than it was possible to maintain upon the paper’s income. But there was more than that. A large part of the Leader’s difficulty lay in the peculiar situation in the labor movement in New York City. The unions which owned the paper, and the men who edited it, belonged to the progres- sive group which has usually opposed the leadership of Samuel Gompers in the American Federation of Labor. Ac- cordingly, some of the Gompers group were from the begin- ning hostile to it. Its support came mainly from the largely Jewish needle-trades unions. But the Jewish workers al- ready have their labor dailies in their own tongue. Nor did the English-speaking members of the needle-trades unions give the paper the almost religious support which would have been necessary to make the paper succeed. That they did not was due to the factional strife within labor ranks. The Leader from the beginning dissociated itself from the disputes among its supporters and sought to advocate only a program upon which the various groups could unite. The result was that it won the intense loyalty of no one., The Communists and near-Communists would not support it, for it was not theirs—they were hoping to establish an English daily of their own in Chicago; and the Socialists did not love it because it did not throw itself into their fight to oust the Communists. The supporters of the Leader had hoped that it might help establish a’ unity which is sorely needed within the union movement. But they did not have money enough to give it a long enough trial. The old Call had a fanatical little group of die-hards who were ready to sup- port it through any crjsis with a kind of religious devotion. The Leader had only its merit as a newspaper to stand upon—and not enough people bought it for that. In a very real sense, it was tod good to live. It was neither scandal- ous nor factional enough to please. Does this mean that labor can never manage its own The Nation newspapers? We think not. It does, we think, prove that labor can have its own newspapers only when it is suffi- ciently united and strong to give them real and continued support; and an incidental lesson may be that it needs to hire managers trained in the school of business experience. But times will come again when labor will discover that it cannot trust the most liberal dailies of millionaire owner- ship, and will try again. Meanwhile labor has its own week- lies and monthlies—and they are growingly good. The German Famine HEN the potato crop has been harvested in Germany, the farmers notify the government, which officially declares the fields open; hordes of miserable city-dwellers are then permitted to paw through the earth of the fields in the hope of finding a few potatoes so small or rotten as to have escaped the farmer’s hands. Thousands of Berlin- ers flocked tothe country every day during the harvest- season for that feeble hope of nourishment. Returning travelers report that they sat with their backs to the street in restaurants because they could not bear to see the pinched faces staring in through the plate-glass windows. And this in autumn, the easiest food-time of the year. We are face to face with another great famine. Behind the reports of Ludendorff-Hitler putsches, of the crown prince’s return, of riots and Reichswehr movements, there is a steady story of hunger and disease. We have been hearing this story so long that our ears have become dulled to it. It is a more important story than the incidents which are chronicled in newspaper headlines, of vastly more sig- nificance to future generations, but it is the same old story, so it is not news. News is something new, something startling, and starvation is an old story in Germany, and no longer startles anyone. And when some American who has been caught in a riot of women mad for a loaf of bread reports the horror of the experience, someone else reports that there was plenty of food in the Hotel Adlon. There is always plenty of food in the Hotel Adlons. In the midst of starvation there are always men who some- how hoard a little food, and others who have money to pay for it. Americans, who also have money to pay for food, see these men. They seldom stray into the working-class sections. Some of these cynical Americans expatiate upon the unemployment doles paid workers “for not working”; they do not stop to discover that when bread cost two and a half billion marks a loaf the unemployment dole for the head of a family amounted to a billion marks a day—two- fifths the value of a single loaf of bread. The Russian famine was primarily a product of atmos- pheric conditions—of drought and heat. It was a famine of the country districts as well as of the cities. The Ger- man famine is otherwise. The German farmers have food enough for themselves, but they see no reason to exchange it for the worthless paper marks with which the cities are flooded. The two and a half billion paper marks that are worth one loaf of bread today may be worth only half a loaf next week or even tomorrow; the grain or potatoes that the farmer has in his barn do not lose their value. Naturally he sells only when he needs to buy something else on the same day. Germany is a manufacturing coun- try that normally exports fabricated goods and imports foodstuffs. Her great manufacturing centers are in the

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572 hands of an enemy so that she cannot export; without ex- ports she cannot pay for imports. Yet the German famine is no less real because it can thus be explained as an arti- ficial product. It is terribly real today—and it will be worse in the coming cold weather, and in the early spring when new crops will have been planted but will not yet be ripe for harvesting. We may still hope that our statesmen will find a way, despite the political difficulties on both sides of the water, to cut at the roots of the disease. But even assuming a greater measure of diplomatic success than now seems probable, the coming winter will inevitably be a famine- winter. Naturally Frau Kreisler cables her friends to “keep the Kreisler kitchens cooking.” Naturally the Quakers in Germany cable home for help, pleading that: The past two weeks have brought the actual need to the surface in a way that one did not think possible. It has driven hundreds and possibly thousands into the streets to beg. One sees that they did not come out until the pangs of hunger and fear in the solitude of their four walls became unbearable. It is hard to picture life in Germany today. One corre- spondent who left South Germany for a position in Berlin, found the only lodging available one hour by foot from his work. To ride in a street-car cost fifty million marks on the day of his arrival, a hundred millions the next day, two hundred the day after, and today costs some billions; he could not pay. No one can pay except foreigners and a few profiteers. The decay of Germany which has been in pro- cess for nearly ten years is approaching a climax. In Ber- lin they examine the six-year-old children entering school for signs of tuberculosis. Before the war half of one per cent were tuberculous; in 1921, 2.5 per cent; in 1922, 3.2 per cent; early in 1923 more than 5 per cent—and this autumn has brought by far the worst undernourishment yet experienced. A future generation is being ruined, and with it the hope of other generations to follow after. The Quakers withdrew from Germany last year after two and a half years of child-feeding. Cooperating with Herbert Hoover they had raised and distributed more than $12,000,000 in American foodstuffs. It is not generally realized that the German government furnished the flour and sugar for this feeding—more than $5,000,000 worth of it—or that since August, 1922, it has paid the overhead expenses of the organization which continued on a reduced basis the Quaker feeding. When the Quakers retired, it seemed probable that thenceforth the Germans could finance their own relief. That was before the Ruhr, and the subse- quent collapse. At the urgent appeal of General Henry T. Allen, formerly commander of the American Army on the Rhine, they are going back. Perhaps most of us in America thought we had done enough, but we too will have to go back. General Allen’s committee, which includes most of the men who once led war-time appeals for Allied relief, asks America for $5,000,000 now, and admits that $10,000,000 may be needed. Their program covers only a minimum meal for a quarter of the children who physicians say need such supplementary feeding. The weekly allowance for a child sounds trifling: 48 grams of fat, 18 grams of cocoa, 90 grams of sugar, 240 grams of evaporated milk, and 480 grams of flour. But it must be met, and only America can do it. The address of General Allen’s com- mittee—the American Committee for Relief of German Children—is 19 West 44th Street, New York City. The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 8046 The Languid Generation HE editors and managers of the undergraduate news- papers of a number of Eastern women’s colleges sat together in the convention room and discussed their com- mon problems. Intelligence and ability were obvious pos- sessions of all of. them. They had also the appearance of being entirely alive, which belongs only to people who have something of meaning and importance to do. They found the task of editing and writing college newspapers a baffling one and the problems that they faced resolved themselves finally into one problem: The students in the colleges were not interested in anything. Surely a discouraging fact to face, one which the editor of the Saturday Evening Post or the New York Evening Journal knows nothing about. Should they print reports of lectures which the whole college might have heard and which were attended by a dozen students? Should they bring into the paper news of the outside world, and “try to interest the undergraduates” in matters of public significance? Should they talk about education in general and the curriculum in particular—to several hundred deaf ears? Or should they merely chron- icle the interests of the majority; and if so... “But the majority has no interests.” The delegates agreed on that. They compared notes. One editor thought that if the students at her college could be said to read anything with eagerness it was collections of miscellaneous facts. “They like to know how many pieces of mail-matter come into the college and go out every week; how many bricks it took to build the new dormitory.” Another delegate said that brief theater and book notes were read; another that a rather dreary humorous column was the thing the college turned to; another said that the discussion of college fads, such as the use of the swagger-stick, made matter that her public would read. “If the students at C——- would get excited about swagger-sticks I’d take it as a hopeful sign,” said a cynical young woman in the front row. A frail, passing interest in fads, the theater, books, facts, jokes—is this a foundation to build a paper on? The edi- tors seemed hardly to think so. They looked in vain for some breath of hot feeling, some prejudice, some clash of ideas. And all they found was a languid tolerance for any idea. Modern students, it appeared, can not be shocked or won; they are pleasantly aloof from the bitter interests that tear the world. They read, but books are books to them, adjuncts to a serene academic progress—not chron- icles of a living reality. The world is a little misty to them, a little remote, as if they were souls in some Maeterlinckian heaven waiting to be born. No one would wish for the students of America the tor- tures of hunger, the clash of national and racial hatreds, the grinding effort by night and day, summer and winter, to secure enough money to buy learning. These things, char- acteristic of European universities, make life real enough, in all conscience, and education a thing to prize, but they warp the mind and blunt the sensibilities. Perhaps some compromise is necessary between hunger and complacency. Perhaps the generation that is being born out of our American colleges will have to rub against life a little be- fore it really believes in it. Real interest is an emotion, and emotions spring from the needs of human beings, and so far in this comparatively comfortable land there has been little of Europe’s bitter need for interest and intelligence.

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Nov. 21, 1923] The Nation 573 Red Saxony By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Berlin, October 31 OR three hours last Thursday I traveled from Berlin to Dresden opposite a young man in simple blue clothes without a single outward mark of distinction. He wore neither the frock-coat of statesmanship nor the high hat of the cabinet minister. He did have an attendant who once covered his knees with a rug and reminded my vis-a-vis that the time had come for him to eat his sand- wich, which the Minister - President most obediently pro- ceeded to do. If you had examined him closely, as I did, you would have seen a man who looked like a very earnest young American lawyer, @ bit pale and obvi- ously tired, but with fine bright eyes, a short upper lip, a high forehead with thick black hair brushed back some- what after the style of the college boy in America. You would have agreed with me that it was a fine, sensitive face, the face of an enthusi- ast and of a thinker. You certainly would not have noticed any criminal traits, and so you would have been surprised to learn that this was one of the greatest criminals of today. Such he is in the minds of all who worship the god of things as they are and the god of private property and all the other gods whose feet no longer seem to be on solid ground but as in sand. For this young man of thirty-five was Dr. Zeigner, the Minister-President, or Prime Minister, of Saxony, the man who, having just declined to dissolve his Government at the behest of Berlin, has been ousted by force. I had heard him speak the night before and had been profoundly im- pressed by the direct and straightforward way in which he explained his position and declared his principles before a group of members of the League of the Young Republic, who cheered and applauded him the minute he hove in sight. He wasted no time in compliments or long-drawn-out words of thanks. He simply laid the facts of the situation as he saw them before these ardent young republicans, without Ernst Zeigner and the Prussian Heel thought of oratory, speaking far more rapidly than one would expect from a man trained to the law, for years a state’s attorney and a judge. He did not deny that there had been some Communist excesses in Saxony during July and August. The passive resistance in the Ruhr and the shutting down of industry there had had a most disastrous ef- fect upon the fac- tories of Saxony, which had actually suffered more from unemployment than any other portion of Germany. Saxony had a proletarian majority. It seemed to him that he and his associates, when they succeeded in getting two Commu- nist leaders to take office in his Minis- try, had achieved something not only , unusual, unprece- ‘dented, but entirely praiseworthy. Did it not mean a good deal that German Communists had been induced _ to abandon their nega- tive policy of ob- struction, denuncia- tion, and _ destruc- tion, and to come into a Government to accept the respon- sibilities of govern- ing, with all the chastening effects that those responsibilities brought in their train? That they had even taken the oath to uphold the Reich, the state of Saxony, and the Weimar Constitution? His audience, by its applause, agreed with him. But this was his offense, and not merely the existence of the “proletarian hundreds.” He declared that the attack on Saxony came from government officials and soldiers “who have learned nothing and forgotten everything that has happened dur- ing and since the war.” Dr. Zeigner next spoke strongly against the conduct of the Reichswehr, asserting that their attitude was that of a conquering and invading army, and insisting that even if there had been undue lawlessness in Saxony it was not more than had existed in other portions of the Empire; that it certainly did not call for sending in thousands of troops. He had been told by a colonel of the General Staff in Dres- den only that day that there were still eighty trains of

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574 The Nation troops to come in. As for the shooting down in the city of Pirna of some of the unemployed who were innocently gathered in front of the City Hall when the troops un- expectedly marched in, he said that being bent on perfectly legitimate business and in direct need of doles about to be handed out they had refused to disperse when ordered to do so. The troops immediately fired upon them, killing two and wounding many others, many of them being shot in the back, and reported the incident to Berlin as a “deliberate and well-organized Communist attack.” Dr. Zeigner assured his hearers, as he subsequently as- sured me, that he wished only that Saxony be let alone, and that he thought anyone a poor German indeed who would add to the trouble of the Reich in such stormy times. Yet he was sure that he was but living up to the Constitution both of Saxony and the Reich when he upheld the right of his Ministry to take into it Communist members. Dr. Stresemann had insisted that by retaining these Communist members and permitting them to attack the Reich Govern- ment in speeches and to call for its overthrow in favor of a proletarian government really devoted to the republic, Dr. Zeigner’s Ministry was guilty of a violation of the Consti- tution such as could be atoned for only by the dismissal of the Communist members—a decision greeted with loud cheers by Hugo Stinnes’s Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and all the houn’-dawgs of the extreme capitalistic press. So the die has been cast. Dr. Zeigner and his Cabinet are out, and a Commissioner has been appointed to instal a new Government. The troops of Lieutenant General Miller, whose mental caliber and freedom from prejudice may be deduced from the fact that in one of his proclamations posted on the walls of Dresden he blamed the Communists for all the economic ills from which not only Saxony but all Germany is suffering, have driven the Zeigner Ministers out of their offices by force. In other words, the Strese- manns and the Stinneses and the 100-per-cent Germans of the open-shop, Civic-Federation type have triumphed. Something very fine has gone out of Germany’s political life with Zeigner. Other more experienced politicians will take the place of the Zeigner Ministry—it was perfectly obvious in the talk that I had with its head that he was without a background of political history and experience, and therefore was at a terrible disadvantage in dealing with Berlin. But whatever his shortcomings and his errors, make no mistake: in him Saxony has a high-minded patriot consecrated to the republican ideal and quite ready to make any personal sacrifice to that end. There is nothing of the fanatic or the visionary about him. He is no demagogue to stir up the masses. In our long talk he kept coming back to the constructive things that he was trying to do: First, to meet the existing emergencies and to help the unem- ployed; and, second, to place Saxon industry on a sound basis by completing the great electrical works near Zwickau which are to furnish cheap power not only to Saxony but even to the industries of Czecho-Slovakia and are to lift a good part of the burden of taxation by their profits. Then he told how he had succeeded in bringing about a settlement with the royal family by which many important art col- lections and public properties will be ceded to the state with- out a struggle and how upon the basis of these he hoped to raise a loan for the 30,000,000 gold marks he needed to complete the state’s great electrical undertakings. Never have I talked with a ruler of a state who used the I as little and injected his personality so rarely into the conver- sation. [Vol. 117, No. 3046 What a shock it would be to New York Times readers to talk to the two Communist ministers of Saxony, Heckert and Boéttcher, about whom the whole storm arose. Both are clean-shaven, youngish men of the workingman type. Béttcher has been twenty years in politics, beginning life as an apprentice in the building trade. Heckert was until re- cently what we should call a job printer. His face was pale, his clothes coarse and sadly showing wear. The marks of the struggle for existence are written all over him. These men were slow to commit themselves to a journalistic stranger from America. But they were both perfectly clear in their minds that what is at stake in Saxony for the moment is not communism, but the life of the German Re- public and the freedom of its working people. It is a class war which they feel is being waged against them. “We know now how our brothers in the Ruhr are suffering under the French, for we have the Reichswehr among us.” They agreed that the “hundreds” were not being disarmed be- cause the hundreds, according to them, are without arms and had never been organized in real military fashion. They insisted in their quiet and serious way that there have been no grave Communist excesses in Saxony. Yester- day, however, I interviewed a Prussian Minister who has the reputation of being one of the most reasonable and fair- minded. When I told him that Dr. Zeigner had insisted that there was no undue lawlessness in Saxony he cried out emphatically: “Oh, we know differently. All sorts of terri- ble things have happened. Why, in one town the working- men actually went into their factory, pulled out the owner, and made him lead a parade through the streets with a red flag which they thrust into his hands!” Of course, I mur- mured my sympathy and horror; I could well imagine how quickly there would be a lynching-bee in Gary, or Ham- mondsport, or Bethlehem, or Coatsville, or Pittsburgh if any of our American workingmen were guilty of an atrocity like that! Fortunately for my nerves he spared me any further details, and so I have been free to ponder on what is behind these conditions. The truth is that the attack upon Sax- ony was actuated by far different motives. Stresemann moved on Saxony, first, to overawe the Communists through- out the country; second, to spike the guns of those Bavar- ians who have been threatening to invade Saxony in order to attack the Communists and so get nearer Berlin; and, third, and most important of all, as a show of energy and vigor in the face of the reported intention of the Bavarians to establish a rump Reich-Government in Munich. That plan frightened Dr. Stresemann and his cabinet pretty badly. Many Ministers assured me that the Saxon maneuver was intended to place troops in a position where they could be rushed to the Bavarian frontier promptly. In other words, this reconstruction of the Saxon Ministry was a purely political maneuver. To me it seems a costly blunder. At the very moment when Dr. Stresemann is menaced from the Right he has alienated the multitudes of Socialists and workingmen of all faiths, who are now convinced that a dictatorship of the Reich is upon them. The danger of such a precedent is, moreover, great; if the Bavarians take charge of Berlin they will have an excellent example of how to get rid of the Prussian Government. All they will have to do will be to hire a few thugs to start up the Communists and to instigate rioting among the unemployed, and the trick will be done. ; Nor do I believe that the maneuver will have the effect upon the Bavarians which Dr. Stresemann expects. The Bavarians regard themselves as engaged in the holiest of

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Nov. 21, 1923] 575 wars to purge all Germany of Jews, Marxians, and Com- munists—a feat which will, if achieved, in itself solve the problem of the overpopulation of Germany. Whether an armed conflict can still be avoided, whether a sort of Avignon government will or will not be established in Munich, whether the Bavarians will start their march on Berlin, as I happen to know General Ludendorff is urging them to do, may be told in America by the time this letter reaches New York. To prophesy is folly; the general be- lief is that Stresemann will yield his place shortly to a more violent reactionary, possibly a general, but of a type much more satisfactory to the militarists and the Bavarians. After that no man knoweth; most people look for a Com- munist dictator to succeed the representative of the Right. The Nation But today all is quiet on the Elbe. Saxony has “got what was coming to her,” and the world now has seen one more of the daily evidences of the tremendous success of the war to make the world safe for democracy. The only fly in the ointment is that on April 1 there were in Saxony 44,700 men and women drawing unemployment doles and 25,797 on short time, while on September 1 there were 41,425 unemployed and 126,146 on part time and on October 1 no less than 112,274 were unemployed and 349,566 were on short time. I am sure that if Elbert H. Gary were here just now he would be unable to refrain from repeating his remarks about Mussolini in this form: “I rather think that I ought to go home and tell our countrymen that we need a Stresemann in the White House.” The Tale of the Teapot (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD OW that the first senatorial hearings on the Teapot Dome Naval Oil Reserve affair have been completed, and now that all the star witnesses have shed their full if not their final rays upon the subject, it becomes possible for the first time to tell in assured detail and in coherent se- quence the total story of the policy and behavior of the United States Government in the management of its naval oil estate, called the Teapot Dome, in Wyoming. The first character in the story is President Roosevelt. He gave support and prestige to the policy of the conser- vation of oil in the ground for the use of the government at some future time when the customary commercial sup- plies of oil might be insufficient and when some great im- pending national emergency might demand a governmentally reserved and controlled abundant source of fuel for our fighting ships. The second character in the story is President Wilson. Out of the Federal public domain in Wyoming he set aside for exclusively naval purposes a reserve called commonly the Teapot Dome and called technically Naval Oil Reserve Number Three. The third character is Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. He stood resolutely on the rights of the United States Government in Naval Oil Reserve Number Three and also in all of our other naval oil reserves, totaling five; and he refused to budge from those rights, when attacked by private citizens urging private claims upon naval oil- reserve lands. Under him the policy of the Navy Depart- ment was to resist private claims by every possible resource of administrative action in the government departments and by every possible resource of legal defense in the courts. Under him, at one time, when a certain other member of the Cabinet proposed to make a surrender of naval oil land to a private claimant without a fight, President Wilson told that other Cabinet member that any such behavior on his part would mean his resignation. The stage thus having been set and the preliminary dia- logue having thus been delivered, the fourth and final great character of the play was ready to make his entrance. This character is Albert B. Fall. Mr. Fall, as a Senator of the United States, had evidenced a great interest in conserva- tion. His interest in it was that he disapproved of it. It was his view that the public domain of the United States should go as rapidly as possible into private hands. Mr. Fall’s first feat as Secretary of the Interior was to provide the State Department and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate with the oil-exploitation motives and arguments which led to the ratification of our $25,000,000 treaty with Colombia. Mr. Fall, as a Senator of the United States, had taken the position that the United States owed nothing to Colombia for any alleged violation of the national rights of Colombia in the matter of the setting up of the Republic of Panama in the days of President Roosevelt. Mr. Fall, as a Senator of the United States, had sided with the memory of Theo- dore Roosevelt against the claim of Colombia. As Secretary of the Interior, however, he perceived before him a di- vided duty. On the one hand there was the memory of Theodore Roosevelt which he had defended. On the other hand there was the opportunity on behalf of American oil interests to get from Colombia a new and open era of oil concessions. Mr. Fall chose oil. He sent to the United States Senate a document in which the oil holdings of British oil companies in Colombia were listed; and in this document it was erroneously alleged that these holdings were holdings of the British Government; and on that argument, and in the openly admitted hope that for $25,000,000 out of the public treasury of the United States the Colombian Government would give oil conces- sions to the oil companies of the United States, the Colombia Treaty was passed. Having thus demonstrated his willingness, at any cost to what he had once regarded as national honor, to secure oil concessions for oil companies, Mr. Fall was then picked out by Secretary of the Navy Denby to be made the man- aging master of the navy’s oil reserves with this country. Known to be an anti-conservationist, and known to have been willing to take $25,000,000 out of the United States treasury to buy an entrance for American oil companies into the public domain of Colombia, he was made the super- visor of the navy’s public domain in the United States. This honor, however, was not heaped upon him by its own spontaneous gravitation toward him. He sought it. He wrote the order transferring the control of the naval

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oil reserves from the Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. He composed a letter for the Secretary of the Navy to sign, transmitting that order to the President to be signed. Admiral Griffin, chief of the Navy Department’s Bureau of Engineering, in charge of the naval oil reserves, objected to the transfer. Commander Stewart, in immediate man- agement of the reserves, objected. No naval officer tech- nically familiar with the naval oil-reserve situation is re- ported to have concurred in the transfer. Nevertheless Mr. Denby, choosing between the proved advice of his technically experienced officers and the proved passion of Mr. Fall for getting public lands into private hands, trans- mitted the order for the transfer on Mr. Fall’s behalf to President Harding, who signed it on May 38, 1921. Approximately one year later, on April 7, 1922, Mr. Fall leased the Teapot Dome Naval Oil Reserve to Mr. Harry Sinclair. For two weeks thereafter he made no announcement of his action. He then announced it only in reply to an urgent communication to him from Senator Ken- drick of Wyoming who had heard rumors of such an action and who wished to know if those rumors were correct. Mr. Fall, admitting that they were correct, lifted for the first time the curtain of secrecy behind which his action had been consummated. It then simultaneously appeared that the lease, besides being secret, had been non-competitive. No bids by others than Mr. Sinclair were disclosed. Mr. Sinclair, by himself, and in the dark, on his merits as oil man, as campaign contributor, as friend, and as hospita- ble owner of a private car suitable for personal conferences, had become the sudden owner of the total right to drill oil- wells over the whole of the Teapot Dome. Then, after the event, came the setting forward of the alleged reason for it. This reason was, and is, that oil is said to be leaking out of the Teapot Dome Naval Oil Re- serve into wells located on other federally owned public land just outside the Reserve. The Department of the Interior had granted the permits for the drilling of those wells. It itself had permitted and procured the activities responsible for the draining of oil out of the navy’s re- served oil supply. It itself had authorized this indirect and partial loss of that supply. Its contention thereupon was, and is, that the loss should become direct and total. Geological testimony adduced before the Public Lands Committee of the Senate in the course of its Teapot Dome hearings has been strongly to the effect that straight across the Teapot Dome there is a “fault” which protects a cer- tain considerable part of it from leakage. The leakage from the remaining part of it was alleged by geological testimony to be likely to be perhaps not more than 25 per cent. It was convincingly demonstrated that there was a strong technical possibility that if the total oil content of the Teapot Dome is 25,000,000 barrels, then not more than 4,000,000 barrels of it was in danger of flowing away into the private wells on the adjoining public domain. It now appears that from the wells which on adjacent public domain are draining oil out of the Teapot Dome the government gets royalties averaging from 25 to 50 per cent of the flow, whereas from the wells which Mr. Sinclair has sunk in the Teapot Dome itself the government is get- ting royalties averaging less than 20 per cent. From the standpoint of income in oil for the government it thus ap- pears that the government was better off when the oil was coming to the surface in the wells which were called a The Nation ~ [Vol. 117, No. 3046 “menace” to the Teapot Dome than it is now when the oil is coming to the surface within the Teapot Dome in Mr. Sinclair’s wells. It further appears that perhaps two-thirds of the oil which Mr. Sinclair will pay to the government in royalties will not remain in the possession of the navy in the form of oil. Perhaps two-thirds of it will be paid back to Mr. Sinclair by the navy for some tanks in which to keep the remaining one-third of it. It has been customary for the Navy Department, when it feels in need of tanks or of guns or of battleships or of money with which to pay its employees, to ask Congress for it. It has also been customary to believe that when the people of the United States gave the Navy Department a lot of oil in the ground of the public domain, it gave it to the Navy Department to be a supply of oil and not to be a means by which it could purchase other supplies without going to Congress for authorization. Under Mr. Fall’s influence, however, the Navy Depart- ment proceeded to sign contracts for the building not only of tanks but also of docks and of channels leading to the docks on the basis of paying for these things with oil out of naval oil reserves. Thus not only was this oil taken out of the ground, where President Roosevelt had wished it to be left, but, having been taken out, a large part of it was spent, or will be spent, in acquiring things other than oil and in escaping the customary legalistic squeamish necessity of going to Congress for the people’s consent to naval ex- penditures. If in the Teapot Dome there were originally 25,000,000 barrels of oil, and if Mr. Sinclair now gets all of it out, the government, at the present running rate of royalties, will get—at the most—5,000,000 barrels. Of this 5,000,000 barrels, at the present running cost of materials, it will pay back to Mr. Sinclair some 3,333,000 barrels for tanks. It then in those tanks will have the residuum of its Teapot Dome inheritance—namely, some 1,666,000 barrels of oil out of an original total of 25,000,000; and it will have it not in the ground, where it would be totally safe to be used at some future time in the forms which that future time with new technical developments might unfold and require, but in metal containers in seashore positions and in manu- factured forms and qualities which the technique of this passing and changing moment has fixed. Either this result is an absurdity or else President Roose- velt, with his policy of naval oil conservation, was an idiot. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy, did not make the decisions which have brought his father’s naval oil policy to frustration, nor did he have knowledge of them while they were being made. The Roosevelt naval oil conservation policy is dead, and the final stab given to it was by the same man who stabbed the Roosevelt justification of the Roosevelt Panama policy to the heart in the Colombian Treaty. Senator Walsh of Montana, a member of the Senate’s Public Lands Committee, a man of the deepest learning, a man of the highest personal probity, a man who morally is not capable of deception and who mentally is not capable of self-deception, has taken the leading part in the toilsome task of eliciting the pivotal facts from the chaos of the be- wildering situation presented in testimony to the commit- tee; and he has seemed to be moved toward entertaining the belief that possibly the contract leasing the Teapot Dome to Mr. Sinclair is illegal in that there was no competitive

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Nov. 21, 1923] The Nation 577 bidding for it and in that it includes provisions for the pur- chase of naval supplies—namely, tanks—not with money from Congress but with oil which already was naval prop- me and which was not negotiable. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Sinclair has long been at work drilling the Teapot Dome and draining oil from it; and Mr. Fall, having retired from office, has entered the em- ploy of Mr. Sinclair and has visited Russia to induce the Russian Government to allow Mr. Sinclair to drain oil from the Russian public domain in Sakhalin. Thus Mr. Fall departs from the story, carrying with him his well-known fear of a British world-wide monopoly in oil and having done something to exhaust our government’s reserved supply of oil in its own country and having done nothing to acquire for it any other reserved supply; and if ever this country comes to be without oil while in Latin America north or south of Panama there still are undrained reservoirs of it, the ultimate chapter of our abandonment of our naval oil conservation policy will be written. It will be written in intrigues and aggressions, diplomatie or military or both, to acquire abroad the naval fuel se- curity which was ours for the keeping at home. These United States—X LIII* | NEW MEXICO: A Relic of Ancient America By ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT EW MEXICO has an austere and planetary look that daunts and challenges the soul. In the East and the Middle West, the honors are nowadays relatively even be- tween man and nature. In much of the West and the South- west they are not, and in New Mexico the game is still so heavily loaded on nature’s side that the life of the citizen is profoundly affected. Although the fourth of our States in area—three-fifths the size of France, with single counties as big as Wales or Scotland—New Mexico has a population smaller ‘than that of many an American city. Evenly dis- tributed, there would be about.three persons to the square mile. In contrast to chill snow peaks, and mesas that drop starkly to rivers running naked in their canyons, the few little clusters of human habitations which the flowing moun- tain ranges have secreted at their bases seem as negligible as the burrows of the prairie dogs. For all that, the State has fabricated out of soil, and cli- mate, and racial stock a special brand of civilization, an individual pattern for life to run in that is of peculiar inter- est in the record of American States. The newest in the Union, it boasts two cultures as ancient as anything on our continent, as little modified by centuries and circumstance. It is still without the machinery of modern industrialism except in the depths of mines. Flocks and herds and agri- cultural crops support the greater part of its economic life. But many of the Indians and Spanish Americans, and even the now dominant fair-skinned settlers still live, in their vast colored solitude, as pioneers in space and time, more closely huddled together than New Englanders outside of big cities. The Pueblos are sheltered like monks in their walled villages and terraced community houses of sun-dried brick. The “Mexicans,” in their intramontane valleys, which are often mere rock crevices with a mountain stream in the middle and the width of a fertile field of wheat on either side, set their little dice-like ranch houses end to end. Where their dwellings have space to be wider spreading, as in their Palestinian villages, they have a semi-fortified look; the same flat roof covers three or four generations, which cling together patriarchally. The old Spanish towns of importance, as one may discover in Santa Fe, were drawn tight about plazas and streets edged with colonnaded side- walks, and their many religious and conventual buildings, which lift slated mansards to the blue sky, are as secretly * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 800 words. : Copyright, 1923, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. inclosed as in France or Spain. Bernalillo, an old Spanish town, built on the site of an Indian pueblo where the army of Coronado made its first winter quarters, has an air of being religiously set in walls and gardens against the assaults of a dangerous universe. The genuinely frontier towns, like Gallup, near the Arizona line, important as trading centers for sheep or mining or Indian country, are no more than a raw street or two on the edge of infinity. Even Albuquerque, the only bustling modern city of any size, gives no effect of proud assertion: Sandia Mountain, floating above, carries off all the magnificence. In an hour or two on horseback one may pass from the desert, with its dusty evanescent lights and pale lunar con- vulsions, through the rich green of an irrigated valley filled to the rim of its sandy pink foothills with corn or alfalfa, where mint and cottonwoods grow thick along the running ditches, and up into the virgin pine forest of the mountains, a place of blue-black shadow. Two or three more hours, and the high sheep range opens its vistas, fabulously vast, yet green and smooth and soft as an English park. Even in the desert, the purple vetches and petunias of early sum- mer, the scented sheets of yellow that mark August and September, the gray-green sagey growths give color and fragrance to aridity. Owing to the altitude, nowhere less than 2,500 or 3,000 feet, tropical vegetation such as one finds in Arizona is lacking. Even the extreme south, along the Mexican border, is a land of perpetual summer. In the more northerly counties, like Taos and Santa Fe—the State capital is built at some 7,000 feet under the Sangre de Cristos, which rise to a jagged 14,000—snow may fall at any time between September and June, and spring winds blast the fruit blossoms; while summer sends to the ripen- ing crops anything from torrential rains and cloudbursts to the most blasting drought. But somehow there is always enough hot sun and golden weather (there is the South of it) and enough zest in the brilliant air (there is the West of it) to keep the soul of the agricultural land alive, and brace men’s hearts for new struggles. Climatic adversity and violent human conflict have always been the lot of the natives, one learns from history and from the fascinating records of vanished races that lie on the scarred surface of the land—or just below. Besides the few that have been studied by the archaeologists in the last quarter-century, thousands of unexcavated cave and cliff ruins loom over the New Mexico canyons, giving the trans-

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3046 planted Kansas farmer or the grocer of the Kiwanis Club an upsetting vision of human destiny. The Spanish records name many aboriginal populations which have wholly van- ished today. When the florid Conquistadores—the bulk of them, the historians tell us, the younger sons of Spanish noblemen, sent out to make their fortunes—arrived in this country, about a century before the sober Pilgrims were landing on the gray New England rocks, the red man was, of course, in sole possession. The Conquistadores’ chief objective was, unlike the Pilgrim’s, frankly materialistic: treasure, first the supposed treasure of the Seven Cities of Cibola, from which the present pueblo of Zuni, in the west- ern part of the State, descends. But these adventurers were genuine explorers, and the province claimed as New Mexico, in the name of the Spanish Crown and the Holy Catholic faith, by the strong arms of the generals and the determined devotion of the Franciscan friars, included, in 1700, what are now Arizona and Utah, most of Colorado, and parts of Kansas and Texas. The official figures of the population, in 1799, were 23,000 Spaniards and 10,000 In- dians, living in missions. Modern New Mexico history begins about 1821, when the province passed from Spain to Mexico, and the opening of the romantic overland route to the United States gave a region that had lived chiefly by its southern connections a trade outlet to the East. This was the moment when the names of Otero, Luna, Baca, Romero, Ortiz, and others famous in territorial history—some still to be reckoned with in State politics—came to the fore. The Mexican gov- ernment made large grants of land to leading individuals. These reinforced the older Spanish grants, and the Spanish Catholic gentlemen, established, some of them by many pre- vious generations, in their great ranch houses, with their patriarchal families, their great flocks and herds, their practically peon labor of their own racial stock, and their Indian “slaves,” were, if not kings, at least barons in their own right. That picturesque and privileged and quasi- feudal system in land tenure, stock farming, government, which has carried over into the present social and political system of New Mexico, goes straight back to these gentry. The American era, following the military occupation of General Kearney in 1846, and the treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, by which the territory passed to the United States, initiated a new struggle: the Spaniards, like the Indians before them—but with a much more bitter reluctance—had to yield moral and commercial sovereignty to a race backed with more money and resources than they could now put forward. It was a slow and gradual and subtle process. The country was wide and undeveloped beyond all avarice and exploitation. But as the pioneers of the Santa Fe trail, traders, miners, sheep ranchers, and the rest—quite as arrogant and unscrupulous and ready with the six-shooter as the Spanish settlers—filtered in, and later the building of the railroads introduced new elements of progress and competition, including “wild catting’ in mines, the old Spanish families began to lose their supremacy and their land. The ones who did not must have been those-in whom the sensitiveness of the Southern aristocrat had been thor- oughly tempered by Western air and sun; who were not only tough enough to endure the competition of a race that esteemed itself superior, and adaptable enough to Ameri- canize themselves, but shrewd enough to use their old pre- rogatives over the inarticulate mass of their own race to secure for themselves a new sort of political hegemony. The fate of Arizona was joined to that of New Mexico till 1863, when the former became a separate territory, and both were admitted to statehood by the Enabling Act of 1910—New Mexico in 1912. But Arizona’s greater pioneer remoteness from the capital of Santa Fe and the older Spanish settlements made her formative history rather different, and her burning modern problems are more in- volved with the mining industry than with the ancient prides, grudges, and traditions noted above. The superficial observer, savoring in New Mexico something more closely resembling European “atmosphere” than he finds elsewher in this country, does not at first realize the degree to which what may be called the Spanish complex influences the con- scious and unconscious mind of the State. He will be sur- prised to discover that Spanish is more often heard than English in many country districts, and that he cannot bar- gain for a horse or a beautiful old hand-woven blanket or a night’s lodging without the mediation of a child who has learned English at school. The State constitution provides that for twenty years after it goes into effect laws shall be published in both Spanish and English, and that no citizen shall be deprived of the right to vote or sit on juries or hold office because of his inability to write or speak English or Spanish. As a matter of fact, until very recently ses- sions of the legislature—in the memory of many opened with six-shooters—have been conducted in Spanish or bilin- gually, through a Spanish interpreter, and the interpreter is an important figure in the courts, where, though the judges are usually “American,” the juries are preponder- antly “Mexican.” The Republicans attribute much of their success with the women voters to the fact that they send out Spanish-speaking women canvassers. Twenty counties are more than half Spanish in population, a few almost 100 per cent. Even the Pueblos, with five root languages of their own, and no love for the “‘Mexicanos,” use the Spanish tongue commonly for inter-tribal communication. That only the Indians are spiritually free in New Mexico is one of the paradoxes in which the State abounds. For of course they are at the bottom of the social scale. The man from Main Street (Santa Fe) loves to tell the Eastern tenderfoot that these lazy Indians own much land which sure ought to be in the hands of white men. As a matter of fact they own, or occupy on reservations, four million acres out of seventy-eight millions, while the private land grants, so useful to the cattle interests, validated by the Court of Private Land Claims, amount to six millions. There are some 20,000 Indians all told—the least of the tribes in num- bers and importance being the once fearful Apaches, some of them the descendants of Geronimo, living on two reser- vations, the Jicarilla in the north and the Mescalero in the south central part of the State—which ex-Secretary Fall tried last year unsuccessfully by a venture of his own called in New Mexico “the spotted park bill’”—to transform into a National Park. In the northwestern corner of the State live the Navajos, 9,000 of them—there are 25,000 Navajos on the entire reservation but only one corner of it lies in New Mexico—a race of nomadic sheep farmers speaking a language quite as difficult as ancient Greek, and so protected by canyons and sand that nobody had bothered much about them but the traders who make a profit from their wool and their fine blankets, and the white sheepmen who carried on a sort of border warfare over grazing rights till oil began to gleam like a jewel in their foreheads. The other large Indian unit, the Pueblos, have from a long time .

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Nov. 21, 1923] The Nation 579 past been jealously regarded, through their ownership of rich agricultural grants scattered through the Rio Grande valley. They have suffered many encroachments upon both land and water from white and especially Spanish-American settlers; and by a deal put through by Fall and Bursum, through which the voters would greatly have profited, they would last year have lost forever but for the national uprising against the Bursum bill all the disputed portions of their territory. The New Mexico politicians still at- tribute their defeat to “paid propaganda.” Meanwhile the Pueblos have never lost their poise in the universe of being. In the midst of these contending dominant races which they have watched this long while with appraising eyes, their balanced communal life, their beautiful primitive handicrafts go on. And their extraordinarily decorative dances and religious ceremonies, carried on in the sun-baked plazas against the Gauguinesque background of the moun- tains, seem to release from the tensions of altitude and cli- mate the inner mystery and sensuous harmony of the im- memorial earth. The simple Spanish folk whom the Kansas colonist mis- prizes are also charming to look upon, with cherished and curious traditions dating far into the past. Winnowing their grain in baskets, weaving gay blankets on hand looms, dancing old folk dances, and singing old Spanish tunes to the tinkle of guitars, they look in their mountain villages, under the shadow of their great mission churches, as if they had just emerged from a peasant pastoral like their own Our Lady of Guadelupe; a miracle play given at Christmas in the dark-ceiled, whitewashed interiors. Hard working, or as much so as sun and poco tiempo will allow, seriously undernourished on a diet of beans and chile, honest and law-abiding and proudly independent on their ranches, they are harder to account for through the years and centuries, with the ascetic ardors of their Penitente rites, and the black shawls of their heads, than the Spanish- American aristocrat. Though they probably have a dash, acquired perhaps some time since, of Indian blood, they are in no way to be confounded with the peon Indian-Mexican of Old Mexico—nothing insults them so much as to be called anything less than the good Americans that they are. But the little wrinkled Don Quixotic person who smiles at one from his blue door, the sefiorita, so powdered in her hours of ease, who haunts the Santa Fe plaza, consider themselves bound by ties of true kinship to Nina Otero Warren, de- scendant of the Conquistadores, sister of the powerful Eduardo, high in Republican councils; herself the first New Mexico woman to run for Congress. And Nina Otero talks of them and loves them as “my people.” Ten years ago it was customary, in a certain valley—so the “white” farmers tell me—for the “native” voters to receive their ballots neatly marked and wrapped in a two- - dollar bill, as they mounted the hill to the schoolhouse. Last year on the election day which gave the Democrats their _ unexpected landslide, the representative of a certain candi- _ date was walking up and down in this schoolhouse, among the matter with these women? husky farmers and black shawls, grumbling loudly: “What’s They’ve all had their five dollars——” After this somebody carried out the ballot- box and somebody else made a row. A stranger to New Mexico might misunderstand this little scene. He would be wrong. The Spanish-American usually votes as his father advises over the morning cigarette. And his father advises what the loeal Don advises, on the advice of his cousin in Santa Fe. The control of the Spanish-American vote by the Republican Party, which has usually held the balance of power, has been worked out through an elaborate “pa- drone” system in the counties and a strong Spanish-Amer- ican leadership at the top, with men of the Bursum and Fall variety pulling the strings in the background. There is no saying that a greenback passes more often here than in New York City or that one party is more simon-pure than the other in this regard. As with Tammany, a job may be a return for a tribute of loyalty, given by those who for so many centuries took their orders from the patriarchal mas- ter of the hot heart and strong hand. Surely much of what happens in New Mexico may be attributed to overweening nature. Mountains may set you free, like a Chinese sage, in the contemplation of Everlast- ing Truth, or they may merely project your giddy egotism into the empyrean, and then hurl it back into the timid harness of the taboos and privileges and prohibitions of a clan. New Mexico communities, in spite of the many be- nignant gifts of God, are dominated by spectral fears from which those who rub elbows under the shadow of sky- scrapers are liberated. Free speech is undoubtedly less Sourishing here than in Boston. Public opinion is likely to get snarled up in private personalities and “small-town stuff.” Opposite factions do not sit down at the same table and discuss their differences. An Indian claim has never had a fair deal in the lower New Mexico courts. A gentle- man of the Republican persuasion may be asked by his clan to renounce friendship with a sister turned Democrat. The real reason why the “artist” who now figures as a definite element in the social grouping is so resented by a certain type of average citizen is that he is an iconoclast who does not live according to Hoyle—who hesitates, perhaps (it is not so sure) to steal his neighbor’s water, as ranchers habitually do, who likes, actually likes as human beings these Indians and Spanish people, and wants them to con- tinue in their benighted ways; and gazes upon the purple land and breathes the crystalline air with no feeling but of sensuous enjoyment and spiritual liberation. The nearest problem of the State is to assimilate the racial stocks without sacrificing their worth, to become progressive without cheapness. If the picturesque features, like Indian villages and Spanish missions, become as in Cali- fornia merely tourist attractions played up by hotelkeepers and chambers of commerce, the last fate of the Indian will be worse than his first and the rare distinction of the State will vanish away. And there is no telling what future developments in the rich and largely unexploited mining and. oil fields will do to the civilization and the landscape. The archaeological possibilities of this region, where a pottery jar as fine as any in Crete can be had for the digging, have as yet scarcely been suggested. One can con- ceive of future schools of art and decoration, music and the theater, based on native strains, which would produce in pupils of Indian or Spanish or long-established American- Southwestern provenance a flowering of creative American expression of a totally new sort. The colonist artist or writer of today, struggling to present the violent images registered on brain or retina can point the way: no more. Before the ceremonial dance paintings of the young Pueblo painters which come straight out of instincts fundamental as the earth, they must bow their heads in reverence and say—here, classic still and luminous, is the pastoral of ancient America.

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The New Russian Women By MAGDELEINE MARX iI. Aristocrats ms ELL, well, what is happening in France? Do tell me. It’s so long since we’ve heard anything about Paris.” The Countess’s chin emerges eagerly above a cameo, from which flows a cascade of black lace. She strokes the gray locks rebellious on her forehead and pats her skirt of black silk. “TI should prefer, Madame, to hear you tell me how you have managed to live during the past five years, what you have been doing: < “Ah, don’t speak of it. I can’t tell you in words. been hell, nothing less, hell.” She observes the sincere sympathy in my face. “Ah, the scoundrels, the low creatures. But it just occurs to me, Madame, and I am terribly serry: perhaps you haven’t had lunch yet? Please do me the honor of sharing my modest meal with me. Don’t refuse, I shall be dis- appointed. Oh, I know that, in comparison with the dinners you enjoy in Paris, our own poor meal will seem pathetic to you. Dear me, where are the fine feasts of the old days! The table was set all day long in those days. Our friends could drop in at any hour, and all we had to say is help yourself. There were hors d’cuvres, smoked fish, caviar, ham, whole chickens, ten kinds of fish and five kinds of confitures, pancakes, watermelon, wine from the Caucasus— what wasn’t there? And it was the same in every house that had any pride in its hospitality. Ah, one can well say that things have changed.” Despite myself, I yield to the voluble and energetic hos- pitality of the Countess and follow her into a room even more somber, in which a huge Renaissance chest, massive and imposing, seems to bar any further advance. “Sit down, I beg you.” I sit down before a table covered with red and blue em- broidery, at one end of which a samovar and its row of cups rise like an altar made of nickel and porcelain. My hostess reaches for a little bell on the table. A maid with hempen hair, who had opened the door for me, enters with two steaming plates, which she places before us. While I sip the excellent soup, tasting of cream, the objects in the room, one by one, slowly emerge from the obscurity. Behind the Countess I descry a copper bed, cov- ered with a garnet counterpane and piled with a profusion of richly hued cushions. Nearby, an Empire bookcase, crammed with books in disarray, and on it I discern the turquoise glint of two Persian vases. Before the bookcase, three arm-chairs in red plush in close file and somewhat hidden by gilded chairs, graceful and handsome, like those one sees in a ballroom. “Imagine how we have to live,” exclaims the Countess, with her spoon indicating her surroundings. “Three rooms to live in. How can we manage it, we who were accustomed to our four drawing-rooms? My husband sleeps here, in the dining-room,” she adds, her spoon indicating the bed, “while I have to make the most of a couch in the adjoining room, Ah, believe me, it isn’t very amusing. Things are a

It has little better than they were, But at first! I often wonder how we ever survived it.” I scarcely dare ask the question that comes to me. “Per- haps you have lost some of your dearest i, “No, Heaven be praised, all my family is safe. Some of them have even been able to escape and find refuge abroad. But everything has been taken from us, you understand, everything. We owned vast estates, near Tambov, and they parceled them out to the peasants. We owned a superb estate, with a huge park, two hours’ distance from here. They turned it into an orphan asylum. And all my jewels. My maiden name was R , perhaps you know it. My mother owned an emerald diadem and a pear! necklace which were famous. Well, they took those, too. And even my husband’s books. He was a great collector, but they did not spare his rarest books. Our gold and our bonds: believe me, everything!” The silent servant, who has placed before us on the table a plate of chops 4 la Pojarski and an enormous platter of potatoes has vanished again. But the eyes of the Countess are lost in retrospection still. “And the persecution!” I ask: “You were imprisoned?” “No, thank Heaven, we were spared that, too. But think of it, for eighteen months I didn’t undress once during the night. All night long, with our ears at the keyholes—can you imagine what that is? To think that, at any moment, we might be placed under arrest. And the searches: three times in two months.” My hostess is so engrossed in her tragic memories that she empties the whole jar of marmalade into her beautiful Saxony plate. How can I discreetly ask the question which has been in my thoughts? As though she had divined it, she resumes: “Poor Serge, he has changed so. Work, at his age. Earn his bread, when we owned one of the biggest fortunes in Russia. He is now curator of the F—— Mu- seum, did you know? He is so busy just now with the new catalogue he is preparing.” And then, with the quick transition of thought so char- acteristic of the Russians: “By the way, Madame, if you care for Russian music, do us the honor to come tomorrow night to the home of Princess D Twice a month (she has been lucky enough to retain her big drawing-room) we have a concert at her home. Many people go there. Two million rubles per person. Would you like a ticket? You'll hear a young woman sing Moussorgsky’s child songs as you’ve never heard them sung before.” I accept. She is delighted. And I see an opportunity to probe deeper into the matters I want to know about. “But how do all these women, your friends, manage to live?” “Madame, some of them are in a frightful situation. Perhaps you have heard speak of the Countess Ch ve The name she utters has traversed the whole history of Russia. “The Counts Ch in the thirteenth century possessed larger estates, owned more jewels, had authority over more lives than the Czars themselves. Well, she her- self, who was mistress of whole provinces and of marble palaces, now lives in the cellar of one of her own houses.

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Nov. 21, 1923] Her cook lived there before. And she, I can assure you, has remained a fighter. There are some who have yielded, but she—they offered her employment, quite important positions, but never, never will she accept anything from the Bolshe- viki. She would rather die than eat their bread.” “Still, one must eat.” “Alas, yes, one must eat. What can she do? She sells what little has been left to her: precious tapestries, rare jewels, silver, works of art, everything. I know that the extent of her possessions in the old days would dazzle your imagination, but just the same there is an end to everything, and the day will come when she will have nothing left.” “And the strangest thing of all,” continues the old lady, her eyelids narrowing venomously, “is that all the six chil- dren of the Countess Ch are now in the employ of the Soviets.” “They have been converted?” “Oh, no, how can you say that? But, after all, they are youngsters, and, as you said, one must live.” Night has now invaded the room. The volubility of the Countess is suddenly exhausted. In the silence I hear the soft hiss of steaming water-drops falling into a large silver bow! from the faucet of the samovar. “SOG re” “Yes, yes, off. Off for Stettin!” Softly the boat turns, leaves a curved trail in the ice- gray water of the Neva, and speeds toward the point of Vassilievski Ostrov. Already, to the left, the Admiralty and the Winter Palace melt in the mist. Once more the six old ladies, who seem to have stepped out of a Turgenev novel, wave a final adieu to the Lilliputian group on the pier. Petrograd disappears. The women have found their seats in the dining-saloon. The oldest of them has kept on her wide cape of black ma- terial lined with squirrel over her homespun tailor-made suit padded with numberless sweaters, and she is so bulky that she had to be assisted to squeeze into her chair. All the others have made a hasty toilette: one, with a graceful car- riage, has on a hooded cloak, and on the bosom of her neigh- bor there ripples a jabot fastened with a crown set with perfect diamonds. The smallest of the women is really charming: erect, winsome, she smiles as though she were asking pardon for breathing, even for existing. “Our nightmare is over at last!” cries the woman in the hooded cloak. “I can hardly believe it.” “Those are the two Baronesses M. ,’ whispers my neighbor, indicating the woman who has just spoken and another whose blotched face is framed in a black mantilla. “They were often guests at Court, and they were very close to the imperial family.” “To be able to say at last what we really think! Nothing to fear! To be able to tell them the truth abroad, tell them what we saw with our own eyes!” exclaims the young woman with the bilious countenance, Exclamations intermingle. Now in pure French, now in German, now in accentless Eng- lish—never in Russian—the conversation rises almost to the point of exaltation. The bosoms of the elder women puff, their eyes shine: “What will you have, Alexandra? TI’ll take wine. I want to drink to a day that I never expected to live to see. Waiter, a bottle of Bordeaux.” They impress me as a witness. “We suffered so much,” The Nation 581 “Tell me.” “My dear woman, it was death. Submission to the laws of the lower classes! To see in their eyes the disgusting tri- umph of brutes who can be inspired only by vodka and the whip! We had to do our own cooking, can you imagine: we had to do it ourselves!” “IT had a rare collection of miniatures,” interrupts the winsome young woman. “They took it away. I understand they put it in the Hermitage Museum at Petrograd.” “And what meals,” the younger of the baronesses resumes. “Kasha, potatoes, and tea—for five years. And there were times when we had to run our own errands.” “And all they have done, the brutes. Ah, if you had seen our lovely St. Petersburg—before. They have destroyed everything, everything. The Czar’s handsome palace. They have pillaged it, defiled, ruined it.” I begin to feel uncomfortable. The previous day I had spent four hours at the Winter Palace. I saw the White Room, the Gold Room, and the Silver Room, all absolutely intact. I saw the imperial dining-room with its musical chandelier and its dull silver samovar. I saw the rooms of the Grand Duchesses, with their blue enamel Easter eggs and their ikons crowding one upon the other. I saw the dressing-room of the Czarina, with its faded pastels, her dressing-table set in a background of vaporous mousseline, her pin-cushions covered with Valenciennes lace. I saw the Czar’s study, with its banal furniture, its tasteless sea- scapes hung on the walls, the books with infantile illustra- tions which he liked to skim, the ivory writing-set and jade objects, gifts of the Empress; and, on his large table, with the pens, pencils, and pads he used, the dull array of family photographs, from which emerges prominently one of the Czarina, inscribed: “Your ever loving Alix.” I saw all this, and I report the fact timidly. “It isn’t true,” the Baroness interrupts angrily. “T can well understand your speaking so calmly, Madame,” says the winsome little woman, sweetly speaking up to cover my error. “You are a Frenchwoman. They haven’t tor- tured you.” “Whom do you mean by they: Lenin, Trotzky?” “Lenin, Trotzky, who are they?” Amazed, I ask: “What, haven’t you i “Never. I’ve never allowed anyone to speak of them, never wanted to hear their names mentioned. I don’t want to know who they are. I know they are a band of Jews, of murderers, of scoundrels, and that’s enough for me.” “It’s true,” ventures the winsome little woman, “we refuse to read their infamous newspapers. We forbid those around us to tell us what is happening. They could only tell us of pillage and bloodshed, isn’t it so? We succeeded in creating a little circle which nothing from outside penetrated: just we and an old servant. It was this secluded life and the comfort of prayer which pulled us through.” I ask them more questions. I hear that the schools, which I inspected for two months, have all been closed; that the theaters, which I attended almost every evening, have all been burned down; that Tverskaya Street in Moscow, where I spent the most peaceful days of my visit in Russia, was the scene of daily machine-gun slaughter. When, in order to draw them out, I mention historical facts, I see about me seven human beings, seven cultured women, more ignorant of the events of the past five years in Russia than the dullest peasant of France.

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3046 In the Driftway S he has remarked before, the Drifter is opposed to A generalizations, particularly about men and women. When he hears that men are strong and women are beau- tiful, he thinks of the Powerful Katinka and the Discus Thrower. He refuses either to hold with that large group, whose theories are admirably illustrated by Trust Company advertisements which tell a sad story of a man’s fortune dissipated in five years because his wife was too inexperi- enced and ignorant of business, or with the smaller and more select group of which Mr. Mencken is the spokesman at present, whose contention is that women do not generally go into business because they recognize its essential trivial- ity, but that when they do, they sweep the men off the boards. He is opposed to generalizations. And yet, as he passes St. Paul’s churchyard to his lunch every day, he sees a curious sight: the spellbinders are there, the sweating soul-savers, beating the air in the name of Christianity or their particular version of it; and in the crowd which daily presses around the frenzied speaker he has, in two years, seen not more than at most three women amid the scores of men. * * * * * E will not pretend to interpret this scene. Let those who wish to draw deductions from external observa- tion say that the absence of women at these gatherings proves that women are not curious or anxious for new ex- perience, or that they are too sensible to waste time. Either of these things may be true, or neither. The spellbinders remain. Every day they begin their harangue in a moder- ately loud voice, urging the doctrine of salvation through publicity, and every day as their audience—their male audi- ence—increases they become more heated: their collars are torn, their eyes roll, their accents are wild and shrill. The climax is usually reached when some member of the crowd volunteers to kneel with the preacher and be prayed over personally, and publicly. There is of course a certain pas- sage which says: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.” * * * * * HE Drifter is not one to begrudge them any reward they may get. For the world is made up of many persons doing different things. There is, for example, the gentle- man who at this moment is engaged in walking backwards from the Atlantic Coast to San Francisco. He breezed into a little Virginia town the other day carrying a mirror in his hand to see his road with, and in the company of a friend who, although progressing in the usual way, was watching to see that he did not cheat. He explained that it was easy enough to make ten miles a day walking back- wards; the strain was not on his legs but it was “mental’’: mostly because of the hundreds of persons daily who asked questions about his strange behavior. The Drifter is op- posed to generalizations. Accordingly he will be willing to wager that in the crowds which lined the roadside and hurled interrogation or even derision at this crab-like crea- ture there were fully as many women as men. THE DRIFTER. Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case theEditor reserves the right to abridge communications. } Some Sins of Omission TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: How could Dreiser write an entire article on Indiana and never once mention the name of its greatest man, Eugene V. Debs? San Francisco, October 12 MIRIAM ALLEN DE ForpD To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Dreiser’s article on Indiana from an idealistic—if not realistic—standpoint could not have been improved upon. A politician would not have treated the State so kindly. The author’s modesty in not mentioning the fact that his brother wrote the song “‘On the Banks of the Wabash” may be excused but not the careless omission of James Buchanan Elmore, the “Bard of Alamo,” who wrote that immortal poem “The Monon Wreck.” Washington, D. C., October 15 AGNES E. BECKER ‘The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here”’ TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: “King’s at the Mansion; and nobody ain’t gwine to pull him from there!” This is the slogan that has won for the Republic of Liberia a continuance of her laisser-aller policy, and has placed the Hon. Charles Dunbar King, for a further four years, definitely in the presidential chair. But will Liberia be a land of Negro government for even that short period of time? Can America and Europe afford to allow a bankrupt people, with no healthy scheme of self-regeneration, to remain longer in the rut? No roads, no telegraphs, no rail- ways, a postal-system that permits the President, at his own autocratic will, to intercept and destroy private correspondence, corruption on the bench, a depleted indigenous population, as the direct result of a cold-blooded policy of exporting “labor” (for the sake of head money) to other parts of West Africa, victimization of “white” residents, and everywhere a state of chicanery, deception, tyranny, and lying—this is Liberia. Mr. King has held the reins since the beginning of 1920. If he is to hold them for another four years, little hope would seem to remain that the Liberian community can sustain self- government. For the republic is worse than bankrupt—it is consciously fraudulent! The People’s Party, with the Hon. S. G. Harmon at its head, has suffered an overwhelming defeat. I watched the election on the first day of last May—from the vantage-ground of the piazza at Grand Bassa, directly overlooking the polling booth. Early in the day there arrived in the town hordes of aborigines from the interior. These were naked, most of them, save for a narrow strip of cloth about the loins. They all carried thick sticks, as though prepared to contest their right to vote by weight of force. As they surged past the bungalow they were singing, in monotonous minor key, their local chanties. Gangs of this kind continued to appear throughout the morning. They were invariably led by one or the other of Mr. King’s adherents. These Liberian conductors would see them safely past the win- dow of the polling booth. Representatives of the People’s Party stood around the in- closure, sullenly acquiescent in the utilization of the “native” vote. They had not been apprised of this maneuver of Mr. King’s party until toward the end of the period of preparation. They had—reluctantly—adopted the same method of voting;

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Nov. 21, 1923] The Nation 583 but it was too late for them to equalize the scale, especially as these natives’ votes were all admittedly “bought.” The People’s Party was out for a complete change in gov- ernment policy. Mr. Harmon has behind him long business experience as a merchant. Mr. Faulkner, the proposed Vice- President, is a progressive American Negro. To him, and him alone, the capital (Monrovia) owes what little electric-power plant is to be found within the borders of the republic. Har- mon and Faulkner, in partnership, might have saved the sink- ing ship. Meanwhile, Liberia is only a Gilbertian travesty of the boast “The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here!” For sav- age mobs, bribed by government money, marshaled by suborned officials, and fully determined to maintain the autocratic rule of Mr. King, may not be regarded as an honorable electorate. In such circumstances we can only wait—and watch the march of events. Grand Bassa, Liberia, May 30 J. M. Stuart YoOuNG An Editorial Suggestion To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: I am very much interested in The Nation and any other paper in the world which prints the truth and is not kept by some faction, whatever that faction may be. I believe in free speech, and when I say “free speech” I mean free with no “but I don’t think they ought to print that” added to it and no “ifs” and “ands.” I would like to see The Nation or some other liberal publication in the home of every American, and it is only a question, If they got it would they have intelligence enough to understand it, and if they had intelligence enough to understand it would they read it? In this campaign of mine to put The Nation in the home of every American, and gradually the whole English-speaking world, there is certain information which I would like to have, and it is as follows: 1. A history of the liberal press in America from earliest times, and I suggest that Ludwig Lewisohn be commissioned to write it. 2. A story of the various writers of The Nation, just as Bar- ron’s Financial Weekly has stories about financiers every week. Let us start, for instance, with Mr. Villard, of whom we of the Great Unwashed know nothing. Tell the truth about him; tell how he has worked on The Nation and in the cause of free speech these many years without the payment of a single penny, but also, if he happens to be so broadminded on the Negro question, for instance, that he is narrow, tell that also. Write about Upton Sinclair and tell of his courage, but if you think he is a four-flusher, as I do, then include that also. Write about Ludwig Lewisohn and say that he is the greatest writer of the English language in America today and among its great- est thinkers, but if he wrote too pretty a story of Germany and a little too mean a story of America, then say so. Let this story of the various members of the staff of The Nation be like the stories of the States. Let them come one after another and let the writer of them be as bitter as he pleases. We want to know The Nation and its writers and its history. I want The Nation to prosper and have a circulation of 10,000,000. And when that happens, there’ll be no Mussolini, Ku Klux Klan, Kaiser, Woodrow Wilson, Poincaré, Negro agitator, Volstead, Senator Lodge, or Commander Owsley of the American Legion. San Antonio, Texas, September 27 JAMES FONTAINE A Worthy Candidate To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: Being less of a “cook” than you are yourself, I am not at all prepared to talk on the subject of what is a typical Ameri- can dinner. But in your suggestions you omitted corned beef and cabbage or, as it is getting to be known, “J iggs Special.” Am I mistaken about the nationality of this famous dish? Barnesville, Ohio, October 25 S. L. Davis Books Ludwig Lewisohn By LUDWIG LEWISOHN HAVE a very thoughtful friend who is always pointing out what seems to him a discrepancy in my activities. He says that I am a radical in my notions about life and a classicist in my notions about literature. My answer is that he is quite right, that I accept the imputation and glory in it, provided, cf course, that I am permitted to define my terms. A radical is one who insists that men shall live by the use of reason. (He means it. He does not stop using his reason when he is suddenly confronted by some particularly hoary and dis- reputable prejudice, taboo, superstition. It is at that point that he insists all the more on using his reason. Even at the risk of hurting some one’s feelings. For by sparing this, for the mo- ment, imaginary antagonist’s feelings our radical gives that antagonist the continued privilege of spreading ruin and feel- ing righteous.) A classicist is one who has accepted the teaching of the his- tory of literature that the fundamental character of art-form is determined by the medium and the nature of man. (Art is communication. It must be intelligible. Therefore it must be articulate. There are irreducible minima of articulate intelli- gibility. Where these do not exist art has not yet begun to be. Gertrude Stein has not transcended the traditions of art. She has not yet reached them. Note: If terms and the things they stand for are to mean anything and we are to have poetry and prose then the fundamentum differentionis is the presence in poetry of a perceptible recurrence of similar rhythm-groups. . .. No, this is not pedantic. It is only exact.) I am, then, a radical and a classicist. And, humble as I am, I am in amazingly good company—Plato, Euripides, Montaigne, Milton, Shelley, Goethe, Nietzsche. .. . I knew from the beginning that I would please no one. While I was a university teacher my colleagues thought me dangerous, subversive, prone to defend the new, the revolutionary in life and letters. Now, on the other hand, my past is thrown up at me. Among dramatic critics I am thought of as academic. When I write fiction I am told that I am a licentious fellow. It is all inevitable enough; it is often amusing. There is noth- ing for me to do but serenely to accept the penalties of my posi- tion. For the plain truth is this: People in our time and coun- try are not accustomed to have those who think know anything and they are even less accustomed to having one who knows try to think. The radicals have read nothing written before 1900; the university men vote the Republican ticket and walk humbly in the sight of their trustees and their God... . So much for my central position which I felt it more or less of a duty to define. Now for the more strictly personal, in- definable, elusive things. For criticism, too, is art. ... It is borne in upon me more and more that I am something of a simpleton. I can grasp everything in Plato and in the second part of “Faust.” What I read there corresponds to my experience of both the soul and the world. I cannot understand even one-half of what is written in, let me say, the prose of Mrs. Virginia Woolf or the verse of Mr. D. H. Lawrence. I keep wondering whether others do or whether they don’t care. When I don’t want to understand I listen to music. When I read literature I insist on understanding. Do my friends de- ceive themselves? Or do I deceive myself into thinking they deceive themselves in order to save my vanity as a man and a critic? At all events I am more and more tempted to flee from the works of the very subtle and the neo-mystical to works that I can understand. Mr. Lawrence’s poetry can drive me as far back as Pope and Horace; the new mystics—including such great writers as Jacob Wassermann—as far back as Swift and Hume. It is hopeless. I can’t get away from my combination— radical and classicist.

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584. The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3046 As a simple person I should possess the immunities of my temper and my limitations. I don’t. I am often told that I am too intricate and profound. Or else that I ape intricacy and pro- fundity. In brief, I am known here and there as a vicious “highbrow.” And that is always, I observe, when I say things that seem obvious and plain and incontrovertible to me. Here are some of them: If a book or a play isn’t, in the ultimate sense, a work of art—isn’t the translation of first-hand experience into creative form and vision—it isn’t worth reviewing. But if it is—then it is inviolable. The critic shouldn’t tinker, advise, or, in the ordinary sense, find fault. For, in that ordi- nary sense, a work of art has no faults. Works of art differ as faces differ in beauty, intelligence, significance. But each human face is that face. Each authentic work of art is that work of art. It has grown in its author’s mind and soul as a child grows in its mother’s womb. I do not wish to reduce that truth to the absurd. Nearly every truth can be so reduced. But before every work of art, however humble, I try to be pas- sive, to discover what the author willed to do, to project.... I don’t talk past books or plays or poems. People are constantly talking past my own books. They establish no inner contact with them. They read as they run and then tell what they think, what they would have done, what they would have had me do. If I have one aim as a critic it is that no author shall accuse me of that carelessness, arrogance, impertinence. If I cannot get under the skin of a work of art I leave it alone. If I err, if I do not always follow my own counsel perfectly, it is because, as time goes on, I care less and less for art in its more abstract forms and more and more for life. I am too pre- occupied to be held by anything that approaches the decorative. It is the remediable moral suffering in the world that crowds my vision—the remediable moral suffering, remediable by a little hard thinking, a little tolerance, a little more goodness, a little less righteousness. If I write a criticism it is to further that supreme end; if I write a novel it is to further the same end. Is that bad criticism and bad art? It may be.because I am a bad critic and a bad artist. It is not because my method and my aim are at fault. For the same aim and method were and are the aim and the method of Isaiah and Euripides, Hauptmann and Shaw. The greatest art has always sought to lessen the evils that are under the sun. But I am only I and this city is only this city and the great choices being taken from me I have a little choice left. If that little choice is indeed all I have I do not hesitate. Shall I be a fairly accomplished aesthete or a pamphleteer? A pamphleteer, by all means. Even a pamphle- teer needn’t write ill. Lessing was one, Swift another. [The next in this series of articles on critics by themselves, H. L. Mencken, by H. L. Mencken, will appear in The Nation for December 5.] Personality and the Press Some Newspapers and Newspapermen. Villard. Alfred A. Knopf. $3. cp REESE has been in the last few years a notable increase in the number of books dealing with public opinion in its for- mation and expression. Obviously this is a result of the war, in which we had the experience of finding ourselves moving un- der the impulse of mass currents in a direction quite opposite to that prescribed by our national character and tradition, and to a destination which we could never, as individuals, have de- sired or chosen. We have become curious as to the processes of social psychology by which we were controlled. The war has educated public opinion into self-consciousness. Naturally a prime object of our consideration is the daily press. Mr. Villard’s book has a more modest aim than Mr. Lippmann set himself in his study of public opinion as an organism. It has a more limited objective than Mr. Upton Sinclair’s attempt to psychoanalyze the press in “The Brass Check.” “Some News- By Oswald Garrison papers and Newspapermen,” as its title announces, is a study of the great dailies of the country in the light of their origin, history, environment, political and financial affiliations, and of the men who made and contro] them. It is a series of character sketches, in which each newspaper is a personality, expressed in the lineaments of its headlines and make-up and also in its behavior. It is a survey of elements of immense importance in our social life, and is comparable in scope to that study of municipalities made twenty years ago by Mr. Lincoln Steffens. It is to be said at the outset that Mr. Villard is unusually well fitted for his task. He inherited the ownership of a great newspaper. No one ever questioned his journalistic ability or his high view of the responsibilities of the profession, to which he was willing to sacrifice material success. Since his retirement from the field he has occupied a favorable position for observation, and he has supplemented that observation with intelligent study of underlying conditions. It might be feared that Mr. Villard would write of his one-time rivals with bitter- ness or scorn. His judgments, it is true, are severe, but who will say that they are not just? Who will deny his indictment of the New York Times: “No journal has exceeded it in dissemi- nating falsehoods, misrepresentations, and half truths during the unparalleled era of wholesale lying in which the whole world has lived since 1914”? Who can gainsay his comment on the Public Ledger: “The newspaper which dwells alongside the Saturday Evening Post, for all its excellent qualities and features, is without originality or distinction, and without a soul”? Yet the characters in Mr. Villard’s drama are not all villains; and if he has no heroes he sees with admirable clear- ness the journalistic ideal and sets it forth with real eloquence. In only a few matters, it seems to me, Mr. Villard’s personal sympathy or animus has led him astray. The Minnesota Daily Star is a paper with 6,250 owners, and, as Mr. Villard says, “its success is of enormous moment to the cause of good journalism everywhere.” Yet the 6,250 owners were powerless when “the dominating force,” Thomas Van Lear, dismissed Herbert E. Gas- ton from the editorship. Mr. Villard attributes Mr. Gaston’s departure to “a clash of personalities.” It was more than that —it was a clash of principles. In the interest of the experiment of a newspaper with distributed ownership the whole story should have been told. Similarly the story of Fremont Older’s departure from the San Francisco Bulletin and his engage- ment with Hearst’s Call and Post is passed over. Clearly, Mr. Older felt that he could serve his public through the Hearst connection. Mr. Villard apparently disagrees, but he sheers away from the issue. This omission is the more striking when contrasted with the way in which he attacks Norman Hapgood for accepting service under Hearst, not as the editor of a daily, but as a writer and editor of a monthly. Mr. Villard’s hatred of Hearst dates from the days when he, and other respectable editors, were trying to play the game according to rules which Hearst would not recognize. He sees Mr. Hapgood with sor- row rather than anger, as a lost leader. “Just for a handful of silver he left us.” Nevertheless, from the absolutist point of view, Mr. Hearst looks a good deal like the others. From Mr. Villard’s own pages it is permissible to conclude that Mr. Ochs and his Times are a greater and more subtle public danger than the Hearst press. And after all the sauce for Mr. Hap- good’s goose is equally appropriate for Mr. Older’s gander. Undoubtedly the chief interest in Mr. Villard’s book is in the narratives of successful struggle and the vivid portraits which lend to his subjects the interest of drama and character. He shows how practically all the great newspapers of this coun- try owe their origin to some dominating individual, the New York Times to Ochs, the World to Pulitzer, the Herald to Ben- nett, the Chicago Tribune to Medill, the Louisville Courier- Journal to Watterson, the Kansas City Star to Nelson. Most of these, like the Italian condottieri, founded institutions which after their death continued to bear the impress of their per- sonalities, and left power which under their successors tends to become diffused into a system. It is the glimpses which Mr.

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Nov. 21, 1923] The Nation 585 Villard gives of this system which make his book significant as a social study. One of the first generalizations which the reader will make is the fact that news is now a commodity, valuable primarily for its salability, selected according to what editors think is pub- lic taste, and set forth with window dressing, counter displays, and advertising as in all other merchandising. And as in mer- chandising, the demand creates the supply, and the supply in turn is made the occasion of an artificial demand. The public wants certain goods, including trash and scandal and lies; the newspaper exists as a vast machine for purveying these goods, and the appetite of the public, particularly for trash, etc., grows by what it feeds on. The peculiar menace of the newspaper is that it is in this respect like an insidious habit-producing drug. The newspaper owner has it in his power to extend indefinitely the appetite of the public for wares which he has a special con- cern in marketing. He can make his readers desire and expect atrocities from Germany, follies from Russia, conspiracy and treason in America; and when his reader is intoxicated with this stuff he can sell him a war or a Red Raid. Mr. Villard is not bound to suggest a remedy for this state of things and he does not do so. He is sympathetic toward ex- periments in diffused or cooperative ownership, but his training has disposed him to think of the power of the press in personal terms, and his hope for the future is in an appeal to personal leadership. This gives significance in his closing chapters on E. L. Godkin and W. L. Garrison. One suggestion of social value is implicit in his pages. He notes frequently that great in- crease of circulation has been accompanied by a decline of in- fluence in local affairs; that the opinions and advice of such papers as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and the Louisville Courier-Journal no longer are decisive in respect to matters within the scope of the personal knowledge of their readers. It is possible to hope that in respect to matters of na- tional and international concern, where the falsifications of the press are most disastrous, the public may, by painful education, acquire the protection of this skepticism, and learn by the de- velopment of a kind of reader’s sense to make automatically the adjustments necessary to distinguish between news and propa- ganda. In that case, we could afford to take the newspapers and newspapermen more lightly, and Mr. Villard could write about them more cheerfully than at present. Rosert Morss Lovett Tales of Revolt Robert Gregory. The History of a Little Soul. By John Owen. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2. Holiday. By Waldo Frank. Boni and Liveright. $2. Fs an article on the spirit of America after the war Mr. Stephen Graham discussed the growing regimentation and stratification of society in the United States. “America is more like England in this respect,” he wrote. “Men begin to be in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call them.” However, we have not yet reached that static state of business where the son inherits his father’s calling as he comes into the “old man’s” cast-off clothes. When our office boy says “my firm,” he still unconsciously implies the possibility that he may own the business rather than the fact that the firm owns him. Though named by others the white-collar slave, the Ameri- ean clerk is the least class-conscious of our multifariously unconscious working classes. He will admit no kinship with Robert Gregory, the English clerk in the nth generation, who seeks pathetically to leave the road that his father has traveled before him, who skids from side to side braving the danger of catastrophe only to end as he had begun—in the rut. Our clerk finds his kin in the thousand incarnations of the humble hero who lives happily after acquiring both his master’s business and his comely daughter. Yet “Robert Gregory” should be “required reading” for the American clerk, though one need not be a clerk to appreciate and understand the pain and the struggle recorded in it. The story wins one’s sympathy immediately. Like all true art, it achieves the identification of subject and spectator. Moreover, Mr. Owen has been just as true to life as to art; he has written with knowl- edge as well as fervor. And if this knowledge has forced him to emphasize the drab and the sordid, this fervor has enabled him to rescue the commonplace from dulness and ugliness. Robert’s revolt animates even his incompetence and makes tragedy of his dramatic failure. Waldo Frank writes the tale of another futile revolt from the only inescapable social position in American life, that of the Negro in the South. His original contribution to the recent variations on this theme lies in showing the white man—in this case the white woman—as helpless a slave to his place in the social structure as the black and equally unable to step across the border line. A far greater contribution is the unforgettable symphony of “Niggertown,” full of passion and pain. Despite their similarity in thematic material, these books are as far apart in conception and style as it is possible for two novels to be. Mr. Owen writes in the best manner of the tradi- tional form for fiction; Mr. Frank continues to lead the Amer- ican neoterics in poetry and power of expression. The difference in their work is the difference between trouvére and troubadour. The first is an historian of social customs; the other a minstrel of personal sentiments. “Holiday” is more dramatic than ‘‘Rob- ert Gregory” but less honest; it is more elusive but less alive. In Mr. Frank’s novel the subject has its apotheosis in sex; Mr. Owen uses sex as one of many illustrations. It is not my purpose to decide in favor of one method and against the other, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that for all its beauty and worth, “‘Holiday” is simply a lyrical outburst, whereas “Robert Gregory” is a definitive study of man and manners. Waldo Frank, too, is concerned with men and women but his way of characterizing them is like Shelley’s description of the lark, which the game warden failed to recognize. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO The World We Want Prospects of Industrial Civilization. By Bertrand and Dora Russell. The Century Company. $2. OOKS in which Bertrand Russell has a hand—other than his popularly incomprehensible mathematical treatises— have an engaging childlike quality. His imagination roams the universe with light-footed daring. His personal preferences are naively set forth. His conclusions result from brilliant improvi- sation, sometimes resting on detailed knowledge of his premises, but more often arising merely from the broadest of impressions, and embodying amusing simplifications of the facts. The conse- quence is two-fold: inspired illuminations of human problems akin to the wisdom proceeding from the mouths of babes and sucklings, and equally stimulating but fantastic departures from reality. The present book consists of two parts, the first an analysis of the world’s present troubles, and the second an attempt to define and discover the approaches to a better social order. The authors believe that the two chief disintegrating in- fluences in the modern world are the conflicts leading to inter- national war inherent in nationalism, and the conflicts between exploiter and exploited inherent in industrialism. Both must be allayed not merely to produce a decent world, but to avoid universal catastrophe. The interactions of these two forces are producing a situation in which the catastrophe draws ever closer. What chance is there of avoiding it? No chance, if both or either of the conflicts is to come to a violent issue everywhere in the world, since the struggle incident to the victory of either side would blast an abyss under both. The authors are not so es ——EE es eee =

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586 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3046 rere een sanguine as to hope for complete escape from violence. But they do, by an intricate and bold course of reasoning, conclude that nationalistic struggles may come to an end by the creation of a few great self-sufficient land empires capable of defense but unready for attack, and that a new economic order, though prevented by violence or unfavorable conditions everywhere else in the world, may arrive opportunely in the United States with a minimum of bloodshed. The second part of the book is less closely knit. It contains brilliant observations on the proper test for a desirable social order, and attempts to apply the test to such things as moral standards, sources and distribution of power, education, and economic organization. It will be no surprise to Mr. Russell’s readers to discover that the authors find their criteria in their conception of the good type of man, and that they want a so- ciety not unduly regimented, in which material gain, competi- tion, and work are subordinated to health, friendship, aesthetic and intellectual pursuits, and leisure. Few civilized persons will dispute the broad assumptions and desires of such delightful authors. But as a definite contribu- tion to detailed analysis and solution of the world’s problems, the book has no more authority, and no more appositeness, than would naturally arise from the random speculation of such in- telligent and sympathetic amateurs. The authors seem to be blind to the part which must be played by the newer type of human science, if man is to control his fate. Exact and detailed knowledge, combined with carefully controlled experiments, are as necessary for ordered human relationships as they are for engineering and medicine. The authors object to the valuation of science for its utilitarian purposes rather than for the sake of pure knowledge. In this attitude they are doubtless thinking of the physical sciences, whose immense contribution to material progress has been paralleled by so little contribution to happi- ness. But the way out, I believe, lies not in the substitution of an absolutist philosophy for the pragmatic, but in the exten- sion of the pragmatic test to the sciences underlying human be- havior and organization. It is precisely because economists and psychologists have in the past been satisfied with introspective methods and closed systems of “natural law” rather than with quantitative investigations of data and experimental testing of results that we do not yet know how to make the kind of world we want, though we do know how to build skyscrapers and auto- mobiles. GEORGE SOULE A Hamlet in Politics The Life of Lord Rosebery. By E. T. Raymond. George H. Doran Company. $3. Fok more than a generation after the establishment of the new political order in Japan the old Shogun still lived. Change rapidly succeeded change in the process of modernizing the country’s institutions, while the once supreme ruler watched everything from a position of obscure retirement as a private citizen, no one even suggesting that his counsel or cooperation would be of any national service. Very similar has been the situation of Lord Rosebery for many a long year. When there have been government defeats or other acute crises in British politics, in all the excited canvassing of ministerial changes the name of one of the most highly gifted of former premiers has never been so much as mentioned. Politically he has been as dead as any eighteenth-century statesman entombed in West- minster Abbey. It is significant that not only in recording the incidents of Lord Rosebery’s life but in depicting his personal traits the present biographer writes everywhere not “he is” but “he was.” The most satisfactory explanation available both of the rise of Lord Rosebery and of his decline and fall will be found in Mr. Raymond’s brilliant biography. A reader who knew nothing and cared nothing about British politics might easily find this book of absorbing interest merely as a psychological study. It ana- lyzes, sympathetically and yet unsparingly, one of the most fascinating characters in the public life of modern times, and sets forth with admirable clearness the causes both of Lord Rose- bery’s initial successes and of the ultimate futility of his dis- appointing career. Mr. Raymond shows how the circumstances of his birth and training contributed to make him what he be- came; how, for instance, his Scotticism made it difficult for him to fit precisely into any English scheme of things; how his being “sent down” from Oxford deprived him of his last chance of getting the stimulus of competition in spheres where his caste could not help him; how the handicap of his early suc- cession to a peerage caused him to miss the discipline of the wholesome day-by-day clash with men of various classes and temperaments in the House of Commons, as well as of the con- stant compulsion to pull his full weight in the political game; and how his wealth, his aristocratic lineage, and his great natural endowment as an orator all conspired to make of him a spoiled favorite of fortune. But these things come far short of telling the whole story. “There is no single clue,” writes the biographer, “to the mystery of Lord Rosebery, with his spasmodic brilliances, his strange lethargies, his sudden strengths, his unexpected weaknesses.” Perhaps Mr. Raymond brings us nearest to a single explanatory formula when he speaks of the constant incompatibility between Lord Rosebery’s mind and his temperament. His imagination was seized by the harsher and more rugged virtues—such as independence, self-sufficiency, frugality, tenacity—but in prac- tice he was very unlike the stoic hero he idealized. He had to reconcile an aristocratic temper with a democratic creed, and as time went on the problem became more and more difficult until at last his early enthusiasms faded away. His biographer shrewdly remarks that Lord Rosebery was always the eloquent exponent of the views of others rather than himself an origi- nator, and that the relative tameness of the concluding phases of his career may be partly due to the absence of men big enough to furnish him with the appropriate stimulus. In this book, as in its predecessors on the same shelf, Mr. Raymond shows himself a master of the art of putting things. In addressing the House of Lords Lord Rosebery “adopted the tone of a very consciously sane chaplain addressing the inmates of a home for imbeciles.” His Chesterfield speech “smacked rather of the epitaph than of the manifesto.” With him, as with most men, “cynicism was only a form of going into black for a departed self.” And the tenor of the narrative is sometimes quite helpfully broken by passages in which Mr. Raymond ex- presses his own opinions on some relevant topic. He explains, for instance, in three illuminating pages, why it is a mistake to speak of London as “an imperial city’; he discusses the charac- teristic differences between aristocrats and middle-class men as cabinet ministers; and, in an excellent and well-balanced criti- cism of imperialism, he offers some suggestive reflections on the “lesser” and the “larger” patriotism. HERBERT W. HoRWILL The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 3. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. a a ee, ae

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4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924, 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. Drama Scramble |“ spite of the tumult and the shouting the season is, so far, an uninteresting one. We are at its very height and there are just two plays in which the mind can take solid satisfaction —“Windows” and “Tarnish.” The visit to these shores of famous players or famous organizations of players does not, after all, furnish one with that ultimate satisfaction which the theater has to offer—a fresh or vigorous or beautiful projec- tion of some part of that natural and inherent struggle and crisis which is the essence “of man, of nature, and of human life.” Hence I am pleased, but pleased quite without enthusiasm, by Mr. Walter Hampden’s spirited revival of “Cyrano de Ber- gerac” at the National Theater. The play in its original tongue has infinite verve and sparkle and even poetic eloquence of a kind. Stripped of that it becomes a thing of somewhat delib- erate if gallant posturing and can neither enlarge the mind nor touch the heart. What is true of “Cyrano de Bergerac” is far more true, of course, of “The Swan,” by Ferenc Molnar (Cort Theater). Molnar knows more of mediatized or semi-mediatized prince- lings than either Anthony Hope or George Barr McCutcheon ever did. Frequently in the first act and more sporadically throughout he has shrewd observations upon these pathetic and futile people. But the play, though it may deserve a slightly better fate, is played both out of and to the Zenda-Graustark mood and caters partly to tinsel romanticism, partly to the undying snob in the soul of man. The production and the act- ing are both hopelessly sweet. The root of the matter is in none of these things. It is in “The Shame Woman,” by Miss Lula Vollmer, the author of “Sun Up.” As in “Sun Up” so in “The Shame Woman” the fable cracks and crumbles at a definite point. The death of Lily is simply incredible. We know perfectly well that the girl didn’t die, nor is her death a signal for the withdrawal of the action into a region of the symbolic. Nevertheless “The Shame Woman” marks an advance over “Sun Up” in this respect, that the break in the action is not the intellectual suicide of the fable. The story, proceeding straight from the characters of the people, is not altered in its inner character and thus, espe- cially with the fine example of Mr. Gilbert Emery before us, I hope that, in her third play, Miss Vollmer will quite have got ever the besetting vice of the young American dramatist— an ogreish appetite for his own ideas and words. The dramatic texture of “The Shame Woman” is quite on a level with that of “Sun Up.” Again Miss Vollmer’s presenta- tion of folk life is rich and authentic; again she tells us what we are most eager to know—the inner truth of human lives. Again we see exemplified the recurrent experience that art most deeply rooted in a given soil has the best chance of at- I LST The Nation 587 Distinguished Fall Books THE HOPEFUL JOURNEY Beatrice Kean Seymour Critics are calling this story finer, more penetrating, more just than various many-editioned novels which have to do with marriage and the social order. It is the story of the love and marriage of three successive generations of women. $2.0 KANGAROO D. H. Lawrence It would be easy to fill this page with enthusiastic e quotations about this story of a thought-adventurer oy caught in the swirling current of social forces in post- : war Australia, And the book is rich with nee OPEN ALL NIGHT ~ ‘|f Paul Morand : The wit and grace of these adventures in the capitals in of Europe have captivated America as they did France. it The subtle insight of their author justifies the pages by of appreciation which all the important journals of i America have devoted to them. The first edition was exhausted within a few days of publication. $2.00 DR. GRAESLER Arthur Schnitzler y The writing of no modern author is quite like Schnitz- S ler’s. In this new novel he again gives us a story grace- * ful, subtle, finished, absorbingly interesting. $2.50 MASTRO-DON GESUALDO ea aa 2 aE ee sh This great translation has been immediately recog- nized in America as the classic it is. It contains “pages as powerful as any in modern literature,” Ernest Boyd N writes in The Nation, adding that “Balzac never sur- ‘ passed them in Pére Goriot.” $2.50 ESCAPADE Evelyn Scott No woman has ever recorded her experiences and emotions with the pitiless sincerity which Evelyn Scott has brought to the writing of this autobiography. It is the poignantly beautiful record of a fine, courageous adventure. 8vo. $3.00 THE Ep ete TURKEY Here is the story of the Turk Nationalist movement, down to the events of a few weeks ago, written by the one American best qualified to deal with it authorita- tively, clearly, understandingly. Illustrated. 8vo. $3.00 STUDIES IN CLASSIC es LITERATURE D. H. Lawrence This is D. H. Lawrence’s book about America—not its face, but its soul. To some it is anathema. To many it is a tonic analysis and a noble work, with its great closing, epitomizing sentence, “The only riches, the great souls.” 8vo. $3.00 THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street NEW YORK When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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588 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3046 taining a universality of interest. There is no performance in the production of “The Shame Woman” quite equal to the superb and now famous one of Miss Lucille La Verne in “Sun Up.” But that of Miss Florence Rittenhouse as Lize Burns is not far below it. It is very well to say that acting is not a mimetic art. In one sense that is true enough. So soon, how- ever, as we understand the nature of imitation in all art this remark—now made with increasing frequency—darkens coun- sel. Acting is not immediate imitation. The actor must absorb the character from nature and the dramatist’s words and then recreate that character through the medium of his art. All art, in brief, works through a definite medium. But nature remains model and foundation, and art is most perfect when its medium becomes the vehicle of an ultimate impression which is nature “animated,” concentrated, heightened, if you will, but nature still, And I know of no two examples of recent acting that illustrate this point quite as well as the per- formances of Miss La Verne and Miss Rittenhouse in these two folk-plays of the North Carolina mountains. It is also illustrated, of course, by the performance of Signora Duse in “Ghosts.” Here, as Mrs. Alving, her art is quite naturalistic, that is to say, unfeignedly mimetic in the proper sense. And as such it leaves nothing to be desired. I am bound to confess, however, that the irremediably Italian atmosphere of the entire performance—Pastor Manders was every inch a priest of the Latin church—stood between me and the tragic clarity of “Ghosts” and that I saw beyond the gestures and heard beyond the moans of Mrs. Alving that infinitely melan- choly figure, that plangent cry with which, her eyes upon the sea, Eleonora Duse expressed the grace and tragic charm of her personality and character. LUDWIG LEWISOHN | | The Theatre Guild presents | | THE FAILURES in14 scenes By H. R. Lenormand | A AN THEATRE, 65 West 35th Street Ge RRICK Matinees Thursday and Saturday ARTHUR HOPKINS presents ETHEL BARRYMORE A Royal Fandango at the Plymouth Theatre in Zoe Akins’ New Play West 45th Street Mats. Thurs. & Sat. THEATRE, 41st, E. of B’way. Eves. 8:30. Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:30. Children & Moon WITH AN ALL-STAR CAST. COMEDY The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS. FR | S k yy in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO West 44th Street. Evs. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Everybody’s in Love With IN LOVE WITH LOVE Lynn Fontanne Ralph Morgan’ Henry Hull Theatre, E i a“ RIT West “48th Street. Matinee Wed. & Sat. oo ete THE PLAYHOUSE W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 Matinees: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.”—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. 48th St. East TARNISH a 8:30. Mats urs. & Sat. 2:30 of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. BELMONT “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.”—Heywood Broun, Wort. LECTURES AND AMUSEMENTS The New School for Social Research 465 West 28rd Street Invites you to attend a course of six lectures on Recent Political Experi- ments in Europe by the distinguished Hungarian scholar and statesman Professor Oscar Jaszi formerly Minister of Nationalities in the Karolyi Cabinet Thursdays, 8:20 P. M. Beginning November 15 Alexander Maiklejohn will lecture on An Outlook on the Educational Situation at the New School for. Social Research 465 West 23rd Street, New York Under the auspices of The Students Cooperative Association Saturday, November 17th, at 8:20 P. M. Admission $1. OPEN FORUM CURRENTS IN RECENT LITERATURE Speaker, Prof. J. MELVIN LEE, Heat of oo Dept. of Journalism, N. Y. Univ. MAY LAMBERTON BECKER, Ed. Reader’s Guide, N. Y. Eve. Post Chairman: ROYAL J. DAVIS The Society for Ethical Culture 2 West 64th St., New York City Sunday, Nov. 18th, at 8 P.M. Admission Free SATURDAY CAMARADERIE Joint Auspices LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 3:30 to 5:30 P.M., every week PEOPLE’S HOUSE, 7 East 15th Street Nov. 17—‘“The Labor Press,” Norman Thomas. Nov. 24—“After Leavenworth, What?” Ralph Chaplin. Dec. 1—“‘Disintegration of Europe,’ Max E. Ravage. NATIONAL Theatre, 41st St., West of Broadway, Evenings 8:00 Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:00 “A royal revival of one of the world’s matchless plays.”—Al Woollcott, in N. Y. Herald. ae exander WALTER HAMPDEN in Cyrano de Bergerac SEATS ON SALE FOR 8 WEEKS. 466 Grand Street Neighborhood Playhouse Tel. Drydock 7516 Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:30. Matinee Saturday at 2:30. W. B. Yeats’ Bernard Shaw’s “THE PLAYER QUEEN” “BLANCO POSNET” 27th Street and Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30. MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTION “The Seven Who Were Hanged’’ By Andreyev YIDDISH ART THEATRE Coming soon, THE BEGGARS by H. Levick (Author of ‘“Rags’’) a ta rt titi .

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The Hunger Strike in Ireland By ECENT history in Ireland will do nothing to soften that bitter Irish humor which is an evolutionary product, and which stimulates without sweetening our lives. A humor without bitterness playing on politics and person- alities might have saved many souls from becoming immov- able images of pride. Nothing is more destructive of rigid mentality and emotional obsessions than laughter. Failing that dissolving laughter we can only treat the problem of the hunger strikers seriously. It is a policy which, like the abandoned policy of civil war, occurs to peo- ple who do not think, and who have only an abnormal and inherited capacity for suffering. It is no more an intellec- tual policy than killing other people is an intellectual policy. The courage required for both may be admitted, but neither by killing people or wounding their feelings are they convinced that those who do these things to them are in the right. The aim of all discussion should be to allure people by reason, by the exposition of noble and intellectual images of society, so that of their own free will they will be convinced. There is danger, too, in a country if political groups, determined to make their existence felt, go on from one sensational policy to another, that those who endure per- petual economic and moral suffering brought on by these sensational policies will get callous, and at last as cold as a stone and incapable of giving its due of tears or sympathy to any tragic event in society. We all know how profoundly in childhood we were moved when first in our sheltered lives we heard of crime or death, but as we grew older and read continuously of murders, earthquakes, famines, and other sensational happenings we lost sensitiveness. We say how shocking, but really we are not shocked. We have become insensitive through over- sensation. At the beginning of the European War the first reports of thousands slain in a day moved every heart. After three years of international murder hardly any except those whose fathers, brothers, husbands, or sons were in the lists of dead or wounded read the news with an extra beating of the heart. They had no feeling left. Those who come to Ireland with fresh hearts and unsquandered emo- tions, and who read our daily papers, find in them hardly a trace of humanity for any misfortune here or elsewhere. We appear almost a heartless people. We are not so natu- rally. We have squandered our emotions. We do not know what the Free State Government may do in regard to this hunger strike. But this we feel sure, that if these desperate gambles for victory go on, not merely will prisoners suffer pain and perhaps death, but the heart of Ireland may cease for a generation to beat for any gener- ous cause. The children of the state may fester in slums, the workers be sweated, our public life may be mean and corrupt, but men will not react from it. To most European peoples we in Ireland appear to have suffered but little in a decade in which they were altogether wretched. In many countries armies have trampled over the fields, men have been killed, not in hundreds, as here, but in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, and many also have perished of famine. They look without pity on our self-inflicted tragedies, upon our own wrecking and burning of our own buildings, while, with them, cities were made dust-heaps by alien enemies; upon our self-starvation while they were hungry because they could not get enough to eat. We are not now protesting against Republicanism, which as a political ideal might, if any had the imagination, be made alluring to all of us. We are protesting against the waste of national feeling, the squandering of national emo- tion over circumstance which we sometimes feel has been engineered on purpose. Oh, we do not doubt there were brutalities. They are inevitable when physical force is resorted to in a country. There have been crimes on both sides. But what is to be gained by the continued and pas- sionate imputation to whole parties of the villainies of the scum on either side? If this continues our national life will be arid as a sandy desert. What poor leadership, too, is this policy if the object was the early release of prisoners! The whole country was grateful when it learned there was to be no further internal or external conflict. The honor of the Republican Party was involved in adherence to this policy. Few people in Ireland wished to keep thousands of their own countrymen in prison if there was no fear of further conflict. The demand for release would have been overpowering from all sections in the Free State, as hardly any even of its sternest partisans desired their country- men to be in prison once the menace of civil.war was re- moved. Within a few weeks in all probability after the declaration that conflict was over most of the prisoners would have been at their homes. But the declaration of peace was coupled with a hunger strike of unprecedented dimensions for the immediate release of all prisoners. But will this hunger strike hasten release? Would any gov- ernment in the world allow itself to be humiliated by orders given in this fashion? It is certain the Free State Gov- ernment cannot let them all die. But what unnecessary suffering to inflict on men! What torture of their rela- tives! What intensifying of hatred on one side and con- tempt on the other! We were once a gay, hardy, and natural folk, mistrust- ing those who fed overmuch on tragic emotions. Let us hope this will be the last flare-up of unreason, for what Ire- land needs is thought. We believe there is the quickest natural mentality here, but so uneducated and so ill in- formed that it does more harm than good to the possessor of it. Let us concentrate on education, and one of the most brilliant people in Europe may inhabit this island in a quarter of a century. With regard to the prisoners, we think the Government should accept the declaration of the Ard-Fheis that there would be no more internal or external conflict and release them. If there are any who still nourish thoughts of fight- ing, the country will soon make it clear to them that they will get no sympathy. If any do not take the hint and start afresh, for their future fate if captured there will be neither sigh nor song. The only way to win Ireland over to Republicanism is to exhibit a higher culture, a better character, a finer intellect, a more practical economic sense than the upholders of the present Constitution show. The more they exhibit this superiority the better for their cause. The more they rely merely on their capacity for suffering the more will people be callous and their hearts be turned away.

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590 [ Vol. 117, No. 3046 The Republican Plea HE hunger strike of the Irish Republican prisoners begun on October 14 has occasioned much comment in Ireland and the United States. The position of even the more liberal supporters of the Free State is one of bitter opposition to this policy; on another page we print an article by George W. Russell (4®) expressing this view. The Republican attitude is given in the documents appear- ing below. “FREEDOM OR THE GRAVE” A flier, with this head, freely distributed and giving the story of the hunger strike from a Republican point of view, reads as follows: THe FINAL HUNGER STRIKE Mountjoy. On Sunday, the 14th of October, a general hunger strike was declared by the political prisoners at present detained in Mount- joy jail. This hunger strike will be the final hunger strike to take place in this jail as long as the men are in it, for it will come to an end in a way that will preclude a repetition of such a fight—in victory and release, or in the death of the prisoners. The Reason. A brief recapitulation of the incidents of the present struggle makes it evident that the men had no other option than to take this extreme step—the only alternative being in their own words “slow death.” The treatment and conditions were not at any time of a na- ture to preclude protest and attack by the prisoners. But at no time did the treatment meted out to the men reach a height of systematized cruelty such as it had reached at the date of this strike. Nor, more important still, did it resolve itself into an attempt to reduce the prisoners to the level of common crimi- nals. That was the position when on Sunday the 14th the men, hopeless of gaining any permanent redress, declared their re- solve to “achieve freedom or the grave.” Their manifesto has been printed elsewhere, has been distributed to every paper in Ireland, and has been published in the Republican press. In it they amply justify their action. They acknowledge that they fully realize the terrible sufferings which await them in their trial, but they also recount what they have been forced to un- dergo at the hands of their jailers, and declare that with no assurance that any redress will be permanent, they have no op- tion but to adopt the final weapon of passive resistance—hunger strike. Manacled for Fourteen Days. The hunger and thirst strike of Dan Breen, T.D., served to open the eyes of the public, in a degree, to the conditions which must have forced such a frightful course on any man. After his release, instead of becoming any better, conditions became far worse, and on the return of the twelve men temporarily removed to Arbour Hill, they found things in a state which only suggests a parallel in the treatment meted out by his jailers to O’Dono- van Rossa. Men were being deprived of all recreation, letters, and parcels, and being driven in to their cells at 7 p. m. by rifle fire. They were being rajded and terrorized at all hours of the day and night. Prisoners in the basement were manacled for over a fortnight—scantily clad. Hospital patients were being deprived of all exercise and other facilities, and sent to the wings when they took down the door locked on them. Nine men in Wing D—a “punishment wing’”—had already threatened a hun- ger and thirst strike if their treatment continued, but matters came to a head on Saturday night, October the 13th, when the prisoners issued their manifesto and embarked on the strike. Knowing what the Free State party has shown itself capable of in many fields of cruelty, there can be no doubts as to what this strike is going to mean to the men—what it is in fact al- ready forcing them to endure. In their present weak condition, due to the confinement and brutal treatment of the past month, with winter at its worst in a fortnight’s time, with inadequate clothing, no parcels, no mental or bodily comfort of any sort whatsoever, their agonies must be at the present moment inde- scribable. Hunger strikes of the past—with a sympathetic populace, a church anxious and solicitous—will fade into insig- nificance before this terrible fight by men cruelly treated, cold, unclothed, and delicate. Yet, they have had no option. The cause of their imprison- ment disappeared six months ago with the cessation of war. The Free State Party boasts of their success in locking up all the “dangerous characters” of the country. Yet the deeds of violence which have characterized these two years have not abated a jot since the number of prisoners mounted from zero to thirteen thousand. Excuse might be made for the inflamed passions of men during hostilities, but the conditions in Mount- joy have never been as bad as they now are, nor did the support- ers of the present regime ever encourage such conditions dur- ing hostilities by a refusal to recognize the status of prisoners. Fear of renewed fighting might have been pleaded in June, but the discipline which has been proof against the goads of these past six months is the most ample seal to the guaranty of Eamonn De Valera that fighting came definitely to an end in May, 1923. Our Peace and Theirs. These men in Mountjoy and their fellows throughout Ireland who will probably follow their example without delay, are acknowledged (assuredly so if any of them should die) as men fighting for their honest convictions. Their fellow-countrymen at liberty are proving by their regard for the welfare, pros- perity, and culture of their country that they are actuated by unselfish patriotism—yet 13,000 men and some hundreds of girls are forced to the extreme step of self-immolation that they may be permitted to work for the regeneration of their country, the restoration of its honor, and the revival of its ancient civiliza- tion. The subversion of all justice in this will react in the confu- sion, not alone of those who have caused it, but those who have permitted it to be. If deeds could prove it, it has been amply proved that tyranny is barren in fruit but as bursting with evil results as plague. The death of a single one of these prisoners will be an added sting to its lash, but their speedy release may be the turning- point of our internal troubles and the signal for a reversion to the happier days of national unity and self-respect. A REPUBLICAN DENIAL On Wednesday, October 31, the following messages by code and cable were received from Dublin, London, and Paris by J. J. O’Kelly, Irish Republican representative in New York, denying the recently published statements that many of the 15,000 Irish prisoners on hunger strike have abandoned their fast: Acting President Rutledge cables: “President De Valera was ordered by Cabinet not to hunger strike. No communication from him since. But it is known that he is closely confined with guard of officers and firing squad. Please deny as an absolute fabrication the statement that Austin Stack was forty-eight hours late in starting strike. He acually has led the strike, as he did in Belfast six years ago. The allegation that pastilles and bread were found on the prisoners is a pure invention of the same type as was used against Terence MacSwiney. The truth is that no parcels whatever—even purgatives or linen—have been allowed into the jails for a month.” Mayor O’Callaghan cables: “Numerous municipal and public boards have announced their decision to cease functioning until the prisoners are released. Free State terribly perturbed and feverishly spreading false statements alleging abandonment of

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Nov. 21, 1923] HARPER & BROTHERS Grover Clevelan By Robert McElroy, Edwards Professor of History, Princeton University PUBLISHERS SINCE 1817 The Man ® e and the Statesman With an Introduction by Elihu Root HE authorized life of Grover Cleveland, which will not only settle all controversies re- garding his entire public life, but also reveals the man intimately in many moods. The author has had access to all official documents and private letters. “It is a biography of special importance in the understanding of a very critical period in American history. No thoughtful and patriotic American can read the story of those administrations without admiration and sympathy, or without a sense of satisfaction that his country can on occasion produce and honor such men as Grover Cleveland.”—Elihu Root. THE HARP WEAVER And Other Poems By Edna St. Vincent Millay The title poem of this volume is the Winner of the 1922 Pulitzer Prize For Poetry. Many of the poems in this new collection are to be seen here for the first time. $2.00 HISTORY OF ART By Elie Faure “By all odds one of the most im- portant books of this generation.”— —The New Republic. More than 200 illustrations in each volume. Vol- ume I, “Ancient Art’; Volume II, “Mediaeval Art’; Volume III, “Re- naissance Art.” Ready in December, Volume IV, “Modern Art.” Each $7.50 THE REPUBLICS OF LATIN AMERICA By H. G. James, University of Texas, and P. A. Martin, Stanford University “A general treatise on the eco- nomic, political and social develop- ment of the republics of Latin Amer- ica, which gives a clear view of their growing power and influence.”—Hon, L. S. Rowe, Director General of the Pan American Union. $3.50 Adventures in Journalism By Philip Gibbs, Author of ““Now It Can Be Told” OU remember the startling revelations in “Now It Can Be Told.” truths about the war, freed from the half-truths and colorings of political and journalis- tic leanings. Here again, this international free lance reveals whole truths of many of the most dramatic incidents of the last twenty-five years. Outstanding Fiction LUMMOX By Fannie Hurst Heywood Broun in the New York World says of it: “A thrilling book of tremen- dous power and interest.” $2.00 THE HAPPY ISLES By Basit King A story of the extraordinary adventures of the kidnapped son of a wealthy family, and the triumph of character over environ- ment. $2.00 BUNK By W. E. Woodward “A really wonderful novel. Perhaps the most fundamental book of our time.’”— Ernest H. Gruening, of The Nation. JO ELLEN By Alexander Black “A novel that has power and sympathy and a large sweep of the imagination.”— Grant Overton, Philadelphia North Amer- ican. $2.00 THE ABLE McLAUGHLINS By Margaret Wilson Winner of the Harper Prize Novel Contest “A romance at once simple and poignant, managed with subtle art.”—The Literary Review. $2.00 a story of facts more thrilling than fiction. “Anyone doubting the romance in the life of a lucky newspaper reporter cannot do better than to read Sir Philip Gibbs’ chapter “How I Exposed Dr. Cook’s Polar Fraud.”—New York Times. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation You got the whole He was in the thick of them, and tells Two Volumes, Boxed, $10.00 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN DRAMA: From the Begining to the Civil War By Arthur H. Quinn, Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania Augustus Thomas and David Be- lasco have both declared the author to be the greatest living authority on the subject. This pioneer work in- cludes a list of over 1,000 American Bley: published and produced before $4.00 ERASMUS: A Study of His Life, of His Ideals and of His Place in History By Preserved Smith, Ph. )., Professor of Histury, Cornelt University “A great thinker is here etched against the background of European life in the sixteenth century with a skill in personal portraiture and a success in historical narrative which could hardly be excelled.”—Boston Herald. $4.00 FOUNDATIONS OF THE MODERN COMMONWEALTH By A. N. Holcombe, Harvard University What is justice? What is liberty? Is there any real freedom in a state where men are compelled to obey laws they dislike? These are some of the questions which Dr. Holcombe covers, $3.00 $2.50 591

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592 The Nation strike to break men’s morale. Exhausted prisoners are cruelly transferred to distant jails and scattered to facilitate the dis- semination of lies among them. A typical case is: Prisoners after seven days’ fast were dragged from cells in Mountjoy at 5 in the morning in bitter cold, left handcuffed in the yard with- out water until 5 in the evening, kept in lorries until 7, hud- dled in railway terminus till 8, and after three hours further detention in Currage Railway Station forced to march hand- cuffed after midnight a distance of four miles to the notorious Tintown Camp. “Men sinking, but morale magnificent. No thought whatever of abandoning strike. ‘Freedom or the Grave’ is the slogan. We must win!” The Military Heel URING the last ten days of April, 1923, the acting mayor of the city of Bonn in the Rhineland was asked to call upon the district delegate of the Interallied Rhine- land Commission. He was informed that the military au- thorities needed furnishings for the families of about 200 railway officials and that the municipal administration of Bonn should deliver these furnishings. The mayor replied that the municipal administration did not have the furnish- ings and had no money with which to purchase them. He was then informed that they would be requisitioned in any case. At 5:45 a.m. on May 5 the following letter was de- livered to him: INTERALLIED RHINELAND COMMISSION DisTRIcT OF BONN No, 2259, 4 f Bonn, May 4, 1928 From: Lieutenant Bessy de Boissy, District Delegate of the Interallied Rhineland Commission. To: The Mayor of Bonn. Subject: Apartments for French Railway Personnel. Mr. Mayor: I have the honor of informing you that the mili- tary authorities find themselves compelled to obtain by requisi- tion apartments for the French officials who are to assure rail- way traffic in Bonn. This measure becomes necessary because the German authorities (especially the Reichsvermigensamt) have not taken the necessary steps to obtain these apartments. The process will begin on Saturday, May 5, at six o’clock in the morning. Approximately 180 families are concerned. The 180 families must give up their apartments entirely and leave household furniture, household linen, kitchen utensils, china, and so on. They will have the right to take with them only their personal clothing, jewelry, papers, and stocks and bonds. They are to be given four hours in which to make their prepa- rations. It will then be your duty to find other dwellings for them. You will instruct the municipal police to maintain order in the city and not to permit any manifestation or the formation of crowds. The police will be held responsible for any outbreak which it does not immediately put down. Permit me, Mr. Mayor, to express my high respects. BESSY DE Borssy The Nation is informed from sources which it is for obvious reasons not free to reveal that the requisition began promptly fifteen minutes after this letter had been handed to the mayor. A number of groups of ten or fifteen soldiers each accompanied by an official entered the houses, informed the families that they must leave within four hours, left a small military post with the family, and then proceeded elsewhere. The requisitioning process lasted through Sat- urday and part of Sunday. Later, barracks were erected in various parts of the city in order to shelter the families which had been forced to live in the streets. [ Vol. 117, No. 3046 PIONEERS IN SHIPPING LIEBESGABEN (su®*tisf.s) Make Up Your Own Combinations in accordance with the special wishes and requirements of your relatives and friends abroad. Our Warehouse in Hamburg Assures Quick Service In Case of Loss, we Duplicate the Shipment at Once Ask for our Price List G & CHR All Orders and Shipments Delivered FREE HOUSE! ONE OF MANY ASSORTMENTS $10. 00 mM B F $10.00 MUTTER’S BESTER FREUND rae Ibs. Wheat Flour 10 lbs. Best Premier Farina “Best Lard 1? ‘Coeaa “Roasted Coffee 10 “ Granulated Sugar “ Ceylon Tea 5 tins Condensed Milk “ N. Carolina Rice 5 “ Premier Evap. Milk ASK FOR OUR PRICE LISTS Orders by Radio, an additional charge of 75c. per order. SELF-PACKED PACK AIGES are FORWARDED WEEKLY and at rates commensu- rate with efficient service. Insurance against War, Marine, Theft, Pilfering and Non-Delivery, upon request, at reasonable rates. American Merchants Shipping & Forwarding Co. H. von Schuckmann C. E. W. Schelling 30 Years’ Shipping Experience with Hamburg-American Line OFFICES: 147 4th Ave., cor. 14th St., New York City HAMBURG OFFICE—ROSENSTRASSE 16 THE METAS CORPORATION OF NEW YORK IMPORTERS OF MID-EUROPEAN ARTS AND CRAFTS 147 Fourth Ave., 2nd Floor New York City Christmas Exhibition Now Open Sole representative and sales agency for the products of Caritas Verband (128 branches throughout Germany). Textil Kunstwerkstaetten, Jena (Frau Geheimrat Prof. Eucken). Deutscher Frauenfleiss, E. V., Berlin. Sammelstelle fuer Oesterreichische He’marbeiten, Vienna. Odilien Blindenan- stalt, Graz. Thuringian Home Workers’ Society. 78 Convents in all parts of Germany and Austria and many other organi- zations. OFFERS THROUGH ITS EXPORT DEPARTMENT $10 $15 $25 METAS FOOD DRAFTS allowing the recipients abroad to make their own selections, in person | or by mail, at our warehouse in Hamburg, of such assortments as they may prefer. However, you may also select Food Packages in this. country for your friends and relations abroad, for immediate shipment from Hamburg, or you may make your own list of foodstuffs and household necessities. We assure Supreme Quality Quick Service Low Prices Avoid the Holiday rush Send for our Price List N. 1121 Don’t send what YOU THINK but what THEY KNOW they need THE METAS CORP. OF N. Y., 147 Fourth Ave., N. Y. C. Enclosed find $........+.++. Please mail me Food Draft in favor of (Name Of TeciIPIEONE) oi)6cco ois. o56.5 cropsierelase 0 0:6 slo erwin ial eieishaneteiereteteiateeteictettatettiarsts (Address of recipient)’ s .05. +.0.cis0ve diaelec calc s o.s/s\aistoleiietelateletalsl=tersiemietoerarale The recipients will make} Name of sender.........eseeeeeeceeees their own selections from your assortments in Ham- burg. 10% must be added if recipient does not live in Germany. $$$ When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII * Contents MHPVORTAL, PARAGRAPHS: “iiss. scec ese vcccwanisecs epemtio cieveiote sicine ais 593 EDITORIALS: The Great Joke About Coal. ........ cc ccc eee ence e reer ereceenees 596 Mies Fircitinhy | TCEIONS his ixic claleeleieials sie v.ncluleie 0, aleicloinisieie ee njsieie cena eees 597 “The Little Red Box of Courage’’.........cceeecscnsseccecceseces 598 Honor Among Alllies.......cccccccccccerccccscscescccsececescccens 599 DID PASSIVE RESISTANCE FAIL? By Oswald Garrison Villard.... 600 STARVING GERMANY. By Agnes Smedley.........-.seeeeeeeeeeees 601 TOWARD BRITAIN. By William Hard...........-seeeeeeeeereceessees 603 IN THE STEEL COUNTRY: A Diary with Drawings—I. By Hugo Gellert.......-..-+.-+eeeeeees 604 SHE WOULD BE! By A. Neil Lyons..........eeec eee ee cece ee eenes 606 FOEMS: A Pagan Reinvokes the Twenty-third Psalm. By Robert L. Wolf.. 607 Cobweb Boy. By Robert L. Wolf.......---sseecceeeceenceseceees 607 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...........-.ce sees cece cree eceee 607 CORRESPONDENCE ... coe ce cece crete ccc cet e reece eeeneneecsnceceees 608 BOOKS: Children of the Sun. By Temple Scott.......-se-seeeeeeeeeecees 609 The Lady as Artist. By J. W. Krutch..........-.2seeeeeeeeeeeee 610 Shakespearean Studies. By Samuel C. Chew...........--++-+se0-- 611 The Amazing Wrongness of Mr. Waterhouse. By Ben Ray Redman 612 The American Party System. By Phillips Bradley..........++-+++-- 612 Books . in. Brief. ........cccseccccccescccncccssvcsnccecsceseesssces 614 THE NATION’S POETRY PRIZE...........-. cc eee cece eer eeeece cece 614 DRAMA: Comedies. By Ludwig Lewisohn...........sceeesesceeeccercceeces 614 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Documents of Dissolution..........02- ee cecenecccscccccrsescccesese 616 RSME TE TN Eiki cc1o oS eiaie eieisis luialetelclelsjctels s/s/via\sle\s,x\v\e.wisle'nie «vin einige'ew aveieis}sie 616 BAVAYIA ccc ccc cect cece ccc ne ns cer setccsscesecccrcarscsseesece 616 The Palatinate .....-cccccsccccccccccccrcscscsccecesesccsceeres 618 ne OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpITor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. IRAM JOHNSON has tossed his hat into the ring, but somehow none of the ringside spectators seem excited about it. Most of them probably thought that the hat had been lying in the ring lo, these many years. Almost every speech which the Senator from California has made in the last eight or ten years has been rather in the way of practice at presidential hat-tossing. Ten years ago, how- ever, Hiram Johnson stood out as a fighting progressive with a record of real wrestling-matches with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Today he seems merely the familiar politician who ducked the Newberry issue, raised his voice in a piteous plea for protection for California lemons, and took his full share of patronage under the Harding Administration—from the same “materialist, stolid, and stubborn men” in whom he now suddenly discov- ers such “irreconcilable differences.” Meanwhile a recent convert to California, William Gibbs McAdoo, has admitted to the waiting world that he is a candidate for the Demo- cratic nomination. Mr. McAdoo has not the Senator’s oratorical gifts, but he has the merit of meeting some issues. We do not agree with him about the bonus, but we know where he stands; and we like his consistent defense of the war-time policy of government control of the rail- roads. Unfortunately he has hitherto avoided the issue of NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1923 No. 3047 the Klan, and he cannot be unaware that in the South he is coming to be generally regarded as the Ku Klux Klan’s candidate. ERMANY’S paper marks now number quintillions. If the presses do not stop soon the arithmeticians may have to invent a word for a million decillions. Meanwhile, the Entente has been saved again. News of an imminent break between England and France sent the pound sterling and the franc tumbling down on the stock market, and news of the patched-up peace brought a partial recovery. If the bankers were as wise as fable makes them we suspect that their reaction would have been precisely the contrary. These patched-up peaces postpone a real European settle- ment. A break between England and France might cause more temporary chaos, but continuance in the policy of cowardly compromises will achieve no more in the future than it has in the past. The latest compromise is an absurd face-saver, like its predecessors. England will join in a sharp warning note to the German Government reprimand- ing it for refusing to promise protection to Allied control officers in regions where it has no control; and France agrees to omit mention of specific sanctions in case of refusal. Europe is not helped by such fear of facing the music. The demand to expel the ex-Crown Prince is dropped, France apparently being satisfied by the “‘discov- ery” of the text of his abdication. Economic peace in the Ruhr seems farther off than ever. The industrialists finally refused to sign the ignominious terms on which we com- mented in an editorial, Poincaré’s Bargain, two weeks ago (the French dispatches reporting agreement were mistaken) and accordingly more tens of thousands of Ruhr working- men are thrown into idleness and utter want. NE reason why Congress has less excuse this winter than ever for listening to the advocate of a soldiers’ bonus is that in the five years since the armistice various States have done so much that a national dole would be a duplication in the case of more than half of our ex-service men. The American public has already imposed on itself a burden of $380,600,000 in the way of State bonuses which, added to the $270,000,000 which the Federal Government paid when the men were discharged, makes a total of $650,- 600,000. This is more than any of our Allies have paid, including those that mobilized much larger armies. France, for instance, has paid $373,371,150, and Great Britain $275,910,446. A statement by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, which compiled these figures, shows that nineteen of our States have either paid or authorized a bonus. These States embrace most of the more populous ones and claim 2,348,655 of the total 4,582,393 men whom America mobilized for the World War. It looks as if we had had bonus legislation enough. F Secretary Mellon sincerely wants to know how to reduce tax burdens, we suggest that he take a trip to Minnesota and observe the methods of the Oliver Iron Mining Com- pany. This company, which is a subsidiary of the Steel Trust, has long been in controversy with the State over a

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594 tax levy of $4,340,000. After a prolonged legal battle the courts recently decided that the company owed this sum and must pay it. But in the meantime the failure of the company to pay its assessment had subjected it to penal- ties amounting to $1,797,000. According to the Minneapolis Labor Review, the court decision carried no provision for the remission of these penalties, but executives in Governor Preus’s administrative family—impressed with the hard- ships of the Steel Trust—arranged that if the tax itself was kindly paid the penalties would be thoughtfully for- given. One way to save taxes is to be so poor that there’s nothing to assess; another method is to be so prudent as to invest your earnings in tax-exempt securities; best of all is to be a Steel Trust. OTHAR WITZKI, said to be the only German spy cap- tured, tried, and convicted as such in the United States, was released from Leavenworth Prison by order of President Coolidge on November 21. Other Germans con- victed for acts of sabotage were released long ago. The men who sold the army leaky raincoats and paper shoes went scot-free. The men who squandered the nation’s mil- lions while ex-service men waited for the promised help have weathered a congressional hearing without even seeing the inside of a police station. But when the iron gates closed behind Lothar Witzki they left thirty-two brave men inside, convicted in 1917 because they dared to speak the truth as God gave them to see it, men who believed the Constitution of the United States meant what it said—our American political prisoners. We release spies and sabo- teurs and we let our profiteers go unscathed, but men with the courage of unpopular opinions we put in jail and leave there. President Coolidge knows that these men are inno- cent of crime; if they should have to pass their seventh Christmas in prison cells it would be only because the President feared the political effect of pardon. F Comptroller Craig of the city of New York serves, as the United States Supreme Court has ruled he must, a sentence of sixty days in jail for contempt, we hope the public will not be satisfied with any futile manifestations of sympathy toward him personally. The proposal to ask Congress to pass a law giving the President the power of pardon in contempt cases is also a wrong way to attack this evil. For there is an evil and it ought to be attacked. The use by judges of their power to punish for contempt of court promises presently to become as much of a scan- dal as their exercise of the injunction and to transform our tribunals into public nuisances. The power cuts di- rectly into the institution of trial by jury, and is a relic of the divine right of kings that has survived from abso- lutist days along with other less harmful trumpery in our judicial system. There are two kinds of contempt: that committed in court and that committed outside. For the former there is a slender argument, although hundreds of hearings are held successfully in this country every year by legislative or other official bodies having no such power. For contempt outside of court, as in the case of Mr. Craig, there is no reason whatever why the case should not go before a jury. The outrage of allowing a judge to be the arbiter is the more acute because he is called upon to decide a case affecting himself, in which it is almost impossible to be impartial. As well allow the victim of a hold-up to try, convict, and sentence his attacker. The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3047 HE Methodists are to be congratulated. Despite the storm of abuse heaped upon Bishop Blake and his col- leagues, who had undertaken to raise funds to help the Living Church in Soviet Russia, the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church has unanimously voted its thanks to Bishop Blake, who went to Moscow, and has authorized Bishop Nuelsen, whose province is Germany, to cooperate with the soviet church. The bishops passed no judgment upon the Soviet Government; that is not their province, and unlike Bishop Manning of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who has taken his stand with the Czarist faction in the Russian church in New York City, these bishops understand their province. Some of the newspapers think it extraordinary that the bishops should encourage friendly relations with Russia before the United States Government has recognized the Russian Government. It seems to us, even after the disheartening experience of the war, highly appropriate that a Christian body should refuse to bound its sympathy by political or economic frontiers. K. WHEELER, Senator-elect from Montana, has in e« afew crisp sentences disposed of the National Civic Federation, which has been snorting with pain because of the declarations of Mr. Wheeler and other recent visitors to Russia in favor of recognition of the Soviet Government by the United States. The federation’s letter, signed by its president, Alton B. Parker, says that the Soviet “is pro- moting Communism and revolutionism in the United States at this time as it was doing while you were its guest in Moscow,” and that recognition “would carry with it the establishment of Soviet consulates here which, as shown by experience in other countries, become nothing more than centers for Communist propaganda, including the promo- tion of atheism.” To this Mr. Wheeler replied in part: The above conclusions are doubtless based on the same kind of information that induced you to make the statement that I was “a guest of the Soviet Government in Moscow.” ... I am absolutely convinced that the Russian Government, as such, is not promoting Communism and revolution in the United States, nor is it carrying on a propaganda for atheism. ... Doubt- less the Socialist, the Communist, and other schools of economic thought are doing whatever they can to convince the world that their theories are right. But why should we fear their argu- ments? Are we afraid that the communistic program is so attractive and convincing that it will appeal to the American mind? ...I do not fear they [the Americans] will adopt the theories of Communism unless it be thoroughly proved to them that a better system of government is presented than the one our fathers founded something over a hundred years ago. This is a good answer and sound Americanism; but it has not received much publicity in the newspapers that carried most extensively the federation’s fulminations. HE explanation that his physicians have advised him to avoid great exertions until after Christmas does not adequately account for Lord Robert Cecil’s removal to the House of Lords. There must be reasons not officially proclaimed for his willingness to take a final farewell of the Commons. Whatever else it may mean, his decision indicates presumably a definite renunciation of the prospect, so ardently cherished by many of his admirers, of his even- tually becoming the leader of the Libera] Party. His in- herited Conservatism has so often been modified by a Lib- eral outlook that there has seemed nothing improbable in

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a Nov. 28, 1923 ] The Nation 595 the hope that, like Gladstone, he might in some crisis come over wholeheartedly and avowedly to the progressive side. But everyone recognizes that in these days it would no longer be possible to carry on a Liberal administration with a prime minister from the Upper House. As a Conserva- tive, however, of a rarely reasonable and unfashionable type, the statesman whom we have hitherto known as Lord Robert Cecil may exert for many years, under his new title yet to be announced, a wholesome influence among the peers. He is by no means the sort of man who takes color from his surroundings, and the conventional toryism of his new environment may be expected, if anything, to stimulate the strong individuality and democracy of his character. OVERNOR WALTON, erstwhile dictator of Oklahoma, has been removed from office by the Oklahoma State Senate. It has adjudged him guilty of exceeding his pardon and parole power, of padding the State payroll, of general incompetence, of exceeding the legal limit of election ex- penses, of preventing the assembling of a grand jury, of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, of various specific offenses. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Such “crimes” are common fodder in Oklahoma; Walton’s real guilt was his fight upon the Klan. The Senate which tried him was a Klan-controlled body. The verdict therefore proves nothing; Walton refused to enter a defense before such a court, and a real trial can come only in other courts. But the whole proceeding proves the utter folly of attempt- ing to down the Klan by adopting its own illegal methods. ACATIONS for kings? Well, why not? In this day when so many jobs carry with them an annual vaca- tion, there is no reason to discriminate against the not too lucrative and certainly extra-hazardous trade of sitting eight hours a day on a throne. So it seems no more than fair that the Greeks should send their young monarch off for a few months to rest his nerves and broaden his mind in foreign travel. It may be, as some Greeks predict, that stirring times are ahead, and if somebody should take it into his head to proclaim a republic, a king might find it possible to take a more dispassionate view of the situation at a distance. Also the people might take a more dispas- sionate view of the king. When a revolution is in progress so prominent a symbol of royalty as a king might find it embarrassing to continue among an excitable people. One is reminded of the dodgers that were pasted up in public places of Paris some years ago when barbers were trying to induce their employers to close on Sunday. The notice read somewhat as follows: “Perform an act of solidarity and do not get shaved on Sunday. P. S.—Accidents are likely to happen to those who get shaved on Sunday.” HE scene is laid in the region of Coronation Gulf, 1,000 miles east of Herschell Island in the Canadian Arctic. Ahkak, whose wife had left him, consoled himself with Pugana, the wife of another Eskimo, first taking the pains to kill her husband and make an honest woman of her. A feud arose between Ahkak and his friends and the friends and relatives of Pugana’s former husband. A tribal coun- cil was called and a death sentence was laid on Ahkak, the murderer. The sentence was carried out, with some mercy, it seems, for Ahkak was strangled with his own rawhide line instead of suffering the undesirable but common fate of dismemberment. So justice was done, with due accord for the forms and ceremonies that convert vengeance into a decorous civil rite. Enter the Canadian Mounted Police by dog train from the east. The two executors of Ahkak the Eskimo are chased and caught and brought to trial at Her- schell Island along with an aged sorceress who had played a part in the first act of the drama. A jury of “traders, trappers, and whaling captains” finds them guilty, and the two men are sentenced to death. The death sentence is confirmed at Ottawa, and Corporal Thorne, of the Mounted Police, leaves for Dawson City, whence, by dog and sled, he travels 600 miles overland to Herschell Island to hang the culprits on the gallows there by December 7. That, it seems, is to be the end of the story. Vengeance again be- comes decorous and legal, and there seems to be no higher power ready to swing the British executors of the Eskimo executors off into the Arctic darkness of eternity. HIVALRY—who wants chivalry in 1923? On Novem- ber 10 the old-fashioned chivalric police commissioner of Omaha, Nebraska, ordered his men not to jail such mem- bers of the “fair sex” as might be caught speeding, but to serve on them a “golden-rule summons” instead. The mem- bers of the Omaha Woman’s Club failed to appreciate such gentleness. They resented this mild form of spanking as indignantly as the best of them nowadays resent the implied assumption of feminine weakness in the offer of a seat in a street-car. “Equal rights, but no favors” is their plat- form. Spurning the poor police commissioner with a loud ery of “Give us jail,” they demand the privilege of arrest along with their brothers who offend the law. AR goes on killing long after the last gun is silenced. John Koren, United States Prison Commissioner, who jumped overboard from the steamship Nieuw Amster- dam, was as truly a victim of the war as if he had died in battle. From the beginning of the war he foresaw the mag- nitude of the disaster; he prayed, though he knew he prayed in vain, for an immediate conclusion; he hoped for peace without victory long before Mr. Wilson made that phrase familiar. In the days when the United States was formally neutral but when the tide of feeling swept more and more strongly against Germany, Koren refused to be carried away by the flood of hysteria. His private conversations, bluntly outspoken, were reported to the Department of Justice by patriotic friends. But in the persecution that followed no important government official played any part; Koren was widely known and respected in Washington. The murder- ous pursuit took place in Boston, where he had lived for thirty years; it was undertaken by arm-chair warriors, gentlemen whose credulity in swallowing spy-stories be- trayed intellects at the dime-novel old-sleuth stage of under- development and an utter lack of the common honesty and decency to which every man is entitled in a civilized society. Koren suffered social ostracism, broken health, increasing difficulty in earning his living. Even learned societies to which he belonged made it uncomfortable for him to attend their meetings, for many of our scholars and men of science were no more noble in spirit than the ninety Germans who signed the notorious manifesto. Five years after the war is supposed to have ended Koren killed him- self. Of his death certain individuals are not altogether guiltless. But the guilt goes behind the individuals to war itself, which finds so many ways of bringing out the evil in human beings and of destroying the good.

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The Nation .- [Vol. 117, No. 3047 The Great Joke About Coal NE gets sick of reading about coal. Almost as sick as reading about Europe or the plight of the farmers. One’s sense of duty, or civic consciousness, or whatever it may be called, keeps insisting that coal and Europe and the farmers are all urgent problems, in need of prayerful attention. But one’s innermost clay becomes surfeited with seriousness. Now while the ensuing facts are serious enough they are not without a saving touch of absurdity. The United States Coal Commission has just released its report on investments, profits, and margins in anthra- cite mining. The figures are based on an actual] examina- tion of the books of the several companies by the commis- sion’s accountants. Some of these accountants were old Federal Trade Commission men, fire-hardened in earlier coal inquiries and in the investigation of the Chicago packers, Many government reports are made up from re- turned questionnaires, answered by paid experts in the interest of their industrial clients. This report is no com- pilation of mailed schedules, but an actual examination of the underlying books. Never before have the sacred ledgers thus been opened to profane eyes. There is a Great Joker in mine accounting. It is a Joker which operates more or less in all industries, but in mining it becomes genuinely Great. It is the question of unearned increment in the investment in mineral lands, and the depletion thereof. You buy some coal lands. You pay a million dollars for them. You dig coal—pardon, you have some miners dig it for you—for thirty years, and at the end there is nothing left but holes and rocks. The vein is exhausted; the coal is gone. So is your million, unless you have been mindful of the rules. You may have taken good profits over the thirty years, but your original invest- ment has joined the heavenly choir unless you have each year set aside and charged to operating costs a reserve for depletion sufficient to give you back the million when the mine runs dry. A million put in, profits betimes, and a million taken out. Fair enough under the rules of the business game. But suppose, for one reason or another, you can make it a mil- lion put in, profits betimes, and five million taken out. One owes a duty to one’s family; the price level has shifted; a hundred good and sufficient reasons. And then, of course, the more depletion one charges the less income tax one has to pay. All perfectly legal too, because by a Treasury De- partment ruling, the market value of coal lands as of March 1, 1918, is allowed as a basis for figuring depletion and profits. If the land cost you a million, and was worth five millions in the estimation of your trustworthy engi- neers on March 1, 1913, you have a perfect legal right to deplete on the basis of five millions. You have a perfect legal right to charge this allowance against your profits before paying your income tax, and to set your course for taking out five millions instead of one. Thus the inflated depletion charge, based on an inflated investment, becomes a legitimate cost of production, along with labor and royalties and dynamite and all other ex- penses. And a “reasonable” profit cannot be thought of which does not cover such cost. In a highly competitive industry where the fixing of prices for the finished product is beyond your contro] this procedure would not always benefit you except through saving income tax. You would have no assurance that prices would be sufficiently high to enable you to earn a good profit and set aside a fat de- pletion reserve to boot. But anthracite does not happen to be a competitive industry. It is a monopoly of a few great railroad companies, and has been so for fifty years. The coal commission recognizes it as such most explicitly. It says: “The fundamental evil in the anthracite industry is that of monopoly—the treatment of limited natural re- sources as if they were like other private property.” Any monopoly which is worth its salt fixes prices at what the traffic will bear. This is axiomatic. But consumers sometimes are wrong-headed enough to take exception to this great economic law. Courts are sometimes wrong- headed enough to sustain such exceptions. What then could be happier than to have a trained seal like a depletion ac- count to perform on such occasions? So much for the theory of the Great Joker. Now as to the facts of its actual performance as disclosed by the com- mission. Here is the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com- pany, one of the “railroad” companies. Its mines have been operating for over one hundred years. Its first opera- tions were on coal lands leased at an annual rental of one ear of corn. Subsequently it purchased 6,000 acres of land for $30,000. Later, it purchased 2,940 acres more for $1,382,000. The total original cost of its present holdings of 8,940 acres was thus $1,412,000. This is the sum which, according to accounting theory, should be depleted year by year until, when the coal on these lands runs out, the in- vestors get back their $1,412,000 intact. But the investors have other plans in view, as the books of the company dis- close. In 1871, the value of the lands was written up by $4,970,000. In 1917, when the Treasury Department rul- ing came along, $10,060,000 more was added arbitrarily to the investment account. “In the meantime the depletion charged by the company has amounted to $3,685,000, or two and a half times the original cost of the lands. Yet the lands still stand upon the books at $12,757,000, or nine times their original cost.” So the Great Joker in the case of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company stands as follows: Actual cost of coal lands............ $1,412,000 ‘“Werite up” of 1872s.00.0. Ua: oa eee 4,970,000 “Write wp? of 1917.05.02. oe 10,060,000 PEOUOL on 59: oe ui aine acto Gino eee $16,442,000 Depletion charged to date............ 3,685,000 Present book value.............. $12,757,000 Thus instead of getting their $1,412,000 back when the mine runs dry, the owners of this company are setting their course to get $16,442,000 back. And if the same monopolistic conditions continue in the future as have in the past, they can undoubtedly do it. Put in $1,412,000, good profits betimes, take out $16,442,000 at the end. Some conception of the increment in coal-land values for the whole industry is also furnished by the commission. The present market value of all anthracite lands is ap- praised at $989,000,000 by certain operators’ engineers re- porting to the commission. The value of these lands now carried on the books of the several companies, including “write-ups” to date, is $640,000,000. The books, despite unheard-of efforts, are still behind the engineers. In these book figures, the commission located write-ups totaling —

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Nov. 28, 1923]

$226,000,000, but expressly states that it “is not sure that all the appreciations in value were discovered.” Time was limited; old ledgers conveniently had been lost. The com- mission’s accountants got what they could, but they could not get it all. The original cost of all lands—cost to the present companies, be it understood—is thus something less than 400 millions against a book value of 640 millions, and an appraised value of 989 millions. If the experience. of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company is any index, it would appear that the actual cost of the properties was one-ninth of the present book cost. But it would not be fair without further examination to apply this ratio to all. The performance of the Pennsylvania and Hillside Coal Company is interesting. It carries its lands on its formal books at $5,000,000 (probably written up at that). It carries a special memorandum account for the same lands valued at $45,000,000. On the basis of $45,000,000 deple- tion is figured, profits are found, and income taxes paid. On the latter figure, the rate of profit to investment in 1921 was a modest 11 per cent. On the former figure it is 45 per cent. Thus can statistics be trained to bark and skip the rope! Lehigh Valley and Coxe Brothers, another railroad com- pany, have written up the value of their lands $42,050,000, on an original cost which could not have exceeded $4,000,000 —$3,500,000 being written up prior to 1913 and $38,550,- 000 after the income-tax ruling. The Hudson Coal Com- pany jumped its values $27,538,000 after the tax decision, and at least $5,500,000 before that time. And so the story goes. Particularly delightful is the recent history of the Glen Alden Coal Company. This company is the illegitimate child of the Lackawanna Railroad. Ordered in 1921 to separate its coal business from its business as a common carrier, the Lackawanna proceeded to organize the Glen Alden Company to take over the coal properties. Identical interests control both companies. The coal properties had stood on the railroad books at $6,240,000. When the stock- holders got through selling these properties to themselves, they stood on the Glen Alden books at $72,240,000—a modest boost, which must be “depleted”—of 66 millions, or ten times the old book investment; which in turn was prob- ably inflated above original cost. Meanwhile, despite these soaring depletion charges, all created out of thin air, the commission found profits for the railroad coal companies as follows: REPENS Riaie) o'2h ss <!vtehe cl acct Minera wah aa oc $16,039,000 Bee Ae ss «the Sate Duians pea Mee aes oe es 11,814,000 MEIN iad ‘ales a's thle ohn od ce WRT RIP Ge Belele ss 11,264,000 MRM AT clas iois teow: ARs wn SERS aire iohctis «2's 14,823,000 ELMS wh ails) wh oiut al «a(S ape: « es chances « 29,997,000 RRR ERMMAN Sb arabe inl Salle ahelinions ise lor oh «sales 22,369,000 RAT aos 8 <a tab ot in) 480 eal a close, 0 5, 25,220,000 UML Alena, 6 SION oisLevg a) 6)k''s wie Ria «0,08 33,466,000 PM IAle sevasn'a S APatae case aleave.e Sok sawn ws 4 30,246,000 If depletion could be refigured and reduced to a fair amount on original cost, these profits—particularly since 1917—-would appear, as they actually were, very much greater. Thus the great anthracite companies are well on the road to take from the underlying consumer anywhere from half a billion to a billion dollars, over and above their actual investment, over and above interest on that invest- ment, and over and above yearly profits, which have long been great and which are steadily growing greater. It is, obviously, a Great Joke on the consumer. The Nation 597 The British Elections wh. is a creature,” wrote Robert Louis Steven- son in a passage quoted by Premier Baldwin in his Manchester speech the other day, “who lives not by bread alone but principally by catchwords.” That is precisely the characteristic of human nature on which Mr. Baldwin him- self is depending for a victory in the general election about to be held. No variety of political or economic quackery can safely be regarded as buried beyond danger of resurrec- tion as long as there exists a gullible public. The defeat of the Balfour Government at the polls in January, 1906, largely due to the raising of the fiscal ques- tion by Joseph Chamberlain in 1903, was so overwhelming that many British free traders fondly imagined that the question of a protective tariff had been settled once for all. But several circumstances have conspired to make the pro- tectionists hopeful of a very different electoral response today. A new generation of voters has arisen which has missed the advantage of the training in economic doctrine which was supplied by the thorough and exhaustive plat- form and newspaper discussions of twenty years ago. The departures from free trade which were made during the war and which were justified even by many lifelong free traders on the plea of a national emergency have accus- tomed the public mind to the spectacle of a tariff, however limited in range, in actual operation, so that there now seems nothing revolutionary in a wide extension of the same expedient. Moreover, in Great Britain, as elsewhere, there is a considerable section of the population which has no clear-cut political or economic ideas, Liberal or Conser- vative, free-trade or protectionist, to which it tenaciously adheres, but which is swayed by transient moods. This floating element of the electorate, large enough to turn the scale in many constituencies, may be revengeful today and conciliatory tomorrow; today it may be eager for social experiments and tomorrow afraid to venture outside the realm of use and wont; today it may follow with enthusi- astic credulity the vagaries of an adventurer and tomorrow it may prefer a sober and commonplace guide. It is to this “swing of the pendulum” that Mr. Baldwin is now looking for a popular indorsement of his proposal to abandon the traditional free-trade policy of his country. It is, of course, the widespread unemployment that gives him the greatest opportunity of an effective appeal. To the workman who is out of a job and to the business man who is searching in vain for a market for his wares, as well as to the taxpayer who feels the burden of the unemployment dole, any change may well seem to offer the prospect of better days. It is true that no one has emphasized more strongly than Mr. Baldwin himself the fact that it is the distracted state of Europe, more than anything else, that hinders a trade revival. Moreover, it is precisely the trades that could not possibly benefit from a tariff on foreign manufactures—such as the engineering, mining, cotton, building, and shipping industries—that are suffering most just now from unemployment. But against all this must be set the plausibility of the suggestion that the English- man’s present ill fortune is due to the competition of cheap foreign labor, and that it is by the elimination of “dump- ing” that British mills and factories are to become once more hives of constant activity. There is further the glamor of the imperialist sentiment, which has been revivi-

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598 fied of late years through the stimulus given by the war to the nationalist spirit. Objectors may point out that the only preference that matters to the dominions is a prefer- ence on meat and wheat, which are to be excluded from the scope of the Baldwin tariff, but all the same the suggestion cf an imperial economic combination has a quasi-patriotic fascination that the protectionist spellbinders will not fail to exploit. One of the first results of the Prime Minister’s adoption of protection has been the reunion of the two divisions of the Liberal Party, which is traditionally the champion of free trade in England. It would be rash, however, to antici- pate that the concordat between Asquith and Lloyd George will of itself restore vitality to the party, any more than the reconciliation between Roosevelt and Taft immediately made our own Republican Party an irresistible fighting force. There are many Liberals who have such an utter lack of confidence in Lloyd George that they will not have him at any price as one of their leaders, and his welcome back to the family is not unlikely to be followed by further secessions to the Labor Party. British Liberalism, too, will enter the fray under the severe handicap that some of its own most prominent spokesmen have anything but a clean record on the fiscal question. Neither in the war nor in the reconstruction period did they keep the faith, and their in- consistency will offer many targets to the protectionist marksmen. The Labor Party, on the other hand, though it has hitherto devoted its main attention to other problems, has no infidelities on this subject to explain away, and it will be able to make effective capital out of the Baldwin policy as an attempt to evade those drastic economic re- forms which it believes to be the only means of settling the industrial system of the country upon a firm and equitable basis. Whether its advocacy of the capital levy will frighten away more voters than the party’s consistency will attract is a question which only the election can answer. ‘The Little Red Box of Courage’’ The annual sales of talcum powder, cold cream, rouge, lip- sticks, and toilet powder amount to $750,000,000, or $15 for every woman in America.—Press Item. YOT to mention $63,000,000 for perfumes and toilet waters and such matters, and $145,000,000 for fancy soaps. Even deducting a generous allowance for witch- hazel used after shaving, and talcum powder for babies, and toilet water for the strange purposes to which the Eighteenth Amendment is said to have reduced it, the totals given above are impressive. If statistics were our business we would compare these amounts with the sums spent annually for battleships and education and chewing gum and better babies and draw some rather sensational deductions. But at the moment we are interested in the philosophy of that $750,000,000. Last summer in a large and respectable women’s maga- zine we read an affecting article entitled The Little Red Box of Courage, and in it we found packed the secret philosophy of the rouge-pot—a philosophy so terrible, so cynical, so blood-curdling that we have had to comfort our- selves with the thought that while the dippers into the pot are many its prophets are few. The argument ran some- thing like this: The world is a dark place, full of wars and injustices, of dying babies and devastated lands. Old [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 standards have crumbled, old enthusiasms are dead. The mind faints and the heart fails before the demands life makes upon them. What is there left to encourage us, to give us cheer, in the midst of a harassing reality? And the answer is: The Little Red Box of Courage. Just a daub here and there on a sallow countenance and life be- gins again. One can lift one’s head and front the world with an air of confidence, of gaiety. Not mere red paint, but bravery and humor and resistance are packed in that little red box. And so on. The author of the article cheered as the modern soldier of life marched by, wearing on each cheek that blood-red badge of defiance, and she uttered, too, a modest little cheer for herself whose job consisted in helping this vast army to equip itself for the battle. The thunder of great events mingled with flecks of rouge- brunette created an effect of bizarre and ironic humor, where no humor was meant. But by and large that article was not funny, because by and large it was true. Like the little hip-flask of courage, the little red box has a real, authentic effect on the mind of its devotees. It undoubt- edly makes it more possible to face the machine in the mill, or the boss at his desk, or the dulness of long hours of deadly work—or life, in short. It makes one believe one is beautiful and fresh-colored and full of health, as the flask makes one believe one is witty and daring and full of life. Or if it does not make one believe, it helps one to make believe—and that is almost as good. Its virtue is the virtue of a strong tonic in illness, and its vice is the falseness of the effect it produces. Now this is not the vice its stern opponents attribute to it. Instead of pitiful makeshifts for reality, they find in that little box sheer immorality and sex allurement. Some doubt the fact of the allurement, but of that the girls have most opportunity to judge, and—well, we hesitate to argue the question of allurements. That they have their uses in the world the existence of the arts and continuation of the race seem to testify, and we have gazed with something more than compassion on them at their best. But those that are bought for $750,000,000 by the women of the country leave us cold. If they are vicious it is because they caricature nature and joke about beauty; if they are immoral it is because they indicate a terrible, humble dis- trust of a woman’s self. But chiefly they are neither im- moral nor vicious. They are pitiable. Is it anything less than a confession of fear to plaster on these masks of red and white? Consciously it may be nothing more than habit and conformity; unconsciously it is a deep need for illusion. Even habits have their causes; if rouge is a fashion like long skirts or short, ear-rings, wrist-watches, curls, bangs, and bobbed hair, still a philosophy may hide behind a fashion. The women who paint and alter their reflections in the mirror distrust themselves—they are, though often enough quite unaware of it, a little afraid of life as they meet it. After all, the world is a hard place and a drab place and reality is strong food. Perhaps illusion is the best that men and women can live on who cannot live on life itself. Perhaps, while the mills of the gods grind so everlastingly slowly, and the mills of the men whirl so fast, it is well for the tired and the timid to paint beauty on with a piece of rag and to spend $15 or so every year on the little red boxes they keep their courage in. A new world is what we need rather than more morals. \ | i 1 J q \

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Nov. 28, 1923] The Nation 599 Honor Among Allies What the British Government “understands” and what the United States Government “understands” seem to be N a significant exchange of notes between the United States and Great Britain, on behalf of the Allied gov- ernments, just published by the Department of State, an- other incipient cause of future dispute is tacitly recognized and a further humiliation is accepted by the United States. In its issue of June 6, 1923, The Nation called attention to the fact that the United States had been buncoed by the Allies out of its share of the costs, paid by Germany, for the armies of occupation on the Rhine. In an agreement concluded at Paris last May, all that the Allies did to make good this virtual embezzlement was to promise to remit to us, after certain prior Allied deductions, 25 per cent of future German reparation payments, if and when made, during the next twelve years. The agreement contained an article, however, to the effect that, if the United States did receive anything from Germany, in cash or goods, it would have to be applied to the reduction of the Rhine army bill and not to other reparations, e.g., to the satisfaction of the claims of American citizens against Germany, which include many claims having no standing whatever in inter- national law. Unless the United States thus reduced the Rhine army bill, the Allies reserved the privilege of abro- gating the entire May agreement. This restriction on American liberty of action in dealing directly with Germany the United States has on several occasions sought to escape, but without success. After efforts to this end during the May negotiations had utterly failed, the Department of State apparently endeavored to escape from the dilemma by requesting the Allied govern- ments to suppress the restrictive article above mentioned. In consenting to such suppression, however, the British Government in the note just published reminds the United States that under Article 248 of the Treaty of Versailles the Allied governments have a priority on all German pub- lice assets on account of “reparations and other charges” over all “other engagements and obligations of Germany.” The meaning of this is unmistakable. The Allies refuse to recognize the validity of any arrangement between the United States and Germany looking to the satisfaction of American claims, but insist that they alone can deal with Germany. The Secretary of State, evidently baffled by the stubborn attitude of the Allies, answered the British note in this weak and inconclusive fashion: My Government does not understand by this statement that it is intended to deny to the United States the enjoyment of the rights and advantages to which the United States is justly and equally entitled as a participant in the common victory, includ- ing the rights and advantages stipulated for its benefit in the Treaty of Versailles and accorded to the United States by the treaty signed on August 25, 1921, between the United States and Germany. It may be observed that this would in no way derogate from any of the benefits which the other Allied and Associated Powers are justly and equally entitled to enjoy. My Government is confident that it is no more the purpose of the other Allied and Associated Powers to attempt to dis- criminate against it with respect to these privileges and bene- fits, which would not have been secured except through the suc- cess of the common effort, than it is the purpose of the United States to seek to exercise its rights under the treaties above mentioned in any spirit other than that of equity toward its associates in the war. entirely different things. The “confidence” of the United States in the Allied “purpose” is engaging. Of course the Allied governments intend to discriminate against us, other- wise they would hardly have appropriated our share of the Rhine army costs in the first place. That they intend to continue to discriminate against us is manifest from the British note stating in effect that German reparation pay- ments in the future are the exclusive property of the Allies, and that Germany cannot legally promise to pay us any- thing. The suppressed article above referred to contained at least a tacit admission that we might obtain reparation payments direct from Germany, but stipulated for their allocation to the Rhine army bill. The present British note throws us completely out into the cold, and withdraws the tacit admission just mentioned. The Allies doubtless rely on Secretary Hughes’s declara- tions that ‘‘we do not seek reparations.” It would be in- teresting to know just how Mr. Hughes would describe the appropriation of the Chemical Foundation patents and other private property of German citizens. What in Mr. Hughes’s opinion is the purpose of the Mixed Claims Commission, now sitting in Washington? At all events the Allies, who but for the United States would have had no war indemnity, no part of the nearly six billion dollars they have already collected in addition to their vast territorial acquisitions, now have the temerity to tell the United States that its hands are tied by the very Treaty of Versailles which the United States made possible, and that it may not obtain any direct payments from Ger- many. Every effort of Mr. Hughes to escape from this noose has been frustrated. The complication to which this will lead may be this: The proceedings of the Mixed Claims Commission in Wash- ington will probably be almost concluded a year hence and we shall then know the amount of our reparation bill against Germany. By a disgraceful provision of the treaty with Germany, condemned by no one more severely than by ex- Secretary Knox, we compelled Germany to sanction our retention of the seized private property of German citizens —an act without precedent in American history and in de- fiance of all tradition and tenets of national honor—as pledged security until Germany made “suitable provision for the satisfaction of American claims.” But the British Government now says in effect that the Allied governments will not permit Germany to make “suitable provision for the satisfaction of American claims.” We are invited, therefore, either to confiscate the sequestrated private prop- erty held in Washington, which even then presumably would have to be deducted from the bill for the Rhine army costs, or else we must buy and doubtless pay heavily for the con- sent of the Allies to deal freely with Germany. If anything is more humiliating than the position in which we are thus placed, it is the brazen way in which the Allied govern- ments have relegated us to it. It is our belief that the relations between the United States and the Allied governments arising out of the Rhine army costs and our reparation demands against Germany Should be the subject of a congressional investigation, in order that the country may be informed of all the facts.

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 OS oo = Tere =e ome Did Passive Resistance Fail? By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Berlin, October 28 7 HNODAY all Europe is in the control of an armed force. Might rules; the bayonet is king. Is it then true that the great weapon of passive resistance, in the spirit of Jesus, failed in the Ruhr, leaving its inhabitants more than ever the victims of a more brutal force than Europe has yet seen? Well, the answer is that nothing that has happened in the slightest degree detracts from the power of the weapon of non-resistance and its availability in the future. The simple truth is that passive resistance in the Ruhr did not achieve its ultimate aim because, and solely because, the Berlin Government betrayed the cause of the German peo- ple by its mismanagement of the battle, the corruption which marked the financial side of the struggle, and the complete and absolute miscalculations on the part of the Cuno Government as to the duration of the contest and how it should be carried on. It must be remembered that passive resistance began spontaneously in the Ruhr. When the French troops came in, the Ruhr workmen laid down their tools. Berlin had not thought of this plan of countering, but they seized upon it with joy and extended the movement not only throughout the Ruhr but through all the previously occupied territory. Naturally, being anything but pacifists, they did not bring to the struggle any loyalty to passive resistance on the ground of principle or religious belief. It was merely the one weapon to which they could turn. From the beginning Dr. Cuno was warned that he must prepare for a long struggle, perhaps for a year and a half of opposition, in order that when the spring elections of 1924 came on Poincaré would be compelled to admit that the Ruhr policy had failed to produce money for France or any supplies in considerable excess of the cost of the occupation. That would have afforded the best means of defeating Poincaré, who at this writing seems to be certain to get a new lease of power when the elections come. Dr. Cuno was, however, convinced from the beginning that it was only a matter of keeping up the resistance for two or three months, and he based his whoie campaign upon this theory. No defi- nite program for carrying on the struggle was, therefore, ever worked out. So far as I can ascertain there was not even any financial program resorted to in order to prepare for a long struggle; the sole reliance was the printing press with results anybody could foresee. Some effort was made to peg the mark at between 20,000 and 25,000 to the dollar, which succeeded for a time—long enough for some insiders, so many people believe, to enrich themselves thereby. But there was no effort to plan for a new currency such as now (October 28) is just going into effect but which could as easily have been put into use ten months ago; there was no move to vote new taxes and otherwise to raise fresh revenues to support the battle; I cannot even find that the popular contributions to the Ruhr cause were adequately developed and encouraged by the Government. Far worse than that, tremendous corruption crept into the whole management of the finances, perhaps not so much in Berlin as elsewhere. It was difficult—the money had to be got into the Ruhr by any possible method; the least suspicious-looking messengers had to be selected to carry the huge sums needed, for the French seized messengers and stole the money whenever they could get their hands on them. That naturally opened the door to waste and at times even to theft. But besides that, insiders did enrich themselves and enormous sums might just as well have been thrown out of the window. Again, the Germans were unable to sink party differences and rivalries even in this great struggle. The petty bickerings and strife went on in the Reichstag precisely as before. It did not become, therefore, the complete and overwhelming uprising of the nation that it should have been, It did cement the nation for a while in the first months of the fight; but after that the people, nervously worn down by nine years of constant excitement, suffering, and misery, failed to focus their at- tention upon the struggle for the reason that the leaders failed to furnish the necessary inspired, unselfish leader- ship without which no passive resistance can succeed. Ger- many needed a Gandhi, and there is no German Gandhi. Even when the end came, when Dr. Cuno found that the mere printing of notes would not win the battle, there was the same old lack of frankness on the part of the Gov- ernment toward its own people. He himself avoided the necessity of surrender by giving place to Stresemann, and Stresemann had to surrender so rapidly that infinite harm was done to the situation in the Ruhr by the failure to re- sume, or rather to surrender, gradually. It was just as in 1918; the German authorities put off their surrender too long and then were in feverish haste to get it over with. Dr. Cuno is an estimable man personally and no charge of personal gain is made against him. But, like so many other German statesmen, he was totally unable to gauge public sentiment abroad. From the very beginning he was con- vinced that speedy help would come from America and England. He even assured a private gathering of leading Hamburg business men in March or April that he had every reason to believe that aid would soon be forthcoming from the Anglo-Saxon countries. He suffered, too, from the fact that his finance minister, Hermes, was totally unfit for the position. He had been badly besmirched in a scandal in connection with profiteering in wines, but Dr. Cuno had to keep him because the Center parties demanded that as their price for supporting his Government. So the German people were betrayed again, and the weapon of passive re- sistance broke in the hands of men who used it as a tool. No one who has not been in the occupied territories can understand the sacrifices the German people there made during the passive-resistance struggle. The minute it be- gan the French increased the pressure upon them, espe- cially in the districts which had been occupied since the armistice. The German population was terrorized and tor- tured in every conceivable way. Expulsions took place in every direction. From the little town of Gerolstein 2,000 of the 3,000 inhabitants have been driven out. At first those expelled were allowed to take their furniture; later expul- sions were immediate, so that the families went out, leav- ing their furniture standing in the rooms, which were some- times occupied by drunken and disorderly characters. Some- times the quarters were occupied immediately by French

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Nov. 28, 1923] The Nation 601 officials. Try to imagine what it would mean to be living in the State of Connecticut and suddenly to find yourself cut off by a military barrier from all intercourse with New . York and Massachusetts and Rhode Island, without tele- grams, often without mail for days and often unable to get word from or to your relatives across the line, and always in terror of being ousted from your home and robbed of all your belongings at daybreak. Sometimes there were no newspapers for days; to get anywhere people walked six, eight, and ten hours to accomplish absolutely neces- sary business, and nobody ever rode on the trains run by the French. In one case a woman seventy-six years of age drove three days and nights without rest in a coal cart to go to a dying daughter. But if the daughter had hap- pened to be beyond the Rhine she could probably not have gone to her. It is to the infinite credit of the Germans direcily af- fected that they stood all of this without complaint and with complete faith in the righteousness of their cause and the reliability of their weapon. They have not complained now, though their torture continues and they are beginning to understand how they were betrayed by their own Govern- ment. It is another evidence of the lack of a proper sort of nationalistic feeling in Germany, which is also demon- strated in the attack on Saxony and the disloyalty of Ba- varia. More than that, the passive-resistance struggle was of course utilized by the great industrialists of Ger- many, who are its real rulers, for their own purposes. It was they who dictated the surrender, and a very hasty surrender, when it got too hot for them and they had begun to feel that if they did not get their plants into action again they would soon never be able to put back into service some of their most delicate and costly works. Dr. Cuno was their agent; his was ‘‘a business men’s government”; while Stresemann and Stinnes are not friends the Stresemann Government is none the less one of reaction and under the circumstances is inevitably the creature of these conscience- less big-business men for whom, as for their brothers in business in other countries, there is but one motto: “Where iron is, there is the fatherland.” There has never been any question in my mind that they would sell out to the French the minute they were compelled to or found it to their advantage to do so. That in such a sordid struggle the great weapon of pas- sive resistance should have been taken up by men most of whom were without true patriotism, or any ethical concept of what they were doing and what they were using, is a misfortune for humanity. That millions of oppressed Ger- mans were led to make the necessary sacrifices to carry this struggle on for utterly different objects than those avowed is a crime against the German people. For it all Germany is now suffering and will have to suffer, the inno- cent and the guilty alike. It is another evidence of the way the German people are being crushed, exploited, and degraded between the upper and nether millstones of a hor- rible French militarism and the selfishness and falsity of their own changing governments and the real masters of those governments—the big industrialists. From all of which I hope it will be clear to the Nation readers that passive resistance as such did not fail; that it carried on gloriously for eight months in the face of every possible obstacle; that it fell short of success against France because it was not honestly and efficiently supported at Berlin, and that there is nothing in this experience to prove that, given proper leadership and the adequate devotion on the part of all involved, this weapon of the spirit against force cannot again be used. Some day it may yet be, and with overwhelming success, against that naked brutal force which is today bringing civilization in Europe to its fall Starving Germany By AGNES SMEDLEY e READ! Gott im Himmel. Have you heard that bread will cost fifteen milliards tomorrow? Buy today if you intend to live.” ; “Butter?” a woman screams it. “Today it is twenty-twe milliards a pound! Who speaks of butter?” Other women reply. Wild rumors are spread. Women rush through the streets, from shop to shop, like mad. Anything is believed. Anything seems possible. In the butcher shop a woman heard the butcher tell her that meat cost twenty milliards a pound. She half crouched, as if struck, when she heard it, her expression a mixture of wild fear and shock. Then like an animal she lunged over the counter and struck him in the face. A tiny boy stood by with a market basket on his arm. His old but clean clothing was patched until hardly an inch of the original material remained; his old black stockings were darned in a dozen places with brown yarn. On tiptoe he bashfully peeked over the marble slab and asked for one- fifth pound of Wurst and offered five milliard marks in payment. The sum was too little, but the woman gave it to him. He smiled and gravely took his purchase homeward. In a grocery store a worn workingman, leading two chil- dren, bought one pound of the cheapest margarine and a few cubes of soup powder. His bill was eleven milliards. “Here is my wage for today,” he said, laying ten milliards on the desk. “I will bring the extra milliard tomorrow.” Aside from the industrialists, the foreigners, the specu- lators and business men, few of the German masses of the cities get enough to eat these days. The professional and middle classes are all starving, although no one notices it, because the Germans do not parade their misery before the eyes of either their own people or of foreigners. Even in 1920 and 1921, when we heard tales of the “good living” of the masses in Germany, such workers as the skilled miners of the Ruhr—in whose homes I lived for some time —existed on a fare which no other West European or American workers would tolerate or could endure. The usual fare consisted of huge quantities of potatoes, black bread, and beer. In the homes of the higher-paid workers meat was served two or three times weekly, Wurst was occasionally to be had, and Malz (a kind of roasted cereal) took the place, as it has for years past, of real coffee. The only fat was pig’s fat, used in place of butter. The vast majority of the women were anemic and chronically ailing from insufficient food, most of the children were thin, anemic little creatures, undersized and suffering from rickets, tuberculosis, and other ailments. The women suf- fered the most; for when there was meat to be had, they gave it to the men and to their children. “My man must work very hard all day,” they would reply to protests at this sort of thing. Just as if they did not also work all day, cooking, scrubbing, washing and ironing clothing, and caring for a household of children! In 1922 I lived in Berlin in the home of an old widow

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602 The Nation who received a pension from the Government. This pen- sion was so small that it barely paid her house rent. She and her little half-blind granddaughter dragged out a miserable existence on the rent received from two small rooms. I had been ill for some time and the doctor said I must have chicken broth. Chicken broth in that house, where an egg was a curiosity and meat a stranger! The old woman took her basket and started for the market. On the way the entire apartment house became aware of the fact that a chicken was to be brought home. The whole market soon knew of her pilgrimage and competed for her favor; after she had spent an hour or two informing the market of her presence and selecting a proper fowl she re- turned home laden with messages: the fruit woman sent to me—to the American woman rich enough to buy a chicken—the word that she had lovely strawberries for sale; the butter-and-cheese woman wished me to know of the excellence of her wares; and the flower woman had beautiful flowers for the sick. Our neighborhood was a poor one and a chicken was an event. The prestige of the old widow went up rapidly. The woman in the apartment beneath us donated a pot for eooking the fowl, although my landlady had one; but it seems that it is not every pot which can boast of having cooked a chicken. Another woman came and offered to pluck the fowl, and still another came to take care of it while it cooked. When the cooking was finished, the old widow brought the chicken and the soup on a tray and set it beside me; then, with hands folded over her stomach, she stood watching me from the foot of the bed. Her face was that of an artist who has had an opportunity to produce a mas- terpiece—a hungry artist’s face it was, however. To her amazement I offered her half of her handiwork. Then her silence was broken and she poured forth a tale of longing for chicken—a longing of ten years’ duration, for no chicken had been in her house since pre-war days. She shook hands with me and called her granddaughter to do the same. Reverently she took the fowl away, telling me that (it was Friday) she would keep it for Sunday dinner. That night she carefully placed the fowl in the cool air before the kitchen window and retired to sleep. But the hand of fate intervened. Late in the evening, the poor, half-starved medical student who occupied the back room and who lived on black bread and tea, came in. He went into the xitchen to make his tea. From my room I heard the suspicious rattle of a knife or fork on a dish and I knew he—who had also seen no chicken for years— was unable to resist temptation. Next morning the old widow was prostrate. The stu- dent, she informed me, had devoured their Sunday dinner. Against her protests, which gradually melted away in the face of facts, I gave her the other half of the chicken. And that night, after the student had been sufficiently brow- beaten to insure his good behavior, the fowl was placed in the cool air on the window-sill to await the coming of Sun- day. But the old woman could not sleep. Around mid- night, unable to stand it any longer, she arose, awoke her little granddaughter, and the two of them had a grand mid- night feast. For months I lived with another landlady, a former peas- ant woman, before I learned that her thin, emaciated body was caused by constant underfeeding and not by illness. My extra food could remain in her kitchen for days and could go to waste, but neither she nor her hungry, growing [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 boy would think of touching it. A quarter of a pound of hacked meat once a week would be shared between them. Potatoes, carrots, and black bread served for their diet. By accident I learned that they kept and used my old tea leaves after they had been used and were to be thrown away. The workers, and in fact the vast majority of city and town people, live no better than the persons I have men- tioned, it matters not what may be said to the contrary by American correspondents who live in hotels, travel second class, or who pick up their information from the talk con- ducted in the comfortable homes in which they secure rooms. (Americans seldom or never live as do the German masses, but only in charming rooms in wealthier homes, in hotels, or in expensive pensions.) The average working- man must support a family on an income one-third or one- half of his pre-war earnings. Furthermore, he receives his wages weekly, while prices increase daily. His salary on Saturday can buy practically nothing if it is held over even for one day. Added to this constant undernourishment is the heart- rending economic uncertainty, which is far worse than poverty. Formerly even a poor man knew that if he saved a mark for a week, it retained its purchasing power. To- day, twelve milliards may buy a loaf of bread, but tomor- row it will only buy half a loaf, and next week it will not buy even one slice. In the past three days, for instance, bread has gone up from nine hundred million marks to twelve milliards a loaf; butter from two milliards to twenty- two milliards; fat from one milliard to fifteen and eighteen milliards per pound. No one even thinks of such insignifi- cant sums as millions any more: one postal stamp for Ber- lin costs four millions, and for foreign postage, thirty mil- lions. By the time this article reaches America both post- age and the cost of everything else will have risen to still more fantastic figures. The week has witnessed looting of many shops in various parts of the city, unrest in most cities throughout the country, and actual street fighting in many. Looting and rioting is regarded as so much grist to the mills of the Communists and the reactionaries alike. The Communists take advantage of it and preach their dogma; the monar- chists do the same. They smile cynically when they read of the frightful increase in the cost of living and say: “It has not yet gone far enough. It must be worse still before the masses realize the mistake they have made in establish- ing a republic! We shall wait a bit longer.” But most of the town people are so weary, so destroyed by uncertainty and long years of nervous strain, that they do not care what happens. They are tired of it all. The newspapers often publish statistics showing the alarming increase in suicides—eloquent proof of weariness and despair. From every church in Berlin funerals are held each day. They are not only suicides, of course, but are people who die of slow starvation, or of ailments which could have been cured but for long undernourishment. Statistics, however, can never speak so eloquently as do the crowds of women with their grim faces and angry eyes standing in the cold winds for hours, waiting their turn to buy a bit of bread or fat or potatoes. These tragic lines tell a story of hunger and despair and an even sadder story of the degeneration of the city population. For in these days no one hears talk of music, or literature, or art, or of any cultural movements. Life has been reduced to a hunt for bread.

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Nov. 28, 1923] Toward Britain (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD HE drift toward Britain continues; and the city of Washington seems to move again into the mood which marked it just before President Monroe delivered his well- known lecture to the European Continent one hundred years ago next month. - Then, as now, the Continent exhibited a strong resur- gence of autocracy. Now, as then, the city of Washington begins to exhibit a strong recoil from thoughts of Europe as Europe to thoughts of Europe as consisting of the Continent and of Britain. To this development the conversation here of some of the amiable and highly intelligent diplomatic representa- tives of certain European autocratic governments has been no inconsiderable contribution. These gentlemen seem quite unable to perceive an important difference between a government which governs well and lawlessly and a gov- ernment which governs well and lawfully. Or, to put it differently, law for them seems to be any fiat by any person who by any means is on top. They seem genuinely and naively unable to attach any importance to the ideas which in 1776 caused a large number of Americans, who were being governed in fact very well and who were extremely prosperous, to mar their prosperity for seven years by fighting a war in order to establish their right to govern themselves perhaps worse. This writer recollects now—with a belated sense of its instructiveness—a conversation which he had in 1918 with a most capable and experienced European journalist from a Southern European continental country. This writer had chanced to remark to him that presently in the United States there would be an election. “Not at all,” rejoined the experienced traveler from abroad. “Your Government will not permit it. There is a war and your Government will not want an election. There will be none.” This writer thereupon endeavored to persuade him that since the hav- ing of the election was commanded by the Constitution it would have to take place. The distinguished visitor was totally unmoved by this argument. He still maintained resolutely that since the election would be an inconvenience to the Government it would not be permitted. That point of view, which seemed to this writer then to be only a curiosity, seems now to be a natural mani- festation of a widespread state of mind in many Euro- pean continental countries. The fiat of the sovereign seems in those countries to be the definition of law just exactly as it was when that definition first was made by the jurists of the Roman Empire. The behavior of the representatives of such countries in an international court becomes more than ever a theme of anxious speculation in Washington. In any case, while on the Continent the imported British fashion of representative government is more and more discarded, the minds of thoughtful American public men turn more and more to the continued constitutional course of the Mother of Parliaments on the Thames. The French begin to suffer in the esteem of Washington not only from their invasion of the Ruhr, which has many critics, but also from their inevitable immersion in the affairs of a The Nation 603 Continent which seems increasingly to be dominated by political principles alien to those which lie at the founda- tion of this republic. Vaguely and gropingly, but without pause, the impres- sion gains ground that on much of the European Continent today, from Spain all the way to Russia, there is something as different from us and as uncongenial to our ways of political life as the Holy Alliance was a hundred years ago. The parallel so often stressed between those days and these begins to show itself with an expanding fidelity. Britain, now as then, is the supreme victor of a mighty war and an intense sufferer from the ensuing peace. Then, having defeated Napoleon, Britain turned at home to see the burning of hay-ricks and the smashing of factory machines and a long line of other outbreaks by a hungry population. Now, having defeated William the Second, Britain turns at home to a mountainous burden of unem- ployment doles and to the growing power of the politicians of the proletariat. Now, as then, Britain turns to the United States and once more, in Canning’s flamboyant words, “calls in the New World to redress the balance of the Old.” Canning wished the United States to cooperate with Britain in the matter of the freeing of South America from Spanish trade re- strictions and of the opening of it to world prosperity. Curzon wishes the United States to cooperate with Britain in the freeing of the European Continent from the restric- tions, French or other, which check its trade revival and for the opening of it to the unimpeded currents of world- wide commercial interchange. Meanwhile, then as now, the United States had refused to enter an international organization for peace, although ardently requested by the Massachusetts peace society and by the New York Evening Post to regard that organization with approving interest. Then, though earnestly solicited by the Russian envoy at Washington to cast its lot in with the Holy Alliance, the United States declined the invitation with the polite and soothing remark that it could best help the noble purposes of the Holy Alliance by staying out of it. Now an American President, unconscious of plagiarism, has repeated that same remark to a contemporary Europe desiring our presence in the League. There followed then, as there has followed now, a period in which a faction favoring France and a faction favoring Britain could be seen threatening the internal solidarity of the American capital. Upon that period comes now, as there came then, a period in which the friendship for France wanes before the similarity with Britain in insti- tutions and in interests. Jefferson then counseled joint action with Britain. Many American public men are moving toward it now. Yet then it did not happen. Instead there happened—a hundred years ago next month—a declaration solitarily by the United States while Britain, not joining in the declaration and itself in time one of its victims, gave it the silent sup- port of its men-of-war cruising and guarding the waves between the European and the South American shores. Will there be again an American President who will assert an American course of action in a moment of world danger and assert it by himself and in the name of this country alone, while all the time behind it lies the con- currence and the latent might of Britain? That is the question which at this time of the centennial of the Mon- roe Doctrine is the doctrine’s true contemporary suggestion. =e

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604 The Nation * [Vol. 117, No. 3047 Where the Workers Live In the Steel Country A Diary with Drawings By HUGO GELLERT I Mine: is a small town in the Pennsylvania iron region, wedged in between the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers. It has a street or two of stores and offices, few schools, many churches, and the sooty black shanties of the workers. Many iron bridges cross the muddy rivers. Barren hills flatten against the dull sky. bus % * * A few workers sat in the employment office of the Na- tional Tube Company as I stepped in to apply for a job. Inclosed in narrow black frames that hung on the walls were mottoes printed in large type. “Be faithful to your employer” was the beginning of one, “Don’t be a knocker” was the title of the other—an Elbert Hubbard effusion. A clerk behind a small inclosure took our names. “Come back after dinner to be examined by the doctor,” he said as he sent us away. %* * & When I returned I found the office full of men, mostly foreigners and Negroes. The clerk marched us across the street to the doctor’s office, where we sat in the lobby on long benches waiting for our turn. The doctor placed his palm against the lower part of the abdomen of each of us and asked us to cough. This done, our eyes were tested. Each man got a card and was told to call ready to work at the office of the labor boss on the following morning at 6:55. * * * I was assigned to a group of Mexican workers. Our fore- man was a kindly little Irishman. We climbed into a rail- road car that was filled with gravel and started to unload it. The car stood beside a long shed. The openings of the shed were above the height of the car. We had to shovel the gravel over our shoulders to get it through the open- ings. One of the men spoke to me. I tried my best to answer him in his own language. He seemed grateful for it and later he told me that it should be easy for me to get a job as a foreman of the Mexican laborers, since I could speak Spanish. “I don’t care to be a slave-driver,” I said. He shook my hand and repeated my words to his countrymen. * * & This group of Mexicans had unloaded six cars of gravel in four days. We finished the seventh car at about noon on the day of my arrival. The gravel was piled high, block- ing the openings of the shed, and still another car was wait- ing to be emptied. Two men were ordered to each open- ing to shovel the gravel to the far side of the shed. I was one of the men chosen for that work. While we cleared the openings the men in the car had to stand idle. Then we

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Nov. 28, 1923] The Nation 605 | Chimneys waited while they piled up the gravel again. The foreman did not like the arrangement and told us so. “This is hard work and we need these rests,” I ventured—and it was hard work. It began to rain hard. The men climbed into the shed. What a good-looking lot they were! Some of them were boys with little black mustachios and big sombreros. I imagined them back in Mexico among their adobe houses with their gaily arrayed muchachas. They seemed out of place in this modern industrial plant soberly viewing the smoke as it rose from the giant stacks. The rain beat down and the wind blew it in through the openings and the smoke made breathing hard. A boy be- gan to whistle a sad southern tune. They all took it up and chanted an endless song in slow, monotonous tones... . ‘The foreman’s head popped up: “Whatcha call this—a Sun- day school?” * * ¥ The next morning the labor boss—a cross-eyed Swede— gave me a shovel and sent me to work with an old man. ‘The old man took me into a cellar under one of the repair shops. Behind arched openings sand was piled nearly to the ceiling. From the top of the sand-hill I could distin- guish the forms of other men in the darkness—all of them old like the one who brought me. I could tell by the stoop of their bodies and by the thinness of their voices. They were talking, telling smutty jokes. Old men boasting of their conquests. The old liars! They disgusted me. I had to shovel the sand down toward the pas- sage. The damp dark cellar, the chattering old men, the bumping of my head against the steel beams got on my nerves. ...I climbed up to daylight. I met the Swede labor boss. “It’s a bum job you gave me,” I told him. ‘“What’s the matter? It is a good yop,” he answered. “Good, hell! Keeping us in a dark hole like rats.” The Mexican boys came to join us. That made it different. I was more willing to go back to work—with them. The Mexicans and I loaded a truck full of ce- ment. Then we all piled on top of the cement bags and drove through town to the home of the Swede boss. He had an ugly but comfortable house. We carried the cement into the cellar. Great big pieces of hard coal were stacked neatly up to the ceiling. It was three o’clock when we returned to the mills. The boss asked the Mexicans if they wanted to work overtime that evening. He asked in a voice that warned: “I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Of course they all said “Yes.” It was Saturday and we stopped work at 4:30. The Mexican boys were to start again at 6 p.m. and stay at it till 6 o’clock the next morning. They worked twenty-two hours every Saturday —why not? Didn’t they get good pay? Six dollars for the twelve hours. They paid us four dollars and forty cents for a ten-hour day. Shoveling SSS Sa Se

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The Nation * [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 She Would Be! By A. NEIL LYONS IS real name is Robert Tiffin; but they call him Tiffy. That shows you what he is: a decent fellow; one of the best. I have been watching Tiffy. He has inspired me with a passion of envy. I want to be like Tiffin. I want to grow a beard and look like Tiffin. I want to live the way Tiffin lives. Above all, I want to find a second Mrs. Tiffin, a spiritual twin-sister of Mrs. Tiffin, to have and to hold for my own. He farms. He farms the eighteen acres and certain adher- ent rods, poles, or perches which form that snug little hold- ing called Newton’s Croft. He farms in his dressing-gown, from a front porch, sitting in a canvas-backed chair, with a baby daughter on each knee and a publication called Fireside Flashes in his hand. The pages of this book are crammed with good things, red-hot apothegms like these: Opportunity is only another name for hard work.—Lord Leverhulme. In the bright Lexicon of youth there is no such word as “fail.’—Lady Diana Manners. George Washington never “took it easy.”—President Harding. If at first you don’t succeed—try, try, try again.—The Bishop of London. Keep moving.—Hugene Sandow. It is Tiffin’s habit to read these stimulating thoughts aloud to his baby daughters. There is method, and a cer- tain forceful calm about his way of farming which appeals to me. I remember well the day when first I crossed the thresh- old of Newton’s Croft. It was a Friday, and I wanted eggs. I had noticed the patriarchal group within the porch, and not being conversant with the Tiffin method of hus- bandry, I had supposed it to consist of “summer visitors”; for that rather profitable product is much cultivated on our landscape. But Mrs. Tiffin undeceived me. Mrs. Tiffin came to the door when I knocked, and we liked each other from the first. She was so bright, so fresh, so dimpled. She had such a capable look, and was evidently, like myself, a foe to sloth. She had a spade in one hand, a broom in the other, a cloth over her shoulder, and soap- suds in her hair. She said to me: “Eggs? Well, sir, our chickun don’t lay none too partickler grand jist now, but if ’tis on’y ’arf-a-dozen—well, sir, I’ll see if Tiffy’ve got a minute to spare. No doubt ’e could find you ’arf-a-dozen.” I was fortunate, it seemed. Mrs. Tiffin, after absenting herself for a minute or so, returned to tell me, with a smil- ing countenance, that Tiffy had stolen a minute in which to look for the eggs. Very soon he brought them, and I recog- nized in “Tiffy” the patriarch of the dressing-gown. We shook hands. I proffered a treasury note in payment for the eggs. But Tiffy had no change. “Another time would do,” said Mrs. Tiffin. would do,” said Tiffy. “Then next time,” said your servant. “Cert’nly!” echoed Tiffy. “Next time.” “Soon as Tiffy’s got a few minutes to spare,” said Mrs. Tiffin, “he’ll have to run into the village and fetch a few shillings’ worth of silver. We be allus wantin’ it. You'll really ’a’ to try and find a minute, Tiffy.” Tiffy nodded thoughtfully, and, with a little sigh of “Any time weariness, hurried off to his porch. the fast. Next time it was also eggs. Mrs. Tiffin said I had called at a fortunate moment, for the chickun had recovered their form, and Tiffin, she be- lieved, was disengaged for a minute or two, and could visit the fowl-house at once. Whereupon Mrs. Tiffin betook her- self to a grass-plot which adjoins the house, and spoke to a recumbent figure which reposed there, surrounded by baby daughters. The figure moved and slowly uprose and walked away, and then came back again—with eggs. “There’s been a rat in that big coop,” said Tiffy, gloom- ily, as he handed me the eggs. “Never mind, Tiffy,” responded his wife, in brisk and cheerful tones, such as all good wives should always use; “never mind; once we get the ’arvest in I daresay you can find time to run across some evenin’ and nail they roof boards up.” The next time I saw Mrs, Tiffin, we spoke about dogs. But this was a matter with which Mrs. Tiffin felt herself unfitted by nature to cope. Tiffy always did the dog busi- ness. Would I have the kindness to sit down and await the return of Tiffy, which was imminent? Tiffy, finding him- self actually at leisure for half an hour, had gone off into the fields with his gun. “As I say to him,” said Mrs. Tiffin, | ‘it don’t do nobody no good never to amuse theirself. ‘You | snatch a minute while you can,’ I say, ‘and take your old gun — out, Tiffy, and bring us ’ome a rabbit or two for Sunday.’ ” | Hardly had this admirable wife ceased speaking, when — Tiffy returned. He wore a somber air, and was obviously — fatigued and thirsty. Mrs. Tiffin, hastening indoors, brought out his canvas-backed chair, upon the seat of which he placed himself with a thud. “We've got in the rest of that hay, dear,” said Mrs. Tif- fin. “So jest you set there and take it easy for once in a way.” Tiffin smiled at her, wanly. He put his hand to his coat and produced from its pocket two fat blackbirds, which, with a modestly triumphant air, he flung at the feet of Mrs. Tiffin. “Oh, thank you, Tiffy,” said Mrs. Tiffin. “If I get a minute or two to spare termorrer,” said Mr. Tiffin, “I’ll get you some more. Six o’ they’d make a good pie.” “Oh, thank you, Tiffy,” said Mrs. Tiffin. Mr. Tiffin then talked dog. “To tell you the truth, sir,” he said, “I have got a dog and I don’t care ’ow soon I gits rid of ’im; for, to tell you the truth, sir, we got the plumbers comin’ in termorrer.” “We’re gointer ’ave a pump,” explained his wife, smiling happily on Tiffy. ‘“’Tis no use at all for us to try to get on the same as we ’ave ’ad to get on up to now. Would you believe it, sir, every drop o’ water that I use indoor that © ’ave got to be carried ’ere be Tiffy.” Tiffy nodded gloomily, in confirmation of this statement. “We’re gettin’ some lead put into the porch, too,” added | Mrs. Tiffin. “In time o’ rain that let in all the water, and poor old Tiffy, he haves to quit ’is readin’ and come indoor. — ’Tis hard lines if poor old Tiffy, sir, can’t ’ave a little read © now an’ then in ’is own porch in ’is own spare time.” I acquiesced; and as to the dog, I took it away, on trial. When I came back again on the next afternoon but one ~ to deliver my report on the dog, I found myself confronted _ by a scene of furious activity. d I went home and kept

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ee Nov. 28, 1923] There were holes all over the roof of Newton’s Croft, and plumbers, plumbers, everywhere. Mrs. Tiffin, with a pitchfork in one hand, a baby daughter in the other, and hay in her hair, was assisting the farm- boy to build a rick; while Tiffy—ah, Tiffy was busy too. At first I thought that I had had the luck to catch him in one of his rare moments of inactivity, for he was sitting motionless, silent, and, to all appearances, without purpose by the side of the well. But when I drew near to him, Tiffy frowned at me and explained things. “I’m sorry, sir,” said Tiffy, “but ye’ll ’ave to call back again about that dog. I’m—I’m rather busy, sir. I dursn’t leave this place here. You see they’ve took the cover off the well, sir; so I be bound to sit ’ere, to sit and watch lest ’ere one of our chickun should fall in.” Far be it from me to play the base part of tempter. Far be it from me to come between a man and his manly labors. I left Tiffy at it. I stole away. In the evening I went back again. Mrs. Tiffin invited me into the bright, warm kitchen. She placed in my hand—ignoring every protest—a glass of warm, bright liquid. I noticed that she held a wood-chopper in her hand, and that there was coal-dust on her hair. Tiffy, arrayed in dressing-gown and slippers, sat in the chimney corner behind a glass like mine. “Tig mulled ale,” said Mrs. Tiffin, referring to the glass. “Pye ’otted it up for pore old Tiffy, here. He’ve been so upset, sir, pore old Tiffy ’ave.... Happened to look up from the well for half a minute s’afternoon and bless’d if a foolish old chickun didn’t fall in! . “Tig hard lines, sir,” continued Mrs. Tiffin, “if pore old Tiffy can’t take a minute off to fill he’s pipe without a chickun fall in the well!” She cast a look of warm affection and sympathy at the trouble-stricken man. She filled his pipe and handed it to him, together with a lighted match. It was then I asked Mrs. Tiffin for news of her unmarried sisters, only to be told that Mrs. Tiffin was an only child. “She would be,” was my bitter thought, as I sat unhappily at home, eating beef with mustard which I had had to spread by my own labor. Poems By ROBERT L. WOLF A Pagan Reinvokes the Twenty-third Psalm I knock again and try again the key, I, who, enraged, fied from Thy temple’s trees Because the presence of my enemies Around the table there offended me... . I, who laid up so long and bitterly Complaints and old reproaches, on my knees Offer regret for years misspent as these, And wonder how such folly came to be. Anoint again my head and let me walk The valley of the shadow, with the rod Thou hast afforded for my comfort, God: My soul restored, and singing through my veins. Forgive the years of idle, foolish talk: The cup that runneth over still remains. The Nation 607 Cobweb Boy You who were the breath of spring Now are just—not anything. You who broke the morning dew Of my dreaming, try—can you Go repair a spider-swing; Go restore a wild wasp’s sting, Put again the tangled lace Of a milkweed in its place? Build a snowflake? All of death Lies in one warm hasty breath. In the Driftway ™“OMETIME ago the Drifter received, from a generous \ lady in Maryland, an invitation to drift in the direc- tion of her farm sometime and get completely lost off the beaten trails. His usual custom with letters—even gener- ous letters, and his readers may as well know it—is to keep them in his left-hand coat-pocket until they are quite worn out and then throw them away regretfully. Occasionally, however, a communication comes to him which cannot be ignored. Such a one came the other day, not from the Maryland lady but from her husband, and it shows the Drifter up in such an extremely poor light that justice demands he give it to the world. * * * * * os Y dear Drifter,” it begins, in a deceivingly amiable way: for two hours only the creak of leather broke the silence, or the ° rattle of a halter chain. Not a bird, not even a wolf slinking through the open timber; even the footfalls of the horse were muffled and extinguished by the mat of pine needles. The swarms of mosquitoes left me at the edge of Brimstone Basin; their singing would have been welcome now. At last, here is the Fundamental, nothing but nothing. Time, no, unless the pines measure time, for no living thing is here, not even earthworms. Life, none, except that in the pines. Away to the right a mile away is steam; sulphurous vapor and poisonous water emerge from the whitened rocks. ... ... A little kingdom of sixty miles width and ninety miles length. I am King, Warhorse (my horse) is Privy Counselor of the King, coyotes are my Parliament, and they meet nightly outside my door and yelp as much and as sincerely as the par- liaments of men. My subjects are elk, moose, wolves, grizzlies, deer, cinnamon and black bears, mountain lions, and fishes. As motley a population as may be found in the hive you call a city. I am King, but only by the grace of these mountains... . “These are excerpts,” the communication went on to ex- plain, “from letters which I wrote while living as a mem- ber of the United States Ranger Service in Wyoming, and while I was being paid $100 per month and horse furnished, for living by myself, sixty miles from the nearest human being, 120 miles from the nearest railroad, forty miles from the nearest wagon road, and for three weeks not seeing a human being. . . . You are not a devotee of my god, Soli- tude, my dear Drifter, you are a pretender to the priest- hood! ... Shame! The severity of the first vows ap- palled you . . . and now like a true dilettante you forswear Solitude and turn to the paths you have always secretly loved: 3:20

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608 OW, the Drifter has not drifted all these many years for nothing. Solitude, he avers, is a state of mind. It does not mean the absence of human beings or wide, free spaces in which to wander at will. There is possibly more real solitude in a great crowd of persons than anywhere else in the world, and more companionship in coyotes and mountains than the Drifter’s correspondent gives them credit for. However, the Drifter admits that he is fairly hit; he has been found guilty of saying one thing at one time and something entirely different at another time. He is willing to confess, however, that this is not the full measure of his sins; if his readers read him carefully enough they would realize that he has often been in two places at once, a more difficult feat obviously than in two different states of mind. And who could expect any more of him; he is, after all, only a rough fellow who drifts about from pillar to post and makes his living by it. Could one demand, or even want consistency, reason, or principle from THE DRIFTER? Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. Inany case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. ] From the Book of Mormon To THE EpITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In connection with passive resistance or non-resistance you might be interested in a story from the Book of Mormon, which is probably unfamiliar to most of your readers. It is _ from the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Alma. “Now there was not one soul among all the people who had been converted unto the Lord that would take up arms against their brethren; nay, they would not even make any prepara- tions for war. ... they took their swords, and all the weap- ons that were used for the shedding of man’s blood, and they did bury them deep in the earth . . . vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren, they would give up their own lives. .. . “And it came to pass that their brethren, the Lamanites, made preparations for war and came up to the land of Nephi for the purpose of destroying the king ... and the people. “Now when the people saw that they were coming against them, they went out to meet them and prostrated themselves before them to the earth, and began to call on the name of the Lord; ... and the Lamanites began to fall upon them, and began to slay them with the sword; and thus without meeting any resistance they did slay a thousand and five of them... . “Now when the Lamanites saw this they did forbear from slaying them; and there were many whose hearts had swollen in them for those of their brethren who had fallen under the sword, for they repented of the things which they had done. And ... they threw down their weapons ... for they were stung for the murders which they had committed... “And it came to pass that the people of God were joined that day by more than the number who had been slain .. . there were more than a thousand brought to the knowledge of the truth; thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people.” This reminds one of Tolstoi’s stories of how evil is overcome by good. But nowadays how many people in the community does one find who would rather be slain than do what they think is wrong? Georgeville, Quebec, November 7 B. HAYES The Nation. [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 The Ways of the Fathers To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. Hard’s parallel between the days of Harding and Coolidge and those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madi- son seems to me more ingenious than accurate. The tendency of the American public (not only the states- men and politicians) between 1789 and 1814 to line up as Anglophils and Francophils was not due merely to the lack of an “American point of view” nor to “personal factional pref- erences.” It was a positive phenomenon, not a negative one; it reflected material interests, not airy sentiment. The mer- cantile and financial capitalists of the North had good business reasons for dreading a war with England more than they dreaded a war with France. If they could not be neutral, they must be Anglophil. Moreover, the success of revolutionary France, even of Napoleonic France, meant a triumph of more or less thoroughgoing Jacobinism—and that meant aid and comfort to the debt-ridden small farmers and the disfranchised mechanics and laborers, who were already becoming danger- ously restive under the merchant-banker regime. The ruling classes of New England and the Middle States had thus a valid and purely domestic reason for being Francophobes. To the Southern planters, on the other hand, neither foreign war nor French victory in Europe presented any grave terrors. Their fortunes were not at the mercy of British or French cruisers; and their peculiar working class, unlike that of the ~ North, was quite immune to Jacobin infection. What they did fear, again on very practical and domestic grounds, was | the consolidation of political power in the hands of the busi- ness classes; for them, “twisting the lion’s tail’ was a con- venient mode of attack on the real enemy, the Federalist oligarchy. Hamilton, and Adams, and Webster on the one side, Jeffer- son, and Calhoun, and Clay on the other, knew quite well where they stood, because they knew what their most influ- ential constituents wanted, and why. Our “participationists” today do not know whether, in the event of participation, they would like to help England against France or France against — England. Of course not, because their backers do not yet know. Their backers do not know, because they have bet money on both sides, and stand to lose either one way or the other if the Anglo-French difficulty comes to a crisis. It is significant that, although present-day France stands for black © reaction and present-day England in some measure for social progress, the more progressive among our American politicians are not markedly pro-British nor are the standpatters notably | anti-British. In a word, the American line-up on European | issues is not a clear one, as it was a century ago, simply be- cause it does not coincide with any line-up of conflicting in- terests in this country. New York, November 5 A. L. Why Mcedern Cream Is Thin To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: In your issue of October 24 the Drifter wonders what has become of the thick cream of his boyhood. In the first place, | cream that has come through a separator does not get as thick © as cream that has risen in a pan, and in the second place, — milk or cream that has been pasteurized does not produce the thick clots that he has in mind. I have a Jersey cow that I milk myself, and if the Drifter will drop in some time I’ll show him some old-fashioned thick cream right from the pan. In fact, I’ll turn over to him for his own consumption a whole day’s output, which he can eat in any manner he likes. And I’ll inform him, in case he’s never tried it, that ripe tomatoes with sugar and cream beat lettuce. Magog, Quebec, November 7 W. B.

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Nov. 28, 1923 ] From a Native Daughter To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: X Sir: As dispenser of magazines in the Kansas City Public Library, I am writing to voice my disapproval of the article on Missouri by Manley O. Hudson in The Nation for October 13. That any native son could be so lacking in patriotism and loyalty is amazing. The spirit in which this article is written is critical, unfair, grouchy; many of the facts are untrue. Some Missourians still have “to be shown,” and I am one who will have to be shown that “Kansas City has no character.” What does he mean by that statement anyway? Compared with other cities in the United States none has such beautiful homes or a better boulevard system; and Montgomery Ward’s is be- yond the city limits, I assure you. I find none here so ignorant as the Americans he has met on the Atlantic coast, to whom “Missouri is a name for a river, a waltz, a compromise.” And so Missourians do not read books? He had better consult librarians on that point rather than Bap- tist missionaries, for we have some statistics that can make him apologize for that statement. We know better and can show him. I learned at the University of Missouri, School of Journalism, which he concedes is a reputable institution, that the Kansas City Star ranks fifth among the best papers of the United States. We are thankful to know that we take our religion seriously. There may be some hope for Missourians in the day of the millennium. Really, we think it very regretta- ble that you permitted Missouri to enter These United States with such a black eye, and we should like to suggest that Mr. Hudson study for facts, style, and spirit the article, Missouri, Mother of the West, which appeared in the National Geo- graphic Magazine for April, 1923. Kansas City, October 23 MapBeL B. McCuure, Chief of the Periodical Department, Kansas City Public Library Intelligence Tests for Tourists To THE EpiTor OF THE NATION: Sir: Since restricted immigration into this country is now with us, why not have restricted emigration out of the United States? In view of the conduct of some of our compatriots abroad, wouldn’t it be a good idea for the State Department prior to the annual exodus to hold an intelligence test for departing tourists before it clothes them with the magic sanc- tity of an American passport? At a time when Anglo-American amity offers a dim hope for a banged and battered world, local good feeling toward us was not promoted at Cambridge University, England, last summer by the vandalism of a group of American tourists whose idea of improving European conditions was to scratch their initials, names, and home towns into a five-hundred-year-old gate. Then while the rest of us hung our heads in shame, they proceeded to chip off pieces of the gate—tokens of British interest on the debt to America. Yours for the Americanization of Americans. New York, November 11 SorHIA AMSON OLMSTED From a Willing Correspondent To THE Epitor oF THE NATION: Sir: I note frequent appeals from Central European sources for reading matter. I should be glad to get in personal touch with Germans, Austrians, and others who read and write Eng- lish and who would like to correspond by letter on topics of mutual interest and receive American periodicals. I much pre- fer to make personal friends in this manner rather than to send impersonally. Could you help me? Baltimore, October 4 T. Wi S: [The Nation will gladly forward the addresses of any persons who care to take advantage of this suggestion. ] The Nation 609 Books Children of the Sun The Children of the Sun. A Study in the Early History of Civilization. By W. J. Perry. E. P. Dutton and Company. $8. HO were the “children of the sun”? They were a remark- able group of people in very ancient Egypt and Sumer, who were once the rulers of those countries and were later identified with the gods associated with vegetation and water and fertility. Later still they became the incarnation of the sun-god. The story of their rise and fall is the story which Mr. Perry has elaborated into a history of the origins of civilization; and his tale bears witness to the powers of the human mind with its aims and desires to impose its will on its environment, and to wrest from an unconcerned nature the material for its satisfactions. Mr. Perry is an enthusiastic member and brilliant exponent of the new school of anthropologists, of which Rivers and Elliot Smith were the leaders, which pursues the historical method of inquiry and is opposed to the old school of evolutionists of which Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin were the great exponents. These latter assumed that human progress proceeded according to definite principles and laws, and that the study of anthro- pology would reveal the workings of those principles and laws. The new school, on the contrary, denies the existence of those principles, and asserts that they were mere assumptions which the records of anthropological research did not warrant. Simi- larity of cultures in different parts of the earth, say the his- torians, was due, not to the operation of laws, but to the practi- cal demands of human beings in order to maintain life. These demands brought about a particular culture in a particular re- gion favorable to the growth of that culture, which was spread to various other parts of the earth by migrations from its place of origin. When food gatherers became food producers a civilization was brought into existence which reorientated man’s relations with nature. He changed from what may be characterized as a con- dition of barbarism into a state of conscious mastery over the forces of nature. He could depend on his own efforts to keep himself alive, for his knowledge of agriculture and irrigation made him independent of chance. He could utilize the sun’s energy and the properties of water to provide for his sustenance during times of winter and drought. Eygpt, more than any other country, was favorable to the discovery of those seemingly magical powers, and the first archaic civilization found its be- ginnings there. The discoverers of these powers were set apart from the rest of the community and, in time, endowed with divine attributes. They were treated as gods and the descend- ants of gods. In their search for those substances which were prized for their life-giving properties, these “children of the sun” brought their knowledge to other regions. It was thus that the wisdom of Egypt was carried to India, which, in her turn, carried it into Indonesia, from whence it spread across Polynesia, and so brought about the civilization of Maya in Mexico and Guatemala, followed by that of the Indians of North America. Always it was the specially endowed and cultured elements who civilized the peoples they came to live with, and always the transplanted civilization took on a degraded form according to the less favorable conditions it found for its growth. The Indians of North America, for example, built mounds, which are degraded forms of the stone pyramids of Mexico, and these, in their turn, are little more than degraded forms of the mighty structures of Egypt, where a complete theology of sun-worship had been long ago established and elaborated. Thus civilization began in science, in the knowledge of how to apply the forces of nature to satisfy men’s needs. It was so with religion, which did not originate in fear or the religious re

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610 [ Vol. 117, No. 8047 impulse, but was, as Elliot Smith says, “the logical interpreta- tion of the scientific theory of the time for the practical benefit of the living; or, in other words, the means devised for re- ceiving advice and active help of wise rulers after death. It was essentially a matter of practical politics and applied sci- ence. It became religion only when the advancement of knowl- edge superseded those primitive scientific theories and left them as soothing traditions for the thoughts and aspirations of man- kind to cherish.” The god was originally a man who could give help and advice; later, he was enriched “with the glamor of mystic symbolism,” as the first Egyptians enriched Osiris. The “children of the sun” were mortals like the rest, but those whom they had so bountifully helped, apotheosized their powers, and a priesthood came into existence to solicit their supernatural boons. The infusion into the belief of mystical and symbolical elements was the work of this interested class of priests, and the further we get from the experience itself, the more mystical and symbolical does their teaching of traditions become. What in Egypt was originally the result of direct experience, became divorced from the experience as the beliefs were carried abroad and, as in the case of India, produced the speculations of the Brahmans and the Upanishads, and the theologies and cosmogo- nies which followed on them. An interesting speculation is suggested by this fascinating inquiry into the origins of civilization, especially with refer- ence to the ruling classes—an early development. Mr. Perry arrives at the definite conclusion that not only religion but political systems of state were due to the interaction of these ruling classes, and that war was entirely centered in ruling groups. From the days of power of the priesthood dispensing the wisdom of the “children of the sun” down to our own time of the empowered industrial barons, the process of development has been marked and interrupted by struggles between these ruling groups. Indeed, the hostility between them in the ages of the archaic civilization eventually broke up that civilization and brought about the disappearance of its cultural elements. The story of civilization is the story of a rise and then a de- cline and fall, and then a rise again in another form, but always at the mercy of the destructive powers of the ruling classes. The ruling classes go by other names today, and carry on their hostilities by other means than those used thousands of years ago, but their conflicts are of a like nature, and have ended in like dire results—in the degradation and ultimate destruction of the cultural element. Mr. Perry’s researches are of high import to the anthropolo- gist and ethnologist, but they are of even more value to the statesman who can read between the lines of his literary presen- tation of the origins and progress of our human civilization. TEMPLE SCOTT The Lady as Artist A Lost Lady. By Willa Cather. Alfred A. Knopf. $1.75. Sear American criticism is as tolerant as it is, only her own artistic conscience can explain the fact that Miss Cather has slowly and surely perfected herself in her craft. Easily pleased in general we are; we praise one writer for his interesting story, another for his satirical keenness, another for his philosophy, and still another for his realistic detail, with- out crying out much in protest when the defects are as glaring as the virtues. Obviously, Miss Cather has had her own counsel of perfection which has made her not so easily pleased. She has not been content to be praised justly for the vividness and freshness of the sketches which made up “My Antonia” nor for the adroitness in the handling of plot which she exhibited in the stories composing “Youth and the Bright Medusa.” Instead, she has constantly struggled to achieve that synthesis of quali- ties which alone can make a novel really fine, and in “A Lost Lady,” short and slight as it is, she has achieved it. There would be no excuse for calling it a great novel—it is not that; but there would be equally little excuse for not recognizing the fact that it is that very rare thing in contemporary literature, a nearly perfect one. Miss Cather has come to the point where she can do the two or three things at once which a novelist must do. She can evoke by a few characteristic touches and by subtle suggestion a scene and a society without producing merely a “document”; she can present a character without writing a psychological treatise; she can point a moral without writing a sermon; and hence she is a novelist. Memory is in a very true sense the mother of her muse, for in her youth she gathered a remarkable wealth of impressions, but instead of “pouring forth” this material in the approved contemporary fashion she has brooded upon it and formed it until her picture has both composition and meaning. Thus in the new book she has evoked again an epoch of the West, the epoch which she loves, when the land had been settled by “great- hearted adventurers who were unpractical to the point of mag- nificence” but had not yet passed from the hands of the pioneers into the hands of the swarm of exploiters and business men who came to “develop the country” with railroad, with factory, and with the hosts of thrifty hard-headed farmers who destroyed the “princely carelessness of the pioneer” and made the land populous and hence competitive and hence mean. But at the same time she has given us an original character completely integrated with the scene and a subtle problem in morals or aesthetics. Miss Cather has been praised, and adequately praised, so many times during the last few years for her pictures of a civiliza- tion just past that in the case of the present book a fresher task will offer itself if the critic will turn from that aspect of her work and ask himself what she means by her story and what it reveals of the things to which her soul is most loyal. This lady, lost not upon the plains but lost to “ladyhood,” who seemed in her big and gracious house an embodiment of the delicacies and refinements of a civilization which, save in her, had not yet reached the plains, but who was spotted within by a secret and unworthy passion—whai does she mean to Miss Cather and what is the nature of her guilt? To the romantic boy through whose eyes we see her she is simply the problem as old as the time when women first were fair and false, but to Miss Cather, I think, the guilt is not moral but aesthetic, and aesthetic in a very particular way. The lady, though she did not write nor paint nor act nor sing, was essen- tially an artist. She was consciously a lady, and she had devoted her vitality to the creation of a person who was more than a person, who was The Lady as a type and as a work of art, so that when she failed she failed as an artist. Ina completer civilization she might have found lovers worthy of her who would not have spoiled her creation but she failed because she was not artist enough to refuse to do at all what she could not do worthily. Her life on the frontier with her aging husband would have been dreary enough, and any mere private person might have been forgiven for seeking diversion wherever he could find it, but the artist must sacrifice himself for his work. The lost lady was guilty and lost because she — put her own happiness before her art and betrayed her ideal to snatch at the joy of life. When “One of Ours” was published many critics went into sackcloth and wept for a talented writer who seemed to have given her allegiance to a vulgar ideal, but “A Lost Lady” will serve to set fears at rest. It makes clearer than any of her previous books has done the essentially aristocratic character of Miss Cather’s sympathies and explains her choice of subjects. The artists and the pioneers whom she has always written — about are united in their spirit of high adventure, in the © romantic impracticability of their aims, and in their success in © the creation of comely and rounded types—hence her interest. — It is obvious that Miss Cather looks not only at her own craft but at life as well from the standpoint of one to whom fitness © is all. J. W. KrutTcH

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Nov. 28, 1923] Shakespearean Studies Oxford Bibliographical Society. Proceedings and Papers. Vol- ume I, Part i. Oxford University Press, American Branch. Shakespeare’s Use of Song. By Richmond Noble. Oxford Uni- versity Press, American Branch. $4.20. Shakespeare Association Papers: “The Problem of Timon of Athens,” by T. M. Parrott; “Rise and Fall in Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art,” by Roman Dyboski. Oxford University Press, American Branch. Each 70 cents. In Commemoration of the First Folio Tercentenary. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $1.70. Shakespeare in Poland. By Josephine Calina (Mrs. Allardyce Nicoll). Oxford University Press. $2. Studies in the Development of the Fool in the Elizabethan Drama. By Olive Mary Busby. Oxford University Press, American Branch. $1.20. To the lately founded Oxford Bibliographical Society be- gins its career with serious intentions is evident from the paper on “Standard Descriptions of Printed Books” which three of its members contribute to the first instalment of its Pro- ceedings and which contains suggestions of value to librarians and to bibliographers generally. But we are here concerned with the other paper now published: Mr. Percy Simpson’s ac- count of “The Bibliographical Study of Shakespeare,” which, like the lately published essay by Mr. Herford, is a clear and concise statement of the methods and results of the “new” Shakespearean scholarship in the three fields in which bibliog- raphy has during the past twenty years contributed so much to literary criticism. The discoveries of Messrs. Pollard and Greg as to the false dating of certain quartos of 1619; the specula- tions of Sir Edward Maunde Thompson as to Shakespeare’s handwriting and his possible share in the play of Sir Thomas More; and the theories as to Elizabethan punctuation pro- pounded by Mr. Simpson himself are here summarized. Mr. Noble reprints the text of the principal songs with punc- tuation in accordance with the Elizabethan usage, an interesting and convincing illustration of Mr. Simpson’s theory. His es- say is much more elaborate than the earlier studies of the Songs by Percy Scholes and J. R. Moore. Mr. Noble insists very properly that all serious students of Elizabethan literature should make themselves aware of the impressive extent of musical culture in the age of Shakespeare. He believes that Shakespeare probably had folk-airs in mind when writing the songs. His expert knowledge of music enables him to make various interesting suggestions with regard to their rendition on the stage; but his talents as a critic of literature are by no means so robust and occasionally lead him into exegetical ef- forts that are fantastic. I do not believe that in the “Owl Song” Shakespeare threw into antithesis the picturesque and the disagreeable characteristics of winter, nor that “greasy Joan” keeling the pot is the climax of disagreeableness. Poor Joan! Still more forced are Mr. Noble’s attempts to read dra- matic satire into “Who is Sylvia?” (of which he says that “the flattery by its obvious insincerity is insulting’) and “Hark, hark the lark.” Nor do I believe that Shakespeare chose the “Veni Creator” as the model for “Come thou monarch of the vine,” nor that, had he done so, would the choice have been “a tribute to the dramatist’s exquisite judgment.” Mr. Noble’s inquiry centers in the comedies; in the tragedies, with two ex- ceptions, the songs are mere ballads and snatches introduced for emotional effects and for color. But in the comedies there are very definite lines of development, from the crude contri- vance of singers who are introduced upon the stage for the sole purpose of rendering the song and are then withdrawn, through the phase of children who act as well as sing, to the appearance of Amiens who not only sings, but has a definite, though minor, part in the action; and on to “Twelfth Night” where there is a thorough use of adult singers. The “Winter’s Tale” develops the precedent of “Twelfth Night” with more dialogue in the The Nation 611 songs, and the culmination is reached in “The Tempest” where “the songs are so deeply imbedded in the text as dialogue that it is unnecessary to stop the action to permit them to be per- formed, for they are essentially a part of it.” “The more Shakespeare gained in experience, the more relevant did he make his songs to their context and the more important was their office in promoting his dramatic ends.” Mr. Parrott’s solution of the problem of “Timon of Athens” is a sort of compromise between the formulae of Wright and Robertson. Like the former critic (and, in my opinion, with unquestionable correctness) he believes that a second hand com- pleted Shakespeare’s unfinished play, not, as Robertson holds, that Shakespeare’s was the second hand which completed the work of another dramatist. But like Robertson he believes that the non-Shakespearean portion was largely the work of Chap- man, contending, however, that those passages which Robertson explains as Chapman’s reworking of Shakespeare’s original draft are in reality the result of revision by a third hand of passages in Chapman’s additions. Various obscurities are ex- plained by the theory that Chapman’s contributions were too long and were subjected to drastic shortening by this third party. I do not know why Mr. Parrott does not accept, nor even mention, Mr. Wright’s, to me, convincing explanation of that singular crux, the scene in which Alcibiades pleads before the Senate. A different and old-fashioned kind of criticism is seen in Mr. Dyboski’s discourse upon the alternating periods of rise and fall, tension and relaxation, inspiration and exhaustion in Shakespeare’s art. That great geniuses experience temporary declines in power is a truism; there are noteworthy modern instances that might be recalled. But to fit this truism into a scheme of Shakespeare’s development results in unconvincing generalities. Mr. Dyboski is the editor of the great Polish translation of Shakespeare which was published at Crakow in 1912-13 and which is the culmination of the long history of Polish interest in Shakespeare—the subject of Mrs. Nicoll’s admirable little book, which, by the way, is the first instalment of a new series of studies of the influence of Shakespeare upon foreign litera- tures. The chief Polish translations, imitations, and critical appreciations are here succinctly appraised. The Worshipful Company of Stationers celebrated the First Folio Tercentenary by reprinting the preliminary matter of the Folio in a handsome brochure provided with beautifully pro- duced facsimiles and with a brief informative introduction by Sir Israel Gollancz. This is but one of several such memorial publications. Miss Busby’s essay on the Elizabethan fool does not embrace a study of Shakespeare’s fools and clowns, who, however, lurk in the back of the reader’s mind throughout her treatise. Her account of “origins” is largely a reworking of old material, well summarized, however. The story of the evolution of the fool as a dramatic character may be summed up in her own words: “The dramatists seem to have realized that the only way to prevent the clown from spoiling their plays was to develop his part more fully themselves and to connect it as closely as possible with the main action.” Some dramatists found the most satisfactory means of making this connection in the type of comic servant; but nowhere outside of Shakespeare is the fool of such importance to the action as are Feste and the de- voted attendant upon Lear. The characteristics of typical fools are well discussed: their hatred of discomfort; love of fine clothes; their rough and tumble fighting; the frequency of their songs; their blunders in speech, their sententiousness, and satiric gibes. This review has been no more than a brief and necessarily inadequate survey of a few of the many Shakespearean studies that are constantly appearing. For the surpassingly rich field of inquiry is being explored with an unceasing and untiring enthusiasm which often adds items of real value to our under- standing of Shakespeare. SAMUEL C. CHEW

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The Amazing Wrongness of Mr. Waterhouse Random Studies in the Romantic Chaos. By Francis A. Water- house. Robert M. McBride and Company. $2.50. HIS is a book difficult for me to review briefly, for I have encountered few critics who, in my opinion, manage to be wrong in such a variety of ways as Mr. Waterhouse manages to be. His volume contains eight essays—A Short History of the Philistine; Paradox on Bonaparte; An Interview with Rous- seau; Victor Hugo’s Operas; Realistic Objectivity versus Clas- sical Objectivity; Rudyard Kipling—Primitivist; O. Henry— Jongleur; Mozart, Chopin, and Debussy—and each of these es- says is, in my opinion, wrong after its fashion. Some are wrong in their generalizations, others are wrong in their particulars, still others have no claim to existence because they are no more than elaborated platitudes. At times the author cannot see the trees for his theoretical forest, until one is ready to cry with Grillparzer: “The devil take all theories!” At other times he scrapes the bark of particular trees with so close an attention that he is unaware of the forest. At still other times—as when he writes on O. Henry and the three composers for the piano— he verbosely reveals Polichinelle’s secret with the air of a dis- coverer. But such harsh statements require proofs, and I shall present as many as space permits. The first essay offers ample evidence of Mr. Waterhouse’s wrongness. He begins with the statement that many critics are bewailing the dearth of “higher civilization” in the United States. He then says that none of them has isolated the cause of this dearth. After which he states simply that we have no real art or literature because of our philistines. This is his dis- covery: the culpability of the American philistine. It is fan- tastic. Can Mr. Waterhouse, even in Texas, have failed to hear the gangplank speeches delivered by successive shiploads of avowed intellectuals casting off for Europe? Here on the coast line, at least, the din of denunciation has been deafening. But I do not blame Mr. Waterhouse so much for what he has not heard as for the theory he has evolved in loneliness. Not only has he not made a new and correct discovery, but he has fallen victim, unconsciously, to a very common delusion. He and the gangplank orators, whom he has not heard, are one: they be- lieve (perhaps the orators have lost something of this belief after sojourning in Europe) that the American philistine is an animal who is more antagonistic to art and culture than is the French philistine, the German philistine, or any other philistine whatsoever. This is the country, Mr. Waterhouse tells us, where “Nothing is given the original thinker, the subtle author, the genius of the bacteriological laboratory, the gifted composer.” One looks at a map of the world and sighs to think that these United States should be so peculiar. Here is a strangely Rous- seauistic error in one who sees the “deadly effects” of Rous- seau’s “mental poison” everywhere, in one who writes a book of essays through which Rousseau stalks as the villain of the piece, in one who will be glad when the romantic game is played out ‘‘and we shall be free to start a new one.” Rousseau, in the midst of civilization, sought escape in a primitive world of his own imagination: Mr. Waterhouse, surrounded by American philistines, seeks escape in a Europe of his own imagination. When Mr. Waterhouse seeks “a genuine picture of American life” he selects Dreiser’s “The Genius.” This, I think, requires no comment. Elsewhere he tells us that emphasis on plot has ousted “the classical doctrine that the characters constitute the essential element of the novel or the play.” In bewilderment one turns back to Aristotle for reassurance; and having done so one is tempted to suggest to this critic that the trick endings which he hates derive directly from the “recognition scenes” in Greek tragedy. Then we read on to find that “Tom Jones” is cited as a novel in which character furnishes the chief interest. Here we stumble. But if we continue we are rewarded, with [Vol. 117, No. 3047 amusement at least; for on page 180 Mr. Waterhouse solemnly writes: “What the intelligentsia fails to perceive is that O. Henry is a craftsman rather than an artist, that his gift is not inspirational but mechanical, that instead of making ever new designs he repeats the same design on ever new material.” And the man, out of his own originality and perception, actually writes a whole essay to prove this astoundingly novel truth. After this, there is little more to be said. BEN RAY REDMAN The American Party System The American Party System. By Charles Edward Merriam. The Macmillan Company. $3. BOOK by Charles Edward Merriam is an event in the literature of American politics. His studies of the develop- ment of American political theories have become the classics in that field. His most recent contribution to an understanding of the party system adds another to his searching interpreta- tions of our political life. It is written primarily from the point of view of the political psychologist. While he pays due attention to the historical development of parties and to their technical organization and legal status, he places major emphasis upon “the larger forma- tions and functions ... human behavior and conduct in the largest sense of the term,” which underlie and determine party development and organization—class, race, religion, section, making the party an institution and an attitude. In so handling the party system Mr. Merriam has succeeded eminently in freeing his analysis from the dead hand of detail and the recital of unilluminating events in the history of par- ties, and in charging it with the vitalizing forces of the broader and deeper currents of social contacts. From an intimate ac- quaintance with and participation in the political life of his own community, and a “first-hand study” of the politics of his own and foreign countries, he has enriched with the authority of experience his discussion of such problems as the composition of the party, the spoils system, the selection of official per- sonnel. The spoils system too often is treated with the scorn of in- vective, the passion of reform, or the ingenious, if specious, cynicism of defense. The anatomy of spoils has seldom been so carefully and honestly probed, its intricate ramifications so successfully explored, its results within the strictly political sphere so intimately connected with its real sources in indus- trial and social life, its effects upon a healthy party life so cogently set forth. “None of the genuine interests of any political party is per- manently advanced by spoils methods. At the point where the spoils system is strongest—in cities and in States—the parties are actually weakest, and in fact in many instances in cities the national parties have been excluded from the local ballot. ... The climax of the spoils system in party affairs is the bipartisan combination in which party differences are merged and the party really vanishes.... Jobs and graft and spoils do not make the party possible; the party makes them possible, and. is often unmade and undone by the very opportunities afforded its notorious partisans.” After summarizing the various interpretations of the party and its functions which have been offered in this country, Pro- fessor Merriam gives us his own. “The party may be looked upon as a type of social group, primarily concerned with social control as exercised through the government. The party sys- tem may be regarded as an institution, supplementary to the government, aiding the electorate in the selection of official per- sonnel, and in the determination of public policies, and in the larger task of operating or criticizing the government.” amalgam of party solidarity is made up of various elements. Professor Merriam has made an excellent case for greater — recognition of the nonpolitical constituents of party loyalty. PHILLIPS BRADLEY The © ty FT nat EF LO OE gh, eS

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Nov. 28, 1923 ] STORIES from the By R. M. Fleming The brave stories of high deeds that have thrilled the people of twenty-four nations from the earliest times, bril- liantly retold for children. Illustrated. $2.50 THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street New York STORIES FROM GREAT OPERAS By J. WALKER McSPADDEN Author of “Opera Synopses,” etc. With 12 illustrations in full color. 393 pages 8vo, cloth, gilt top. $2.50. An appetizing book, indeed, is this, appealing alike to the lover of good stories, the music follower, and the book connoisseur. The volume is charmingly illustrated in full color. T. Y. CROWELL CO. : NEW YORK C. B. FALLS| , A book for children by the “foremost color printer in Amer- ica.” “We may well feel proud 8 that an A.B.C. Book so admir- able in design and in color printing has been produced on G this side of the Atlantic.” $2.00 at Bookstores DOUBLEDAY, PACE & co. |BOOK The Adventures of Don Quixote By MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Abridged and adapted by Edwin Gile Rich With colored jacket and eight full-page illus- trations in color by Thomas Derrick. An edition of the world classic by the great Cervantes for young people! ‘Among those books which it is part of a parent’s moral obligation to place before a child, Don Quixote is one of the first; while the appealing ar- rangement of this volume gives it an added claim to candidacy.”—The Dial. Net $2.00 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY ‘“Ghe Adventures of MAYA the BEE By Waldemar Bonsels Hugh Walpole — “This is one of the classics of mod- ern literature for children.” Illustrated in full colors. $3.00 Hamdsome booklet by Hugh Walpole sent free on request THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street New York The Nation Children’s Books BOOKS for boys and girls,—shall we make reading a duty or shall we rather give them books to enjoy, so that so long as they live they will turn to books for fun, for solace, and for beauty? The enchantment of unknown countries, of far-distant horizons, the stimulus of contact with the spirit and the mind of man in all ages, the rhythm and thrill of fine poetry,—these they can know through books. How impor- tant, then, that we select carefully the first books our boys and girls read, let- ting them feel our own enthusiasm for books, and gradually allowing them a wider freedom of choice, so that their judgment of books will be personal and intense, not merely a reflection of the taste of their elders. Each season new children’s books appear on the publish- ers’ lists and there are attractive new editions of familiar older titles,—a great feast for booklovers of all ages! When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation ROOTABAGA PIGEONS By Carl Sandburg Auther of Rootabaga Stories Last year Carl Sandburg’s “Rootabaga Stories” captured the hearts of thousands of children from New York to California. The New York Times said that it showed that America was “keeping abreast with Swift and Gulliver.’ The new “Rootabaga Pigeons” is the same kind of a book, and it is even more entertain- ing. It has something of the appeal of “Alice in Wonderland” and of the “Just So Stories.” Here is that charming young lady Deep Red Roses and her Alarm Clock. One of the Petershams many ifustrations. $2.00 THIS SINGING WORLD By Louis Untermeyer A delightful anthology of children’s verse col- lected from the finest lyrics, ballads, and non- sense verse of the last 75 years. It follows Mr. Untermeyer’s successful collection of British and American poetry. “It sounds a new and refreshing note in an- thologies for children.”—The Bookman. One of Florence Ivin’s charming decorations for This Singing World. $3.00 HARCOURT, BRACE & CO. 383 Madison Ave. WALTER DE LA MARES Poetry for Children DOWN-ADOWN DERRY — Fairy poems; beautifully illustrated in color and black-and-white by Dorothy P. Lathrop. $3.00 PEACOCK PIE—Nursery rhymes; with delightful, whimsical drawings by Heath Robinson. $2.25 A CHILD’S DAY—About little Eliza- beth Ann; with charming pictures by Winifred Bromhall. $1.75 (Add 10 cents for mail orders.) Henry Holt & Co., 19 w. 44th st, N.Y.

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614 The Nation Books in Brief The Political System of British India, with Special Reference to the Recent Constitutional Changes. By E. A. Horne. Oxford: Clarendon Press. $3.50. Mr. Horne, who is attached to the India educational ser- vice, has embodied in this useful book the substance of lectures delivered at Harvard in 1921. Beginning with a brief survey, first of the history of British rule in India from the establishment of the East India Company, and then of the complex political geography of the country, its general social and economic characteristics, and its political and constitutional development, he passes quickly to the main subject of the book, the great Government of India act of 1919 which inaugurated the reforms proposed in the Montagu-Chelmsford report. As the narrative at this point is little more than a concise record of events it does not in itself call for special comment, but the reader will find also a clear analysis of the elaborate provi- sions of the statute in question, a careful explanation of the conditions which dictated the recommendations of the report, and an impartial account of the difficulties which speedily developed when the new system came actually to be applied. While it is clear that Mr. Horne regards the revolutionary agitation in India as a regrettable interference with a system which ought to be allowed to work and whose results would probably be beneficent, his description of the motives and acts of the revolutionary leaders is commendably fair. That he should touch at length or very strongly upon the shortcomings or excesses of British rule in India is more than could properly be expected of a British civil servant, but his outspoken con- demnation of the Amritsar massacre leaves nothing to be de- sired. The Biology of Death. By Raymond Pearl. J. B. Lippincott and Company. $2.50. Mr. Pearl is a scientist of the first order. He juggles statistics, curves, and graphs, but happily only as a means to anend. He has written a fascinating book, and he has writ- ten it in his own fashion. Not infrequently the scientist becomes a special pleader, and one has the feeling that this particular scientist finds a robust and wholesome pleasure in dealing stiff blows to accepted theories. There is no “dry rot of academic biology,” nor futile and fatiguing chasing of statistical bunglers, but a lively presentation of many of the facts of life and death, with frequent touches of an attractive personality and of per- sonal philosophy. A Treasury of Plays for Men. Edited by Frank Shay. Little, Brown and Company. $3. If any dramatic club is so impoverished as to be without femi- nine talent, it may dip into this volume with impunity, assured that there will be no situation in which the gentler sex is re- quired. This is a companion piece tc Mr. Shay’s “A Treasury of Plays for Women”; it contains crook and war plays and a fair proportion dealing with less specialized themes. They are, of course, of varying degrees of effectiveness; perhaps, however, the best possible anthology when one considers that the distaff side of drama has been excluded. Ellen Prior. By Alice Brown. The Macmillan Company. $1.50. A metrical tale of old New England, pathetic but prolix, and very lamely versified. Patuffa. By Beatrice Harraden. pany. $2. It is thirty years since the publication of “Ships That Pass in the Night,” and Miss Harraden still, at intervals, writes novels to remind the world of that popular favorite. The latest is a substantial piece of work, a study in temperaments, gener- ously understood and projected in a narrative of considerable breadth but little flavor. Frederick A. Stokes Com- [Vol. 117, No. 3047 Tulips and Chimneys. By E. E. Cummings. Thomas Seltzer. $2.00. Mr. Cummings is a poet. One deduces that from his lan- guage, his observation, and an occasional idea that struggles across his pages. But he is also a pedant. His typography is so perverse that the reader is scared off before he has gone very far. The puzzle of his punctuation is not even an amus- ing one; it certainly is not worth solving. Holland Under Queen Wilhelmina. By A. J. Barnouw. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3. After a quarter of a century of ruling, the Queen of Holland is still on the top of the deck, sharing with the Queen of Ru- mania about all there is of romantic interest attached to the sovereigns of Europe. Mr. Barnouw has composed a compre- hensive and well-digested narrative of her reign, to which Ed- ward W. Bok has written an innocuous foreword. It is well to be reminded that diminutive Holland still controls, in the Malay archipelago, an area half the size of non-Russian Europe, and is not—as some folks carelessly imagine—merely the home of tulips, windmills, and wooden shoes. The Nation’s Poetry Prize ee NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 38. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924, 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. Drama Comedies WO American and two British comedies pass before us. There is very little, if any, difference in either literary or theatrical skill. But the American comedies are far less amusing than the British ones because they are so much less © serious. This is not in the least paradoxical. No real mental — adult can laugh for more than a fleeting moment at the trivial. We laugh from a great depth only at a comic treatment of grave and central things. But the authors of American comedy ee

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Nov. 28, 1923] The Nation hrink from such subjects. They essay neither tragedy nor omedy; they are subject to the tradition that important things nust be treated at a distance and with the ignorance of mere espect. Now if you reverence a thing after a thorough knowl- dge of it you have hold of a very great experience indeed}; f you reverence it ignorantly and by rote you know nothing ither of the thing or of yourself. Good comedy can be written mly by him who has a powerful and intimate grasp of the ragic issues of human life. Miss Zoe Akins, who wrote “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting,” is ot without such a grasp. But she evidently thinks that comedy vorks with different material, whereas it works with the same naterial as tragedy, in a different mood. Schopenhauer and Shaw proceed from the same data. Miss Akins writes passages f witty dialogue, and true wit is always based on profoundly erious perceptions and thoughts. She even at one moment reates a fleeting mood of that immense melancholy which is ilways in the background of true comedy. But her fable is woven of sand and her people built of bran. She seems to hink that the comic dramatist works with unrealities and fluff. She went, of course, to that card-board Zenda for a single character to be impersonated by Miss Ethel Barrymore. But hat character is ridiculously incredible. Such a surface can- 10t be only surface and that is what we are asked to believe. Miss Barrymore, admirably young and agreeable in appear- uynce and gesture, weaves that surface with her well-known nelancholy flippancy, the astonished pathos in her voice, her yeneral attitude of the world well lost for fifteen minutes and o—as Pepys used to say—home. It was so in “The Laughing lady”; it is so now in Miss Akins’s “A Royal Fandango” (Plymouth Theater). The play and the performance are pretty and pleasant and null. I am sorry to have to give the same report of “The Deep- [Tangled Wildwood” (Frazee Theater). I have a very serious iking and respect for the work of the authors of “Dulcy” and ‘To the Ladies.” In these comedies there was enough truth for laughter and enough edge for delight. The exaggeration n the new play of Messrs. Kaufman and Connelly is too gross (0 be amusing; the idea is too trivial to make one laugh. How much better the British comedies are in their choice of material and in their approach to that material! Neither ‘Spring Cleaning” by Frederick Lonsdale (Eltinge Theater) nor “The Camel’s Back” by Somerset Maugham (Vanderbilt Theater) is a masterpiece. But both start with an ironic vision of reality; both deal with a world of moods and characters that are recognizable, human, important, and therefore fit subjects for laughter. Mr. Lonsdale’s theme is the more pregnant; Mr. Somerset Maugham’s execution, especially in the first act, the more brilliant though not the more sustained. It is true, to be sure, that neither comedy is thinkable without the Wilde-Shaw tradition. But that tradition does not consist, as is commonly supposed, in a reckless dealing with mere paradox but in such witty restatements of the facts of life as to bring out the un- realities and self-deceptions by which most people live. Mr. Lonsdale’s comedy is more firmly knit; Mr. Maugham’s rather runs down in a manner not worthy of him even on this level of his work. Both plays give us, through characterization as well as through their dialogue, more than a few moments of that delighted recognition of human absurdity and its implied antithesis of wisdom which makes for that heightened vitality in the spectator at which good comedy aims. Excellent per- formances mark both plays. In “Spring Cleaning” Miss Violet Hemming at last adds intelligence to winsomeness; Arthur Byron is not only funny but significant; Miss Estelle Win- wood has her usual astonishing incisiveness and—even in the quietest passages—electrical aliveness. In “The Camel’s Back” there is Miss Violet Kemble Cooper, less florid and therefore far more interesting than is her wont, Charles Cherry who is adequate at least, and the ever excellent Louise Closser Hale. LupDwic LEWISOHN | LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS | The Theatre Guild presents THE FAILURES in 17 cenes By H. R. Lenormand GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 35th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday TRIUMPHANT RETURN ARTHUR HOPKINS presents JOHN BARRYMORE in “‘Ham!et” Tomei: weeks Only, MANHATTAN OPERA HOUSE Beginning Monday, Nov. 26. Matinees Thursday and Saturday. West 34th St. Seats now selling. Eves. $3.30 to 55c. Matinees $2.75 to 55c. The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents : in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” — F | SK HK A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO. West 4sth Street. Evs. at 8:80 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:83 N ATION AL Theatre, 41st St., West of Broadway, Evenings 8:00 Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:00 “A royal revival of one of the world’s matchl lays.”’"— Woollcott, in N. Y. Herald. eon ee aemndes WALTER HAMPDEN in Cyrano de Bergerac SEATS ON SALE FOR 8 WEEKS. 466 Grand Street Tel. Drydock 7516 Neighborhood Playhouse Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:30. Matinee Saturday at 2:30. W. B. Yeats’ “THE PLAYER QUEEN” Bernard Shaw’s “BLANCO POSNET” YIDDISH ART THEATRE 27th Street and Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Monday through Thursday 6o The Beggars” By H. Levick Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday Matinees and evenings “The Seven Who Were Hanged” By Andreyev W. 48th ST., Bryant 2628 Mat THE PLAYHOUSE inees: Wed. and Sat, A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent Ameriean play of the season.”—P mond, N. Y. Tribwne. * SY ee ELMONT TARNISH of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.”,—Heywood Broun, Wor Lp. Wert NOWe 210). O40) deo Uae clear John B. Watson RAND Courses “Behavior Psychology,” 4 lectures, $1.50 SCHOOL Jan. 19 & 26, 3:15 P.M...Bertrand Russell BELMONT Evs. 8:30. Mata Thurs. & Sat. 2:30 “The European Chaos” ‘Mechanism and Life” Admission $1.00 Tickets now ready Lectures Sat., Nov. 24, 1:30 P.M.....Scott Nearing “Lowering the Income Tax” 7 East 15th Street Sat., Nov. 24, 4:00 P.M.....Ralph Chaplin “After Leavenworth, What?’ When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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Documents of Dissolution WN HE long-heralded break-up of Germany seemed at hand in the second half of October. The Reich and Saxony, and the Reich and Bavaria were utterly at odds, and the so-called Rhenish Republic was proclaimed at Aix on Octo- ber 21. Its course was closely followed by the American newspaper correspondents. The history of the Saxon and Bavarian conflicts, and of the affair in the Palatinate, which bore an obvious relation to both the Rhenish and Bavarian movements, is told in the following documents taken from the Berliner Tageblatt, Vorwérts, and Rote Fahne, the Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten, and the Kol- nische Zeitung. Saxony N October 17 General von Miller, commander of the Reichswehr in Saxony, sent the following letter to the Prime Minister of Saxony, Dr. Zeigner: Dear Sir: According to the Sachsische Arbeiter-Zeitung for October 15 the Minister of Finance, Béttcher, made a speech on October 13 at a Communist meeting held in the Zoological Garden in Leipzig, in which he said that the Coalition Gov- ernment was bankrupt—either a white or a red dictatorship was coming. The working class must be armed at once. The class organs of the proletariat would represent it in the strug- gle for freedom. The proletarian hundreds, control commit- tees, factory councils, and those organizations which the work- ing class had established in its long conflict were the organs with which it would struggle.... The appeal to arm the proletariat is an appeal to armed battle. This speech is a defiance of the measures which I proclaimed in accordance with the order of the President of September 26. Heretofore I have counted upon the cooperation of the Saxon Government in my work. In order to continue I request you to consider the remarks of Minister Béttcher, and to inform me by 11 a.m., October 18, unequivocally, whether the entire Ministry is in agreement with the spirit and words of Minister Boéttcher, and whether the Government will continue in that sense, or whether it is disposed to act against Minister Bottcher according to my directions. In the latter case, in order to make matters clear, I must ask that the Saxon Government should have its assur- ance to me published in the press. Furthermore, I ask what measures the Government contemplates taking in order to avoid a repetition in the future of such mistakes as the speech of Minister Bottcher. MULLER To this letter Dr. Zeigner made no reply. General Miiller accordingly informed him on October 18 that he had re- ferred the matter to the Minister of National Defense. On October 20 General Miiller wrote again to Dr. Zeigner: DEAR Sir: ... The Reich Government has decided that I am authorized to reestablish and maintain constitutional order in Saxony with all the means at my disposal. I shall not fail to keep you properly informed. I shall inform the population of the reasons for the intervention of the Reichswehr. I hope that the measures deemed by the Government of the Reich to be necessary and in the interest of the whole nation will have the complete approval and the active assistance of the Govern- ment of Saxony. I particularly hope that you will succeed in keeping within bounds the efforts of the Communist members of your Government whose efforts obviously threaten the con- stitutional basis of the Reich. Only so can the hard task be accomplished of restoring constitutional order in this disturbed state of Saxony. MULLER In a public proclamation issued on the same day General International Relations Section Miiller announced that in view of the economic chaos and of the fact that a Communist member of the Saxon Gov- ernment had made speeches equivalent to high treason the Government of the Reich had instructed him to create order by advancing his.troops. Large bodies of the Reichswehr thereupon entered Saxony, occupying town after town, with incidents such as those described by Mr. Villard in The Nation for November 21. On October 29 the Reichskanzler named Dr. Heinze Reich Commissioner in Saxony, and he at once issued orders removing the ministers of the Zeigner Cabinet from office, fortified in this by a special decree by Ebert, President of the Reich, as follows: By virtue of Article 48 of the constitution of the Reich I de- cree, in order to reestablish public safety and order in Saxony: 1. The Chancellor of the Reich is empowered for the dura- tion of this decree to remove from office members of the Saxon Government and of the Saxon Landtag and communal officials. No appeal may be made to the courts. The decree concerning the measures necessary for the reestablishment of public safety and order in the Reich dated September 26, 1923, remains unchanged. 2. This decree takes effect immediately. The Saxon Cabinet deliberated upon these events and on October 29 made the following reply to the Chancellor: The Saxon Government determinedly declines the demand of the Government of the Reich that it resign. There is no po- litical occasion for it, and the demand of the Reich Govern- ment has no legal basis in the constitution. Only the Saxon Landtag has the right to dismiss the Saxon Government. So long as it does not so act the Saxon Government will stick to its post. It will immediately cause a decision to be made by the Landtag. The Zeigner Government thereupon called the Landtag into session, but General Miiller immediately forebade it to assemble until called by the Commissioner named by the Chancellor of the Reich. It did not meet. Zeigner and his colleagues were driven from their offices, and a new Min- istry installed. Bavaria HE Frankfurter Zeitung (weekly) for October 25 gives the following summary of the action of the Bavarian Government in defying the Central Government: General von Seeckt, commander of the Reichswehr, is bit- terly slandered by the Vélkische Beobachter [Hitler’s paper]; the Government of the Reich confidentially requests Munich to proceed against this paper; insufficient response; direct pro- hibition of the appearance of the paper by the Minister of National Defense, by virtue of the Emergency Law. Von Kahr pays no attention to the prohibition; the Reichswehr is ordered to suppress the paper; its chief [in Bavaria, General von Lossow] refuses to do so and in a public telegram to his superior in Berlin refuses in the future to carry out orders which might bring him in conflict with Bavaria. The Com- mander-in-Chief of the Army, General von Seeckt, thereupon requests General von Lossow to resign. He refuses and ap- peals to the Bavarian Government. The Minister of National Defense thereupon removed General von Lossow from office and appointed his subordi- nate, General Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, commander of the Seventh Division of the Reichswehr, in Bavaria. This order both General von Lossow and the Bavarian Government refused to recognize. On October 20 Dr. von Kahr, “dictator” of Bavaria, received the representatives

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Nov. 28, 1923] The Nation | 617 of the Munich press and made the following statement: The Bavarian Government, in view of the dismissal of Gen- eral von Lossow, has come to the only possible decision: to appoint him as Commandant in Bavaria and to instruct him to bind the Bavarian Reichswehr solemnly to the Bavarian state. .. . In this situation Bavaria feels it is called upon to repre- sent the national German feeling of the people and of the Reich in opposition to Marxist theories. It is not a question of Gen- eral von Lossow or of the Reichswehr, but in the long run it is the great struggle between the Marxist, international, and un-German point of view and the national, German view of the people. Bavaria feels it is a struggle for the great German idea and its opposition has nothing to do with separat- ist or particularist movements. On the same day General von Seeckt issued a proclamation declaring the action of the Bavarian Government contrary to the constitution, calling upon the Seventh Division of the army to be true to the Reich, and declaring that anyone obeying the Bavarian proclamation would thereby break his oath of loyalty to the Reich and be guilty of military insubordination. The Reich Government on the same day issued a proclamation to the people which read in part: On the very day on which German representatives abroad were calling the attention of the world to the unbearable con- ditions in the Rhineland and in the Ruhr, perpetrated by French policy, conditions making cooperation of all forces more than ever necessary in order to stand firm against the alien enemy, the Bavarian Government has presumed to break the consti- tution and cause a new struggle in the Reich. The excuse for this struggle was the decision upon the question whether mili- tary discipline, upon which every army is based, should pre- vail in present-day Germany or not. The commander-in-chief could not permit that definite orders given by him should be disobeyed by a subordinate for political reasons. An army in which the execution of an order is made dependent upon po- litical views is not an instrument for the maintenance of the power of the state within or without. ... The suggestion of a struggle against Marxism, made by von Kahr, has nothing to do with the question. The commander-in-chief and the Minister of National Defense have been fighting only for the authority of the Reichswehr and not for any political precept. On the next day the various sections of the Reichswehr in Bavaria took the following oath: In view of the proclamation of the Bavarian Government just read to me, I declare that I recognize the Bavarian Gov- ernment as the executor of the German people, and until an agreement has been reestablished between Bavaria and the Reich I renew my pledge of obedience to my superiors. On the same day General von Lossow sent the following telegram to the headquarters of the various sections of the Reichswehr throughout Germany: The commander-in-chief of the army has issued a proclama- tion which declares the action of the Bavarian Government un- constitutional. The Bavarian Government has no thought of being disloyal to the Reich. No one surpasses us Bavarians in loyalty to the Reich. What we want is that nothing which would weaken Bavaria, the center of German and national feeling, should be forced upon the Bavarian Government and the Bavarian State Commissioner by the Berlin Government, which is under Marxist influence. It is our obvious duty in this conflict to stand by the Bavarian Government and the Bavarian State Commissioner, who seek with us to protect Germanism. This duty will be fulfilled. No other sections of the Reichswehr responded to von Lossow’s telegram, so far as is known, but it was his Bava- rian section, already in conflict with the Reich, which put down the Hitler-Ludendorff uprising. Importations are now being offered in this Department, and in- clude noteworthy Items in Rare Sets and Single Vel- umes. First Editions. Books with Colored Plates. Sport- ing Books. Extra Illus- trated Memoirs and Biog- raphies. Fine Bindings. Presentation Volumes. Old English Prints. Original Drawings. Autograph Let- ters and Documents signed. Inspection Welcomed. O’S Booksellera to the World. FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK Washington . Chicago : London . Paris ih in See SATAN EEA TA |WILL EUROPE PERISH?. SOUCUONACUCCCREC OOOO COCO Ooo | : : E : : E E : © E : | E | 5 The fate of Europe still lies at the mercy of the fan- tastic idealist and the extravagant imperialist. Meanwhile, crisis follows crisis, rocking the weakened fabric of European civilization to its foundation. Che Manchester Guardian WEEKLY enables the thinking American to view the present Euro- pean turmoil in its full significance, by presenting news without coloring it and getting at the facts of a situation instead of accepting misleading official propaganda. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY also pro- vides a review of the best in the current literature of all countries and a discussion of music, art and the drama. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY is, there- fore, indispensable to every intelligent American who de- sires unbiased information, enabling him to form for him- self a balanced judgment on what is going on abroad. — MAIL COUPON BELOW wreerrecercenmenccumncnarnmsns: THe MANCHESTER GUARDIAN WEEELY, 222 West 42nd Street, New York City. I enclose three dollars for a year’s subscription te THE MAN- CHESTER GUARDIAN WEEKLY, to be mailed to me direct from Manchester, England, commencing with the current issue. PUVA UEUGLALALSEDDSUEOSEUAASEESEATUA SE SED EL TAAD AAD UA SEERA DAT SSP AN LOSEEDS TAD SEAASAATEASTO ROSEN SEQEAEDADEDOSOPEESSUOTO RES SDUU ADDS DOLPRNSEOOUSSTERDNURESER ADE REERED) 2 CUUECTADDDGR EPEC TES CSCC EEE SOLATTOVORECLACKAI TALI CSAS TEAL EURL CTA EEOO REEL ENNT EtACEASEEE i z 2 o POPP eee ee See HEHEHE HEHEHE HEHEHE HESS EH OE EEE HEHEHE TESTE ETOH EES > & 2 COOP e eB eee eee e eH HHH SESH SEES OT EH SHEE HEHEHE SEEHEDESD pe ULNA OMMAREAAUYESUSTALMASNA PROUD ELAS TSELTSOS ES TEEENT EAD EES Mee SN A MONONA OR HUE HEA Esurance nirestemuesnstnencnirinanineneies FAMUTUERONGT ACER SED ENGL TOT CEAT UATE PAST SS ENCE POTENT OPTED CCOGLIT LVAAITACLR CRETETRG CPU LES UL ELUTE SE SERLOUL EVEL ESET COED PTE TE ELT PRT ES ETT ET ULES ETP RAUL it iat Ca SUI eSNG ads. eh tg When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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618 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3047 The Palatinate HE attempt to set up an independent republic in the Rhenish Palatinate, separate from Bavaria but within the Reich, while encouraged by local French officers, was in part a genuine protest against Bavarian reaction. French support, however, ruined it. Three Socialists, Johannes Hoffmann of Kaiserslautern, Kleefoth, vice-mayor of Lud- wigshafen, and Wagner, also of Ludwigshafen, discussed with General de Metz, French commander in the Palatinate, the possibility of separating the Palatinate from Bavaria while maintaining it as a part of the German Reich. Gen- eral de Metz thereupon called a special meeting of the Kreistag of the Palatinate at Speyer on October 24. At this meeting Major Louis, a representative of the Inter- allied Rhineland Commission, announced: In view of the fact that the present situation cannot last without most seriously endangering the moral and material interests of the people, and in view of the disturbed and dan- gerous situation of Bavaria today, the Palatinate is established, beginning today, as an autonomous state with a provisional Government, pending further developments. This autonomous state of the Palatinate solemnly and unconditionally pledges itself to work with the high Interallied Rhineland Commission now and in the future with absolute loyalty, in order to fulfil all the obligations which are necessary to guarantee the repara- tions due to France and the security of France. The presiding official, Privy Counselor Bayersdorfer, thereupon suggested an adjournment during which the various party groups would hold caucuses. When the assembly reopened Counselor Bayersdorfer declared, in the name of all the parties, that the Kreistag was incompetent, under the federal constitution, to deal with the matter. After a few moments of silence, in which no one asked the floor, he continued: I have fulfilled my duty. I have just been informed that last night both the Cabinet of the Reich and the Bavarian Govern- ment concerned themselves with this question. The Federal Government and the Bavarian Government both reject the for- mation of a new state in any form as an act of treason. Vorwarts, official organ of the United Social Democratic Party of Germany, at first took the news of the Palatinate republic very seriously. Its evening edition of October 24 bore the headlines: “The Palatinate True to the Reich— Free from Bavaria! Independent Republic of the Palati- nate!” October 25, however, it changed its tone. On October 26 the following formal declaration was made by the Social Democratic Party of the Palatinate: . The leaders of the Social Democratic Party of the Palatinate came to the conclusion that, as a protest against the defiance of the constitution by Bavaria and as a protection against the menace of the separatists, the Palatinate should be established as an independent state within the German Reich. The representatives of the Palatinate Social Democ- racy have never wavered from this standpoint at any stage of the negotiations. Since the plan meets with serious oppo- sition among various groups in the Palatinate, and since the Government of the Reich refuses to recognize a separation of the Palatinate from Bavaria while remaining within the Reich, we give up our program. Through our action we intended to guard against the threatening danger of separation from the Reich by the separatists. Since our intention has been mis- understood and sinister motives have been ascribed to it, we must leave responsibilities of coming events to other parties. Nevertheless the French still recognize some sort of “in- dependent” Palatinate Government at Speyer. BOOKS pron sixcram Out of print for many years — now re-issued “Manassas,” which Jack London called “the best Civil War book I have read.” (1904.) “The Journal of Arthur Stirling,’ the sensation of a literary season. (1903.) “The Metropolis,” a novel portraying the “Four Hun- dred’ of New York. (1907.) “The Fasting Cure,” a study of health. (1911.) “Samuel the Seeker,” which Frederik van Eeden calls Sinclair’s best novel. (1909.) “Jimmie Higgins,’ a novel of the war; a best seller in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Russia, and half a dozen other countries. Prices of “Manassas,” ‘Metropolis,’ “Arthur Stirling,” “The Fasting Cure,” cloth, $1.50; paper, $1.00. Prices of “Samuel,” “Jimmie,” hard covers, $1.00. Per set of six books, cloth, $6.00; paper, $4.00. “The Goose-Step,” a Study of American Education (26th thousand). Cloth, $2.00; paper, $1.00. “Hell,” a Verse- Drama (second printing, 5th thousand); price, 25 cents. “They Call Me Carpenter,” a Tale of the Second Coming, cloth, $1.50; paper, 75 cents. The following at $1.20, cloth, and 60 cents, paper; any three for $3, cloth; $1.50, paper: “The Brass Check,’’ a Study of American Journalism: “The Jungle,” a novel of the Chicago stock-yards; “100%, the Story of a Patriot’; “The Profits of Religion,” a Study of Supernaturalism as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege; “King Coal,” a novel of the Colorado coal country. Order From UPTON SINCLAIR, Pasadena, California Full exchange and money-back guaranty SILVER A pair of charming cuff-links, with mother-of-pearl buttons. $2.50 IVORY Exquisitely hand-carved ivory pen- dants, with silk cord. $4.50 WOOD Cuckoo-clock, skilful wood-craft from the Black Forest. $10.00 LINEN Pure linen filet antique centerpiece, 24 inch diameter. $5.00 FOOD Practical food-package assortments, ready at our Hamburg warehouse for prompt delivery to friends, relations, or any hungry com- munities or institutions you designate; prices range from $5 to $20. We recommend our Metas Special: 24% Ibs. wheat flour, 10 Ibs. sugar, 5 ibs. lard, 10 lbs. rice, 1 Ib. each coffee, cocoa, tea, 2 Ibs. farina, 10 tins milk, % at. clive oil. Delivered free house for $10. Te countries other than Germany add 10 per cent. Cable charges only 75 cents. METAS 147 Fourth Ave., (Store at 2540 Broadway, near 96th St. ae con station) When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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The Nation FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS ..... 2... ccc n cece cece seers cncceeccssece 619 EDITORIALS: dis The Most Distressful Country......-..esesceeeeseeeesececerereces Factories of Public Opinion.........-.eceeseerererserrsscceesecee 623 Whattls the Press?. ci ccc cece cv ccc nsec cer cccrssseeserescoceconse 623 Barnum and Gook.....ccccssccscccccecsvcccccsessesesvces oteeeeee 624 ENGLAND AT THE CROSSROADS. By Oswald Garrison Villard.... 625 THE FILIPINOS’ SIDE. By Maximo M. Kalaw.......-++++eeeesseees 627 THE MONROE DOCTRINE—KILLED IN ITS HOME. By Ernest TION, 1 esac ales) ste nlnya shal aictal's\s/njels\a\cia als’ speloloiniais cereiaiajnl« (si eleje\ee/e\e%e 0.2 e008 630 IN THE STEEL COUNTRY: A Diary with Drawings—II. By Hugo Gellert.......-..++++se++:: 632 SAINTSBURY. By Ludwig Lewisohn..........se-seeeeereenseeccerees 634 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...........seeeeeeeeeeeeeeceeees 635 CORRESPONDENCE .... cee cece cece ct ec cccc ee ec eee seer cece ecncescee 635 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Political Prisoners in the Rhineland and the Ruhr. By Kuno Francke 638 HOLIDAY BOOK SECTION A THOUSAND YEARS AGO: Chinese Translations. By Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu...... 645 H. L. MENCKEN. By H. L. Mencken........-.ceeecceecesveeecececes 647 ARABIA DESERTA. By Mark Van Doren.......-.+.sseesseeseereere 648 BOOKS: : : Novel or Pamphlet? By Henry Seidel Canby.........+--...+se+0-5 649 The Chaplet of Prometheus. By Floyd Dell........--.-.es-eseseees 650 The Prince of Scholars. By Carl Van Doren..........seseeeesees 651 The Rootabaga Country. By Anne Carroll Moore................ 651 The Demon of Unemployment. By Henry Raymond Mussey....... 652 An Authentic Novel. By W. E. Woodward...........s.seeeeeees 654 The Degradation of the Human Spirit. By Robert Herrick...... 654 UR ANSI Ge HOStS Gu) UIESY, als WV ict p PUNECH Sale cte. cts sisie cleiaie cpalsfejele « selalaeineclece 655 Our Changing Constitution. By Thomas Reed Powell.............. 656 A Real Interpretation. By Ernest Gruening................-+206. 660 In the Image of Bigness. By Mark Van Doren...........-se+e0ee% 660 hewAmerican Jalili) By SPENcers Miler neo cc's aie vieieisvcscewacvnaciass 662 A Feminist’s Point of View. By Louis R. Gottschalk.............. 662 The Nazarene Again! By John Haynes Holmes.............+.0.. 664 Victorian Byways. By Gerald Hewes Carson...........eeseeeeeeee 666 Mirrors of Paris. By Lewis S. Gannett...........0. cece ce eeeeeee 666 Portraits, Rather. By Grant Showerman.............seeseeeeeeree 668 In a Magic Country. By Johan J. Smertenko...............0000- 668 PP MEIN ESTEE. alate slciviope tialc celclels oleic de ebisidsstaccwiewlcrcrcivesiowcsevice 668 HTC A DION SHE OM LEY) DP RRIZES« icislole c's clsle ale welniaiecneciesiccsacssccese 670 MUSIC: Victor Maurel, Singing Actor. By Pitts Sanborn................ 671 DRAMA: . " The Muscovites Return. By Ludwig Lewisohn.................... 672 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprror ASSOCIATE EDITorS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EpIrors JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE NORMAN THOMAS ROBERT HERRICK CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION Rates: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. Seer rn RONEN NYS PY A a re THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 86, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. WO sous, the cross of the Legion of Honor, and a wound badge were all he had in his pockets—and he hung himself on a war monument lately dedicated to the unknown dead by Premier Poincaré. He, too, has joined the ranks of the unknown dead, and he chose a fitting place to end his life. If he had been an American he might well have chosen the steps of the office of the Veterans’ Bureau. The committee hearings degenerated into a con- test in personal abuse, and the public, sickened, lost interest. The investigators and those whose conduct of office they had been investigating seemed to have forgotten the pur- pose of the bureau. We should hear fewer pleas for the miscellaneous bonus if ex-service men had any conviction that we were really doing our part by the men who were NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1923 No. 3048 and are disabled. A general cynicism is natural, however, when it is discovered that the captain of a university foot- ball team is on the rolls of the disabled men receiving doles. SELF-CONFESSED Russian murderer sailed into New York the other day without a current passport and yet had no trouble from the immigration officials. He was Prince Youssopoff, and if he did not have a valid pass- port he had a slip of paper which, he said, was a diplomatic pass dating from the good old days of the Czar. As the Berengaria steamed down the harbor the prince could look across at the red roofs of Ellis Island. He probably did not know that several hundred compatriots of his were locked up in one room on that island waiting for Washington to decide whether they might be admitted or not—and had been waiting in that room, without toilet facilities and without screens, for weeks. But then, they were third- class passengers, peasant women and Jews, and he was a prince, and, if a murderer, a good counter-revolutionary. If Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson were alive to see that contrast in the republic they helped found, they might think another revolution necessary. OMPTROLLER CRAIG’S sentence to sixty days in jail for contempt of court ought, as we said last week, to be the starting-point of an effort to take away from judges this medieval and autocratic power to try, convict, and punish according to their personal spleen or whim. Certainly all alleged contempt committed outside of the courtroom ought to be brought within the criminal law and made subject to trial by jury. The proposal to investigate the judicial record of Judge Mayer, or the assumption that this judgment was unusually unreasonable, is poppycock. Judge Mayer’s action can be matched with all too many others; it has caused wide protest merely because Mr. Craig happens to be a victim of unusual prominence. Had he been John Doe or Richard Roe—as ordinarily—the New York newspapers would not be printing columns on the incident, nor would politicians be concerned. Their interest is not in justice but in personality. We are too much given to upholding archaic trumpery in our courts in order to preserve what we ridiculously call the majesty of the law. The majesty of fiddlesticks! Law is an infringement upon human liberty and a violation of individual sanctity; it is justifiable when the community interests urgently require it and the common will upholds it, but it is never anything but a pitiful compromise—a necessary, unmajestic evil. It is time to introduce common sense into our court proceed- ings, to cease to regard our judges as sacred cows. The right of trial by jury was supposedly won 700 years ago at Runnymede, but there are still some glaring exceptions. Decency and democracy demand that we gather them in. HILE the press and politicians of New York are making a great to-do about violation of free speech in the case of Comptroller Craig, they are notoriously in- different, with a few honorable exceptions, to the fact that

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thirty-two men have spent five or more years in federal prisons—and are still there—for exercising this constitu- tional right during the war. We agree with Ralph Chaplin that the defenders of our liberties in connection with these men have been too humble. We should cease to petition President Coolidge, and instead demand the vindication of our fundamental law by the release of these men. And if Mr. Coolidge fails to act promptly, then a bill should be introduced in Congress to end this monstrous injustice. To talk about the majesty of the law in the face of such defilement of it is the most hypocritical buffoonery. It is time that every man in public life be called upon to take a stand on this question. Those who fail to demand un- equivocally an end to this barbarism and illegality ought never to be permitted to utter the word freedom again without having it thrown back in their teeth. UDGE ALTON B. PARKER, president of the National Civic Federation, is at it again—this time with an impassioned defense of the “capitalist press.” We com- mented last week upon Senator B. K. Wheeler’s able reply to Judge Parker’s attack upon the Senator’s favorable re- port upon conditions in Soviet Russia. Senator Wheeler said: “I feel that my opinions are based on facts and not on the mendacious propaganda that fills the capitalist press and which you so smugly indorse in your letter.” Judge Parker replied that his sources were the same as those of Secretary Hughes and Presidents Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge—which we are sure Senator Wheeler would not doubt—and. continued: You insinuate that the “capitalist press” is our sole source of information. Your meaning is clouded. ... You know very well that the press of our country, including nearly all the great newspapers, has freely published all the interesting and im- portant official Soviet documents they could get hold of.... Even the papers most violently accused of being against the soviets, like the New York Times, have ... taken the lead in that direction. And more of the same. Judge Parker seems to regard the New York Times as a model of newspaper fairness. There is an obvious test to apply. How much of Judge Parker’s attacks on Senator Wheeler did it print, and how much of Senator Wheeler’s reply? After a careful search of a file of the Times and consultation of its index department we find that on October 31 it printed seven inches of the Parker attack; that it suppressed Senator Wheeler’s reply entirely; and that on November 24 it printed six inches of Parker’s reply to the reply it had not printed. Could bias go further? T is encouraging to learn that Circuit Judge Harry Fisher has granted a writ of mandamus compelling the city of Chicago to isSue a license to Mrs. Helen G. Carpen- ter to establish a birth-control clinic. The city authorities, be it said to their shame, refused such a license, and plan, it is said, to appeal from the decision. In the absence of a law in Illinois against spreading birth-control informa- tion, Judge Fisher ruled that such propaganda was not im- moral or contrary to public policy. He said: It is earnestly contended that knowledge of methods of con- traception would remove, to a great extent, the only restraining influence against sex immorality on the part of unmarried women. The fear of resulting pregnancy is said to be a great deterrent to immorality. If this were true, it would be sad to contemplate the weakness of our moral sense. The Nation * [Vol. 117, No. 3048 N our issue of November 14 we commented upon Secre- tary Hoover’s speech on superpower before the chair- men of the public-service commissions of eleven States, saying that his ideas were excellent from the engineering standpoint but socially shortsighted because he proposed to turn great possibilities over to private companies for exploitation, and the economic saving would go not to con- sumers but to stockholders in corporations. Mr. Hoover’s secretary writes to say: I beg to inform you that at no place has Mr. Hoover ever suggested that the savings from superpower development should be turned over to the power companies. If you will take the trouble to read his address in full you will observe that the entire statement is directed toward savings for the consumer. Any tyro in public regulation knows that its very essence is to secure just such savings for the consumer. If we were in error in assuming from Mr. Hoover’s words that he was thinking of private rather than government development of superpower, then we owe him an apology. But the stress that he placed upon “public regulation’— which his secretary reiterates—suggested that he could have in mind only private ownership. If Mr. Hoover stands for private ownership, but thinks that nevertheless the economic saving can be preserved to the consumer through “public regulation,” then we differ with him. The most that such control has usually accomplished has been to mitigate outrageous gouging. <A greater saving may result from private than from public ownership, but only an uncertain part of it goes to the consumer. HEN is Mr. Hughes going to recall from Brazil Admiral Vogelgesang and his “diplomatic mission” of thirty-eight naval officers? Dr. Samuel Guy Inman reports in the useful weekly News Bulletin of the Foreign Policy Association that he found in South America that it was having “an exceedingly bad effect.” “In Argentina,” he added, Naval officers and others again and again told me that no other construction could be put on our sending the naval mission to Brazil than that this country desired to sell war material not only to Brazil but to other South American countries— for of course we must know that to increase Brazil’s navy meant that Argentina and other countries would increase theirs. The expected has happened. Argentina, which, as Dr. In- man reports, boasted at Santiago that she had not spent any money on armaments since 1911, and that she had two school teachers to every soldier, has just voted $98,000,000 for military purposes to meet the Brazilian expansion. And for this terrible business South America holds us and our naval mission responsible. N the day the Court of the Canton of Vaux took up the case of the assassination of Vaslav Vorovski, So- viet envoy to the second Lausanne conference, by Maurice Conradi, a Swiss engineer, and his accomplice, Paul Polon- nine, the curtain was rung up on one of the most amazing farces in the history of jurisprudence. The seventéen-page acte d’accusation presented by the state prosecutor read, according to the correspondent of the London Daily Herald, more like a newspaper article excusing the prisoner than an indictment. He was commended for his “valiant con- duct” during the Russian civil war, and it was emphasized that “his goods had been requisitioned—nationalized if you ee

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Dec. 5, 1923] will,” and that “it is said that his uncle had been shot and an aunt had been massacred.” The fact of the killing seemed not to be in dispute. The murder was forgotten while the court became the scene for denouncing the Bol- sheviki. Mlle. Edith Conradi, cousin of the prisoner, “sim- rly dressed in a dark-blue costume with a black hat, told of her pitiful experiences.” M. Croisier declared that “if Con- radi had asked him for money to assist him in committing the murder he would willingly have provided it.” Polon- nine asserted he was ready to continue the fight against the “Reds,” even on terrorist lines. The defense made the point that the Bolsheviki had perpetrated many assassinations, and personified Conradi as “liberator of the world’s conscience.” The jury voted five to four for conviction, but the Swiss law requires a majority of six, and so the verdict stood that to kill a Soviet official is not murder. T is good news that Gerhart von Schulze-Gaevernitz is | coming to the United States to lecture. Germany has too often sent to this country representatives of a past with which Americans have little sympathy. Professor Schulze- Gaevernitz has long fought for liberalism in Germany, in his sympathetic studies of contemporary England and in his advocacy of a peaceful policy of free trade, as a popular lecturer at Freiburg University and as a member of the Reichstag. During the war he courageously opposed the Belgian deportations and was singled out for abuse by Ludendorff. Since the war he has continued to plead, from his post on the edge of the Black Forest, for sanity. He is a worthy successor to Count Harry Kessler, a true people’s ambassador. ICHOLAS I, the “Iron” Czar of Russia, feared attempts upon his life. In 1835, before going to meet Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, he composed a letter of instructions for his son, who later became Alexander II, the grandfather of the last czar. That letter became historic in the Romanoff family, and its doctrine was a sort of Romanoff gospel. We sometimes forget, in ready denunciation of the bolshevism which we refuse to recognize, the nature of that czarism with which we maintained such cordial relations. For in- stance: When everything shall be brought in order command the Council to be summoned to you, and declare that you absolutely require the preservation in everything of the existing state of affairs, without the smallest infringement... . At.the beginning, when entering into affairs, ask how things were being done before you and do not change in anything, either persons or methods . . . and then, Rule. Be gracious and confiding to the troops and take care of them, but do not allow in the service what was not permitted formerly. Guard your sisters; love them tenderly; do your best for their future fate, uniting as far as possible their weal with the ad- vantage of the state, of which they are the property. Never give the Poles their own way; strengthen what has been begun, and try to complete the difficult task of the Russi- fication of this province, by no means weakening in the meas- ures that have been taken. Go forward boldly. Great is the God of Russia. NOTHER proverb has been disproved. More than a few do die; now and then one even resigns. Of 435 candidates elected to the House of Representatives a year ago fifteen have already died. Three, moreover, have re- The Nation . | ae by 621 signed. Of ninety-six Senators elected or remaining for this Congress, three have died since election. Law-making seems to belong among the extra-hazardous callings like mining, aviation, and housebreaking; we advise life insur- ance companies to accept no Congressman-elect as a risk. We have been wondering why we wait a year after the people have expressed their divine will before putting it into effect. Perhaps the above statistics contain the solu- tion of the mystery. There are even cynics who insist that a longer interval, say five years, between election and the convocation of Congress, might offer a still greater advan- tage. HE award of the Nobel Prize for literature to William Butler Yeats must be a source of genuine satisfaction to all lovers of literature. He is not, like Benavente, a mediocrity for whom international trumpets have been blown; neither is he a writer whose works have the sort of actualité that commends them to the attention of the cul- tured crowd. He is a poet, primarily and even in his plays a lyrical poet. Nor are his strains loud and superficially compelling on the one hand, nor sophisticatedly and cal- culatedly original on the other. His idiom and his music are his own. But they are always the idiom and the music of essential poetry. That he is, by the consent of the judi- cious, the chief living poet of the Irish nation may have had something to do with the award. We prefer to believe that it was given out of a genuine appreciation of those murmuring and undeviatingly exquisite strains, that noble if not always full-bodied imagination, that deep, instinctive vision of the arts that compared them to venerable things God gave to men before he gave them wheat. HE career of Dr. John Clifford, who has just died at the age of eighty-seven, vigorous and active to the last, shows that it is possible, even in these days, for a minister of religion to be a zealous champion of progressive political and social causes without falling short in any of his spiritual functions. Mr. Lloyd George once described him as the best fighting man the English Free Churches had turned out Since Oliver Cromwell. In election campaigns the organizers of the Liberal Party would sometimes receive, from all parts of the country, more requests for the services of Dr. Clif- ford as a platform speaker than for those of any but the most popular of politicians. He led, in particular, the “pas- sive-resistance”’’ movement of those Nonconformists who re- fused to pay the local taxes imposed by the Balfour Govern- ment for the support of schools which gave a religious teaching according to the doctrines of the Established Church. But Dr. Clifford’s labors in the public field did not prevent him from ministering for over fifty years to the spiritual needs of a large London congregation, and during the whole of this period not a jarring note disturbed the harmony between pastor and people. Having had to leave school at the age of eleven, to work in a lace factory some- times for sixteen or even twenty hours at a stretch, he never lost his sympathy with the victims of the industrial system, and his Liberalism was far removed from that of the laisser faire school. It was characteristic of him that one of his last public utterances was an impassioned protest against the contempt for idealism expressed in Lord Birken- head’s rectoral address,

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EWS from Germany is a hodge-podge of political, economic, and human distress. Where the Germans appear to see hope—in the prospect of an Anglo-American loan—there is no real hope. How could sane financiers lend money to a country in such utter chaos, with a relent- less enemy in possession of its richest territory? The Rhineland and the Ruhr are still in process of drop- ping away from the Reich. The process is twofold, the French soldiers and the selfish German industrialists join- ing to effect the same end. It is the correspondent of the London Times who writes of the Rhineland: The country is at the mercy of a set of crooks, cranks, and jailbirds who exploit it for their own profit in the name of an independent Rhineland. ... They have issued reams of paper money without any backing so that the financial chaos is far worse than it has ever been in unoccupied Germany. They rob and requisition with impunity; they terrorize all persons of any position who try to stand up against them. The French main- tain a pretense of neutrality but actually give the Separatists a free hand to commit any violation or illegality they like. They make it quite clear to loyal Germans that they can escape at any time from their present plight by throwing over the Reich. What wonder, under the circumstances, if the weary Ger- mans have failed to pitch the Separatists into the Rhine? Is it not rather a wonder that they have not yielded to the temptations which the French so sedulously spread before them? When men have been out of work for weeks and months, and their wives and children face them day after day with pinched, hungry faces they are likely to chase any passing rainbow. In the Ruhr, where a few individuals control the great industries, the surrender to France has been made. Whether it can be fulfilled remains to be seen, but Stinnes and Thyssen, Wolff and Voegler and Krupp have signed agreements promising to do for France what they refused to do for their own Government. Their treaty with the French is almost a promise to pay a capital levy to an alien enemy. Eighteen per cent of all the coal and coke they produce they promise to the French; and in addition an export tax on coal and $15,000,000 for arrears in taxation. If these men, instead of opposing every step toward the “policy of fulfilment” of treaty obligations, had only co- operated with their own Government there might be less misery in Germany today. Implicitly the agreement recog- nizes the legality of the occupation, although the French agree to submit their claim for payment of the costs of the occupation to the Reparation Commission. Sir John Bradbury, the British member of the Reparation Commis- sion, says that the agreement would secure a minimum for France and nothing for any one else. When it comes before the Reparation Commission there may be more fireworks. Meanwhile in Berlin Dr. Stresemann has fallen from office almost unnoticed. He never really ruled. The indus- trialists forced him to announce the abandonment of passive resistance when he found that he could no longer pay them the wages for their men, and they thereupon took up the reins and negotiated with the French as sovereign inde- pendent nations, without so much as a “by your leave” to the political government of their country. The world-wide trend of economic forces to overshadow the old forms of political government was never more marked. Nor did Stresemann govern even in unoccupied Germany. He did The Nation The Most Distressful Country [Vol. 117, No. 3048 not dare give orders to Bavaria; when he did they were neglected. During his regime Bavaria fell away as a con- stitutional part of the Reich and ceased to obey its edicts. It was not Stresemann who overthrew the Socialist-Com- munist coalition governments in Saxony and Thuringia, but the Reichswehr, whose leaders acted, like the Ruhr indus- trialists, without awaiting his approbation. Again the con- stitutional basis of the republic was ignored, and if the Reichswehr does not represent industrial monopolists di- rectly it is none the less a class organ of the reactionary land-owning and manufacturing classes. Meager dispatches report that General von Seeckt, com- mander of the Reichswehr, has ordered the dissolution of the Communist Party, of the “ultra-reactionary Nationalist Party,” and of the Hitler “National Socialist” Party. The Berlin correspondents, with their old absorption in political events, have cabled whole columns about the political crisis but have failed to cast light on this really significant proceeding. What Nationalist groups did von Seeckt order dissolved? They do not tell us. Certainly not the National- ist Party, monarchist though it is, for a day later Ebert is reported conferring with a leader of that party about the formation of a new Cabinet. The order to dissolve Hitler’s forces is obviously a farce, for von Seeckt does not control the Reichswehr in Bavaria, where Hitler’s forces rally. Von Seeckt, acting as dictator, has acted against the Com- munist Party. Its headquarters, and the office of its Berlin daily newspaper, the Rote Fahne, have been, the corre- spondents tell us, “literally cleaned out.” Its funds have been confiscated, and its meetings and papers prohibited. We do not doubt it; the Communist Party, weak as has been its leadership, has become, while the Socialists were debat- ing and disagreeing, the effective organ of working-class opposition to a monarchist dictatorship in Germany; and the necessary preliminary to a dictatorship of the Right is its suppression. Today the German working class is politically and eco- nomically impotent. Unemployment has broken its eco- nomic strength, and its leaders have shown extraordinary political ineptitude, even apart from the fact that for them to share in the Government today might mean the final act in the separation of Bavaria. Ebert, the saddler-president, is reported to have offered the premiership to Dr. Hergt, the Nationalist leader. Hergt refused; and Dr. Albert, a politically colorless man, is to take his place. What can Dr. Albert do? It is reported that he will carry on a policy of conciliation with Bavaria, will attempt to negotiate with the Allies without recognizing the legality of the Ruhr occupation, and will look for loans from abroad. But he cannot conciliate Bavaria without alienating still further the German working class; he cannot retain any real hold on the Ruhr while the German industrialists are yielding to the French; and it is impossible to believe that leans will be forthcoming in Germany’s present plight. Decisive help can come only from without; and with Eng- land in the throes of an election and the United States still splendidly isolated it is difficult to see whence it may come, For the time being the French can continue the dis- memberment of Germany; and if the result be a violent Nationalist movement that will sweep Germany and lead to armed resistance who but France will bear the blame?

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Dec. 5, 1923] Factories of Public Opinion OW far modern newspapers can go in distorting facts and manufacturing public opinion is pictured in a recently published booklet on “labor terrorism” in Chicago in 1922. The average newspaper reader probably remem- bers a succession of dispatches from Chicago a year ago last spring in which it was revealed that “a reign of terror” had been inaugurated by the unions in the build- ing trades because of dissatisfaction with the Landis wage award. The city had been experiencing a series of crimes of violence, but they had regularly been attributed to “bandits,” “gunmen,” and other newspaper heroes until two policemen were murdered on the night of May 9-10. Then suddenly the character of Chicago’s crime changed. The public was informed that the policemen had been killed by “labor terrorists,” and presto, bandits and gun- men disappeared! Thereafter all crime was attributed to union vengeance and sabotage. The police raided the headquarters of the Building Trades Council and arrested everybody there. Some 200 persons were indicted, and the labor leaders, Shea, Murphy, and Mader, were promptly brought to trial, the chief of police declaring that he had a “wagon-load” of evidence against them. Later, thinking this scant, he increased it to “three truck loads.” At about that point the memory of the average news- paper reader begins to falter. He doesn’t remember who was convicted or how many. Somehow the great sensation disappeared from the first pages, to be superseded by newer events. The one thing which sticks in the average newspaper reader’s mind is that there was a reign of “labor terrorism” in Chicago in 1922; of that he is sure. When the Chicago newspapers first began to play up the reign of “labor terrorism,” George W. Whitehead, an Illinois journalist, believing the whole scare to be fictitious, decided to keep tab on their articles. In a booklet entitled “A Newspaper Frameup” he now shows, on the basis of what the newspapers themselves printed,- how misleading and mendacious their publicity was. A week after the murder of the two policemen a fine apartment house, not yet completed, was burned. The newspapers announced under scare heads that the building had been in course of construction “under the Landis award,” and that the fire was spite work by the dissatisfied unionists who had re- fused to accept that arrangement. The Chicago Tribune even quoted a resident in a neighboring building as having heard somebody announce that there would be an explosion in a minute and then shout: “To hell with the Landis award!” Later on this newspaper printed inconspicuously on an inside page a statement by the police—which few readers noted—that all the workers on the building had been union men and that the fire had been set by boys. In ways like this the idea of “labor terrorism’ was worked up and all Chicago was made to believe it, fearing and hating unionism accordingly. And then what hap- pened? What became of the 200 indictments? Not a handful of them even came to trial. The chief of police’s “three truck loads” of evidence disappeared. Not only were Shea, Murphy, and Mader acquitted, but a notorious thug without any connection with unionism, so far as the facts have been made public, was convicted of the murder of the two policemen. But of all this the public, especially outside of Chicago, heard little or nothing. Out-of-town The Nation editions of the Tribune did not even record the conviction. A newspaper frameup? We do not altogether agree with Mr. Whitehead in this estimate. A good many well- informed persons believe that there was some violence, due to the building trades unions, in the wake of the Landis award. Anything else would have been a miracle in normal circumstances—and the circumstances were not normal. Shea, Murphy, and Mader were unsavory characters, and some intelligent Chicagoans think it possible that the man finally convicted was the victim of a conspiracy. But the course of the Chicago newspapers is not bettered by these circumstances. Quite the contrary. There was, and is, a great story the facts of which they have never printed. If there was “labor terrorism” they failed to prove it, play- ing instead to the gallery of popular prejudice and hysteria without evidence. There was no conspiracy among Chicago newspapers to inaugurate a reign of “labor terrorism.” The trouble is that the news service of the average Ameri- can daily is not directed toward ascertaining facts or re- cording modern history. Its two great aims are to play up current sensations and to support the editorial policy of its owners. The idea of “labor terrorism” was beautifully in line with both of these purposes. It supplied a novel angle for the reporting of crime, and it hinged with the editorial policy of enmity toward unionism. Nobody knows who first suggested “labor terrorism” in connection with the murder of the two policemen. But a mere suggestion was sufficient for every newspaper in Chicago to pounce upon the idea. The newspapers played it up to the police and the police played it back to the papers, Public hysteria was stimulated; editions were sold. The facts were left for historians to mull over after they no longer mattered. What Is the Press? OT long ago there was held in London an Imperial Press Conference which attracted a large number of representatives of the newspapers of the overseas Domin- ions. After they had been hospitably entertained for some days at a succession of luncheons and dinners, at which the chief speakers were various prosperous publishers—mostly peers, baronets, and such like—one of the visitors inquired when they were likely to have a chance of meeting a few working journalists. The question was significant of a radical change that has affected more than the British press in recent years. Half a century ago the most prominent personalities at such a conference would have been men who could not have written a big check with the certainty of having it honored but whose pens were day by day wielding no less influence than the voices of the most eminent parlia- mentary leaders. Today not brains or character but money and the flair for making it are the chief assets of those who count in the British newspaper world. Lord Rother- mere, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Edward Hulton, Sir William Berry—what conspicuous national services have these men rendered to justify their being regarded as worthy guides of public opinion? It would be absurd to mention them in the same breath with, say, J. A. Spender, or H. W. Massing- ham, or A. G. Gardiner, three journalists of international reputation, each of whom, through the vicissitudes of the newspaper market, has recently lost his editorial chair, Those who were most antagonistic to the public policies of Lord Northcliffe had to recognize that he possessed at

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ie 624 The Nation SLAErrane any rate the qualification of being a master of his own pro- fession. He had worked his way up from the lowest rung of the ladder, and there was no editorial or literary function in any of his offices that he was not competent to discharge. But your Beaverbrook or Rothermere would fall down on the most elementary assignment given to a cub reporter. His power is simply the power of the purse, coupled with the same knack in financial deals as that which makes for- tunes on Wall Street. He speculates in newspapers as a climber of different tastes speculates in oil or copper. The one gleam of hope in the present situation is the doubt—humiliating though it must be to any journalist to have to express it—whether the influence of the daily press is not generally overestimated. There are multitudes of readers to whom the morning or evening paper is scarcely more than a rival to the movie as a means of relieving everyday existence of its dulness and monotony. They buy it not to learn the latest developments in national or international affairs, still less to reflect upon such editorial comment as may be offered upon them, but rather to be thrilled by some sensation of the underworld or to follow the course of sporting competitions whose ups and downs they are unable to watch in person. In England as in America the evening papers in particular are catering more and more to the appetite for sport. Lord Haldane, in a re- cent lecture, related that one Saturday, after a long, tiring day and a tiring journey, he had wanted to see the news. He asked a newsboy for a paper. ‘Football or otherwise?” asked the boy. “Otherwise,” replied Lord Haldane. “And so,” he added, “I got the day’s racing news.” The electoral history of Great Britain, like that of the United States, affords ample evidence that a huge circu- lation by no means implies a corresponding influence in molding public opinion, and that successful political propa- ganda is not dependent upon support in the daily press. Who could have forecasted the Labor gains at the last elec- tion on the basis of the comparative sales of the prosperous Daily Mail and the struggling Daily Herald? La Follette swept Wisconsin, as Reed carried Missouri and the Farmer- Laborites Minnesota, against an almost unanimous press. There is good reason, indeed, for believing that a politi- cian who wishes to influence the electorate through the press will find it more remunerative to cultivate the weekly than the daily field. Many people who are accustomed to cast aside the daily after a skimming of the headlines on their way to or from the office or the store give the weekly the benefit of what in comparison is a detailed and careful reading at home. La Follette’s Weekly is a tremendous power in Wisconsin and, to take a totally different type of man and journal, Horatio Bottomley long exercised through John Bull a domination—there is no other word for it— over the minds of hundreds of thousands of British readers such as could not be claimed by the proprietors or editors of even the most widely circulated dailies. At the zenith of his power he could send a nominee of his own at a by-elec- tion down to a constituency with which neither he nor his candidate had any personal connection, and could get him returned to Parliament as a spokesman of Bottomley. The labor press grows slowly and costs dearly; in the weeklies lies almost the only hope of a counterbalance to the kind of mercenary speculation which reached its culmina- tion in the recent Beaverbrook-Rothermere-Hulton deal and brought the British press more than ever under the control of a small group of self-seeking reactionaries. [ Vol. 117, No. 8048 Barnum and Cook R. COOK has been sentenced to serve twenty years in prison for his share is a particularly flagrant Texas oil swindle, and a great many persons are indulging in lofty moralization. Now it seems to us that a great injustice is being done the doctor. After all, Dr. Cook is perhaps this century’s greatest faker, and in a country which worships at the shrine of advertising and accepts any oil speculator who succeeds he ought to receive some recognition, If Barnum is a national hero, why not Frederick A. Cook? Dr. Cook might appropriately be made the hero of a great national saga. He too was a poor boy who advertised his way to fame. He began selling fruit in Fulton Market; he ped- dled milk—and in the course of time he was decorated by the King of Denmark, given an honorary degree by the ancient University of Copenhagen, granted the freedom of the City of New York, and entertained at a monster din- ner at which Admiral Schley presided and many men now living who would prefer to remain nameless joined to do him honor. He made a small fortune in advertising an ascent of Mt. McKinley and a trip to the North Pole, neither of which he had ever taken, and after he had been thor- oughly exposed, he returned to fame as author of a series of articles explaining that he was not really sure whether he ever did get to the Pole or not. Place any man [he wrote] in the conditions which surrounded me, the love of life which only the proximity of death can work coloring his mind and causing him to reach a state of mental unsoundness, and he will believe with the fervor of a great unreasoning faith the pleasantest thing in his mind, the thing that will give him hope. It does not take the proximity of death to reach that state of mind, Dr. Cook. It is the great American state of mind. We believe what we find it pleasantest to believe. Mr. Bryan denies evolution because he thinks it would be un- pleasant to believe his ancestors kin to the ape. We make _a religion of hope. The people who buy the sunshiny maga- zines that deny the realities of the world should not find it in their hearts to abuse Dr. Cook for persuading himself to believe the pleasantest thing in his mind. Phineas T. Barnum won fame by exhibiting Joice Heth, “a Negress 161 years old, who formerly belonged to the father of George Washington,” a “preserved Fiji Mermaid,” and the famous woolly horse (“He is extremely complex— made up of the elephant, deer, horse, buffalo, camel, and sheep, . . . the full size of a horse, has the haunches of a deer, the tail of the elephant, a fine curled wool of camel’s hair color, and easily bounds twelve or fifteen feet high .. . undoubtedly ‘Nature’s last,’ and the richest specimen re- ceived from California”). Tastes change. Joice Heth and the Fiji mermaid might have failed to draw crowds in 1909; Dr. Cook’s bogus explorations did not fail. But ex- posure meant nothing to Barnum, and much to Dr. Cook. Barnum prided himself on his reputation as master-deceiver of the public; his phrase “One born every minute” became a national slogan. Dr. Cook, instead of laughing at the world, tried to make more money out of whimpering. There may be more joy in heaven over one penitent sinner, but this earth hates the breed. Dr. Cook might be forgiven his oil swindle—lesser men than he have “got by”; he can never be forgiven his apologies for fooling us.

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Dec. 5, 1923 | The Nation 625 England at the Crossroads By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD London, November 16 NE can pay a high price for political incapacity, dul- ness, and shortsightedness, and England is paying that now. No one can hear the Prime Minister, Mr. Stan- ley Baldwin, address the House of Commons without being attracted by his pleasant voice and personality, his straight- forward method of speaking, and his obvious sincerity. Also one cannot hear him without being amazed that a man who has plainly little strength of personality or force of char- acter should have been placed in the foremost political office in England. It is not enough to be a nice man; not enough to take the duties of your high office with genuine con- scientiousness. To conduct the affairs of state other quali- ties are requisite or the results will be disastrous. Eng- land is today paying several kinds of prices because there was no one the Conservatives could hit upon as the suc- cessor to Bonar Law except this pleasant gentleman and business man, who had no more distinguished himself dur- ing his service in Parliament than did Warren G. Harding during his term in the Senate of the United States. So England has found itself in the hands of one who in foreign affairs, in a most critical moment in history, could neither play a great and strong role nor prove himself a strategist and statesman—who seems to be molded by those he is with—witness his extraordinary volte face during his interview with Poincaré. In domestic affairs he has suddenly undergone a complete change of heart. The ter- rible plight of the unemployed in Great Britain—no worse than it has been for several years—has suddenly weighed upon him so heavily that he finds himself compelled to de- vote all his thought to it. That thought produces the re- markable belief that this unemployment, which he himself but a short time ago correctly believed could be cured only by a restoration of Germany and the rest of Europe to the normal processes of life, can now be remedied only by the final abandonment of England’s historic policy of free trade. It makes no difference that this remedy at best cannot be put into effect for months. It does not move the Prime Minister that, according to his own lips, the in- dustries he seeks to protect would not, if revived by his medicine, absorb more than 140,000 of the 1,500,000 un- employed. No, his conscience tells him that this is the remedy and his conscience will not let him apply it without an express mandate from his fellow-countrymen. It is an honorable conscience and as such is to be respected, but it is a genuine misfortune that in this case an honorable con- science is coupled with extraordinary dulness. Undoubtedly it has been one of the great advantages of the British parliamentary system that a Prime Minister could dissolve a Parliament on short notice, go to the coun- try, and quickly obtain a mandate as to a given policy. It has always seemed a better arrangement than our rigid sys- tem, under which Congress must live out its legally consti- tuted life, can adjourn only by act of its members, and can be called in extraordinary session only by act of the execu- tive. So I am rather surprised to find British radicals and liberals envying us this rigidity. They have, many of them, a feeling that Baldwin’s conscience has, by a remarkable coincidence, begun to work just when his Government is at a hopeless impasse—I mean hopeless for a mentality of the type of Baldwin—in foreign affairs and when many astute politicians know that an election now will find the Labor Party and its trade-union supporters at a low ebb financially, quite unable to undergo the expense of fighting another gen- eral election. There are even some who suspect that Mr. Baldwin, finding that there is no royal road out of either foreign or domestic difficulties, has deliberately sought dis- solution in the hope that the duty to govern may fall to Labor with a resultant failure and loss of public confidence. That theory is quite too Machiavellian. Rather, it assumes a political astuteness and farsightedness I cannot associate with Mr. Baldwin, and it ignores the indisputable fact that the ins rarely if ever deliberately turn over to the opposi- tion the power and privilege of governing. No, England is plainly paying for the Baldwin type of mind. So it has been plunged into a three weeks’ campaign to discuss what one member declared the other day to be the most momentous issue brought before Parliament in his lifetime, save only the question of entering the war. If we Americans have groaned over the length of our presi- dential and congressional campaigns and envied England the shortness of her appeals to the electorate for fresh man- dates, here is an appalling briefness of period in which to discuss any issue as complicated, as far-reaching, and as vital as that of protection versus free trade. Three weeks! Why, there will hardly be time to produce campaign litera- ture and have it printed and circulated among the constitu- encies before the time will come to go to the ballot-box. Since the British press is less than ever before inclined to print extensive arguments, the reliance must more than ever be upon the spoken word. For this three weeks is an in- credibly short time; the only merit of its brevity is that it will make the burden of expense lighter upon those who have the least money. How then are the parties going to fare? Well, the bulk of opinion inclines to the belief that, despite its lack of funds, the Labor Party will lose none of its total number of seats and may even gain as many as thirty—most optimists say twenty. For it the situation is complicated because an admirable courage and consistency have made it place at the forefront of its campaign the proposed capital levy. It is not in Ramsay MacDonald’s nature to sidetrack a party plank because that would be politically expedient. Many a politician would have glossed this over with the easy public assurance that it is not the issue of the hour, but something to be taken up at a more promising time. More than that, the Labor Party has declared for all its old plat- form and has declined to cooperate with the Liberals, al- though by doing so they might together easily give Baldwin an overwhelming defeat. Instead, the Labor Party has re- fused, in its own words, to permit the red herring of pro- tection to divert it from the steady and consistent pursuit of its larger aims and general program. That is a phe- nomenon not often witnessed in these days. There is genu- ine danger that this may cost it dearly, for both Conserva- tives and Liberals are going to work the specter of a capital levy for all it is worth. Already there are advertisements appearing in the London dailies telling you how and where

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626 The Nation to invest your money to escape the loss of capital through the proposed levy. As for the Liberals, I hardly think that any readers of The Nation are permitting themselves to be surprised at the reunion of Lloyd George and of Mr. Asquith. There never was any real breach of principle, and these two men, so accustomed to seeking office, can hardly live without the chance of victory and power. Americans who remember how readily the quarrel between Roosevelt and Taft was made up will certainly not be greatly puzzled in observing the burying of the hatchet by Lloyd George and Asquith. Should by any chance the Liberals be asked to form the next Ministry, the question whether the greatest of political acrobats would serve under Asquith and whether Asquith could again take the chance of being knifed in the back by his supposedly loyal lieutenant would become a really burn- ing issue. Today the Liberals are confident that they are going to win many more seats. Their closed ranks will by themselves assure them successes, and they are hopeful that many of those voters who deserted them last year for Labor will now find their way back. They appear not to be worry- ing about funds, and they have a righteous economic cause, with many historic slogans to fall back upon. They are magnificently equipped with brilliant platform speakers, while the Conservatives have nobody of force and distinc- tion and power to campaign for them—even Lord Birken- head is too heavy a load to carry, though his ability and attractive personality make him a very effective debater. Friends who have been traveling over England for the last few weeks tell me that there is extraordinarily little re- sponse to Baldwin’s catchwords and that even some of the manufacturers who might expect to benefit from the pro- posed tariffs are not at all in favor of a change. It is then only the Tories who can lose seats. They have nothing, or next to nothing, to which they can point with pride as the result of their conduct of the affairs of the country. A growing number of Englishmen are aware that never in the memory of the present generation has British prestige stood so low on the Continent. A growing number, if a much smaller one, realizes that if Great Britain cannot take the lead in bringing about a settlement of the European entanglement another war is the inevitable outcome. The business man, so far from feeling grateful to Baldwin, is ordinarily damning him for not letting well enough alone and for upsetting business. Baldwin himself cannot elec- trify anybody in the Lloyd George manner, or arouse intense enthusiasms. Yet I find very few people who do not think that Baldwin will continue to be the Prime Minister. The Conservatives can lose a hundred seats and still dominate, though they would have to rule as a minority and would hardly be in a position to force through their proposed tariffs. When it comes to opposing government measures there will be no reason why Labor and Liberals should not vote together against Baldwin. Hence there is actually the possibility of another election in 1924. In fact one of the shrewdest political observers I know looks forward to a series of elections for some years to come. At present Labor does not, of course, wish to win suffi- cient seats to have the right to form the Ministry and rule. They will not be in the least down-hearted if they stand still, for they realize well that they need more experience and more parliamentary training. They want to acquire a great deal more knowledge about a good many things. Eager as they are to aid the unemployed and to get their plans [Vol. 117, No. 3048 for social regeneration and reform under way, they are content to wait. They know that to take office and produce no vital results would be to go under a cloud for years. They are not anxious to have to extricate the country from the foreign mess into which it has drifted since the war. One gets, after five years’ absence, a fresh feeling of the vitality and determination of this great people and of its courage. There are few evidences in the London districts the ordinary visitor traverses of the strain upon the coun- try. Unemployed processions are at an end. One no longer sees masked officers playing hand-organs in order to get the money to live. After Berlin there seem remarkably few beggars. There is an extraordinary amount of rebuilding going on in London—some streets like Regent Street have been almost entirely reconstructed, because of the falling in of ground leases and the abundance of capital available for building operations. The housing schemes are working well, and the Government insists that 1923 will be the most satisfactory year in its record of new homes begun and of those completed. It is the unemployment doles, of course, beggarly as they are, which keep the unemployed off the streets—perhaps also in hopeless resignation. But the menace of the workless is there. No country in this situation is in anything else than a most dangerous state. Hundreds of thousands are actually forgetting how to work and, what is worse, thousands and thousands of young persons of both sexes are being turned out of school at sixteen only to find it impossible to obtain employment. If the habit of regular work cannot be instilled in them by the time when they are twenty-one, what chance will there be of creating it thereafter? The Government has undertaken a number of enterprises for temporary relief, such as the questionable plan to build seventeen new cruis- ers, but all that these proposals will accomplish is pitifully little compared to the total number of unemployed. What Mr. Baldwin and the Die-Hards fail to see is that there can be no real relief until the lost foreign markets are restored. That means grappling with France. For that, it is main- tained, public opinion is not ripe—a pleasant euphemism with many for the fact that the Beaverbrook and Rother- mere press is opposed to this policy. So neither a Liberal leader nor a Labor nor a Conservative one makes the speech that ought to be made every day. That is left to one who is half an outsider—General Smuts. And the Government drifts—which may result in its finding itself suddenly some fine day in a worse hole than it now thinks possible. But the people would not follow any vigorous policy against the French? Well, if you had stood with me near the Cenotaph at Whitehall on Armistice Day and witnessed that wonderful silence which reduced so many to tears; if you had noticed that these pilgrims to that shrine of love for the wasted dead were not of the ruling classes but the relatives of the private soldiers; if you had observed in addition their earnestness and devout reverence at the after- noon meeting in Trafalgar Square, with its call to right- eousness and to a renewal of faith and a rededication to the © ideals which the leaders of the country during the war pre- tended were those for which England was fighting, why © then you would have come away with a certain belief. And — that is that these plain people of England would rise tomor- row to any policy which would prevent that new catastrophe now so clearly impending—provided only those in authority tell them all the facts and point the only, the Christian way, out.

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————————— ‘ The Filipinos’ By MAXIMO M. KALAW I. INDEPENDENCE HILIPPINE life centers upon three main things: Independence, Wood, and Rubber. Independence was the battle-cry of the soldiers of Agui- naldo in the memorable struggles of 1896 and 1898. Inde- pendence was on the lips and in the hearts of Filipino revo- lutionists when they refused to surrender to American arms after President McKinley had decided to retain the islands. True, in the fateful years that passed after the defeat of the Filipinos in arms—when the force of American sov- ereignty reasserted itself and all signs of resistance to America had to be suppressed—the cry of independence was not heard in the fields of Luzon, or in the mountains of Visayas, or in the wilderness of Mindanao. Yet the feeling was there just the same, dormant, latent, inarticulate, only awaiting another opportunity for vigorous expression. The Philippine Commission, the then governing body of the islands, had passed a sedition law, prohibiting any agita- tion for independence. No political parties could exist which favored independence. As soon, however, as the ban was lifted, as soon as the sedition law was repealed and the people were allowed to express their feelings freely, protestations in favor of independence were again heard everywhere. Parties advocating the granting of independ- ence were established. Some used such expressive phrases as “immediate independence” and “urgent independence.” The party which had placed in its platform the idea of per- manent annexation to the United States and ultimate state- hood—the Federal Party—was, in the elections of 1907, completely snowed under. Out of the eighty seats in the lower house, or Assembly, it secured only sixteen. Since 1907 independence has dominated the politics of the Philippines. Advocates of permanent annexation have never since been able to hold any elective office. The Nacionalistas, who had routed the Federalists on the issue of immediate independence, for a long time asserted that the defeat of the party would be the defeat: of the people in their struggle for independence. On that ground they maintained themselves in power for fourteen years. Local issues on which there should be honest differences of opinion among public men cannot be developed because the overshadowing question is independence. The politician and the demagogue still appeal to the people and the voters with the old-time harangue on independence. Self-criticism, which should be the greatest factor for social reform, can- not be indulged in, for immediately imperialists and reten- tionists would get hold of the defects of the people and expose them to the American nation as an argument against independence. A hypocritical situation exists and will con- tinue so long as independence remains unsolved. II. Woop The next feature of the situation that must be reckoned with is Wood—statuesque Leonard Wood. Before him, Francis Burton Harrison reigned for six years. And before Harrison five other American governors had succeeded one another, beginning with William H. Taft. To Taft is given the credit of establishing civil government in the islands. He became unpopular with the Americans in the Philippines The Nation | eee 627 when he enunciated the policy of the “Philippines are for the Filipinos” and stood against the exploitation of the people. He did not, however, entirely please the people, for he was against early independence. His successors followed in his footsteps—the policy of developing the natural re- sources, the building of schools and roads, and the enforce- ment of sanitary measures. The Filipinization of the civil service and the expediting of independence were not given emphasis, so that when Harrison came he found a people strongly agitating for independence, for greater autonomy, for more Filipinos in the service. Relations between Ameri- cans and Filipinos were very much strained. He delivered a famous address on the Luneta in which he announced a new era. He said that henceforward the Filipinos would control not only the lower house but also the upper house; that there would be Filipinization in the service; and that every step would be taken with a view to hastening inde- pendence. He made good his word. He asked for the resig- nation of many American officials and put Filipinos in their stead. He gave the Filipinos in the Government greater control of their affairs. He asked Washington that the Philippines be given participation in the European War so that the question of independence might be brought up at the peace conference. He recommended in his reports to both President and Congress the granting of independence on the basis that there was a stable government in the Philippines. Such was the state of affairs when Wood came. With the triumph of the Republicans, the Filipinos were afraid lest the autonomy granted them under the Harrison regime be withdrawn or greatly reduced. But they believed that Wood would be the best possible man if a Republican had to be sent. He was already in the Philippines at the time as member of the Wood-Forbes mission to investigate condi- tions in the islands. Wood’s inaugural address was, from the Filipino stand- point, a good deal better than the Wood-Forbes report. He spoke of a government through the representatives of the people in the legislature. The first months of Wood, how- ever, were disappointing to the people. He had a different concept of the Governor Generalship from that of Francis Burton Harrison. Harrison reigned, but did not govern. He tried to follow the preamble of the Jones law which would give all the powers of government to the people except those which might impair American sovereignty. He left every domestic affair in the hands of the people or their representatives, and took active leadership only in matters which pertained to external affairs. Wood seemed to have a different concept of his duties. He would reign and also govern. He considered his posi- tion primarily as a great administrative office, directly con- trolling every town of the Philippines. He would not admit that the cabinet was in any way responsible to the legis- lature, but only to himself. He would have direct super- vision over all offices in the executive departments. Find- ing that Harrison had given much discretionary power to executive heads—all Filipinos with one exception—he sur- rounded himself with a number of what are called ae legal experts, mostly army officers.

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Naturally, this attitude was not favorably received by the leaders of the people. During the first year of Wood’s reign, the Nacionalista Party, which had hitherto controlled 90 per cent of the votes and the seats in the legislature, was threatened with a split. The two leaders, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmefia, got into a heated controversy on party leadership, the result of which was that Quezon separated from the Nacionalista Party and formed what he called the Colectivista-Nacionalista Party. Wood found this opportunity to exercise many of the prerogatives of a supreme administrator. There was, naturally, disorgani- zation among the Filipino element in the Government, which favored Wood’s contention. Many laws were passed which had not been studied carefully. Wood then made a tremen- dous use of the veto power by vetoing sixteen bills. Francis Burton Harrison seldom if ever vetoed bills, on the ground that the legislature representing the people should exercise practically all domestic powers and should be allowed to pass the bills it wanted. The elections of 1922 came. Three parties went in, and they came out with almost equal shares, not one of them controlling a majority of the lower house, which was made up as follows: Colectivista-Nacionalistas (Quezon’s party), 32; Democratas (opposition), 26; Nacionalistas (under Sergio Osmefia), 21. The Colectivista-Nacionalistas and Nacionalistas formed a coalition. The former (Nacional- istas who had seceded under the leadership of Manuel Quezon, president of the Senate) had a bare majority in the Senate, so with the Colectivista-Nacionalista coalition in the House, the members of the former Nacionalista Party were in power. One of the reasons why the leaders agreed upon a coalition was that they feared the inroads of Wood upon Filipino autonomy. The first bone of contention between Wood and the coali- tion leaders was the selection of his cabinet. He insisted on naming his cabinet as he pleased. He announced that he would have a cabinet in which all parties would be rep- resented. He would thus eliminate party responsibility in the Government. The coalition leaders were naturally opposed. They insisted that party responsibility must be assured and hence the cabinet must be chosen from the members of the party or parties controlling the legislature. After some months of discussion Wood yielded to the lead- ers. He eliminated the Democrata Party from participation in the cabinet. He appointed three Colectivista-Nacional- istas and retained two old Nacionalista members. Another policy Wood had to tackle was the economic one. The previous regime had embarked on an ambitious eco- nomic scheme. It was predicated upon the proposition that there was not enough private capital in the islands, and to avoid too much domination by foreign corporations the Gov- ernment should engage in enterprises which private capital could not or would not carry on. Development companies were established like the National Coal Company and the National Cement Company for the purpose of exploiting the natural resources of the country. A National Develop- ment Company was created, intended to be the mother com- pany of every other development company and authorized to engage in business and agricultural enterprises which private individuals were yet unable to tackle. The Manila Railroad Company was bought from the English. A Philip- pine National Bank was established, controlled by the Gov- ernment. From the beginning Wood, as well as Secretary of War The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Weeks, expressed opposition to the Government’s business activities. They wanted the Government to withdraw from business enterprise. One of the first proposals of Wood was to lease the Manila Railroad Company to a New York corporation. There were vigorous protests from all parts of the islands. The administration of the railroad was not a failure. On the contrary, it was a business success. In the last five years of private ownership, from 1912 to 1916, inclusive, the loss from operation was 769,657.74 pesos (a peso is half a dollar). From 1917 to 1921, inclusive, the first five years of government ownership and manage- ment, the profits of the road were 1,121,608.56 pesos. In 1922, from January to October, inclusive, the profits from operations were 2,090,606.53 pesos. Fortunately by law the Governor General could not sign the lease alone. The consent of the two presiding officers of the legislature was required. In obedience to popular demand, these two re- fused to sign the lease, and Wood—although he had all the papers ready for signature—had to withdraw the propo- sition. Recently, he wanted to close the National Bank, which had financed most of the sugar mills of Negros, spending a great deal of its capital in their establishment and up- keep. Governor Wood was encouraged by the fact that the National Bank had been badly managed. He also wanted to sell the sugar mills to foreign investors. Again the people cried out. They do not want foreign capital to con- trol their economic life. They do not want the National Bank closed. They do not want the sugar mills sold to foreign investors. The fact that Wood had yielded several times to the lead- ers did not mean that he had changed his ideas as to how he would govern. He yielded only when the law did not clearly permit him to act alone. He still maintained the idea that he was the supreme administrator; he still claimed that his cabinet members were simply his agents. He would not agree that the cabinet should follow the policies of the legislature or its leaders. The broad discretion given by Harrison to his departmental secretaries was nullified. The recent resignation, therefore, of the council of state and the Filipino members of the cabinet did not come as a surprise to those who knew the situation. In fact, much against their wishes the leaders tolerated Wood for more than a year simply because they thought that they could win him in favor of independence. It seemed that he had led them to believe that he was in favor of independence and that all he wanted was to establish “an efficient govern- ment”; once that was accomplished, he would be willing to testify to the American people that Philippine independence was the next thing in order. This must have been the reason .why he was able to rule for more than a year and a half with a stern hand. But the leaders became skeptical as to his promises. They feared that his confidential prom- ises for independence had for their main object to take back more and more power already granted by the previous Ad- ministration to the Filipino people, or their representatives. The leaders, therefore, awaited an opportunity for a “show down.” The case of Patrolman Conley of the Manila city police appeared to be such an opportunity. By the administrative code, a patrolman could be dismissed by the mayor with the approval of the secretary of the in- terior, both Filipinos. The two latter charged Conley with bribery. They failed to establish their case in court, but the judge said that Conley’s conduct was not becoming a

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629 public officer and had justly created public distrust. Ad- ministratively, that would have been sufficient ground for discharge. But Wood stepped in and pronounced himself a defender of Conley. He had been suspended pending the trial, and Wood determined to reinstate him as against the desires of the mayor and the secretary of the interior. The secretary of the interior agreed to reinstate Conley under protest, but upon his reinstatement resigned. The mayor did not agree to reinstatement, and also resigned. The members of the cabinet and the council of state thought that it was time to show their objection to such interferences by the governor; hence their resignations. That is a brief history of the recent political tempest in the Philippines. Will it blow over and leave Wood un- scathed? Time—and Washington—will tell. III. RUBBER The third great aspect of the Philippine situation is Rubber—elusive and elastic rubber. Yes, rubber, and back of it are great manufacturing establishments in the United States. Their attitude is that of most American business men interested in the islands. American manufacturers are eagerly hunting for rubber. So far England has monopolized its production, and is willing to squeeze the last farthing from them. Congress has appropriated half a million dollars for the investigation of places where rub- ber can be grown and produced under American auspices, free from English control. Rubber is no longer an experi- ment in the Philippines, for in the island of Basilan there is a big plantation under American management which is producing the same quality that is produced in English colonies. But American capitalists fear independence. Secretary of War Weeks himself, according to a United Press dispatch, was reported as saying that American capi- talists would be willing to invest in rubber in the Philip- pines if independence could be delayed for some reasonable time! American papers in the Philippines even reproach the Filipinos for their apparent indifference or opposition to the investment of American capital in rubber plantations. They want the Philippines to cooperate with the United States. But by cooperation they probably mean exploita- tion for the benefit of the United States, to the detriment of independence. The Filipinos also want cooperation, but not exploitation. They do not want to cultivate rubber at the expense of independence. After the protestations of disinterestedness from respon- sible Americans, it would seem awkward at this time, when the Filipinos have taken the word of America at face value, for any of them even to suggest the possibility of holding the Philippines a minute longer for the benefit of any class of Americans. Have they forgotten the vaunted promises of the late President McKinley that the Philippines were “ours not to exploit, but to develop, to civilize, to educate, to train in the science of self-government”; or the famous phrase of William H. Taft when he was Governor of the Philippines, that the “Philippines are for the Filipinos”; or the expression of President Wilson that “America is not the owner of the Philippines, but simply a trustee”; or the pledge of Congress itself when it passed the preamble of the Jones law declaring that it was “never the intention of the people of the United States, in the incipiency of the war with Spain, to make it a war of conquest or for terri- torial aggrandizement”? And now, will independence be delayed just because the rubber interests want to develop plantations in the Philippines? At this time when the United States champions the cause of mutual understanding among peoples, of common councils, of round-table conferences to discuss and decide frankly and openly their mutual problems and differences, it does seem strange that she cannot pursue and act upon those very same principles in the Philippines. The Philip- pine Government sends missions to the United States, rep- resenting the people, with full powers and authorized by law to discuss all matters touching independence and the relationship with America. What these Philippine delega- tions receive is not even a frank conference, a round-table discussion, but evasive answers. The late President Hard- ing told them he did not know when independence might come—how soon or how far distant. The Filipino people, through their legislature, insist that the condition required by Congress as a prerequisite to the granting of independ- ence, to wit, the establishment of a stable government, has already been fulfilled by the people. This is not denied, and yet no step is taken toward the settlement of this problem, when every possible consideration—social, political, and eco- nomic—demands the earliest possible solution, What is needed is not investigating committees to go to the Philippines. The Republican regime sent the Wood- Forbes mission. It returned facts suited to the ideas of Wood and Forbes. Should a Democratic Admirtistration send a mission, it would find facts suited to democratic ideas. The vicious circle can continue forever. At this stage of Philippine development, investigating committees do more harm than good. What is wanted is an actual at- tempt at a statesmanly solution of the problem. No action can be statesmanly or can hope for a happy solution which ignores the fact that the Filipinos are already an organized people with a government representing them. ‘They must, therefore, be dealt with through their organized Govern- ment. America herself has established that Government, representing and speaking for the whole people. A com- mission on independence has been created by the legislature with powers to discuss the problem with the United States. If that is not sufficient, the Filipinos have proposed, with the consent of the American Congress, to call a constitu- tional convention to discuss their future relations with America and to draft the constitution of the future Philip- pine republic. Why should the American Government ignore these facts and insist on finding what Philippine Richard Roe and John Doe want by sending special missions to the islands? By what principle of government is it decreed that one or two men—no matter how God-gifted they may be—can bet- ter know the needs and represent the desires of eleven million people than the very officials whom the people them- selves choose every three years in what Wood himself calls peaceful and orderly elections? Why cannot the American Government appoint its own commission, composed of representative men from Congress and the executive departments, to meet with a similar rep- resentative commission of Filipinos and discuss the inde- pendence problem? If America is frank enough to say that she needs some products of the Philippines, that she would like to retain some harbors or naval stations, that she wants rubber plantations, I am sure that the Filipino people will not deny her any reasonable request short of the non-fulfil- ment of her pledge to them.

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630 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 The Monroe Doctrine—Kiulled in Its Home By ERNEST GRUENING ( N December 2, 1823, President James Monroe delivered * to Congress a message in which he enunciated the principles which have come down to us as the Monroe Doc- trine. Its one-hundredth anniversary is being made the occasion of a “restatement” of that doctrine by various public men. Elihu Root once remarked: “It must be re- membered that not everything said or written by secre- taries of state or even by presidents constitutes a national policy, or can enlarge or modify or diminish a national policy.” But while the written and spoken words of our highest office-holders may not greatly change our national policy, their less conspicuous deeds often do. The sanctity of the Monroe Doctrine has, with minor variations, been pretty generally preserved in the spoken word of almost every President and Secretary of State for a century. Mr. Hughes’s was made plain in his recent address before the American Bar Association. There was in the doctrine, he said, “no hint, much less threat, of aggression on our part.” The policy of the Monroe Doctrine does not infringe upon the independence and sovereignty of other American states. Misconception upon this point is the only disturbing influence in our relations with Latin ,American states. ... We desire the independence, the unimpaired sovereignty and political integ- rity, and the constantly increasing prosperity of the peoples of Latin America. ... We covet no territory; we seek no conquest; the liberty we cherish for ourselves we desire for others; and we assert no rights for ourselves that we do not accord to others. This position coincides fully with the intent of Monroe and of his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, who, more even than his chief, was the intellectual author of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine was enunciated at a moment when Europe’s reactionary forces had stifled revolutionary movements. Monarchism was enthroned and viewed the New World ex- periment with republican forms of government and demo- cratic principles with as much alarm as Mr. Hughes now views the proletarian experiment of Russia. The European background of the Monroe Doctrine may be gauged by the provisions of the treaty adopted by the Congress of Verona in November, 1822, that “the system of representative gov- ernment is as incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereign people to the divine right’; and “it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those of princes.” With these premises the “high contracting powers” engaged mutually “in the most solemn manner to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.” Freedom of the press was also slated for a short shrift. At that time most of the Latin American states were still struggling to free themselves from the Iberian yoke. Their independence had not yet been acknowledged. Were they to be reconquered the United States, still relatively feeble, would be menaced by Powers profoundly hostile to all our national experiment represented. The Monroe Doctrine, which has since become a national policy, was therefore embodied in the following passages of the President’s mes- sage: In the wars of the European Powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it com- port with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied Powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. .. . We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to de- clare that we should consider any attempt on their part to ex- tend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dan- gerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. ... The occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle, in which the right and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent position which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power. What was clearly implicit in this doctrine was that the United States believed in the right of peoples, however feeble, to declare themselves independent and to set up their own governments as they saw fit, precisely as had the thir- teen colonies. Nor was there, despite our own abhorrence of reconquest by the medieval continental governments and our living apostolate for republicanism, a distaste fer a mon- — archical government per se, provided it arose or seemed to arise from the will of the people. The Washington Govern- | ment never shuddered at recognizing “Emperor” Iturbide as the first head of autonomous Mexico, and for three- quarters of a century maintained as friendly relations with © the Brazilian empire as with neighboring republics. The idea which apparently dominated the men who had grown up in the atmosphere of “independence” was the national right to set oneself up in business politically and to remain safe from aggression. Mingled with this were economic motives, such as the desire for trade in this hemisphere. Our essential attitude was expressed by Jefferson, who as early as July, 1791, in an instruction to Short, our min- ister to Spain, had written concerning our attitude toward alleged designs on the West Indies: Whenever jealousies are expressed as to any supposed view of ours, on the dominion of the West Indies, you cannot go farther than the truth in asserting that we have none. I there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing do with conquest. | This note has been repeatedly stressed throughout ou foreign history. There have, it is true, been departur

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 631 from it. The acquisition of Florida was a slight violation, but that territory was empty and had no established local or national aspirations. The taking of Mexican territory by the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was a thorough viola- tion of the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Nevertheless, this doctrine was again invoked by Seward to force the withdrawal of the French armies keeping the Napoleon- imposed Hapsburg archduke, Maximilian, on the Mexican throne. Other minor departures from the Monroe Doctrine were the acknowledgment of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and over Belize, which, however, may fairly be said to have been controversial issues. In the Venezuelan dispute, Cleveland and Olney spiced the Monroe Doctrine with a new note of belligerency, the latter declar- ing: “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition’; but our threat here was de- signed to prevent an encroachment, fancied or real, by Great Britain upon Venezuela. It was not a move from which the United States benefited directly, nor an impli- cation of our right to use our power for selfish ends. The Spanish War precipitated a radical departure from the Monroe tradition in that, for the first time, it inter- fered “with the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power.” In addition by taking Porto Rico we violated the idea of non-conquest. The Teller resolution stipulated our obligation to respect Cuba’s integrity, but it is commonly accepted throughout Latin America that “free” Cuba is no more than an American colony. From then on the United States veered rapidly away from the doctrine of James Monroe. Whatever may have been the departures from the policy in the first three-quar- ters of a century of its existence, they were occasional, un- related, determined by special and peculiar conditions. In the last twenty years on the other hand they have increas- ingly become part of a fixed policy. President Roosevelt “took” the Panama Canal Zone, as he himself put it, “while Congress was discussing it.” President Taft sent our marines to Nicaragua and they have been there ever since, holding in office a government which derives its sanction from the just consent of two American banking houses. President Wilson, who in his war message on April 2, 1917, declared that the United States was fighting “for democ- racy, for the right of all those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations,” had conquered Haiti in 1915 and Santo Domingo in 1916 without sanction other than his own will. And in 1920 the Republican Party, while making through Mr. Harding a solemn preelection pledge to rectify this “wrong,” has still further destroyed the vestiges of autonomy of the second-oldest independent nation in this hemisphere. Mr. Hughes may declare solemnly, as he has before, that we have no intention of infringing on the sovereignty of our new Caribbean acquisitions. Yet an examination of the successive applications of force and trickery, culminating in the National City Bank’s loan which rivets the occupa- tion in Haiti at least until 1952, merely suggests the wide discrepancy between the words and deeds of our public ser- vants. Indeed this curious dualism is the essence of the new policy. There is, on the one hand, the officially spoken denial that it exists; on the other, the evident fact of its steady progress. There igs the solemn exchange of diplo- matic courtesies in the grand manner of dealing between equal and sovereign nations; there is the smiling, cynical awareness of diplomatic officials and concession hunters revealed in private conversation. Beneath the white glove of official hand-clasping and behind the benevolent mask of friendly cooperation are the iron hand of military pressure and the hard features of the commercial exploiter. It is evident that the twentieth century has produced forms of conquest other than that exemplified by raising a national ensign and firing a salute. These newer forms of conquest were well defined by the late Walter Hines Page, who in a public address in London, referring to European conquest in this hemisphere, said: I sometimes read that the United States is entering upon a policy to discourage foreign investments there. That is untrue. . .. There is a policy forming in the minds of our Govern- ment ... that would discourage such investments or conces- sions as would carry with them the control of the Government of any of those states, and only such... and they most heartily welcome your investments in any part of the Americas, provided only you do not make them so that you may possibly take the country with them. The Monroe Doctrine meant this, when it was first formulated: that the United States would object to any European governments taking more land in the New World. In those days the only way that a foreign gov- ernment could gain land was literally to go and take it. Now we have more refined methods of exploitation, and there are other ways to take it.... You will, I am sure, understand why the United States prefers that no land in the New World should be acquired in these new, subtle ways. (Italics mine.) These new and subtle ways permit the conquered to retain not a few trappings of autonomy: a flag; generally a president, as soon as the right man can be found; some- times a legislature, if it legislates as it is told; courts, so long as their decisions do not interfere with foreign “de- velopment”; and always costumed ministers plenipotenti- ary, lovely postage stamps, and life-membership in the Pan- American Union. What could be freer than that? Indeed, recently the new conquest has developed even newer and subtler ways. Our Dominican invasion re- echoed from Ciudad Juarez to Punta Arenas. It was coarse ‘work. The technique now is to maneuver a properly dis- posed government into power, negotiate with it a treaty which includes a loan guaranteed by customs control or other revenues and “concessions” which turn over the wealth of the country to American companies opportunely on the ground. Today, in varying degree, such arrange- ments exist with Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama. An internal upheaval due to popular resentment against thus mortgaging the country has temporarily postponed their consummation in Guatemala. In South America Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia have virtually succumbed. Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay are next in line. All this is contrary to the true spirit of the Monroe Doc- trine, which to the extent that the United States adhered to it, served its original purpose well. It has probably pre- vented the conquest either wholly or in part of over half a hemisphere by England, France, Germany, and Portugal, which in a hundred years have taken over Africa and a large part of Asia. The Monroe Doctrine, though con- ceived in self-defense and beneficial to both our political and economic interests, was also altruistic; devoted to a principle that we still revere in theory and in our teachings, and based on a decent respect for the rights of others. The new galloping imperialism which attempts to find justifica- tion in the Monroe Doctrine is a violation of its spirit.

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; m | ! | Making the Pipe In the Steel Country A Diary with Drawings By HUGO GELLERT II MET a Hungarian who worked in these mills for years. He offered to guide me through the plant. Great elec- tric cranes worked overhead, silently shifting tons of the long steel tube from one side of the iron structure to the other. Oblong-shaped furnaces made it hard to stand the heat even in the cold days of October. At one end of the oven they fed the long strips of steel cut for the size of the pipe. At the other end a masked man pinched it with a pair of extremely long pliers and hooked it to a revolving chain that dragged the pipe out. It cracked like a machine-gun and shot stars as it rubbed against the mold that forced it into shape. The man, illuminated by the red of the oven, went through a set of rhythmic move- ments that kept me watching him a long time. The tubes automatically slid into cooling channels and were piled up without a human hand touching them. Railroad cars that ran right into the mammoth workshop were loaded with tubes ready for shipment. The blast furnace with its graceful stoves standing guard on each side, the cars that crawled up to the top with the ore, the quaint architecture of the furnace, the intricate arrangement of its many tubes, made me think of a grand toy of some giant child rather than of an important instrument in the service of sober business. Under the surface of the earth below the furnace black-faced men filled the “toy cars’ with ore. At the mouth of the furnace pale-faced men watched the course of the yellow liquid metal that filled the air with fumes of sulphur as it flowed through narrow ditches into the waiting tanks. * * * We had to unload a box car of cement. It took nearly all of the morning. The weight of the cement began to tell toward the last bags. I felt weak in the knees. The fine dust got through our shirts, our underwear, and made us dirty and uncomfortable. * * * After noon we returned to the cellar. We didn’t work much. We tried to rest up after that load of cement. We sat in the dark and talked. One of the boys asked me to visit him at the Mexican Hotel. “Some of us are good singers and others have mandolins and guitars,” said he, to induce me to come. * x + The Mexican Hotel at 103 Third Street is a one-story red’ brick building. I was astonished at the sight I beheld as. I walked in. In a room 18 x 16 twenty-four men were quartered in double-decked beds. In the largest room, about 22 x 16, I counted thirty-two beds. And so in five: rooms one hundred and thirty-six men slept and spent their spare time. More than 10 per cent of them were sick. The food served in the dingy dining-room was unfit to eat. The price was exorbitant. The National Tube- Company imported over four hundred of these Mexicans. They distributed them in four different houses like the one I just described. The National Tube Company is solely responsible for the condition of these men. The authori-. ties must know about this. But when it would be against the interest of big business, the hand of the law is slow. % * * The next morning found us in the brick shed. We had’ to unload a car of fire-proof brick. We filled our wheel- barrows and pushed them where men piled the brick into:

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 633 ra TEFEN WET EY ENEWS RL ANA STI RSP A ‘PTE CAE TPR NERS AT EL ROTTS EY AER TEAPARAEMT TT) AAS YATES EE ET straight-edged oblongs. It was a windy morning and the wind stirred clouds of the dust in the shed. I resented working in that dust. * * xX That afternoon the boss ordered one of the Mexicans and me into the box car. Our job was to get the bricks from the interior of the car and place them in rows to the opening, where the men could reach them. It was the worst job of all. The dust rose at the least disturbance; Every few minutes I it filled my eyes, nose, and throat. had to put my head through the opening to get a breath of the less dusty air. It was hard work, too. I felt irritable. My Mexican partner left me alone for a few minutes. I had to work doubly hard to keep the men supplied with bricks. I was less careful about placing the bricks in neat rows at the opening. I piled them any old way. The boss came. “Hey, you!” he yelled at me, “you put those bricks into straight rows!” “T have no time,” I answered. “T’ll give you your time!” I was fired. HvVGO/ GELLER AS REESPORT, 1925

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« The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 Saintsbury By LUDWIG LEWISOHN T is time that a tribute be paid to George Saintsbury.* His audience, vast almost as that of a popular novelist, is not a grateful and, despite its official connection with literature, not an articulate one. How many wretched candidates for collegiate degrees, lower or higher, have not burned the oil of preexamination midnights in order to pore over a few, at least, of his ten thousand pages; how many teachers of English in innumerable institutions of all varieties and grades of what is euphemistically known as learning have not, innocent of all contact with the original documents, derived their pedagogical material and thus their bread and butter too from the pages of the “Short History of English Literature,” the histories of Elizabethan and nineteenth-century literature, and even, if they aspired very high, the “History of English Pros- ody,” the “History of Criticism,” the “English Prose Rhythms,” the “Periods of European Literature,” the many and mighty editions of the giants that were before the flood. The works of George Saintsbury, a noble phalanx of volumes, have won a hundred obscure but vital battles; knowledge and wisdom have sat on their right hand and place and preferment on their left. Yet if, today, you ask the younger generation of the pundits concerning him you get but one answer: “But the man can’t write worth a con- tinental!” It is perfectly true that Professor Saintsbury writes well in neither the older nor the newer sense. He is, heaven knows, neither a Swift nor a Pater, neither a Hazlitt nor an Arnold. But, in the first place, he has himself explained in a by no means ill-written passage that he is one whose ears, but not, alas, whose lips, the Muse has touched, and, in the second place, there is something ungenerous, finicky, and trifling in picking out cacophonous sentences from the works of a writer whose innumerable pages, though with- out grace, fine precision, high elegance, have the unfailing appeal of unaging vivacity, inexhaustible enthusiasm, de- lightful human warmth. I know of one reader, at least, a reader by no means insensitive to style, who has long read and still reads Seintsbury with pleasure, with profit, with amusement, and who would not give him up for a wilder- ness of Walter Raleighs or even Gilbert Chestertons, for costive preciosity or the passionate clamor of fools. And this is true, it should be remarked, despite the fact that the reader in question differs irreconcilably from Pro- fessor Saintsbury on every issue of man’s philosophical and active life. For Saintsbury is a tory, a magnificent and belligerent tory, a tory whose cocksureness, fortified by a formidable logical apparatus, has something at once amus- ing and sublime. If one wants toryism, here one will get it for one’s money. Saintsbury is no Laodicean. In his toryism there is neither variableness nor shadow of turn- ing. The evil modern “reign of shoddy” began with the first Reform Bill. Since then the world has been going straight to the devil. Leigh Hunt was quite properly sent to prison; all Irish discontent is the work of romantic young fools; a gentleman will consent to obey a king but not a mob; democracy is not only futile but downright fool- ish. In all these matters Saintsbury argues with logical * The Collected Essays and Papers of George Saintsbury. Dutton and Company. Three volumes. 1875-1920. E. P. correctness and amusing unfairness. He starts out with the assumption that these matters, intricate as organisms, desperate as death, are as plain as a pikestaff and as ad- justable as nose-glasses. Thus, for instance, in his ex- tremely witty and pertinent and at a dozen points sound “Thoughts on Republics” he quietly omits the crucial fact that all philosophical modern democrats from Mill to the present have been well aware of the fact that without the adequate and proportionate representation of every minor- ity, however small, however perverse, the democratic ex- periment is indeed not only a joke but a bad joke. But the point is that you really don’t want Saintsbury to be differ- ent. He is a survival, but a splendid one. Who but the grand old tory that he is could, a critic of literature by profession, have written his notes on a wine cellar or his. noble and luscious essays on the cookery of the partridge and the grouse? Reading these exercitations one almost shares that nostalgia for the past which is at the romantic core of all his personal and political views and sighs, like himself, for an age of o‘iwm cum dignitate, of mighty trenchermen and merry consumers of toddy, of liquor and learning, of at least apparent order when the proletarian knew his place and the king was on his throne and the slave in his cotton-field and the Jew in his Ghetto. Yes, one shares his nostalgia for a moment until there creeps back the one thing the tory lacks—imaginative sympathy. For the tory would have to stop being a tory the moment he felt, felt what it must have been to be that proletarian, that slave, that Jew. I have lingered over Professor Saintsbury’s non-literary opinions and personality since I do not remember having ever seen a printed word on either. But the fact that he is an uncompromising romanticist by temper probably accounts for the freedom and soundness of his aesthetic judgments. For at this point he is consummate. Wher- ever his vast and varied and vital learning does not fail him, as it does, for instance, in German literature since Goethe, his literary appreciations are all but unrivaled. Test him at any point, in respect of any author in the whole range of ancient, of medieval, of modern English, French, and Italian literature, you will find his purely or almost purely impressionistic judgments practically un- erring. Even in literatures that he knows ill he has but to come in contact with a document to see its value. He stumbled upon the diaries of Grillparzer and at once gave the Austrian dramatist his just place in the history of criticism. Nor has he ever, or, as he himself would say, scarcely ever, let his extra-literary prejudices color his critical views. He lets his altogether noble love of letters shine upon the just and the unjust. Hazlitt may have been an ill-tempered libertarian and Shelley a full-fledged Bol- shevist. It does not matter to Professor Saintsbury. When it comes to beauty this tory knows no parties. Beauty is after all what he worships, and his toryism is nothing but terror lest the sum of beauty be diminished upon earth. His highest service will be seen, I think, to have been his clarification of critical theory. He has carried the war against preceptist, absolutist, a priori criticism into the very academic towers and citadels where it was most strongly protected. His conservatism as a man and his equipment as a scholar gained him a hearing where all other voices would have been discredited. And in this central matter he has been tireless and fearless. No one has done more, no one has done as much, to establish the

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Dec. 5, 1923] truth that in art there is no rule except that there is no rule, that creative expression is and must be free, and that only from a work itself can the rules by which it is to be judged be derived. And it is not without a tinge of irony that Professor Saintsbury seems to be and always to have been totally unaware of the fact that if he had ever per- mitted himself to transfer these views of his from one domain of the human spirit to any other the cloud-capped towers and palaces of his toryism would have faded at once like an insubstantial pageant and left not a rack behind. In the Driftway HE Drifter has often remarked that his esteemed col- le leagues know nothing of the realities of life. Occupy- ing themselves, as they do, with public welfare, govern- ments, social reform, and such illusory ideas, they are un- able to recognize an important event when they see it. Every so often he feels obliged to check them up on the news of the day—the real news—which they almost invari- ably neglect. For example, the recent bequest of the late Mr. Nathaniel Rothschild to the British Museum, although the recipients of the gift were delighted beyond measure, received not a word of comment in this paper. Yet that bequest, the largest collection of fleas in the world, was probably closer to reality than twenty governments. Mr. Rothschild had obtained specimens of fleas from almost every living animal, including no doubt the genus homo; he is said to have financed an expedition to the Arctic re- gions for the sole purpose of obtaining a flea from an Arctic seal. What an opportunity for a dissertation on the virtues of persistence and courage, not only on the part of Mr. Rothschild but of the fleas themselves, who dared Arctic cold and sunless days but who on being brought to a warmer climate, the Drifter warrants, were as sprightly in jump- ing about from chair to carpet and back again as any of their more tropical relatives. +* * * * * GAIN, there is the story of the landlord in lower New York City who not only will not have a childless or even dogless family in his apartments, but who pays a bonus of $50 for every boy twin or triplet born on his premises and $25 for every girl. Now the Drifter is sure that if The Nation had made any comment on this matter at all, its words would have been words of praise and thanksgiving, whereas the Drifter considers this the rank- est injustice that has been perpetrated for the last seven and a half years. Why any landlord should be permitted to indicate that boys are twice as valuable as girls is beyond him. Has the female sex disappeared, or is its well-known ability to defend its own members softening under the influ- ence of suffrage and knickerbockers? At this rate, women will shortly be as spineless and docile as men. For his part, the Drifter is willing to start the controversy by saying that if triplet boys are worth $50, which he doubts, triplet girls are worth at least $50.98, and if the amount of dish- washing the poor little things will do while their brothers are off skylarking be taken into consideration, possibly the amount should be raised to an even $51. * * * x * T may be, of course, that dishwashing for females is going out of fashion. The young lady from Illinois who holds the State record for corn-husking with eighty-four The Nation 635 bushels in eleven hours would probably say so, and would moreover express herself in no uncertain terms about the $25 valuation for girls mentioned above. The Drifter’s record in corn-husking, which he considers the hardest and most unworthy occupation ever invented by man, is so poor that he refuses to set it down. He feels that he would do better to challenge the champion lady corn-husker to a con- test in sweeping the back porch; yet it is just possible that she, with the unhappy versatility of which women are so often possessed, might beat him at that also. THE DRIFTER Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. Inany case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications.] A Voice from 1870 To THE EDITOR cF THE NATION: Sir: Mr. William H. Scheifley’s review of Mr. F. A. Simp- son’s book (“Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France’), which appeared in The Nation of August 22, was an agreeable surprise to me, as it revealed at last an historian who is fair to Napoleon III. Our French historians, influenced in spite of themselves and almost unconsciously by party hatreds, have generally been unjust to him—La Gorce, like all the others. My husband alone seems to have understood Napoleon III, and spoke with courage inspired by affection for that sovereign. Be- tween him and Emile Ollivier were strong affinities of thought and nature. Both felt a deep interest in the laboring classes and wished to ameliorate their material and moral condition. They differed only as to the way to bring this about. My hus- band held that it could be accomplished by giving them liberty, the Emperor that it could best be done through a dictatorship. But a dictatorship, even when exercised in the most upright manner, cannot last long. Napoleon III finally perceived this, for as early as 1860, after some ten years on the throne, he introduced into his constitution reforms which started the empire on a more liberal course. Emile Ollivier knew that these reforms would have a necessary complement, and as he was a liberal as well as a democrat, he did all he could to aid the Emperor, even at the risk of breaking with his party friends who were bent more on overturning the empire, notwithstanding their oath of allegiance to it, than on broadening its base and improving it. So it was that Emile Ollivier helped the Emperor get Parlia- ment to pass the bill legalizing the organization of associations, to restore free speech, give more liberty to the press, etc. But the Emperor moved with circumspection in granting these re- forms, for the idea of liberty seemed to frighten him, and this disposition was strengthened by the Empress and M. Rouher, his favorite minister. These two personages were in fact steer- ing the ship of state at this moment, as the Emperor was then in very bad health, and they were not disposed to let go the rudder. But a bond of personal sympathy and an attraction arising from their similar ideas drew the sovereign and Emile Ollivier more and more closely together and finally decided the former to grant his subjects complete liberty. No other min- ister could have obtained from Napoleon III such a result. With Emile Ollivier as his mouthpiece, the Emperor decided, with loyalty and firmness, to establish a liberal Empire without other restrictions than those found necessary under all govern- ments. Nor did the Emperor and his minister part company when it came to foreign affairs. They were both advocates of the doc- trine of nationalities, a sort of self-determination, to use the language of today, though Emile Ollivier accepted it only when it came with the wish and consent of the people concerned,

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636 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 whereas Napoleon III did not hesitate to impose it by arms if necessary. They worked for the unity of Italy in 1859 with our victorious troops, and again in 1866 by means of the Prussian armies, which, through the defeat of Austria, made possible the completion of Italian unity by the annexation of Venetia. Emile Ollivier viewed with joy the total freedom of Italy but he saw with apprehension the discontent toward Germany which showed itself in France, even among the liberals, who, like Thiers, fanned in Parliament the embers of suspicion and irritation. The Emperor did not share these feelings, but the Empress did not hide her chauvinism, the intensity of which was increased by the fact that Emile Ollivier had persuaded the Emperor to agree that so long as Prussia took no step directed against French interests, we would let the principle of nationalities develop in Germany as it pleased. But the Hohen- zollern candidacy, which would have placed a Prussian prince on the Spanish throne, that is, on our western frontier, was a move which threatened our safety and compelled us to demand of Prussia the abandonment of this plan. King William did so and peace seemed assured, until the Empress, requiring an inop- portune guaranty for the future, gave Bismarck the chance to offend us in a way that could not be allowed to pass in silence. Hence the origin of the war of 1870. Such are the reflections awakened in my mind by the review of Mr. Simpson’s book. MARIE THERESE OLLIVIER La Moutte, Saint-Tropez, Var, France, October 30 [Marie Thérése Ollivier is the widow of Emile Ollivier, Prime Minister of France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.—EDITOR THE NATION.] Collars for the Starving To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The following dispatch, dated Troy, New York, ap- peared in the Daily News Record of October 22: “More than 13,000 dozen first-quality soft collars left Troy yesterday, consigned direct to the American Red Cross, Yoko- hama, Japan. Most all of the larger collar companies of the city have a share in this emergency order, which was placed by the Department of Commerce at Washington, acting for the American Red Cross there, through the office of the Association of Collar Manufacturers of Troy.” Is it possible that there is nothing that the Japanese need any more than collars? If so, it seems to me that they are in no great need of American assistance. New York, November 7 HARRIS S. DURKEE Women and Negroes Excluded To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Your editorial comment on the exclusion of colored men by the Molders’ Union and the exclusion of women by the Bar- bers’ Union fails to mention that the Molders’ Union also ex- cludes women, not only from the union, but so far as possible from the trade. Unless the rule has been changed recently, union molders are prohibited under penalty of a heavy fine from teaching any part of their trade to women. Men core-makers are eligible for membership in the Molders’ Union, but the large number of women now employed in core- making are barred. Mr. Valentine, president of the Molders’ Union and a vice-president of the A. F. of L., told me, with evident satisfaction, that he had obtained the discharge of a number of women core-makers by informing their employer that the union molders in the shop would not use cores made by women. The Carpenters’ Union also excludes women, thus shutting out thousands of workers in box factories and furniture fac- tories. The policy of the A. F. of L. to which you referred, in refusing separate charters to women excluded from an inter- national union, although it grants separate charters to colored men similarly excluded, affects women wood-workers and women core-makers, of course, as well as women barbers. Chicago, November 138 KATHARINE FISHER A Mischievous Movie To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: “The Famous Mrs. Fair,” a moving picture dealing with the problem of the married woman who wants to earn money outside her home, made its appearance in Philadelphia under the chaperonage of the Civic Club. Invitations were sent to clubwomen asking them to be present at a private view of the movie and to express their opinions of it. The plot, briefly, is as follows: Mrs. Fair, whose son Alan, aged 19, is serving with the Amer- ican Army in France, takes up work in France with the Red Cross, making such a success that she is given the title of major and returns home to find herself a celebrity and in great demand for interviews, lecture appointments, etc. She accepts the offer of a lecture bureau to undertake a coast-to-coast lecture tour for the sum of $30,000. Her husband, who is opposed to such publicity and to so much outside activity, forbids her to sign the contract, but she does so. During her absence for a few months, husband, son, and the 17-year-old daughter, Sylvia, go to the bad. Her husband is involved in an affair with an adven- turess, her son takes to poker and drink and is rescued by a little telephone operator who marries him. Sylvia is introduced to New York fast life by the manager of the lecture bureau, with whom she elopes. Mrs. Fair’s return to her home for a short visit comes just in time to rescue her family. Those who were active in the club movement and in the suf- frage movement recognize the animus pervading this movie. The statement that woman’s place is in the home and domestic happiness totters if she leaves it, even for a short time, is an old enemy that confronted the pioneer feminists at every turn. The efforts of women half a century ago to organize women’s clubs and to obtain for women the right to speak in publie and the right to vote were met by the same arguments set forth in this movie; though not nearly so politely expressed. Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and other champions of women were received with the greatest insolence; in fact, with mob violence. Of late years the opposition has assumed another guise; for two reasons. Suffrage and women’s clubs have arrived, and no one now objects to women lifting up their voices in public, if we will cortsent to do it gratis. It is significant that Mrs. Fair, the wife of a millionaire, is to be handsomely remunerated for her lectures. As the economic struggle becomes more intense and more women are driven out of their homes to earn a living, a corresponding reaction against this new competition arises among the men who have heretofore held these jobs. Everywhere we can see attempts te drive women back to the home; especially married women, on the supposition that their husbands are able and willing to support them. And it is the married women who are seeking employment outside the household in ever-increasing multitudes! “In manu- facturing and mechanical industries the number of married women* employed increased 41 per cent during the ten years between 1910 and 1920, while the number of all women increased only 7 per cent,” said Miss Mary N. Winslow of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, speaking before the Na- tional Conference of Social Workers, May 21, in Waghington. “There are 2,000,000 married women in the United States work- ing for money.” This movie does not deal with the frivolous society woman who is neglecting her home to play bridge, nor does it concern itself with the underpaid scrubwoman, though she may be leav- ing her children at the risk of their burning to death on the cook stove. No, it is the well-paid lecturer who is the object of the attack. Anxiety on the part of the authors of the movie to prove their point leads them into many absurdities. Neither husband nor daughter suffers from Mrs. Fair’s visit to France

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Dec. 5, 1923] Th 637 rrr ee SE TC ee ee Se a eS ee eS aS oe TET Te while doing Red Cross work, nor is it intimated that the son Alan might have contracted his tendencies to gambling and drink when with the army. So we must infer that there are two kinds of absence: one owing to patriotism, which is bene- ficial; the other owing to the desire of a woman for self-sup- port and self-development, which is pernicious. It is all right for mother to leave husband and daughter to do Red Cross work, but all wrong for her to leave them in order to develop her career and earn money by her own efforts. It seems inconsistent that a woman as able as Mrs. Fair should not have arranged for some relative or friend to look after the Fair family, and it is not explained why a 17-year-old girl should be loafing at home, whether her mother was there or not, and why she was not sent to college. The double standard of morals is encour- aged by the casual way in which Mr. Fair acknowledges to his wife his unfaithfulness during her brief lecture tour. “Now, my dear, don’t be unreasonable—you went away and left me” is the soothing remark with which he tries to justify himself. Moving pictures, plays, or novels with the reactionary ten- dencies of “The Famous Mrs. Fair” in a subtle and specious manner make the struggle for equality much more difficult, and handicap the National Woman’s Party and other organizations which are working for freedom and the right to a modern exist- ence for all women. It is a pity that the Civic Club, which was itself one of the pioneer clubs for women, should bring such a flimsy and reactionary moving picture to the public notice—by way, I suppose, of elevating popular taste. Haverford, Pennsylvania, May 26 Mary WINSOR Lest We Forget Hungary TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Smr: May I suggest that in your appeal for aid to relieve the situation of German and Austrian institutions of science and art you include the Hungarian institutions? I was in Hungary this last summer and I was deeply impressed by the splendid effort Hungary is making to rehabilitate its institu- tions of higher learning and of creative art. I am sure that your appeal will be even stronger if Hungary is included. I hope that my suggestion may receive your favorable considera- tion. Princeton, N. J., November 19 JOHN GRIER HIBBEN Science in Jerusalem To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sm: On Mount Scopus overlooking Jerusalem, where two thousand years ago the legions of imperial Rome were en- camped and where they besieged and finally captured the proud and rebellious capital of Judea, there is a crude stone marking the foundation of the Hebrew University—a foundation laid in 1918, while the roar of battle still shook the earth. Not far from this landmark stands a plain square building. This is the _Grey Hill House, which has been acquired by the World Zionist Organization and which is now being altered and extended to shelter the laboratories of the Medical School of the Hebrew University. Here will be carried on the research work in biochemistry and microbiology and in the tropical and semitropical epidemic and endemic diseases which take heavy toll of Palestine and the adjacent countries. The work for the establishment of the university is the most hopeful message I am now bringing out of Palestine. Unhampered by political interests, unfettered by sectarian prejudices, it will be fostered and maintained by the Jewish people, but it will belong to the whole world and its laboratories will be open to the talent and genius of every land. It will have the Hebrew language for its chief medium of expression, but no other tongue that has a message will be barred. The Hebrew University on Mount Scopus will be the challenge of Jewry to anti-Semitism—not a dreamer’s vision, but a practical plan of practical idealists. Already a large area of land has been acquired adjoining the Grey Hill House for the buildings and grounds of the univer- sity, and an X-ray institution has been established; equipped with the most scientific apparatus for the study and treatment of disease. Thousands of volumes on medical and kindred sub- jects have been sent to Jerusalem to form the nucleus of the university library. It is a source of pride to reflect that the anti-malarial and anti-trachoma work in Palestine has been initiated by an Amer- ican group, the Hadassah Medical Organization, while the ultimate success of this life-saving and health-saving work will be the result of the efforts of another American Jewish Physicians Committee, through the laboratories that this organ- ization is now establishing on Mount Scopus. Brooklyn, October 10 JOSEPH KRIMSKy, M.D. Lettuce with Sugar and Cream TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The Drifter’s regret at the disappearance from America of that dish of his boyhood, lettuce with sugar and thick cream, echoes here from the Juras to the Alps. Myself an American, I confess never to have met this confection, but I shall tell you where you can find it: you can find it in the land in which, I believe, it originated—Denmark. True, it is going the sad way of the old Danish peasant costumes, but it is to be discovered now and then (see if Dr. Egan doesn’t say so) where they are: in outlying villages—and occasionally, I sus- pect, at secret night in Copenhagen houses owned by those who, throughout the day, pretend to be advanced beyond the menus of their excellent grandsires. REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN Geneva, Switzerland, November 9 CATALOGUE OF A SELECTION FROM A Just Published Magnificent Library of Rare and Valuable Books Collected during the Years 1870-1890, consisting of SETS OF FIRST EDITIONS OF GREAT ENGLISH WRITERS, SPORTING AND OTHER BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY ALKEN, CRUIKSHANK, ROWLANDSON, etc. FRENCH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, etc. The whole in choice condition and beautifully bound Post free from HENRY SOTHERAN & CO. 43, PICCADILLY, W. 1., or 140, STRAND, W. C. 2 LONDON, ENGLAND

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Political Prisoners in the Rhineland and the Ruhr By KUNO FRANCKE N editorial on the Ruhr occupation in the May number of the North American Review presents the following picture of the conduct of the French in the invaded terri- tory: One of the achievements of great significance and moral value, thus far to be credited to the French occupation of the Ruhr, is the fine vindication of France herself. The inexorable resolution with which she entered upon that policy has been fully matched by the moderation, the self-restraint, even the considerate kindness toward the vanquished which have marked her execution of it. In striking contrast to the swaggering brutality of the German army of occupation after the war of 1870-71, the French have borne themselves with a courtesy and clemency, even in the face of atrocious provocation, such as probably no other people have ever shown in like circumstances. The most impressive testimony to this effect has been given by the Germans of the Ruhr themselves, who have generally acquiesced in the occupation, save as they were incited from Berlin to commit murders and other outrages. In presenting a picture somewhat different from this glorification of the humane methods and aims pursued by the French in occupying the Ruhr, I shall not enter into the right or wrong of the Ruhr occupation itself. This question seems to me to have been settled by the note of the British Government of August 11, 1923, affirming its illegality under the Treaty of Versailles. Nor shall I enumerate the frequent acts of murder and other outrages committed by the French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr and Rhineland ever since the invasion was undertaken. These acts were the natural concomitants of a policy of military aggression. What I am going to speak about is a question of the admin- istration of justice in the invaded territory, the question: What has been the fate of the hundreds of German citizens who upon one charge or another were arrested by the French or Belgian authorities? How were they treated when arrested? How were they brought to trial? What was their lot in prison? The material from which I have drawn is all documen- tary, consisting either of official reports of representatives of the German Red Cross sent out to study prison conditions in the occupied territory or of sworn statements of prison- ers made before the regular German courts or other authori- ties. I owe this material to the courtesy of the president of the German Red Cross, Herr von Winterfeld, and his assistant, Herr von Esebeck. It would have been easy to multiply the cases by scores and scores. The few cases selected by me from the large mass of material placed at my disposal stand each for a numerous class of similar cases, and together are typical of the whole situation. I shall present the subject under four main heads: First, reports about French prison management in general. Sec- ond, reports about the treatment of hostages imprisoned in reprisal for actual or alleged acts of German sabotage. Third, sworn statements of persons arrested, but released without trial. Fourth, sworn statements of persons arrested, tried, and imprisoned for shorter or longer terms. { have taken care to rule out testimony violently partisan International Relations Section or replete with resentment. If I have erred, I have erred by giving preference to testimony of marked moderation and restraint. For a general report on prison conditions under French rule, I select a comparatively favorable statement made to a Red Cross representative by former inmates of the prison at Germersheim in the Bavarian Palatinate. This state- ment was made at the request of the prisoners still there, since they had no chance to talk with the Red Cross repre- sentative except in the presence of the French prison offi- cials. The chief points of this statement, dated June 2, 1923, are the following: The individual treatment of the prisoners in Germersheim is better than elsewhere. Never- theless, there is much room for improvement in the gen- eral management. In particular, the food is entirely inade- quate. The Red Cross is allowed to furnish two pounds of bread per week to each person, but this amount is deducted from the daily prison ration. It often happens that the Moroccan prison guards before the very eyes of the prison- ers skim off the meager fat from their soup. The table utensils are usually dirty. In consequence of undernourish- ment, 70 to 80 per cent of the prisoners are virtually ill. Nevertheless, it rarely happens that a prisoner petitions to be placed on the sick list, since that usually leads to a still further reduction of food, prohibition of the daily walk, and similar retrenchments. The sanitary conditions are extremely bad. On account of the overcrowding of the prison, the shower bath can be used by a given individual only at long weeks’ intervals. Instead of being allowed to use the lavatory, the prisoners must attend to their evacua- tions within their cells, in pails with loose covers. Of visi- tors, only relatives bearing the same family name are gen- erally admitted; others have the greatest difficulty in secur- ing admission. The prisoners resent the fact that food, clothing, and books sent by the Red Cross are distributed by the guards not only among the political prisoners, but equally and often preferably among the criminals im- prisoned in the same building. As particulars of prison life will fully come to light in the account of individual experiences which I shall cite later, I shall refrain from dwelling on other reports of a general character. I rather proceed at once to a specific and par- ticularly aggravating account of French prison manage- ment, an account of how German hostages, i. e., citizens arrested in order to bring pressure upon a whole com- munity, are treated under French military prison rule. During the night of June 29-30, 1923, a very deplorable disaster happened on the railway bridge crossing the Rhine near the city of Duisburg: an explosion on a Belgian mili- tary train, killing and wounding scores of soldiers. The cause of the explosion was obscure. The railway track was practically undamaged, no suspicious person had been seen on it. On the other hand, the train had carried ammunition; this ammunition exploded—was it not well to investigate whether the explosion had come from within or without? The French commandant of Duisburg did not think so; he was certain that it had come from without, that this was a case of German conspiracy, that the city of Duisburg was implicated and must be punished for the crime. The chair- man of the local Duisburg Red Cross committee, under date of July 7, reports: In consequence of the deplorable event on the Hochfeld bridge

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The Nation | a __ 639 : Money Back If Not Satisfied : We believe in these books thoroughly—we selected them from amongst hun- _} dreds of manuscripts—we have labored for a year on the list of which they form a | part, and the authors of some of the books have labored for years to produce them. | This Mark With such confidence in their worth, why B. W. should we not be willing to back our judgment HUEBSCH by offering to return your money if you don’t Ne like the books? , We make the simple condition that the 116 W. 13th Street New York books be returned within a week after you buy them from us, and that they be restored in per- s fect condition. Upon receipt of the books we Our books are will refund your money. fle ree and low-priced Fiction That Wil' Last Sherwood Anderson’s new HORSES AND MEN Tales, long and short, from our American life. $ THE HERETIC OF SOANA on Good Books Gerhart Hauptmann’s exquisite story, “., . this great book . . . a beautiful and inspiring work of art. . . .’—WuLBuR NEEDHAM in the Chicago Evening Post. $1.50 Iury Libedinsky’s impelling tale) A WEEK “T read it in two gulps . . . it aroused a peculiar, intensive excitement . . . the passion that comes from finding some- thing done supremely well and being eminently worth doing.” —-May LAMBERTON BECKER of the Literary Review. $1.50 Roger Sergel’s leap into fiction fame, ARLIE GELSTON “|, « unquestionably the most important first novel since ‘Sister Carrie.’”—JoHN T. FrepERIcK, author of “Druida.” 00 For Chi'’dren and Their Elders A new translation of Chamisso’s deathless legend—a perfect holiday gift, THE WONDERFUL HISTORY OF PETER SCHLEMIHL The Man Who Sold His Shadow With silhouettes by Theodore Bolton. $2.00 For the Stay-at-Home Traveller “RACUNDRA’S” FIRST CRUISE By Arthur Ransome A jolly account of five weeks in the Eastern Baltic, the An Event in Economics Thorstein Veblen’s new volume, ABSENTEE OWNERSHIP and Busi- ness Enterprise in Recent Times. (The author sailing the 30-foot boat which he all but built. It is a charming excursion into folk lore as well as into lit- tle known places peopled by strange and interesting persons. With 32 camera illustrations by Mr. Ransome. $2.50. Case of America.) The latest work of our leading sociologist and econo- mist—who writes only when he has something to say— and whose books are delightful as pure literature and authoritative as to scholarship. $3.00. Carleton Beals’s clarification of Mexican civilization and polity, MEXICO—AN INTERPRETATION You will comprehend, as never before, the matters which periodically threaten trouble between us and the Mexicans, for the author brings home to you their history, race, religion, art, politics and economics—a fascinating and instructive study. $2.50 When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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640 The Nation during the night of June 29-30, more than twenty prominent citizens of Duisburg have been arrested as hostages by the military authorities and have been quartered in the Duisburg court prison. These hostages are deprived of all advantages, even the smallest, which are accorded even to criminal prisoners arrested on whatever charge. Although the hostages have now been kept in prison for a whole week, they have not, like the other prisoners, been allowed a daily walk in the prison court- yard. The denial of this small chance for exercise, ordinarily granted to even the worst criminals, affects the hostages all the more terribly since they have been crowded with other prisoners, three, even four, together, into single cells, meant only for one person, so that even within their cells they have hardly any chance to move about. The air in these cells is intolerable, all the more so since all the inmates must attend to their evacuations in the cell. The hostages are entirely separated from the outer world. No relative, no clergyman, no representative of the Red Cross is allowed to see them. Only the prison physician is admitted to the sick among them, and this only in the presence of a Belgian*guard. The hostages are not allowed to receive fresh underclothing from relatives. They are not allowed to do any reading. -It is a clear demand of humanity that the hostages, who belong to the foremost families of the city and are mostly of advanced age, should not, by being treated worse than criminal prisoners, be made to suffer intolerable physical and mental tortures. This demand of humanity is all the more urgent since the hostages, in common with the whole Duisburg com- munity, most severely condemn the crime of the night of June 29-30, if it was a crime, and not an accident, and would have done everything in their power to prevent it if they had had the slightest inkling of it. (Signed) STEINBACK, Chairman, Red Cross Committee for the Care of Prisoners. I now pass on to sworn statements of persons arrested by French or Belgian soldiers, taken to guard-houses, but soon released without trial. To judge from the large number of such statements collected by the Red Cross—they run into the hundreds—such arrests and speedy releases belonged for months to the daily occurrences in the Ruhr. Whether they are as frequent now I cannot tell. The main point in all these cases is not the arrest itself or the subsequent re- lease, but the way in which the victims were treated in the interval by the French and Belgian soldiery. From a mass of similar cases I select a few belonging to the months of February and March. They are almost monotonous in the repetition of the same revolting details.* Police Officer Fritz Voss of Recklinghausen testified be- fore the Recklinghausen District Court on February 12, 1923, under oath, as follows: February 7, toward 11 p.m., I was on my round in Haltern Street. At the corner of Spring Street I was halted by a French guard. I was accompanied by Police Officer Stermans. In front of us some civilians were walking, one of whom called out: “Deutschland, Deutschland tiber Alles!” I was accused of having sung: “Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles,” which was not the case. I was taken to the Churchyard School, where a French Alpine chasseur thrust me into the guard-room. Several civilians were already there. I was told to stand in the corner, away from the civilians. After about ten minutes two non-commissioned officers appeared and told me to step into the middle of the room. They then belabored me with kicks and fisticuffs without giving any reason for it. Only one of them said in a questioning tone: “Deutschland, Deutsch- tand liber Alles?” With that he knocked me down on the floor, and then said: “Deutschland, Deutschland unter Alles!” Then the other soldier lifted me up and kept on maltreating er *The medical certificates about injuries received, which accompany these testimonies, it seemed hardly worth while to reproduce. + [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 me, kicking me in my back and sides and beating me with his fist in the face, so that I almost lost my hearing. Even now it is hard for me to hear. Then I was told to stand in the corner again. A broom was pressed into my hand and I was told to sweep the room, while they called out at me: “Capital- ist! Nationalist!” The room was also a place of detention for arrested French soldiers. These looked on while I was being maltreated, laughed and clapped their hands. Mean- while Police Officers Stermans, Ficht, and Pauli had also been brought in. We were ordered to sit on the bare, dirty floor. This we did and finally we stretched out for sleep. Only in the morning of February 8 about 10 o’clock my papers were examined. About 5 p.m. three mining students were brought in. These were placed with the face against the wall and had to stand at attention. As soon as any one of them moved a foot, the guard standing behind them knocked him with the butt of his gun against the legs. At 7 p.m. I and the other police officers were dismissed. The officer who discharged us told us to keep our mouths shut. The following is sworn testimony of a Bochum railway official, Ludwig Riibsamen, made at the Bochum Court March 8: Sunday morning about 9 o’clock a troop of 15 to 20 French soldiers and two French civilians appeared at my house. They asked whether I was yardmaster R., and when I answered in the affirmative, they arrested me, shouting: “Sabotage, sabotage!” A search of my house and office yielded a receipt from the railway administration at Hanover for plans and maps sent by me there. At this there arose again the shout: “Sabotage!” I was led out of the house and was put in shackles on the street. In front of Section 37 of the Bochum railway yard there stood some boxes belonging to the yard which had been dug out by the French on that spot. What their contents were, I could not ascertain. The French pointed at the boxes and again shouted: “Sabotage!” At the same time a French civilian knocked me with a heavy stick over the temple so that I toppled over. Then the troop took me to the square in front of the railway station, where I was left standing, guarded by soldiers, until 12 o’clock. At that time an auto-truck, con- taining the aforesaid boxes, drew up and took me to the Qberrealschule. Here I was brought before an officer, who ex- amined me as to my identity. Then, after having been locked up in the cellar for some time, I was brought before a French civilian official, who examined me again, took my finger-prints, and put down my statement that I knew nothing whatever about the burying of the boxes. I was then taken by auto, with three other prisoners, to Weitmar, near Bochum. In Weitmar I was locked up with three others in a single cell. Then, being handcuffed once more, I was taken to a private house for still another examination. During this examination, in which I could only repeat my former statement that I knew nothing about the boxes, a French civilian, standing behind me, in order to force some confession out of me, repeatedly struck me over the head with a heavy stick. At this, some French civilians present said: “This is not the way to treat decent people,” and indignantly left the room. Next morning there was still another examination, again leading to nothing. Then I was provisionally discharged, without apologies for the injuries received, and with the warning that, if further exca- vations of the military authorities should bring more objects to light, my wife would be expelled without any of her household belongings and I would be rearrested. Two more such cases of unprovoked arrests and serious maltreatments may briefly be referred to. On March 7 a sixteen-year-old pupil of the Oberrealschule at Reckling- hausen, Ferdinand Rasch, was knocked down on the street by French Alpine chasseurs on the groundless allegation of having distributed pamphlets. For some time he lay un- conscious. When he regained consciousness, he found him-

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation © 641 Shall Science and Knowledge Perishin the Central Powers? Emergency Society for German and Austrian German-Amvrrican School Science and Art Association New York, December 1923. To the Readers of The Nation: The economic breakdown of Germany endangers the efficiency, in many cases the existence, of the German schools. As a result of this the prospect of the rise of a new generation, intellectually and morally strong, is becoming a matter of grave concern. From all sides we hear the cry that not only the life of the nation must be saved but that its children must be raised to become useful and good men and women. For this reason it is incumbent upon us to give help to the schools; to provide the children with indispensable materials, and to keep up the intellectual and moral life of the teachers by preventing their isolation from all intellectual intercourse with the rest of the world, and by placing them so that their physical needs do not make impossible devotion to their duty. Such assistance to the intellectual middle class is greatly needed at this moment. We must furnish food, paper, pencils, ink, books and other indispensable material for study for pupils and teachers. You or your parents or some of your intimate friends may have attended a school in Germany. Will you not help in an organized effort to maintain the efficiency of that school by sending a contribution for its benefit? This plan has been discussed with the governments of the German Reich and of the German states and information is being collected from the schools in regard to their most urgent needs. It is our task, meanwhile, to raise the funds which Germany cannot provide at pres- ent. On account of the multifarious needs, organization and concentration of effort are necessary. Any contribution made to a special school will be credited to the donor and acknowl- edged by the school. We are hoping for a liberal response to our appeal. Very sincerely yours, FRANZ BOAS, RUDOLF ERBSLOH, President Emergency Society for German President German-American School and Austrian Science and Art. Association. Columbia University, New York City. 30 Broad St., New York City Checks should be made payable to James Speyer, Treas., and sent to The Nation. JAMES SPEYER, Care The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, N. Y. C. Enclosed please find for relief of German schools. (This money is to be applied to SUSIE AU sc ab vs sie sien e }: When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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642 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 self in the guard-room of the city hall. He was pressed by questions; and, not being able to make any revelation, he was knocked over the head, pounded in the face, spat at, thrown on the fioor. Thus he was left for the night. Early in the morning he managed to escape. About 12 o’clock in the night of March 20-21 Professor H., in crossing the Lippe bridge at Dorsten was halted by Belgian guards and asked for his passport. While the Belgians examined his papers, a French customs inspector stepped up, took the papers from the Belgians, read them by the light of a street lantern, and exclaiming: “Ah, Professor!” suddenly struck Professor H., with his fist on the left eye, knocking him down thereby. Having pulled himself together again, the professor was led into the guard-house of the bridge, where the Belgian soldiers present fell upon him and mercilessly maltreated him. Later he was taken to the Duisburg prison, but, since nothing could be found against him, discharged. A medical examination showed that he had lost the sight of his left eye. I shall close with a category of testimonies which is per- haps the most damaging of all, since in these cases even the excitement of the moment cannot be adduced as a miti- gating circumstance for cruel treatment: testimonies of persons, sentenced to longer or shorter terms of imprison- ment, about their experiences during the transport to the prison and their daily prison routine. On March 27, before the French military court at Diissel- dorf, Postmaster Triimpler of Hiickeswagen, a little town south of Elberfeld, was tried for disobedience to military orders. Wherein this disobedience consisted, I have no means of finding. Judging from other trials of post-office officials for “disobedience,” he may have refused to attend to mail matters for the French. At any rate no criminal act was involved. At the trial, Triimpler declared that as a man of honor and as a German official he could not have acted otherwise. The French public prosecutor designated the case as slight and asked for one month imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 marks. The court, however, fixed the sentence at three months and 600,000 marks. From here on I give Triimpler’s story in his own words: On April 2, i.e., six days after the trial, which I spent in the military prison at Diisseldorf, I was called at 4 o’clock a.m. and told to get ready for the transport to Zweibriicken (in the Bavarian Palatinate). With about forty-five other prisoners, three each of whom were manacled together, I was taken in an auto-truck escorted by Moroccan soldiers to the station and there placed in a third-class railway coach. About 6 o’clock the train started. We went via Diiren, Euskirchen, Bonn, etc., with long stops at each station, and reached Mainz at 10:30 p.m., where the escort, consisting of gendarmes and infantry, changed. Here our chains were taken off. We had worn them uninterruptedly during the whole trip, a circumstance which made locomotion, eating, etc., very difficult and, for instance, forced each manacled trio to go together if one of them had to go to the closet. The food which we received during the trip had been arranged for by the Diisseldorf Red Cross. We reached Ludwigshafen at midnight and stayed there till 9:30 next morning, crowded together in such a manner that there was no chance for sleep. In Neustadt and Landau there were again stops of several hours. In Landau the French train people called a crowd of black soldiers to our coach, pointed us out to them, and joined with them in making fun of us. At 9 p.m. we reached Zweibriicken. Escorted by black soldiers, we were marched, in spite of our heavy luggage, at a very quick gait, to the prison. When on the way I translated an order of the French gendarme marching at our side to a prisoner ahead of me, the gendarme gave me a violent fisticuff in the neck. Drenched with perspiration I arrived at the prison. Here we were most ignominiously accosted by the French guards and distributed among the cells. In front of them we were stripped to our shirts, searched, and then thrust into the unlighted rooms. Our baggage and our clothes remained lying outside. I got with four others into a cell, entirely dark and very cold. The window was open, and as we could not see enough to find out what the mechanism of closing it was, we had to leave it open. I stumbled upon a bedstead with a seaweed mattress, which, as I saw the next day, was soiled all over with blood stains. Except a short, ragged, diaphanously thin blanket, there was nothing on it. During the last part of the trip we had greatly suffered from thirst. In the cell there was not a drop of water. I was shaking with cold and, like my comrades, slept next to nothing. The next forenoon about 11 o’clock, some eatables were handed to us through the shutter of the door: boiled potatoes, with a small piece of boiled beef, entirely oversalted, and a piece of bread. In the afternoon, about three, we were told to step in front of the cell to h ve our things searched once more. Everything of our belongings was taken away, except the clothes themselves and a pillow, blanket, and some food which the Red Cross had furnished f r our trip. These were thrown at our feet with contemptuous gestures. Then, for the first time, we got water for drinking and washing, but in dirty vessels. Towels we got only a fortnight later through the Red Cross. In the closet there was only a broken piece of a cover, so that an intolerable stench spread in our cell. An old convict jacket, which we found in the cell and fastened over the seat of the closet, was taken away by the guards with insulting remarks. Later in the afternoon of the same day we received some rice soup and a piece of bread. Early the next day the shutter was suddenly opened. As we did not immediately stand at attention, we were told that we were not going to get any coffee and in case of repetition would never get anything but bread and water; whereupon the shutter flung back again. Later on we did get coffee regularly in the morning. But the daily food ration remained entirely inadequate throughout and the meals were often so revolting that both in the forenoon and the afternoon nothing could be done with it except pour it into the closet, so that actually we often lived for days together on dry bread and water. From fellow-prisoners I heard that the cooking was done by Moroccans. On April 20—I had meanwhile been transferred to a cell with nine inmates—I was attacked by violent diarrhea. I | did not care to report to the French physician, because he ~ had treated other prisoners with disdain and neglect and even designated them as makebeliefs. A few days later a German physician was admitted. So, on April 24, I reported to him. — He recognized my case as dysentery and promised to see to it that I would be given sick diet and be transferred to a hos- pital. The next day I received sick diet through the Red Cross, but the transfer to a hospital came to nothing, the prison administration objecting to it. After two days, during © which I had to use the same closet vessel with my eight cell © comrades, I was placed in a single cell. Here I had my medis in common with a diphtheritic patient. Once we had to ex* from the same dish; once, in consequence of neglect by the guards, we were for twenty-four hours without food. A little | night vessel, entirely inadequate for a proper and sanitary evacuation, served as a closet in this cell. This I had to rinse myself in the common sink. After three weeks, during which — I received good Red Cross diet, my bowels improved. From — that time on I was permitted to have the regular Red Cross fare accorded to convalescents above fifty years of age. It should be added that general prison conditions had im- — proved at this time, due to representations made by ‘the

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HAVE YOU RAIC -OGNIZED RUSSIA? Do it through The RUSSIAN-AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION 103 East 14th Street, New York The Russian Clothing Industry Needs More Capital We Provide It You Can Join RAIC. Shares, $10.00 each. Help in Russia’s 4) This is not Charity But a Safe Investment It Pays a Dividend Your Money Works for Russia And for You at the same time. Economic Revival An Intelligent Christmas Present—A Share in RAIC “The Capital Stock of the Corporation has not yet been nae subscribed. There is still some for those who want to join in a movement to give credit.... to the Russian workers. Approximately 5,500 are now participating in our enterprise and will benefit by the first dividend.” President Hillman, in the “Nation” of Nov. Tth. WEEKLY © Official Organ Socialist Labor Party. Established 1891. The oldest English Socialist journal published in the United States. The WEEKLY PEOPLE is America’s leading Socialist weekly. It is a complete Socialist and Labor paper, publishing all the essential] labor news. Its editorials interpret this news from the standpoint of Marx- ism. Uncompromising and fearless, criticizing Labor’s errors with abso- lute independence. In emphatic, incisive language it exposes and con- demns the inhuman system of society which renders one class the slave class of another—the system that withers all that is truly beautiful, that tends to corrupt what is pure in humanity, polluting at their very source all channels of enlightenment. Contains regular features: ‘‘World News in Brief,”” Book Reviews, “Songs of Protest and Progress,’”’ Passing Comments, a republished “Daniel De Leon Editorial” in each number, a correspondence column, ete., etc. NOTE In the issue of December lst: “At the Bier of The Call” This is a hitherto unpublished editorial written by Daniel De Leon. It is a powerful study in Socialist journalism. The appearance and disappearance of such papers as The Call, The Leader, ete., call attention to the fact that something more is required of 2 Socialist and Labor journal than to imitate the capitalist journals. Send for free sample copy. Subscription Rates: One year, $2.00; % year, $1.00; % year, $.50; Trial Subscription, 5 weeks, $.25. Single copies, 5c. WEEKLY PEOPLE 45 Rose St., New York Mr. Sidney Hillman, Pres., “RAIC” 103 E. 14th St., New York. 0 Send me shares of RAIC stock at $10.00 (Ten | Dollars) per share. Enclosed $ 0 Send | Name Address mailing Certificate on December 28rd. is enclosed to cover this gift. 0 Send me illustrated booklet on Russian Investments. Address PIONEERS IN SHIPPING LIEBESGABEN (shipments) Make Up Your Own Combinations in accordance with the special wishes and requirements of your relatives and friends abroad. Our Warehouse in Hamburg Assures Quick Service In Case of Loss, we Duplicate the Shipment at Once Ask for our Price List G & CHR All Orders and Shipments Delivered FREE HOUSE! ONE OF MANY ASSORTMENTS $29.00 OUR OLD HAPAG § $20.00 24 Ibs. Flour 10 lbs. Rice 10 lbs. Sugar 5 lbs. Farina 5 lbs. Dried Fruits 5 lbs. Coffee 1 lb. Cocoa 1 pkg. Tea 6 tins Con. Milk 6 tins Evap. Milk 1 qt. Salad Oil 2 lbs. Crisco, 1 Ib. tins 5 Ibs. Lard 5 Ibs. Breakfast Baeon 5 Ibs. Cervelat Wurst 2 tins Corned Beef 50 Bouillon Cubes ASK FOR OUR PRICE LISTS Orders by Radio, an additional charge of 75c. per order. SELF-PACKED PACKAGES are FORWARDED WEEKLY and at rates commenst- rate with efficient service. Insurance against War, Marine, Theft, Pilfering and Non-Delivery, upon request, at reasonable rates. American Merchants Shipping & Forwarding Co. H. von Schuckmann C. E. W. Schelling 30 Years’ Shipping Experience with Hamburg-American Line : OFFICES: 147 4th Ave., cor. 14th St, New York City HAMBURG OFFICE—ROSENSTRASSE 16 When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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644 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 Swedish Red Cross, a commission of Quakers, the Papal Nuncio in Munich, and the Protestant Consistory of Bavaria, who had all visited and inspected the Zweibriicken prison. On June 11, at three o’clock in the morning, I was taken by a gendarme to the railway station, and thence via Landau to Germersheim. There the gendarme led me across the Rhine bridge and dismissed me, saying that I was expelled from the occupied territory. My question whether I was to have this order in writing was answered in the negative. I am not one of those who fight hatred with hatred. I belong to those who believe that only by toleration and rea- son can moral progress in the relation between nations as well as individuals be achieved. As a believer in toleration and reason I deplore the seeds of hatred which France has been sowing and is now sowing in the Ruhr and the Rhine- land. What can be achieved by a policy of toleration and reason is strikingly proved by the friendly feelings and sincere regrets with which the Rhineland population accom- panied the departure of the American troops of occupa- tion early this year. Now there is a chance for American public opinion to be of still greater service to the cause of toleration and reason by helping to put an end to this vicious and ruinous policy of hatred in the Ruhr and Rhine- land. Contributors to This Issue MAXIMO M. KALAW is exchange professor from the Uni- versity of the Philippines to the University of Michigan. KUNO FRANCKE is professor emeritus at Harvard Uni- versity. H. L. MENCKEN is one of the editors of the forthcoming American Mercury and a contributing editor of The Nation. MARK VAN DorEN has established a reputation as a critic of poetry. HENRY SEIDEL CANBY is editor of the Literary Review. FLoyp DELL is a critic and novelist whose most recent novel, “Janet March,” has just appeared. CARL VAN DOREN is literary editor of the Century Maga- zine and a contributing editor of The Nation. ANNE CARROLL Moore, a lecturer on children’s books, is supervisor of work with children in the New York Public Library. HENRY RAYMOND MusseEy is professor of economies at Wellesley College. W. E. Woopwarp is the author of “Bunk.” ROBERT HERRICK, novelist, is a contributing editor of Tke Nation. J. W. KRUTCH is a member of the regular reviewing staff of The Nation. THOMAS REED POWELL is professor of constitutional law at Columbia University. ERNEST GRUENING has just returned from Mexico. SPENCER MILLER, JR., is secretary of the Workers’ Edu- cation Bureau. JOHN Haynes HouMes is pastor of the Community Church of New York. GERALD HEWES CARSON is a frequent contributor to cur- rent periodicals. GRANT SHOWERMAN is professor of classics at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO is a critic and contributor to numer- ous periodicals. 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Holiday Book Section A Thousand Years Ago Chinese Translations by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu A Farewell to a Militarist By LIU CHANG-CHING Sad wanderer, once you conquered the South Leading a hundred thousand troops; Today, dismissed and dispossessed An old man, you remember your glory. Once, when you stood, three borders were still; And how little life mattered, your dagger well knows. Now, watching the mighty Kiang and Han On their ways in the evening, where do you go? Drum-Beats By LU LUN Far off in the clouds, the walls of Han-yang Lie a day’s journey for my single sail. Though a river-merchant ought to be sleeping in calm weather, He hears the tide at night and voices of the boatmen.... My thin hair grows wintry, like the three Hsiang streams, Homesick, for ten thousand li my heart follows the moon; But the war has left me nothing of my heritage— And O this pang of drum-beats on the river! The Imperial Conference By LI SHANG-YIN When the Emperor held conference with scholars, with exiles, He found no calmer wisdom than that of young Chia And gave him the foremost council-seat at midnight But consulted him, alas, about higher things than people. To My Brothers and Sisters Adrift in Troubled Times This Poem of the Moon By PO CHU-YI (Since the disorders in Ho-nan and the famine in Kiian, my brothers and sisters have been scattered. Looking at the moon, I express my thoughts in this poem, which I send to my eldest brother at Fou-liang, my seventh brother at Yii-ch’ien, my fifteenth brother at Wu-chiang, and my younger brothers and sisters at Hsia-kuéi.) My heritage lost through disorder and famine, My brothers and sisters flung eastward and westward, My fields and gardens wrecked by the war, My own flesh and blood become scum of the street, I moan to my shadow like a lone-wandering wild-goose, I am torn from my root like a water-plant in autumn: I gaze at the moon and my tears run down For hearts, in five places, all sick with one wish. The Simplest Way By LIU TSUNG-YUAN I clean my teeth in water drawn from a cold well; And while I brush my clothes, I purify my mind; Then, slowly turning pages in the Tree-leaf Book, I recite, along the path to the eastern shelter. The world has forgotten the true fountain of this Teaching And people enslave themselves to miracles and fables. Under the given words, I want the essential meaning, I look for the simplest way to sow and reap my nature. Here in the quiet of the priest’s temple-courtyard, Mosses add their climbing color to the thick bamboo; And now comes the sun, out of mist and fog, And pines, that seem to be new-bathed; And everything is gone from me, speech goes, and reading, Leaving the single unison. Forever By LIU CHUNG-YUNG For years, with our hands on our horse-whips and sword- hilts To guard the Jade Pass and the River of Gold, We have watched the green graves change to snow And the Yellow Stream ring the Black Mountain forever. Blacktail Row By LIU Yw-HSI Grass has run wild now by the Bridge of Red-Birds; And wings, at sunset, in Blacktail Row Where once they visited Wang and Shieh, Dip among doorways of the poor. An Exile Recalled By LIU CHANG-CH’ING Dare I, at my age, accept my summons, Knowing of the world’s ways only wine and song?... Over the moon-tipped river come wild-geese from the Huns; And the thinner the leaves in Huai, the wider the moun- taine i Gh’u. .: . I ought to be glad to take my old bones back to the Islands of Heaven, But what in the world am I good for, with a few white bales? .'. . As bent and decrepit as you are, I am ashamed to thank you When you caution me that I may encounter thunderbolts. The Islands of Heaven mean the Capital, to which the poet is recalled from Chiang-chou (now Kiukiang), and from which he had been previously exiled because of a storm he had aroused by too freely expressing his own ideas.

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[Vol. 117, No. 3048 An Old Fisherman By LIU TSUNG-YUAN An old fisherman spent the night there, under the western cliff, Dipped up water from the pure Hsiang, kindled the Ch’u bamboos; And then, at sunrise, he had vanished, through cloven mist, With only the creak of his paddle left, in the greenness of mountain and river. ... I turn and see the waves moving as from heaven And clouds above the cliffs coming idly, one by one. Three Score and Ten By M&NG HAO-JAN While worldly matters take their turn, Ancient, modern, to and fro, Rivers and mountains are changeless in glory: We have come as witnesses . . Where a fisher-boat dips by a waterfall, Where the air grows colder, deep in the valley, The monument of Yang remains: We have read it and have cried. A Political Prisoner By LO PIN-WANG While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada Sing what I am thinking under my southern cap: It has taken the song of those black wings To break a white-haired prisoner’s heart. .. . For now that he has flown off, heavy through the mist, And his clean voice drowns in the windy world, Who knows if he be singing still? Or listens any more to me? A prisoner from the south would wear all of the northern prison-garb but keep his own cap to remember his own land. And the phrase “southern cap” has come to symbolize a political prisoner, with the implication that he maintains his ideas. This prisoner, for in- stance, cannot make his pure thoughts heard by the Emperor through the noise of the confused world. From the City-Tower of Liu-Chou a Poem to My Four Fellow-Officials Chang, Ting, Féng, and Lien By LIU TSUNG-YUAN At this lofty tower where the town ends, wilderness begins; And our longing has as far to go as the ocean or the aky. 5 Hibiscus, by the moat, heaves in a sudden wind And vines along the wall are whipped with slanting rain. Nothing for ten thousand li but a blur of woods and mountain And the river’s nine loops twisting in our bowels. . . E This is where they have sent us, this land of tattooed people— And not even letters, to keep in touch with home. A Farewell to Li Tuan By LU LUN By the old gate, among yellowing grasses, Still we linger, sick at heart. The path you are taking through cold clouds Will lead you into evening-snow.... Your father died and you left home young, And I met you too late to avert your misfortunes. We cry without words. What can I wish you, In this blowing wintry world? Dwelling by a Stream By LIU TSUNG-YUAN I long have been hampered by official hat and robe And am glad of exile to this wild southern district. I am a neighbor now of farmers and planters, I am a guest of the mountains and woods. I plow in the morning, turning dewy grasses, And at evening tie my fisher-boat, breaking the quiet stream. Back and forth I go, scarcely meeting anyone, And sing a long poem and gaze at the blue Ch’u sky. Stopping at a Friend’s Farm-House By MENG HAO-JAN Preparing me chicken and rice, old friend, You entertain me at your farm. We watch the green trees that circle your village And the pale blue of outlying mountains. We open your window over garden and field, To talk mulberry and hemp with our cups in eur hands. Wait till the ninth day of the ninth month— I am coming again in chrysanthemum time. To My Retired Friend Wei the Eighth-Born By TU FU It is almost as hard for friends to meet As for the morning and evening stars. Tonight then is a rare event, Joining, in the candle-glow, Two men a while ago so young But now with temples turning gray.... To find that half our friends are dead Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief. Little we guessed it would be twenty years Before I could visit you again. ~ When I went away, you were still unmarried; But now these boys and girls in a row Are very kind to their father’s old friend. They ask me where I have been, on my journey; And after we have talked a little, They bring and show me wines and dishes, Spring chives cut in the night-rain And brown rice cooked especially. My host proclaims a festival, Urges me to drink ten cups. But what ten cups could make me as drunk As I always am with your love in my heart? Tomorrow the mountains will separate us; And after tomorrow—who can say! &

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Dee. 5, 1923] The Nation 647 H. L. Mencken By H. L. MENCKEN SK a professional critic to write about himself and you simply ask him to do what he does every day in the practice of his art and mystery. There is, indeed, no eriticism that is not a confidence, and there is no confidence that is not self-revelation. When I denounce a book with mocking and contumely, and fall upon the poor author in the brutal, Asiatic manner of a drunken longshoreman, a Ku Kluxer, or a midshipman at Annapolis, I am only say- ing, in the trade cant, that the fellow disgusts me—that his ideas and his manners are somehow obnoxious to me, as those of a Methodist, a golf-player, or a clog-dancer are obnoxious to me—in brief, that I hold myself to be a great deal better than he is, and am eager to say so. And when, on the other hand, I praise a book in high, astounding terms, and speak of the author as if his life and sufferings were of capital importance to the world, then I am merely saying that I detect something in him, of prejudice, tradi- tion, habit of mind, that is much like something within myself, and that my own life and sufferings are of the utmost importance to me. That is all there ever is in criticism, once it gets beyond cataloguing. No matter how artfully the critic may try to ke impersonal and scientific he is bound to give himself away. In fact, his very effort to be impersonal and scien- tific is a form of giving himself away, as the writings of my eminent colleague, Prof. Dr. Erskine, well demonstrate. I have never had the honor of being presented to Erskine, but I know quite as well as his grandmother that he is essentially a shy man—that the winds of doctrine alarm him and he has no stomach for rough adventure. Hence his plea for decorum and tradition, i. e., for what has passed the stage of experiment and danger, i. e., for safe harbors and refuges. He can no more get himself out of his criti- cism than he can get himself out of his skin. Nor can, at the other pole, the critical Bolsheviki of Greenbaum Village —all of them as foreign and as loathsome to Erskine, I daresay, as so many Nietzsches or Beethovens. When these bright young men print profound aesthetic treatises upon the art of Fatty Arbuckle, Gertrude Stein, and the “Parisian Widows” burlesque troupe, they say, of course, nothing that is pertinent to aesthetics, but they do say something ex- tremely amusing about their own tastes, and hence about themselves. More, they say something even more amusing about the seminaries where they were bred to the humani- ties. With eriticism thus so transparent, so unescapably reve- latory, I often marvel that the gentlemen who concern themselves with my own books, often very indignantly, do not penetrate more competently to my essence. Even for a critic I am excessively garrulous and confidential; never- theless, it is rare for me to encounter a criticism that hits me where I live and have my being. A great deal of ink is wasted trying to discover and denounce my motive in being a critic at all. I am, by one theory, a German spy told off to flay, terrorize, and stampede the Anglo-Saxon. By an- other I am a secret radical, while professing to admire Coolidge, Judge Gary, and Genghis Khan. By a third, I am a fanatical American chauvinist, bent upon defaming and ruining the motherland. All these notions are non- sense; only the first has even the slightest plausibility.: The plain truth is—and how could it be plainer?—that I practice criticism for precisely the same reason that every other critic practices it: because I am a vain fellow, and have a great many ideas on all sorts of subjects, and like to put them into words and harass the human race with them. If I could confine this flow of ideas to one subject I’d be a professor and get some respect. If I could reduce it, say, to one idea a year, I’d be a novelist, a dramatist, or a newspaper editorial writer. But being unable to staunch the flux, and having, as I say, a vast and exigent vanity, I am acritic of books, and through books of Homo sapiens, and through Homo sapiens of God. So much for the motive. What, now, of the substance? What is the fundamental faith beneath all the spurting and coruscating of ideas that I have just mentioned? What do I primarily and immovably believe in, as a Puritan believes in hell? I believe in liberty. And when I say li erty, I mean the thing in its widest imaginable sense—libi rty up to the extreme limits of the feasible and tolerable. I am against forbidding anybody to do anything, or say any- thing, or think anything so long as it is at all possible to imagine a habitable world in which he would be free to do, say, and think it. The burden of proof, as I see it, is always upon the policeman, which is to say, upon the lawmaker, the theologian, the right-thinker. He must prove his case doubly, triply, quadruply, and then he must start all over and prove it again. The eye through which I view him is watery and jaundiced. I do not pretend to be “just” to him —any more than a Christian pretends to be just to the devil. He is the enemy of everything I admire and respect in this world—of everything that makes it various and amusing and charming. He impedes every honest search for the truth. He stands against every sort of good-will and common decency, His ideal is that of an animal trainer, an archbishop, a major general in the army. I am against him until the last galoot’s ashore. This simple and childlike faith in the freedom and dignity of man—here, perhaps, stated with undue rhetoric—should be obvious, I should think, to every critic above the mental backwardness of a Federal judge. Nevertheless, very few of them, anatomizing my books, have ever showed any sign of detecting it. But all the same even the dullest of them has, in his fashion, sensed it; it colors unconsciously all the diatribes about myself that I have ever read. It is respon- sible for the fact that in England and Germany (and, to the extent that I have ever been heard of at all, in France and Italy) I am regarded as a highly typical American— in truth, as almost the archetype of the American. And it is responsible equally for the fact that here at home I am often denounced as the worst American unhung. The para- dox is only apparent. The explanation of it lies in this: that to most Europeans the United States is still regarded naively as the land of liberty par excellence, whereas to most Americans the thing itself has long ceased to have any Significance, and to large numbers of them, indeed, it has of late taken on an extreme obnoxiousness. I know of no civilized country, indeed, in which liberty is less esteemed than it is in the United States today; certainly there is none in which more persistent efforts are made to limit it and put it down. I am thus, to Americans, a bad American, but to Europeans, still unaware of the practical effects of the Wilson idealism and the Roosevelt saloon-bouncer ethic, I seem to be an eloquent spokesman of the true American tradition. It is a joke, but the joke is not on me.

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648 __ The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Liberty, of course, is not for slaves: I do not advocate inflicting it on men against their conscience. On the con- trary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please—before the Supreme Court of the United States, Gompers, J. P. Morgan, Henry Cabot Lodge, the Anti-Saloon League, or whatever other fraud or com- bination of frauds they choose to venerate. I am thus un- able to make the grade as a Liberal, for Liberalism always involves freeing human beings against their will—often, indeed, to their obvious damage, as in the cases of the majority of Negroes and women. But all human beings are not congenital slaves, even in America. Here and there one finds a man or a woman with a great natural passion for liberty—and a hard job getting it. It is, to me at least, a vast pleasure to go to the rescue of such a victim of the herd, to give him some aid and comfort in his struggle against the forces that seek to regiment and throttle him. It is a double pleasure to succor him when the sort of lib- erty ke strives for is apparently unintelligible and value- less—for example, liberty to address conventions of the I.W.W., to read the books of such bad authors as D. H. Lawrence and Petronius Arbiter, to work twelve hours a day, to rush the can, to carry red flags in parades, to patron- ize osteopaths and Christian Science healers, to belong to the best clubs. Such nonsensical varieties of liberty are especially sweet to me. I have wrecked my health and dis- sipated a fortune defending them—never, so far as I know, successfully. Why, then, go on? Ask yourself why a grass- hopper goes on jumping. But what has liberty to do with the art of literary criti- cism, my principal business in this vale? Nothing—or everything. It seems to me that it is perfectly possible to write profound and valuable literary criticism without en- tering upon the question of freedom at all, either directly or indirectly. Aesthetic judgments may be isolated from all other kinds of judgments, and yet remain interesting and important. But this isolation must be performed by other hands: to me it is as sheer a psychological impossi- bility as believing that God condemned forty-two little children to death for poking fun at Elisha’s bald head. When I encounter a new idea, whether aesthetic, political, theological, or epistemological, I ask myself, instantly and automatically, what would happen to its proponent if he should state its exact antithesis. If nothing would happen to him, then I am willing and eager to listen to him. But if he would lose anything valuable by a volte face—if stat- ing his idea is profitable to him, if the act secures his roof, butters his parsnips, gets him a tip—then I hear him with one ear only. Heis not afree man. Ergo, he is not a man. For liberty, when one ascends to the levels where ideas swish by and men pursue Truth to grab her by the tail, is the first thing and the last thing. So long as it prevails the show is thrilling and stupendous; the moment it fails the show is a dull and dirty farce. Mr. Mencken’s article is the third in The Nation’s series of articles on critics by themselves. The first was by Heywood Broun in the Fall Book Number; the second by Ludwig Lewisohn in the issue of No- vember 21. Carl Van Doren, John Macy, and E. W. Howe are preparing articles for this series. Further announcements will be made as the arrangements for articles are completed. Arabia Deserta By MARK VAN DOREN N American edition of “Arabia Deserta’”* would be the event of any year, as it is certainly of this. Until now Mr. Doughty’s masterpiece has been either unobtain- able in the original English edition of 1888 or too expen- sive in the facsimile of 1920. The new reprint, introduced by Colonel Lawrence, perhaps the only living man worthy of the privilege, brings one of the great travel books of all time within the reach—unfortunately it cannot be said the easy reach—of such readers as care a great deal for Arabia and in addition care everything for poetry. For the book, besides being the most informing work on Northwestern Arabia in existence, is by any definition a stupendous poem. It is a triumph of human language, more remarkable even, in spite of the fact that it takes the form of prose, than Mr. Doughty’s six-volume epic of “The Dawn in Britain.” It relates the wanderings of its author in 1876-1878 over the triangle roughly marked by the three cities of Medym Salih, Boreyda, and Jidda, where “I wandered on, through that vast mountainous labyrinthine solitude of rainless valleys,” or “rode with a friendly sheykh of the district Beduins, to live with them awhile in the high desert. I might thus, I hoped, visit the next Arabian up- lands and view those vast waterless marches of the nomad Arabs; tent-dwellers, inhabiting, from the beginning, as it were beyond the World.” And it employs a style which Mr. Doughty, “a disciple of the divine Muse of Spenser and Venerable Chaucer,” deliberately invented for our difficulty, lest we think Arabia a land lightly to be entered upon. “The book is not milk for babes: it might be likened to a mirror, wherein is set forth faithfully some parcel of the soil of Arabia smelling of sAmn and camels. And such, I trust, for the persons, that if the words (written all-day from their mouths) were rehearsed to them in Arabic, there might every one, whose life is remembered therein, hear, as it were, his proper voice; and many a rude by- stander, smiting his thigh, should bear witness and cry ‘Ay Wellah, the sooth indeed!’” The punctuation, the dic- tion, the syntax, and the mind behind them conspire as we read to remove us thousands of miles and—literally— thousands of years from our accustomed selves. The other classics of Arabian travel, Burckhardt, Palgrave, Burton, Lady Anne Blunt, speak to us in rapid, modern, expository or narrative prose; and they are excellent. But after we have labored over the crowded and endless pages of Doughty these others seem the thinnest journalism. We turn back to the first sentence of ‘Arabia Deserta” and realize in a flash the secret of this heavy, slow music, this writing wherein each sentence has gone through the torture of a separate birth: “A new voice hailed me of an old friend when, first returned from the Peninsula, I paced again in that long street of Damascus which is called Straight; and suddenly taking me wondering by the hand ‘Tell me (said he), since thou art here again in the peace and assurance of Ullah, and whilst we walk, as in the former years, toward the new blossoming orchards, full of the sweet spring as * Travels in Arabia Deserta. By Sharia M. Doughty. With a New Preface by the Author, an Introduction by T. E. ee ae all original Maps, Plans, and Cuts. Boni and Liveright. 2 vols. $17.5

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 649 the garden of God, what moved thee, or how couldst thou take such journeys into the fanatic Arabia?’ ” The only effect which Mr. Doughty wanted to produce was the effect of completeness, and he has produced it. He did not know, or he disdained, the tricks of the ordinary travelogue—the panorama suddenly unveiled, the act of violence let loose with a complacent flourish upon the un- suspecting reader. There are no devices of arrangement, there are no sacrifices to picturesqueness. The result is picturesqueness on the grandest conceivable scale. We see everything, or rather we experience everything. A glimpse of a mountain or a village is caught for a moment—then that small part is swallowed up in the whole, as it would be for a traveler on the ground who was hungry and weary and in pain. More is always pressing from the sides; there is no rest. Had we been there, as sometimes we think we have, our memories now would be of this same blended sort. The caravan in which the author proceeded from Damascus to Medym Salih would present itself as now it does—an unending train of dusty camels, trudging every day toward Mecca and never quite arriving. We could as little pretend that we had dominated the scene as Doughty pretends, in the case of a certain stretch of volcanic desert, that he even existed before it. ‘We look out from every height, upon the Harra, over an iron desolation; what un- couth blackness and lifeless cumber of volcanic matter!— an hard-set face of nature without a smile for ever, a wilderness of burning and rusty horror of unformed mat- ter. ... There is a startled conscience within a man of his mesquin being, and profane, in presence of the divine stature of the elemental world !—this lion-like sleep of cos- mogonic forces, in which is swallowed up the gnat of the soul within him—that short motion and parasitical usurpa- tion which is the weak accident of life in matter.” The peculiar quality of richness which Mr. Doughty has achieved derives chiefly of course from the richness within himself; but he is not without an excellent technique for ex- pressing it. He knows how to jumble poetic details with prosaic; he is not afraid to seem to be burying his best material. There is always a thick rain of facts, and toward the end of a long paragraph he does not mind pelt- ing you with particulars in no order whatsoever. A single paragraph, like a single moment or hour of desert experi- ence, is seldom a unit. Thus we get something vastly bet- ter than a series of essays or a series of views; the pages, like the realities, are interwoven. There is much wretched- ness and no romance. There are patience and endurance, and there is an incessant coming and going of more or less hostile men; but there is no heroism. “Arabia Deserta” is never an adventure story. A sick mare, a camel, a dog is likely to take as much of the author’s attention as a sherif who wants to arrest him, a woman who wants to marry him, or a Nabatean inscription which as a scholar he must stop and copy. Animals indeed are faultlessly observed, and often they are described with a pen that Homer would not have been ashamed to hold. “They milk first for the mare and then (often in the same vessel) for the nomad household. She stands straining upon her tether, looking toward the pleasant sound of milking: the bowl frothing from the udder is carried to her in the herdsman’s hand and she sups through her teeth the sweet warm milk, at a long draught.” “The more you learn of Arabia the more you find in ‘Arabia Deserta,’’”’ says Colonel Lawrence, who knows the Peninsula both as an archaeologist and as a soldier. Most readers will never go to Arabia, but the more they read “Arabia Deserta” the more they will find in it. It is an unquestionable classic in that, the most important, sense. To quote Colonel Lawrence again, it “has no date and can never grow old.” Books Novel or Pamphlet? Don Juan. By Ludwig Lewisohn. Boni and Liveright. $2. R. LEWISOHN in a recent article in The Nation has de- clared himself a pamphleteer, and further remarked that there is no reason why pamphleteering should not be as well done as any other division of the literary art. A pamphleteer he is, one of the best among our moderns, and never more effec- tively so than in “Don Juan.” Those who wish to quarrel with “Don Juan” as a pamphlet advocating more liberality in divorce will have plenty of argu- ment on their hands. It is true that Mr. Lewisohn has hand- picked his case. He has chosen for a hero a man so sensitively organized that the love of a loving wife, who cannot or will not understand him, is an oppression which makes all activity un- endurable. He has chosen a hero with moral fiber su sensitive that sex satisfaction without love is impossible and its denial dulls his whole being. He has given him a wife whose love is indestructible by argument or circumstance, who is, in short, possessive to a degree that is almost pathological, and he has made him find and fall in love with a young girl exactly to his taste whom he cannot make his lover in fact without irreparable damage to moral standards which he accepts. His wife will not divorce him—that is the crux of the story. In the situa- tion which Mr. Lewisohn provides, a man’s life must be ruined, a young girl’s first love wasted, in order that a wife may hold a husband who cannot be happy or even normal with her, or make her happy, unless it is happiness to have one’s will. Clearly this is a special case. Most men under such circum- stances, and with the moral fineness of this Don Juan, would sublimate their passion, as the psychologists say: if they could not run away with their loved one they would find some modus vivendi, some outlet for energy within the bonds of matrimony. They would not find personal happiness, and to that they would have no prescriptive right—but they would not, like Lucien of this story, be smashed. And few wives of Elise’s caliber would be so hopelessly wrong in their legal rightness as she, so en- tirely instinctive. Possessiveness would often give way to anger or at least pride. Mr. Lewisohn has imagined a situation in which the husband is absolutely right in wishing to be divorced, provided one grants that it is right for him to follow the only course in which he can be human, happy, and useful to himself or anyone. He has contrived a situation in which the wife has every legal right to hold him, since he has not committed adultery, not been cruel in the legal sense, not de- serted her. With the intellectual’s fondness for clarity and logic, whether in settling the war or in the muddle of domestic life, he draws up a formula, shows that it would save his char- acter from misery, and then scorns the world for not adopting it forthwith. Mr. Lewisohn has proved his case for Lucien and Elise, but I can imagine a judge, wise in the experience of the divorce courts and the grosser souls that flock there, who might wag his head over a solution of the most urgent of modern problems which is studied from exceptional people in exceptional circumstances. As an argument “Don Juan” does not impress me; but as a pleading before the bar of a stupidly conventional world it moves me deeply. Mr. Lewisohn has not proved that anyone should have a divorce when he wishes it, and presumably he never intended to, but it is impossible to read his story without

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a stir of indignation. It impels to one of two positions. Either marriage is a sacrament not to be broken, in which case the suffering of the mismated individual must be regarded as ac- quiring merit for his soul, or marriage is not a sacrament, in which case it is absurd that mental anguish, stunted develop- ment, and sexual repression should not be weighed as causes for breaking it, along with the so-called statutory offenses. We have radically altered the methods and causes by which and for which two people are brought together in matrimony—even the least thoughtful know that. Now we must reconsider the causes and the methods for which and by which they may be separated. As a plea for this “Don Juan” is a brilliant success. Excellently written, poignantly argued, dramatically con- ceived, this book, however, must be praised as a pamphlet, not as a novel. For a novel of equivalent excellence must have personalities as human as they can be made, and Lucien, Elise, Helga the loved one, Grace, with whom Lucien solaces himself, are scarcely real. Each embodies a logical point in Mr. Lewi- sohn’s argument. If they had been more human their “cases” would have been muddled, been full of cross-currents as in life; the emphasis must have fallen not upon the point to be proved but upon the personal fortunes of the protagonists. “It is the remediable moral suffering in the world that crowds my vision —the remediable moral suffering, remediable by a little hard thinking, a little tolerance, a little more goodness, a little less righteousness. If I write a criticism it is to further that supreme end; if I write a novel it is to further the same end.” Thus, Mr. Lewisohn, in the self-portrait to which I have already referred. And that is just what he has done in “Don Juan”’— written, according to my way of thinking, a rather unreal novel, a brilliant piece of special pleading, an admirable pam- phlet likely to produce results. HENRY SEIDEL CANBY The Chaplet of Prometheus Fantastica: being The Smile of the Sphinx and Other Tales of Imagination. By Robert Nichols. With a foreword by John Masefield. The Macmillan Company. $2.50. eee NICHOLS is a poet turned philosopher. Ata time when it is considered the business of a poet to sit in his cage and sing sweetly, this meddling with large human prob- lems will be held against him; and therefore he ought to be heard in his own defense. He is not in the least ashamed; in- deed, he calls upon his fellow-poets to follow his example. “In the name of St. Francis, of Blake, of Shelley, cease you poets from lounging beside the hedgerows! Leave your somewhat fuddled loves and your fretful disillusions. ... Give your thoughts more the quality of an act.” For him this preoccupa- tion with Truth is no apostasy to Beauty. The poets are the true “determinators of value,” and a poet’s truth may be quite as significant as a scientist’s, and as powerful in guiding the destinies of mankind. So he explains himself in an earnest and interesting, if confused, preface. This manifesto, for it is no less, may perhaps be taken, in conjunction with a few other contemporary instances of a simi- lar sort, as a symptom of a change of mood among the younger poets, a wish to make of the poetic faculty not a mere refuge from the evils of life, but an instrument for dealing with life— a sword or a plowshare, instead of a pipe of dreams. And if the instrument is, as in this instance it would seem to be, insufficiently tempered or sharpened, it may still be recognized as of the same metaphysical steel that Blake and Shelley used in the planting of beautiful and the killing of ugly ideals of life. In becoming a philosopher, then, Mr. Nichols has not at all ceased to be a poet; and it is in a poet’s prose, and with a poet’s mythopoeic gift, that he has expressed, in this book of stories, his thoughts and feelings about life. They are, these stories, fairy-tales in form; some of them not unfamiliar, but reshaped freely for his own purposes. As to what these pur- The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 poses are, the preface-manifesto leaves us in no doubt. One might not always guess it from the stories themselves, but they are deliberately concerned with serious matters—with the most serious matter of all, what we want life to be like. Where there are such brave intentions, one hesitates to pro- nounce judgment on the results; and yet, where the aim is so high, failure itself is honorable. An Icarus may all too likely find his wings melted by the white-hot splendor he has dared to approach so closely. Mr. Nichols might easily have avoided any such uncomfortable questioning of his success if, with his talents, he had dared less. It is to his credit that he has taken as his scope not merely “the illusions of troubled senses,” but has ranged back through history and myth and forward into a speculative future—even though, as it appears, sometimes un- fortunately upon sociological wings of wax. But though not failure but low aim is crime in morals, in art on the contrary the final test is success. And Mr. Nichols, by his own preliminary declarations of intention, has made it practically impossible for us to grant him success. If Robin Hood begins by saying, “I will split yon willow-wand with my arrow,” we cannot thereupon applaud him for hitting a bird on the branch above. It was doubtless a mistake on Mr. Nichols’s part to have thus called his shots. For art is after all not marksmanship. The thing one hits by accident may be well worth hitting. It is one of the curious qualities of a work of art that, if it is self-com- plete, it bears a variety of relations to the outside world of life, and hence a variety of possible “meanings,” some of which are unsuspected and unintended by the artist. For the author to state his own interpretation of a tale is to do himself an injustice. “In this story I seek to bring to light the very justi- fication, as I see it, of life itself: no humble ambition.” It would certainly have been more discreet to leave the reader to find what meaning he might in the pleasant little fairy-tale so boldly vouched for, The Smile of the Sphinx, inasmuch as it could scarcely come up to such brave specifications even if it were better than it is. Concerning Sir Perseus and the Fair Andromeda the author makes less rash claims, and one may easily find it to be not only an amusing variation upon an old legend but, with its very pagan rescued lady and its very Christian and medieval rescu- ing hero, an interesting study in the contrasting temperaments of two historical periods. But even here one is likely to find the author’s prefatory guidance disturbing. “Once again the Will-to-enjoy-action is pointed at as Andromeda parades her Aristotelian dance.” One claims leave, as a free citizen of the republic of letters, to see a point or fail to see it, without being jogged by an earnest auctorial elbow! These are pleasant tales, particularly the latter, which justi- fies itself on those grounds of mere entertainment which the author is too hastily inclined to disparage. But the final tale, Golgotha & Co., must be taken seriously or not at all. It isa story of the Second Coming; this fable, as the author remarks, has been treated before—“but a fable is what one makes of it.” And he makes a good deal of it by involving it in a large Wellsian-Chestertonian satire on modern industrialism and mob- psychology. The tale is indeed chiefly interesting as showing in grotesque enlargement some of the weaknesses of our civili- zation; but in these matters the central drama tends to get lost, and to emerge, when it finally does, in a state of vast confusion. The author’s philosophic and poetic excitements over his theme have made him too forgetful of the requirements of story-telling. Mr. Nichols does not fail to explain this story in his preface, and again there is a discrepancy between his magnificent inten- tions and his actual story. He intended to show that the doc- trine of might must be overthrown, and that it is the poets who shall save the world. But in setting forth these intentions he says some interesting things about himself: “I am forever with Faust the Experimentalist and Prometheus the Creator. In- deed, as a young artist, I couldn’t be anything else. ... In an age dominated by disbelief and detachment I rejoice that I can

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Dee. 5, 1923] believe and I endeavor not to be detached—not detached even so far as to separate my life and my art. When I take up the pen I take it as one who would serve life.” In fact—and this is the conclusion to which one is likely to come as one turns again and again from these stories to this preface, and lingers there fascinated by the ingenuous egotism and adventurous youthfulness with which it is suffused—Mr. Nichols is more interesting than his philosophic fairy-tales. Accordingly one formulates one’s impressions of his qualities —not all of them good ones, but always with some grace to save them—only to find that he has anticipated the reader in this matter also, taken the words out of his mouth, and said of himself the worst and best that can fairly be said: “How serious I have been! How much in earnest I am— sitting up to all hours of the night after a hard day’s work in an uncomfortable climate in a far-off land—ignorant, unbal- anced, presumptuous, determined, trying to be calm, carried away by passion, grinding at books distasteful to an artist, lacking in humor or pleasantness, conceited—justified only by only one thing, by the memory of the Forward Area of Ypres. Absurdly in earnest, maybe!—seeing how inept the champion- ship, how small can be the results. I should not be doing this. It is not my job. But those who should be doing it lie dead; the skies lower; lightning flickers up the heavens like the silent brandishing of swords, and as yet not even the Legions of Love, the Samurai of the Ideal, are formed, still less has the youth, bearing about his brows the fiery chaplet of Prometheus, ap- peared.” No, Mr. Nichols has not quite stolen fire from heaven for us; but he has tried—and failed, if one must use that word, nobly enough. FLOYD DELL The Prince of Scholars Erasmus: A Study of His Life, Ideals and Place in History. By Preserved Smith. Harper and Brothers. $4. [* Erasmus is here more fortunate than he has yet been in the hands of a biographer, he owes his good fortune, in part, to a whole corps of recent editors and specialists, but in part, also, to the fact that Preserved Smith belongs with the few human beings who at once appreciate Erasmus and under- stand Luther. The book is therefore noticeably free from partisan enthusiasms. In temper Mr. Smith is closer to Eras- mus, a reasonable man who loved learning; by long association in his researches Mr. Smith has been brought very close to Luther, a less reasonable man, who for the sake of a particular cause was willing to endure the horrid din and danger of theological politics. Though it is true that the later chapters of this study go now and then into what may seem excessive detail with regard to the conflict between the scholar and the reformer, this may possibly be justified on the ground that so were the later years of Erasmus confused, if not bedraggled, by the oppressive details of the controversy into which he was drawn. The total effect is unquestionably dramatic, like an ancient tragedy: a man who had put the arrows of reason into many hands saw various of his followers go to war and was himself wounded in his old age. However tragic in certain of its aspects, the career of Eras- mus must seem, to the scholar, almost Utopian. He was never seriously handicapped by poverty; he had all Europe for his scene of action, with princes and cities contending for the honor of entertaining him; he lived in an age when the re wards of learning were immense. To dig even a little beneath the surface in those days was to find a whole world of knowl- edge and beauty in the manuscripts, long neglected, of Greek and Latin authors who “after a thousand years of Gothic darkness” seemed like gold and myrrh and wine and fresh water and flaming sunlight. Erasmus and his contemporaries might cencern themselves primarily with textual criticism, but it was mo mere tedious editing for the rheumy eyes of a The Nation 651 a a hanna few fellow-experts. Every new manuscript was a genuine discovery, and each new author published measurably enlarged the universe. The more exact the text and commentary which a scholar produced, the more significant his influence at large. Nothing that Erasmus did, it may be guessed, did more to promote his humane and rational spirit than his Greek version of the New Testament. His “Adages” was after all a volume of familiar quotations, intended for the use to which such compilations are always put. His “Colloquies’” was a text- book of Latin style. Even in his less technical works, like the “Enchiridion of the Christian Knight,” the “Institution of a Christian Prince,” or the famous “Praise of Folly,” he was essentially the scholar relaxed, applying to the general life of mankind the strict yet liberal conclusions at which he had ar- rived in his studies. His eminence, of course, depends upon the presence in him of both erudition and imagination. With- out imagination he would never have been a great textual critic. Without erudition he would never have given the edge and substance which he gave to his popular writings. The addition to these qualities of wit and comic force made him irresistible. Thus all the aptitudes of Erasmus conspired with the propitiousness of his time to make his career superb. Sympathetically as Mr. Smith has followed that career, he does not suppress the inevitable question whether Erasmus might not have taken a more emphatic stand in the contro- versies which he helped to rouse. Doubtless he might have done so, but he would have had to be a different Erasmus. On this point there can hardly be an absolute conclusion. His- tory, for all its abundance, does not show a single hero able in his own person to tear down as much as Erasmus and build up as much as Luther. While the race is waiting for some such paragon, it may well be lenient in demanding that this or that actual protagonist accomplish all that may some day be expected. Meantime there comes up the other question whether the cause of reason is not best served by those rea- sonable men who, like Erasmus, persist in acting, against no matter how many evidences, as though the majority of men were reasonable too. If Luther loved mankind too well not to feel under obligation to reform it, Erasmus paid it the enor- mous compliment of feeling no obligation to condescend to the reformer’s arts. CARL VAN DOREN The Rootabaga Country Rootabaga Pigeons. By Carl Sandburg. Harcourt, Brace and Company. $2. Gyetties of children’s books are notoriously skeptical or gullible concerning second volumes of popular story books. More often than not—without apparent reading of the book— they are able to say of it either that it is distinctly inferior to the author’s first book or that he has “done it again,” and noth- ing comparable has appeared since “Alice in Wonderland” or Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. To one or both of these great classics it is the common habit of American reviewers to con- trast all new children’s books without regard to content, form, or atmosphere. One critic feels that “Rootabaga Pigeons” bears to “Rootabaga Stories” a relation similar to that borne by Lewis Carroll’s second volume of “Sylvie and Bruno” to the first. No such parallel exists in the case of Sandburg. The stories in “Rootabaga Pigeons” were, with one or two exceptions, writ- ten long before ““Rootabaga Stories” was published. Carl Sand- burg had been writing these stories for years just as they came into his mind. He had written enough of them to make two books. Whether two books or one should have been made of the stories is an open question. The situation is that we have two books of his stories—one published last year, one this year —which are equally entitled to fresh, full, and fair considera- tion for all the nonsense, the folk stuff, the poetry, the beauty, and the genuine child psychology they hold.

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652 Carl Sandburg alone could tell us which of the stories was written first. Does it matter? Are we not more deeply con- cerned with the nature and quality of his performance in both books? It is true that the lightning of discovery rarely strikes a reader twice in the same place and those who were fortunate enough to read and like How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country first will doubtless look in vain for any story in “Rootabaga Pigeons” to give them quite the same deli- cious sensation. That story was wisely placed first in the first book. It either transports you straight into the Rootabaga Country or it leaves you high and dry where “everything is the same as it always was.” There’s no half-way station to Rootabaga. You go all the way or you don’t go at all. If you go, you are delighted to meet bushel baskets going and coming, saying under their breath: “Bushels, bushels, bushels.” It’s just what one would expect a bushel basket to be saying, only in this day of records no one has ever recorded it before. Sandburg’s nonsense is fresh nonsense. If pressed for a com- parison I would say that he has more in common with Edward Lear than with any other writer for children, but he is not an imitator of anybody and I think it would be impossible to imi- tate him successfully, for there’s an essential truth to the life he knows behind all his stories. Many of them have the quality and charm of an artist’s first sketch. Some of them were manifestly not written for children. When Carl Sandburg makes the selection from the two books for a definitive volume of American folk and nonsense stories for children he will have the unusual advantage of knowing which of his stories appeal to children. Do children really like the stories? children do not. Children have as varied tastes in reading as we do. The children on whom they have been “tried out” by parents or teachers who actively dislike the stories are seldom attracted to them, and no wonder. “Are you reading out of that book?” I asked a little girl of half-past four. She was looking at the picture of the Potato Face Blind Man playing his accordion in front of the post office. “Yes, I read about the Potato Face Blind Man. He’s playing to the flummywisters yodeling their yisters in the elm trees. They do that out in my yard. I love that Potato Face Blind Man. I read about the Zizzies too. They’re so funny. The Zizzies make me laugh.” And this little New England nonsense lover, who was born “funny inside,” laughed as only a child can laugh who is not yet able to read in the accepted sense. Then she said, as she put the book into my hands, “You read it to me.” “T’ve never read a book anything like it before,” said a twelve- year-old New York boy. “TI tried to read the Wedding Proces- sion of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle aloud and I had to ‘stop I laughed so. There’s a whole lot of things I never knew about the West in those stories.” There’s still more about the West in “Rootabaga Pigeons”— a little too much perhaps in the keenly satirical story of the Sooners and the Boomers. There are paragraphs in that story which might well be eliminated from a children’s book. But I do not propose to offer any idle, captious criticism of a book which contains, as I believe, so much genuine creative art as is to be found in “Rootabaga Pigeons.” I may not like it better than the first book; certainly I found no more beautiful story than the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy, and I find “Rootabaga Pigeons” containing stories of more universal appeal, mellower, closer to children, happier in title, and posi- tively charged with the best kind of child psychology. The story of the Christmas twins born out in a tar-paper shack in a cinder yard holds for me something of that same deep experience of American life, its romance, its humor, its tenderness, its pathos, its playing the game, that Mark Twain Some children do, other The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 began to draw upon when he wrote “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckle- berry Finn.” I’m not comparing Sandburg with Mark Twain. I’m only saying he’s writing fresh and very beautiful stories of Ameri- can life for a new generation of Americans—stories which are bound to influence other writers for children because they stir and challenge the creative faculties of their readers. ANNE CARROLL MOORE The Demon of Unemployment The Third Winter of Unemployment. The Report of an Enquiry undertaken in the Autumn of 1922. By J. J. Astor, A. L. Bowley, and others. London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd. 6s. The Economics of Unemployment. By J. A. Hobson. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 4/6. The Burden of Unemployment. By Philip Klein. Russell Sage Foundation. $2. an HE years 1921 and 1922 are the worst in the records of unemployment in this country [Great Britain]. In only one month in the present century before 1921 did the percentage of unemployed trade-union members exceed ten; in no month since March, 1921, has it fallen below fourteen.” If short time be added to unemployment, “a fifth or more of the industrial power of the country is running to waste.” In this striking form does the first book under review summarize the British situation. After two full years of unexampled depression, the autumn of 1922 still found one out of every eleven of the makers of textiles, clothing, and food, wholly unemployed, an eighth of the workers in miscellaneous industries, a sixth of the miners, building operatives, and transport workers, a fourth of the engi- neers and metal workers, and two-fifths of the shipbuilders. During the fiscal year ending March 31, 1922, the government dispensed more than £80,000,000 in relief to 1,850,000 unem- ployed workers; and at the end of August the number on the insurance books vainly seeking work still came to 1,427,311. Small wonder, then, facing a third winter of unemployment with few signs of improvement, that a group of students and public men thought it desirable to make a study “of the extent and the effects of the present depression, of the means that have been adopted to relieve it, and the effects of these measures.” Names like A. L. Bowley, Henry Clay, and Seebohm Rowntree guarantee the scientific character of the work, and the signature of Major the Hon. J. J. Astor testifies that this is not a “red” document. It is in fact a sober, objective, unemotional report showing once more that Englishmen know how to meet an im- possible situation without panic and without passion. In addi- tion to a careful study of official returns, the committee made nine illuminating local studies, whose leading results are here published, along with a ninety-page summary and interpreta- tion for the United Kingdom as a whole. Call the roll of great British industries, mining, steel-making, and engineering, ship- building, shipping, and textiles, and Cardiff, Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Sheffield, Woolwich, Glasgow, Manchester, Burn- ley, and Stoke-on-Trent respond in these pages. To deal first with relief, a general, compulsory, contributory scheme of unemployment insurance had gone into effect just before the depression fell. To meet the crisis, the actuarial basis of the plan had to be abandoned at once. Current con- tributions of employers, employees, and the state to the fund were more than matched by state borrowings from past and future funds for the purpose, and thus £67,500,000 was dis- bursed in unemployment benefits during the year ending March 31, 1922. In addition, the unemployed received nearly £8,000,- 000 directly in poor relief (out of a total of poor-law rates more than four times as large), while the government spent on re- lief works not less than £6,000,000, and on miscellaneous relief, including increased school feeding, another £1,500,000, thus bringing the total above £80,000,000. Even so, the government

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Dee. 5, 1923] furnished less than half the living of unemployed families; for their maintenance simply at Rowntree’s poverty line would have cost about £200,000,000 for the year. Manifestly the unem- ployed were still drawing on savings, wearing out old clothes and equipment, making shift as best they could. In addition to direct relief, the government aided in the provision of work through grants to local authorities in aid of housing and other useful enterprises, and through the guaranty of credit to statu- tory authorities and private companies to facilitate export trade and domestic capital undertakings—the last named being a plan with highly interesting theoretical possibilities. What have been the results of this extensive relief work? Let the report answer. “The first and most important feature of the depression is that the widespread physical distress, which was the normal accompaniment of unemployment in pre-war depressions, has been prevented ... by insurance allowances, poor-law relief, and school feeding, at any rate in the classes that suffered first and most before the war. More than that, there is a great deal of evidence that health has been main- tained unimpaired.” The report says simply and honestly: “Health is better than in pre-war depressions, because the pre- war starvation is prevented.” The mental strain, however, is intense and accelerating as months and years pass. Has in- come without work proved demoralizing? “Is there a growing inclination to depend on public relief, a growing reluctance to work? The evidence is rather to the contrary.” Despite the disastrous effects of the loss of regular steady work, as regards the body of the workers “maintenance without work... is at any rate less demoralizing than unemployment without main- tenance.” “The great discovery that has been made is that a system of allowances by which the worst effects of distress are prevented does not necessarily involve widespread demoraliza- tion.” An exception must be made regarding those unfortunate youths who spent in the army the years they should have spent learning a trade. “The fault is not theirs. ... Their case... places a special responsibility on the society that let them come into their present condition.” The local reports indicate little political unrest, though the not illogical demand for full work or full maintenance was occasionally heard. Generally, however, the investigators found a “spirit of caution and acquiescence ... a disposition to grin and bear it, and a distrust of panaceas from whatever quarter they are offered.” “Other politicians besides the Communists have suffered deflation in the depression,” remarks the report, dryly. With characteristic British realism, the writers incidentally face the question whether the war has not readjusted industries and redistributed population so as to make recovery impossible for particular localities. Broadly speaking, their somewhat tentative conclusion is that a more or less catastrophic read- justment was inevitable, and that the only permanent remedy probably lies in a relocation of population (possibly with assisted migration) and its reabsorption into industries which must meet the ever-changing demands of world markets by a perpetual process of technical, commercial, and financial adjust- ment. Into the bottom question of all the report does not enter. Is Great Britain as a whole overpopulated? In other words, is the continuing collapse of her market as an entirety to prove relatively permanent? For a stimulating if unorthodox answer we turn to John A. Hobson’s “The Economics of Unemploy- ment.” The book is essentially a restatement and development of Mr. Hobson’s well-known under-consumption or over-saving theory of crises. Put in a nutshell the theory is this. Under a fairly equal distribution the growing pressure of wants would keep a right balance between the immediate satisfaction of spending and the postponed satisfaction of saving. But as it is, the rich practically cannot spend their income (instance the 1 per cent of American income receivers who enjoy 14 per cent of the national income), and therefore they automatically “apply to the production of capital-goods a proportion of the The Nation 653 aggregate productive power that exceeds the proportion needed, in accordance with existing arts of industry, to supply the con- sumptive goods which are purchased and consumed.” Hence the ceaseless struggle for markets, the constant growth in the energy devoted to selling, as compared with making, goods, and, springing out of the belief in a limited market, the ca’ canny policy of labor, the restrictive policy of the trust, and the na- tional policies of protection and imperialism. And hence the overbuilding and consequent underemployment of plant (in- stance attested engineers’ estimates of “excess capacity” in various American industries ranging mostly from 25 to 50 per cent), and the periodic piling up of unsalable goods, with the consequent crash of prices, shutting down of factories, unem- ployment, and all the well-known phenomena of the business crisis. Mr. Hobson’s remedy, in principle, is simple. “If the surplus income of the rich which produces this congestion and these stoppages were absorbed, either by the increasing share of the workers, or by the needs and uses of an enlightened state, or by both, this economic disease would be remedied.” In slightly more detail, Mr. Hobson urges national ownership of prime monopolies, and control of profits, prices, and conditions of em- ployment in competitive industries, “the whole of this linked up by a tax system whereby society secures for beneficial public services the idle elements of income which do not nourish or evoke productive effort.” Now it is no reply to Mr. Hobson to assert that by checking capital increase he would lessen, for example, the 3 to 4 per cent annual increase in the physical production of goods that has characterized the United States during the past half cen- tury. His point is that too large a proportion of income is saved, that the resulting capital-goods can function only feebly and intermittently, and that smaller proportionate saving with larger proportionate consumption and consequent steadier and more vigorous production would result not only in a larger and more regular flow of consumable commodities, but in an increase in the actual amount of saving, and a consequent greater abso- lute increase of capital-goods than now takes place. It is at this point, then, that his critics must join issue. Recent theo- rists have justly attacked him for giving us:an industrial rather than a monetary theory of the crisis. Yet they have not suc- ceeded in demolishing his basic contention that “bad” distribu- tion inevitably upsets production—and it may be doubted whether they can do so. Few close students of recent quantitative investigations into the distribution of income and savings in the United States, however, and into the relation between bank credit and the price level will probably be willing to accept Mr. Hobson’s theory as a complete explanation of the business cycle. Yet our new knowledge of the large proportion of our saving that is “automatically” effected by corporations and wealthy indi- viduals lends the more force to his contention and presents yet more sharply to disinterested thinking men the challenging question whether, in view of the facts of the cycle, the greater menace to prosperity is to be found in the activities of those who in good faith seek to maintain essentially unchanged our present distribution of income and our machinery of invest- ment, or in the efforts of those who in equally good faith are seeking to forward those modifications which Mr. Hobson sums up as “the progressive movement in the life of the industrial nations.” Certainly the latter group will nowhere find a more thoughtful and reasonable advocate of their proposals than Mr. Hobson. Yet the reflective enthusiast, as he notes the present huge expenditures for armament and war, is likely to pause when he observes Mr. Hobson postulating “an enlightened state,” and one that absorbs increasing income in “beneficial public serv- ices.” Mr. Hobson would doubtless reply, in view of the causa- tion of modern protectionism and imperialism, that his reforms would cut the tap-root of war, and again his critics would be hard put to it for a satisfactory retort.

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654 From these two thought-provoking English books one turns with a measure of impatience to Philip Klein’s “The Burden of Unemployment,” a study of the half-baked, uncoordinated, largely unplanned relief measures undertaken in fifteen Ameri- can cities during the winter of 1921-22. Here is no analysis or study of unemployment, no attempt at all to grapple with the real problem, but rather a handbook for charity workers and improvised mayor’s committees, telling them largely what not to do when the disaster has come. For those who value that sort of thing the book will doubtless prove valuable. The rest of us can only continue in our wonderment that a great Foun- dation endowed with immense resources should forever go on choosing to be only a stretcher-bearer in the war on poverty. Fortunately, in the hunt for the unemployment dragon there are other organizations, even if less richly endowed ones, that have chosen to use the instruments of scientific research to help track the beast to his lair and there if possible to slay him— or at least to cut off the tip of his tail. And they are making progress, despite wars and self-seeking politicians and senti- mentalists and automobiles and movies. HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY An Authentic Novel J. Hardin & Son. By Brand Whitlock. Company. $2. iA the course of a lifetime of desultory reading I have grown, without conscious effort, into the habit of classifying novels as real and unreal. This is necessarily a rough method, and would probably be of slight value as a formula for the higher criticism; but it helps me. I make no pretense of being a higher critic. The unreal novel has the same relation to literature that a vaudeville stunt has to the drama. It is something put together —more or less ingeniously—for the purpose of pleasing, or shocking, or thrilling. Such a novel is a corridor of emptiness in which one hears the echoes of other books and the footfalls of manufactured climaxes. The real novel is set up around a core of truth and insight. Candor is more important than style; and penetration is more important than beauty. When you get through reading a real novel you may or may not agree with its author; and it is even possible that you may not like his book, but you will at least have the refreshing sense of having listened to somebody who has something to say. “J. Hardin & Son” is a real book—genuine, vital, and sincere. It has depth; there is no flatness of the cinema about it. Depth of atmosphere and depth of character. When its people stand in the foreground their shadows stream away behind them. You feel that there is more to the story than you see in the cold type; that all these people have a past; that one must read between the lines. This sense of intimation is one of the great arts of literature. The theme is ancient, but Mr. Whitlock gives it fresh color and substance. It is a story of the spiritual conflict between two generations, between the crystallized, austere, and stubborn will of a puritanical father and the expanding, flexible, artistic spirit of his son. The scene is laid in a small Ohio town, and the story begins in the early eighties, when Paul Hardin is nine years of age. It comes to a close when he is forty-eight, and the sleepy little town has grown into a city fully equipped with railroad yards and beauty parlors. It is a record of a life which, in its early years, vibrated with feeling and temperament. In the course of time the joy of living slowly fades. The father passes away into a stern and rock-bound heaven, we suppose, but the son cannot escape his influence. There is a touch of Ibsen’s “Ghosts” in this uncanny survival of a set of prejudices. In the whole of his life the elder Hardin has never taken a D. Appleton and The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 drink, has never played poker, has never laid hands on a girl, has never enjoyed the vices in any form. Reading between the lines one can see that he has always wanted to do all these things. He makes a joy of renunciation, and his household is one of cheerful gloom. When Paul is about twenty he has a mild affair with a milkmaid on a farm. The news of this adven- ture reaches his father, who happens to be foreman of the grand jury then engaged in improving the morals of the county. He actually summons his own son before the jury for the purpose of holding him up publicly as an immoral object lesson. This is not a burlesque. There are men entirely capable of doing that. Paul is a born artist. What could a born artist do in Maco- chee except become the town drunkard or its richest man? Paul did not care much for liquor, so he turned his vivid imagination to business. His marriage was unhappy and loveless—through inexperience. But he does not escape love. Few people do. The town has a “pretty milliner.” (What conventional devices Whit- lock brings in!) Evelyn is her name, and Paul is genuinely and deeply in love with her. The thing becomes a public scandal, and his wife leaves him. She is as dissatisfied with him as he is with her, but she refuses to divorce him because that would not be proper. He and Evelyn are about to leave together when he is stricken by remorse, gives up his sweetheart, is elected presi- dent of a bank, and goes to the station to meet his wife, who has decided to come back to him. Poor little Evelyn is left standing on a country road, a pathetic figure against a gray sky. It is very annoying, and very much like life. Remorse is the strangest of all sins. It is so useless. None of the great people of antiquity, except the Jews, knew anything of remorse. The old Jews cultivated it in a small and timid way, especially when their own rascality got them into trouble. The Puritans borrowed the idea from the Jews and improved it. Before they got through they had made it a really big thing. They left it, together with the Puritan conscience, as their legacy to the world, just as a churlish tenant, before giving up a house, sometimes throws a dead cat into the well. “J. Hardin & Son” is a novel about the Puritan conscience and its attendant remorse. It is a novel of revolt. Although it is not a great book, it is a fine one. It falls short of greatness because —at least, so I think—Mr. Whitlock did not take enough pains in writing it. I suspect him of composing it on a typewriter. Over whole pages its sentences have a tendency to become flat and soggy. The book has beauty, but it has little or no charm. It is excellent in spite of its style. It is an authentic novel, and is well worth reading. W. E. WoopwaArpD The Degradation of the Human Spirit Christ or Mars? By Will Irwin. $1.50. N “Christ or Mars?” Mr. Irwin continues to garner the ripe fruit of his experiences as a reporter of the great war. His “The Next War” summed up massively the physical indict- ment of war—the obvious lessons to be learned from the first world war, to date unheeded, and the relentless logic of the pre- paredness doctrine, eventuating in the self-destruction of mili- tarism. If many of the predictions made in this earlier volume may have seemed at the time excessive, the last two years have amply proved that Mr. Irwin understated rather than over- stated the case against modern war and the imminence of an- other, possibly final, attack of this suicidal mania. The present volume is concerned with the spiritual balance sheet of war, and Mr. Irwin, like Sir Philip Gibbs—and one might add every enlightened observer at close range of the conduct of the recent war—presents the inescapable conclusion that modern warfare having discarded the last vestige of chivalry and re- straint has become nothing less than mass murder and destruc- tion, conducted for the first time with the resources and thor- D. Appleton and Company.

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Dec. 5, 1923] (rer re ee EE ee RR eee oughness of science. There is practically nothing to be said for this sort of war on the spiritual side, and the military apologists for war hardly need confutation. Spiritually, as physically and economically, war has become a dead loss to humanity. Mr. Irwin’s exceptional opportunities for the study of war as scientific slaughter and his temperate, unpartisan spirit, the spirit of a kindly, sympathetic citizen of the world with the beguiling American optimism of “It can be done!” make all that he says about its phenomena valuable testimony. Yet his conclusion—which is the special message of this book—deeply felt and often tenderly expressed as it is, that somehow hu- manity must get Christianity en masse, that the organized churches of the Christian faith must make the abolition of war their next great crusade, is not convincing on the evidence cited in the book itself of the inability of Christian principles, pro- fessed by the vast majority of the belligerents, even to humanize the last atrocious conflict. The fact would rather seem to have been proved incontrovertibly by the late war that modern peo- ples are not Christian either in spirit or in belief, and that for nearly two thousand years they have been paying a lip service to a faith that six days out of seven, if not on the seventh, their actions denied. The mournful spectacle of the priests of all Christian churches appealing simultaneously to a common God for victory over their enemies, and their death and destruc- tion, would seem to have been sufficient to expose finally the pretense of the belief that our modern world is Christian in any sincere sense of the word. The fact that thousands of Chris- tian ministers found no inconsistency in leading the hymn of hate, in urging their peoples into the bloody and unchristian arbitrament of arms, felt no sense of hypocrisy in standing before their congregations in the name of Christ and denounc- ing the Hun (or the Englishman as the case might be) would seem to the clear mind to prove conclusively that modern Chris- tianity is not even remotely concerned with the teachings of Christ. Society of Friends and their very limited appeal to the peoples of today is but another proof of the absence of that Christian spirit in modern society which Mr. Irwin so confidently depends upon to work the mightiest miracle of all time. No! It would seem wiser to accept the overwhelming proofs of the recent crisis that ours is not basically a Christian world, although it has been calling itself such, and seek boldly for those actual faiths according to which man lives today in West- ern Europe and North America—not merely professes on Sun- day, but lives seven days in the week and for which he is willing to lay down, not only his life and those of his sons and brothers, but also his money. In that last word, not lightly dropped, would seem to lie a more promising path toward the abolition of war than the one optimistically advocated by Mr. Irwin. Mr. Irwin accepts as a matter of course the economic origin of all modern wars. Why not go the necessary further step and recognize that modern society because of this fact exists in a perpetual condition of endemic or incipient war? In order to eradicate the horrible manifestations of the disease at its explosive stage, it would seem necessary to check its operations in the incipient stages, that is in our times of so- called peace. Assuming, as Mr. Irwin assumes, and as every honest minded student of the case must assume, that wars are economic in origin, the cure must be made along economic lines, i.e., along lines of business—money. It is in man’s lack of con- trol of the economic garment of his life, his attitude toward property, that the root of his suicidal mania is to be found— and its cure. Incidentally, Mr. Irwin himself recognizes that great moral reforms such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition have been ultimately brought about by a widespread realization of the economic waste in the customary practices. Why not therefore in war? The white races will give up the practice of war when the masses of their people recognize that war no longer pays. That is obvious to many already, but unfortunately it is not The Nation The one sect that acted their Christianity was the true as yet for the profiteer—and every modern business man is a potential profiteer—and the politician, for both see at least an immediate profit in the social disturbance attendant upon war. Until they can be convinced of the futility of war for them and their satellites, the military-minded, the popular jour- nalist, and other social scavengers, war will continue to breed in times of peace. As always it is a race between man’s intelli- gence, inhibited by old instincts and drugged by interested propaganda, and his parasites. Which will win the day nobody can predict, but from all signs it would seem that the race had got nearly to the last lap. ROBERT HERRICK Modern Ghosts Uncanny Stories. By May Sinclair. $2.50. Changeling and Other Stories. Company. $2. oo we are all of us more or less pragmatists, and even our ministers are busily engaged in destroying the foun- tain-head of religion by assuring us that this is a common- sense world. When we fear we generally fear quite tangible things, for the matter-of-fact light of noon which floods our existence is not conducive to that terror of the unknown which is terror indeed. Yet the ghost story can still sometimes evoke a very pleasant dread if only it is irrational enough, if only it is far enough away from our prosaic belief in a universe of natural law. When it can eerily suggest that the world has gone mad and can make us for a moment believe that the sane and commonplace regularity of nature, which our experience and our science have taught us to rely upon, has given way, so that any unheard of thing may happen, then abysses open before the imagination, and it is pleasant to realize vaguely for a moment the unstable and mysterious world in which our primitive ancestors lived in terror. But such a thrill is purely atavistic and cannot be modern- ized. Any attempt to state mere common sense in the terms of the mystagogue is an abomination, and hence comes the failure of May Sinelair’s seven stories of the supernatural which are far too rational to produce either wonder or terror. Miss Sinclair is neither primitive nor romantic, and the un- canny forces which she calls into play are born not of her religious sense (the only true begetter of the world of terror) but of her ethical earnestness, so that her stories have the cold- ness of theology instead of the glamor of legend. Each super- natural force works logically to punish some vice and the result may be edifying but is certainly not beautiful. When ghosts become reasonable the ghost story dies. Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched and The Flaw in the Crystal are typical. In the first a woman who has a feeble little affair with a man she does not love is punished by being compelled to pass an eternity of loathsome union with him; in the second, Agatha Verall discovers that the mysterious power which she has of curing afflicted people is lost when her crystal is flawed by earthly love for one of her patients. Essentially these stories are mere moral fables, and the moral scheme which they exhibit is a rather anemic one at that, so that the stories not only fail to thrill but seem petty in addi- tion. Surely Dante would never have deemed worthy of hell and the unquenchable fires so tepid a sinner as the heroine of the first story who was hardly guilty of anything more terrible than vulgarity. Sin, if there is such a thing, is surely something more important and passionate than a lapse in taste, and Byron’s fancy of a God who said on the judgment day to trembling mankind, “Fools go your way, do you suppose I would take the trouble to damn such creatures as you?” would seem quite adequate for her case. Only a very vulgar God would find it worth while to punish such a vulgarian. If in our fiction we are to upset the world it should be for something worth disturbing nature for. The Macmillan Company. By Donn Byrne. The Century

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656 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 eee nee If Miss Sinclair did not have her remarkable power of telling almost any story with amazing succinctness she would not, in the present case, stir the reviewer to so much protest, but it is maddening to see such skill wasted upon such trivial material. She cannot but arouse a certain amount of interest and admiration but essentially these stories are ghostly only in their complete unreality. They suggest not a passionate sense of life and a rich experience but a very skilful juggling with imagined incidents and hypothetical motives—the work of a person who has spent her time in perfecting artifice rather than in observation or experience. Miss Sinclair would call before our imaginations the unknown world beyond the limits of human experience, but there broods over her work a spirit which seems to come not from the vast mysteries but from some quiet, curtained room where a retired lady moves decorously about to the accompaniment of the discreet rustlings of her silk. She has in the past sometimes described greatly a very limited world but she is lost when she strays even into the more passionate world which we know, let alone when she would penetrate the immensities. Mr. Donn Byrne, on the other hand, could no doubt write excellent ghost stories if he liked; he has the sense of wonder. But the everyday world seems to him so delightful and so strange that he is not tempted to go elsewhere, and he can make a metropolitan courtroom seem more uncanny than Miss Sinclair’s Beyond. No other contemporary writer of fiction save James Stevens is so naively or unashamedly romantic and few, if any, are better able to hypnotize the reader into believ- ing that this drab world is as glamorous as fairyland. If one were able to examine his plots in cold blood many of them might seem both preposterous and a little bit cheap in their unrestrained romanticism, but his exuberance and the rich poetry of his language hold the critical faculty prisoner and one listens to him as one listens to some inspired liar—as, for instance, the poor harassed mother listened to Peer Gynt and his ravishing fabrications. His secret, I think, is merely the secret of sincerity. He writes romantically not because he believes that “people have enough of the unpleasant in their own lives” or because we “ought to look on the bright side of things,” but simply because, being endowed very richly with one of the famous Celtic tem- peraments, he sees everything invested with the glamor of his own enthusiasm. There is a folk twang to his speech and a folk twang to his poetry which is born naturally from the hunger for wonder so characteristic of his race. Drunk with life and drunk with words, he rushes along so exuberantly and joyfully that we can only stop in amazed gratification to find that a soul so genuinely naive can inhabit the body of a mod- ern writer and invest rather foolish stories with such glamor. He amd some of his fellow-Irishmen have a flavor which is unique in modern literature. J. W. KRuTCH Our Changing Constitution Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory. By John W. Burgess. Columbia University Press. $1.75. M R. BURGESS enjoys the distinction of being the creator of the first school of political science in America. By wise academic statesmanship he picked some of his students for training abroad in jurisprudence, legal history, and public law, found them posts as teachers of history to sophomores, and then with their aid developed a graduate school devoted to the-study of the art or science or philosophy or practice of government. Now, over a decade after his retirement from active teaching, he surveys the recent changes in American constitutional theory and practice in a small volume designed especially, as he says, for the more than ten thousand students whom he has been privileged to instruct, as a “maybe, final word from their old teacher.” It will not distress him that the welcome extended by them to this testament does not carry full agreement with all its clauses; for he closes his introduction with the wisdom that intolerance of difference of opinion is death to our free institu- tions and that such difference must be not merely tolerated and respected but “must be sought, invited, and encouraged, for only through the clash of opinion and the attrition of thought can man press onward toward the goal of truth and the perfection of civilization.” Such difference of opinion is certain to be engendered by Mr. Burgess’s study of constitutional theory. Agreement and dis- agreement will alternate from page to page. To followers of herded opinion the author’s judgments on recent constitutional changes will seem a strange motley of brands and mavericks. There are laments dear to the editorial hearts of the New York Times, the New York Nation, and what was yesterday the New York Call. It was a mistake to pass the income-tax amendment, the prohibition amendment, and the woman-suffrage amendment. We have violated cherished constitutional principles of the Fathers in compelling conscripts to fight a foreign war, in loan- ing money to foreign governments, and in forbidding men to speak ill of our form of government and jailing them for ex- pression of opinion. The Espionage Law found another name for treason and thereby escaped the constitutional restric- tions on definition and punishment of treason. The Spanish War was unnecessary and unwise, and participation in the League of Nations would be worse. Such conclusions, viewed loosely, make Mr. Burgess seem a man divided against him- self. Yet those familiar with his philosophic foundations and his modes of reasoning will anticipate that the interesting and significant attraction of his essay is the manner in which these superficial diversities are shown to have an inner unity. Mr. Burgess derives his principles of “sound political science” from some fundamental concepts reached by a priori reasoning and validated, he believes, by experience. Of these the primary one is the separation of government from the supreme power in a state. As a necessary corollary there must be the duly reserved constitutional immunities of the individual protected by an in- dependent judiciary. For government of wide areas there must be the restriction of the powers of the central government to the scope of interests plainly national. In the past our American system admirably clung to these ideals. Of late years we have been forsaking them. Obviously the national income tax, the war and the Volstead Act greatly exalted the national govern- ment at the expense of both the states and the individual. Woman suffrage is somewhat harder to fit into the conceptual picture. The author does it by pointing out that women have always been the leaders in the fine enterprise of what he calls “voluntary socialism”—another name for charity. Now with the ballot they are likely to seek the same ends by political action and thus to promote “the gradual expansion of state socialism at the cost of the great American system of volun- tary socialism, which has been our glory and safety.” While Mr. Burgess says that he has “undertaken to make a statement, to trace a historical movement, not to advance an argument or file a plea,” it is not hard to discern where his own judgments lead him. What interests us most is the basis of those judgments. Do they come from the principles of “sound political science” discovered or evolved by the scholar through the use of some objective right reason in his study, as Mr. Burgess undoubtedly sincerely believes, or are they after all only the individual preferences of an individual man influenced by his environments, his tastes, and his interests, gathered up into a conceptual system which has room for them or which, if necessary, is unconsciously expanded to make room for them? This is a question which can never receive a hundred per cent answer. It must be a matter of more or less. It is easy to demonstrate that the so-called principles of constitutional law declared in Supreme Court decisions are in no small part the product of individual predilections of the judges. It is hard to doubt that the principles of sound political science are not also of fallible human origin. Certainly the process of gov- ernment will not follow the orderly concepts of the philosophic a a

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 657 The Complete Poems of : ert Loui From Immigrant Robert Louis Stevenson Among them are more than 200 to Inventor poems never before published except in This amazing life story of a great a limited edition. Photogravure portrait. $4.00 Americanscientist, once a Serbian herds- boy, unfolds an inspiring romance of sci- . : ence. Second printing. Illustrated. $4.00 The Short Stories of | Robert Louis Stevenson a4 By Proressor A. T. OLMsTEAD This is the first complete collection in one volume. Histor y of Assyria By Wiri1aM Harris ARNOLD This colorful account of the life cycle of a great empire is one Ventures in Book Collecting Gecaddlarineine of the finest historical narratives ever written : ae Illustrated. $7.50 A book of rarecharm. With photographs and facsimiles. $3.50 By Micuaet Pupin $2.50 A Son at the Front ONE-DOLLAR EDITION By Edith Wharton By the Rr. Hon. Winston S. CHURCHILL The Americanization “Extraordinary power and : i E d Bok begun Wn. ‘Lyon The World Crisis, 1915 ' of roe ok Phelps. $2.00 The second book in a great masterwork of historical fbi renee he ae re f| writing, dealing with the most dramatic year of the war. pant Bf ibis book. $4 oe ie By the same author: With maps. $6.50 ISI = . $6.50 | vs Captires | The World Crisis, 1911-1914 With maps. $6.50 | Es By Jobn Galsworthy : — aren, taht Stories by a master of the Beat story forth. By WatTEerR Damroscu Theodore Roosevelt’s Fourth printing. $2.00 My Musical Life Letters to His Children le These recollections of perhaps the best-known figure in the Sone large printing of i musical world of America form one of the most readable and il- this edition. $1.00 Juminating musical memoirs ever published. ane Tie rlape of Illustrated. $4.00 i Happiness By Proressor E. M. East Companionable Books en ee nee Mankind at the Crossroads By Henry van Dyke ee Ween he iee A startling book by the former Acting Chief of the Statistics “The actual and positive § i Division of the United States Food Administration which shows best which the craft of criti- sy the world to be dangerously near the margin of starvation. cism in the English lan- io} Illustrated. $3.50 guage Ep m recent years produced.” By Woodward Boyd As I Like It Cui S:.00. ie Se A brilliant new novel by the Brilliant and witty discussions of the books, plays, and timely author of “The Love Leg- questions of the day by a foremost critic who has come more and ye end. $2.00 more to occupy the position of friend and adviser to the reading = 2 public. $2.00 ‘ B American Artists , ere SS EE By Royal Cortissoz Holland Under Queen = 5 Studies of many of the most Wilkehnine 7 New Books for Boys and Girls significant figures in Am : ican painting. valuable By Prof. A. J. Barnouw Str WALTER Scotr’s Quentin Durward contribution to the bistory A concise and interesting : a ‘ of our art. $3.00 history. Illustrated. $3.00 celebrates its hundredth anniversary this year by appear- |} ing in anew edition with beautiful full-color illustrations by |} A : ay 8 «* CC. BossERON CHAMBERS. $3.50 |f ES y Sit dts do} i yn ES By KENNETH GRAHAME |f From McKinley to The Children’s Bible a See ey : . Harding PETAL Serna and | ey inetanetoninr eas The Wind in | By El FL. Koblsaar C. F. Kent the Willows 4 An illuminating volume of y reminiscences by one who ing. A book approved by was “‘brutal friend”’ to five clergy and educators every- 3 Presidents. Illustrated. where. $3.50 Pro Teter toe aT ere eesegrrresee ese eT: $3.00 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 597 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK OE Now in its fifth large print- A new edition, with delightful illustrations in color and line by Nancy BARNHART. $3.00 When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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HAUUUAVCV AAU UAUAT AT iy eee eee rere ee errr THE DANCE OF LIFE HAVELOCK ELLIS “The philosophy of the great- est thinker of our day.”—Phila- “One delphia Public Ledger. of the few great books of the century.”—Benjamin De Cas- eres. “One of the most beau- tiful and most thrilling books I ever read.”—Ben Ray Redman. (Fifth printing) $4.00 RIVERSIDE BOOKSHELF An ideal library for boys and girls beautifully made and illus- trated in full color, by E. Boyd Smith, Tenggren Harold Brett, Heath Robinson and Klebor Hall. Now ready: The Story of a Bad Boy, A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, Two Years Before the Mast, Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Water Babies, Auto- bography of Franklin, Ivanhoe. Hach $2.00. Send for pro- spectus. RICHARD OLNEY HENRY JAMES As Attorney-General and Secretary of State during the Cleve- land Administration Richard Olney had a notable share in mould- ing America’s destiny. Illustrated, $5.00 THE INQUISITION HOFFMAN NICKERSON With an introduction by Hilaire Belloc and an epilogue on pro- hibition in America. $4.00 PERSONALITY IN THE MAKING JOSEPH H. COFFIN An illuminating study of the elements of personality. $2.50 ROBERT E. LEE: A PLAY JOHN DRINKWATER ® “Admirably successful in the delineation of Lee.”—Gamaliel Bradford in the New York Hvening Post. $1.50 New Books for FROM HOUGHTON N MY RHINEI General H The frank and intimate diary of the cor American who was in the position throughou impartial and authoritative information on th JAPANESE POETRY CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE A complete history of Japanese poetry with translations of hundred poems. Illustrated in color from Japanese prints. § SOCIAL LIFE IN EGYPT W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE Daily life, art, fashions, etc., described by the foremost Eg tologist. Makes ancient Egypt as vivid as modern America. $ DIPLOMATIC PORTRAIT W. P. CRESSON Famous statesmen of the period of the Monroe Doctrine t liantly portrayed. : Illustrated, §$ FORTY YEARS IN MY BOOKSHOP WALTER T. SPENCER Reminiscences of one of England’s most famous rare bh dealers. “A gossipy enjoyable volume no book-lover should mi —British Weekly. Lavishly illustrated, $ || LANDS OF THE THUNDERBOLT A NEW Hist 2 a ee THE NATIC = The people and the strange religions of the Himalayas vividly . = described by the Governor of Bengal. Illustrated, $5.00 m J Edited by = THE OLDER UNIVERSITIES OF This new history of the world is a work = ENGLAND tion of Mr. Buchan, by more than one hundz = ALBERT MANSBRIDGE he covers. By discarding non-essentials, and = Not merely an historical account of Oxford and Cambridge duced a history unlike any that has hitherto b ad colleges, but an inter i i in the intellectual, 7 11 = political and religions AEE of Regidied and. thi eeorhl “With veo of today. The following volumes will = an introduction by Samuel E. Morison. Illustrated, $2.50 British-America, Baltic and Caucasian States. EH ccc When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation : | ;

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Dee. 5, 1923] The Nation ation’’ Readers yT OF LIN COMPANY ) JOURNAL . ALLEN ur Army of Occupation on the Rhine, the one and the Ruhr problem. Americans who seek situation can find it in this book. Illus. $6.00 LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE JOSEPH QUINCY ADAMS Prof. Adams, I believe, has come nearest to a legitimate and hentic portrait.”"—Wm. A. Neilson. Illustrated, $7.50 TENNYSON HAROLD NICOLSON Exactly the kind of provocative book to add zest to a new ation of the nineteenth century.’—New York Times. $4.00 HANDEL NEWMAN FLOWER . definitive biography that illuminates not only Handel but his ire period. Lavishly illustrated, $7.50 GARRULITIES OF AN Ociogenarian Editor HENRY HOLT ixty years as a publisher are covered in this volume of genial iniscences and illuminating sketches of famous men and women. $4.00 i THE WORLD OF TODAY BUCHAN historical importance written, under the direc- nty contributors, each an expert in the field ng on the vital realities, the authors have pro- _and of the widest practical value to men and d this fall: France, Japan, Italy, Yugoslavia, prospectus. Each $5.00 DAMAGED SOULS GAMALIEL BRADFORD “Biography at its best re- vealing with the accuracy of science, and the beauty of art, the very soul.”—Boston Her- ald. “A stupendous and ar- resting book. Nothing short of a triumph.”—JN., Y. Tribune. (Fifth printing) Illus., $3.50 MY GARDEN OF MEMORY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN “Here are the same sprightliness, gaiety, unquenchable zest that made her own delightful Penelope so engaging a figure.”—N. Y. Post. Illustrated, $5.00 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY BLISS PERRY Literary essays by the Professor of English at Harvard om Poetry and Progress, Emerson’s Savings Bank, Wilson as a Man of Letters, Literary Criticism in American Periodicals, etc. $2.00 THE CHEERFUL GIVER SAMUEL MC CHORD CROTHERS Delightful sketches by one of America’s best known essayists including “Satan Among the Biographers,” “New Poets and Poets Not So New,” “The Literary Taste of My Great-Grand- mother,” “The Laboratory Method in Morals.” $6.06 GROUPS AND COUPLES FRANCES LESTER WARNER A domestic symphony by the author of “Endicott and I,” and “Life’s Minor Collisions.” $1.75 THE MAGICAL CHANCE DALLAS LORE SHARP Essays for the young at heart who see life as an adventure. “A health giving book, a tonic.”—San Francisco Journal, $1.76 THE COLLECTOR’S WHATNOT A guide to semi-antiqueing and a monument to the mustache- cup period. Delicious nonsense. Frightfully illustrated, $2.58 THE PIPER, a periodical devoted to books and their authers, will be sent free on application to Houghton Mifflin Co., 2 Park St., Boston. MUTT EN When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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660 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 inquirer. Nevertheless, it is well to have such concepts set be- fore us, and to be cautioned that we should think of the wisdom of the means we choose as well as the wisdom of the ends we seek. It is well to be brought face to face with the question whether we are consciously picking our way or are wandering blindly. Yet for all this it is hard to dismiss the doubt whether in such a human enterprise as government we can wisely steer our course by the beacon of ideal principles assumed to be in- herent in some wise natural order. Mr. Burgess must find most of us more consciously pragmatic in our judgments than he is and must leave some of us wondering whether his own judg- ments are not more personal and more pragmatic than he is aware. THOMAS REED POWELL A Real Interpretation Mexico: An Interpretation. By Carleton Beals. B. W. Huebsch. $2.50. M® CARLETON BEALS is unusually well qualified to write of present-day Mexico. He lived intimately with the closing events of Carranza’s rule. He has been a ringside wit- ness of what he shrewdly calls the “revindicating revolution,” the regime of Obregon, Calles, and De la Huerta. Travel in Spain gave him a first-hand acquaintance with Mexico’s Euro- pean heritage. Two years in Italy, sandwiched between his Mexican experiences, permitted close study of the rise and col- lapse of its proletarian movement and the coming of Fascismo. To this special equipment he brings a luxuriant historical back- ground, an unfettered mind, keen observation, and a broad human sympathy. ‘Mexico: An Interpretation,” is the product of these qualifications. The approach is but partly narrative. He unravels the various strands that make the Mexican fabric—the Mexican proletariat, the middle class, the aristocracy, the church, the military, the women, the foreigner. The color and movement of present-day Mexico seep through and through his crafts- manship—a rare blending of art and scientific fidelity. His hues are riotously flung; his words paint the crimsons, oranges, and purples of the Mexican blood, sunlight, and crowds and impart to them the caustic essence of the native red chile. His touch is daring, unfaltering, and searing; there is no special pleading. One interpretation invites questioning. “The pacific Maya,” says Mr. Beals, “hates the Aztecs, Zapotecas, and Mix- tecas.” He foresees the secession of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Chiapas, and Campeche, “the day a strong Central American republic is created.” This is assuming a good deal. Given an unhindered development the Guatemalan Mayas would be more likely to seek, through annexation with Mexico, the emancipation which they see their Yucatecan blood brothers achieving. But this, too, is speculation. What, too, is the basis for the sweeping statement “the Mes- tizo though more Indian than Spanish has less moral integrity than the former. He is skilled in treachery, cunning, and self- seeking.” This disposal of half of Mexico’s people seems at variance with Mr. Beals’s otherwise level-eyed questioning of widespread assumptions. His indorsement gives the statement strength, but one longs for evidence. Nor is he easy to fol- low, when after the unsparing condemnation of a cold recital of the facts in President Wilson’s Mexican “policy” he con- cludes: “It cannot be gainsaid that he broadened and liberal- ized the Monroe Doctrine; and his idealism, however mis- directed, cannot upon this point be questioned.” Why not? Haiti and Santo Domingo are throbbing interrogation points. The unwarranted bombardment of Vera Cruz and the subse- quent abandonment of really endangered Americans in Tampico have led some Americans to conclude that at best President Wilson rationalized as “idealism” his prejudices, antipathies, his determination that what he conceived to be, must be. Omission from the book of mention of the new cultural efforts in Mexico is doubtless due to Mr. Beals’s connection with the Department of Education. Less explicable is the abrupt dis- posal of the complex agrarian tangle which he leaves by saying simply “The problem is now to modernize the ejido system.” Of course modernization (in consonance with the aspirations of her people) is the problem of every phase of Mexican life. Working out this problem is something else. To point out that a few of Mr. Beals’s brilliant portraits seem slightly overcolored, that his selection of a few cases of incest merely weakens his condemnation of the Mexican aris- tocracy, that his American colony pictures its worst and to some extent its departed elements, is not to alter my judgment that on the whole his book is an extraordinary achievement in artistic photography, shrewd analysis, and masterly condensa- tion. It has lifted the steadily rising level of contemporary literature about Mexico several notches. Like Bertrand Rus- sell in his “Problem of China” Mr. Beals has accomplished the unusual feat of creating a book worth reading even by those who have no especial interest in the country described. It is a contribution to current world thought. ERNEST GRUENING In the Image of Bigness Birds, Beasts and Flowers. By D. H. Lawrence. Thomas Selt- zer. $2.50. T HE title of Mr. Lawrence’s new volume of poems might have been “Men, Women and Frogs”; it might have been “Tulips and Chimneys”; it might have been anything. For although Mr. Lawrence looked at birds, beasts, and flowers and wrote a book, he saw in those things only what he was born to see, and he saw it with the same kind of energy that he has displayed in all his books, whatever their subjects. No volume better than this one, and it is his best effort in poetry so far, reveals the quality of the gaze with which he fixes the world—a fierce and sullen gaze, groping and grasping and hugging tight. And no volume, per- haps, is so forcible an affirmation of the dark truth which for him exists beneath the pale surfaces of life. He looks at the lava congealed on the slopes of Etna, and cries: “My heart will know no peace Till the hill bursts.” He looks at the grape, and remembers with anger that portions of mankind have forgotten how to be drunk. “Soberness, sobriety. It is like the agonized perverseness of a child heavy with sleep, yet fighting, fighting to keep awake; Soberness, sobriety, with heavy eyes propped open.” Whenever he looks at people—and he hates people—he sees them gray, correct, and hard. He is bored by the ideal intellect that freezes and rarefies the universe; he wants the distant dusk again, wherein all things seem large and strangely powerful. He is sick of the flatness of democracy; he is enraged by the proprieties of the great middle mass: “T long to see its chock-full crowdedness And glutted squirming populousness on fire Like a field of filthy weeds Burnt back to ash, And then to see the new, real souls sprout up. Not this vast rotting cabbage-patch we call the world; But from the ash-scarred fallow New wild souls.” Much as he scorns the ideas of Walt Whitman, like Whitman he asks that the world be made over in the image of bigness. Like Whitman, too, he often is incoherent and merely strident; but when he hits he hits like thunder. His utterance, usually prose, has a way of becoming, through sheer energy and insis- tence, prophetic and so poetic. He cannot or will not work for an effect in the ordinary way. He despises the patience with which most poets refine their lines until they can penetrate the imag-

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Dec. 5, 1923] ‘The Nation 661 HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY 383 Madison Ave., New York By Edith Summers Kelley An Extraordinary Novel of the Kentucky Tobacco Country ‘Humor and strength and beauty; complete reality without the soggy and undistinguished chronicling of most realists.”— Sinclair Lewis. “T think it is a truly great book, in the great tradition of fic- tion. I cannot think Of anything else in our American fiction that comes up to it in truth and beauty and quiet, tremendous power.”—Floyd Dell. $2.00 MUSICAL CHRONICLE By Paul Rosenfeld Author of Musical Portraits. A book that all music lovers should own, Mr. Rosenfeld can express as well as any living writer the charm of music. It is more than musical criticism ; it is an interpretation of modern life through music. “It gives the music lover new strength to get from music the stimulus it carries.”’—Chicago Daily News. $3.00 MASKS AND DEMONS By Kenneth Macgowan Author of Continental Stagecraft Among primitive peoples religion and drama met in the mask wherein man personified his gods. The book concerns primi- tive religion and exotic art, as well as new dramatic move- ments. With over 80 plates and 150 illustrations by Herman Rosse. $5.00 MIDWEST PORTRAITS By Harry Hansen Literary Editor, Chicago Daily News The tale of Chicago’s literary renaissance and its creators. “Humanity is, indeed, the chief quality of Mr. Hansen’s book. His method of criticism is frankly personal. A book full of the quality of Midwestern letters and full of the spirit of the Middle West.”—Robert Morss Lovett in the New Republic. $2.50 The RECREATING of the INDIVIDUAL By Beatrice M. Hinkle, M. D. A Study of Psychological Types and Their Relation to Psychoanalysis The most important work on this subject in any language. The first adequate presentation in English of the new concep- tion of psychoanalysis—the complete breaking away from Freud’s idea that sex is all-in-all. A study of “psychological types’—a knowledge of which Walter Lippmann has said is the most important knowledge we can acquire in our dealings with life. $4.50 THE LIFE OF CALEB CUSHING By Claude M. Fuess “Caleb Cushing was the intimate friend or enemy, practically, of every prominent American in any part of the country and in every walk of life. His public services were enormous. Indeed to tell the life of Cushing is to write the history of the country. He was in the forefront of everything.”—New York Herald. Two Volumes, Illustrated, boxed, $10.00 HARPER & BROTHERS Publishers Since 1817 49 EAST 33rd STREET, NEW YORK Grover Cleveland: The Man and the Statesman By Robert McElroy Edwards Professor of History, Princeton University With an Introduction by Elihu Root shi FASCINATING biography of one of the really great figures of our time. Mr. McElroy has written this life story impartially and yet vividly. His two volumes deserve a place among the few political biographies that stand out conspicuously as contributions to literature.”—Lawrence F, Abbott in the New York Herald. Two Volumes, Boxed, $10.00 History Erasmus: A Study of His Life of Art of His Ideals, and of His Place in History. By Preserved Smith, Ph.D. Professor of History, Cornell Univ. By Elie Faure More than 200 illustrations in each volume. Volume I, “An- cient Art’; Volume II, “Medi- “Here is skill in personal aeval Art; Volume III, “‘Renais- portraiture and a success in sance Art.” Ready in Decem- historical narrative which could ber, Volume IV, “Modern Art.” hardly be excelled.’’ — Boston $7.50 Each Herald. $4.00 Adventuresin Journalism By Philip Gibbs Author of “New It Can Be Told” nA THRILLING inside story of the changing Europe of the last quarter of a century, by a world-famous free lance. “This is an account of real romance, a narrative that is scarcely paralleled in the literature of this decade.”—P. A. Kinsley, in the Philadelphia Record. $2.50 Bunk By W. E. Woodward Lummox By Fannie Hurst “Bertha, the lummox, is made to stand out titanic and au- thentic, and perhaps a perma- . nent iGedre’ in the. American For intelligent people the book gallery.—Laurence Stallings, in will be a delight.”—Carl Van the New York World. $2.00 Doren, in The Nation. $2.00 The Harp mn Se And Other Poems By Edna St. Vincent Millay A SIGNIFICANT new volume by America’s most dis- tinguished young poet. The exquisite title poem is the winner of the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. $2.00 In uniform edition, “The Lamp and the Bell,” “A Few Figs From Thistles.” $1.50 Each “Bunk is satire seasoned with wisdom, mellow and_ learned. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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ination and, once within, dilate it. He is direct. His words are huge stones that he hurls with intent to crush his subject into submission. And at least half of the time the result is great. The pieces here on Persephone, on humming birds, on goats, on asses, on fishes, on snakes, are masterpieces in their kind. And one had better get out of the way of his elephants: “The best is the Pera-hera, at midnight, under the tropical stars, With a pale little wisp of a Prince of Wales, diffident, up in a small pagoda on the temple side And white people in evening dress buzzing and crowding the stand upon the grass below and opposite: And at last the Pera-hera procession, flambeaux aloft in the tropical night, of blazing cocoanut, Naked dark men beneath, And the huge frontal of three great elephants stepping forth to the tom-tom’s beat, in the torchlight, Slowly sailing in gorgeous apparel through the flamelight, in front of a towering, grimacing white image of wood.” MARK VAN DOREN The American Jail Crucibles of Crime. By Joseph F. Fishman. Press. $2. HEN, in 1921, at the semi-centennial meeting of the American Prison Association, Dr. Hastings Hart, in making his report on County Jails, said, “Men and women of the American Prison Association, I charge you with fifty years of neglect of the most hopeful and most deserving part of our prison population,” he spoke the conviction of all thoughtful students of penology in the United States. Joseph F. Fishman adds renewed emphasis to this charge of neglect in his recent volume on the American jail—“Crucibles of Crime.” Perhaps the reason for the neglect of these institutions by the public is contained upon the title-page of his book. There you will find beneath his name these words: “For many years the only inspector of prisons for the United States Government in territory embracing the United States, Alaska, and Porto Rico; and independent prison investigator and consultant for Federal, State, and Municipal governments.” Surely, with but a single light-bringer, it is quite understandable why public opinion in America has been inert and indifferent to the prob- lem about which the American people have never been ade- quately informed. If Mr. Fishman’s voice has been single thus far, he has now taken our most characteristic and perhaps most effective means for its multiplication—the publishing of a book of his findings. The volume is a sustained and searching indictment of our American jails of which he has visited approximately fifteen hundred during the past sixteen years. No section of the country is omitted from his general indictment, and few jails in the country are excluded from his condemnation. “As they stand at present the jails of the United States, generally speak- ing, are giant crucibles of crime. Into them are thrown helter- skelter the old, the young, the guilty, the innocent, the diseased, the healthy, the hardened, and the susceptible, there to be mixed with further ingredients of filth, vermin, cold, darkness, stagnant air, overcrowding, bad plumbing, and all brought to a boil by the fires of complete idleness. Only the strongest material ean resist such fusion.” His volume is a record of human degradation—the product of public indifference, of administrative incompetence and igno- rance, and political exploitation which has acquired national proportions. It is an outspoken record of fact that makes it a good report and in some cases a moving report, in spite of its many literary defects. Throughout the book there is a certain inevitableness about the horror of conditions in American jails. It seems to be an evil thing out of which evil alone comes. Yet Mr. Fishman assures us that the main requirements for remedying these Cosmopolis The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 conditions are “common sense and some intelligent attention to the matter.” He enumerates some specific remedies that would eliminate the present revolting conditions, and each one in turn seems to be informed by common sense and practical experience. Yet, as one lays down the book, one realizes that facts— even facts vividly presented—will not compel a remedy. Social change is not a question of fact but of social purpose. It will require the burning zeal of men who care about their fellow- men, who see with a clear vision what the social purpose of our American jail should be, and who can and will interpret this new purpose to the citizenship. The public needs the presence of vibrant personalities—such as a John Howard or an Eliza- beth Fry of a century ago, or a Thomas Mott Osborne of our own time. SPENCER MILLER A Feminist’s Point of View Women of the French Revolution. By Winifred Stephens. E. P. Dutton and Company. $5. Tae Winifred Stephens is a feminist can be deduced with- out knowing any more about her than what is to be gath- ered from this book. It is apparent everywhere—in her indig- nation at the discrimination of revolutionary legislation against her sex, in her refusal to subscribe to the conventional con- ceptions of feminine inferiority, in her frequent allusions to the political indifference of many modern Frenchwomen of note. Her original desire and intention probably were, therefore, to write a history of the feminist movement during the French Revolution. But such a task would have involved a thorough study of an extensive field and that, she frankly admits, she did not attempt. As her abundant footnotes indicate, her sources were almost entirely the secondary works of her predecessors in the field—among others, Michelet, the De Goncourts, Laserre, Aulard—and the memoirs of some of the women considered. But if she was unprepared to write a history of the feminist move- ment, she was not satisfied simply with giving short biograph- ical sketches of the leading female figures of the revolution. She chose, consequently, a hybrid form of presentation, devoting about a chapter to each of the chief activities of the women of the French Revolution—agitation, the salons, writing, fighting, religion, feminism, divorce—and relating, as they appeared, the stories of the outstanding exponents of each activity. Miss Stephens foresaw that this method would have its short- comings, “one of which is some slight repetition,” and attempted to obviate this by frequent references ante and post in her foot- notes. Unfortunately the repetition is more than slight; it is sufficient to be disconcerting and confusing. The phases of Mme Roland’s career, for example, are discussed in several dif- ferent chapters, and because she is given most space in an early one on Women Writers, in the fields of the revolution where she exerted greater influence she receives less attention than others not so important. Furthermore, in restricting herself to only a few of the aspects of the revolution in which women were in- volved, Miss Stephens was able to give to Marie Antoinette but incidental consideration, and to Mme Tallien, whose chief sig- nificance lies in her share of the responsibility for the end of the Reign of Terror, only brief mention as an anti-feminist. But if there are some things left out of the book that ought to have been included, there are almost as many included that ought to have been left out. Why a number of men like Con- dorcet, Roland, and Camille Desmoulins were dragged (by their wives’ necks, as it were) into a work of this nature is not clear. Nor is it any more reasonable that the story of how Mme Legros, who is not again referred to, secured the liberation of the Marquis de Latude from the Bastille in 1784 should be in- cluded in a book which professes to deal only with events from May, 1789, to July, 1794. This intrusion of foreign matter is all the more remarkable because the author otherwise keeps carefully within the chronological limits she set herself, even

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Dec. 5, 1923] Christmas Book Buying in Chiraga is largely a matter of “shopping” in The. Chicago Daily News’ Special Christmas Book Section issued December 8th. Regularly, in its Wednesday Book Pages, The Daily News carries more book advertising than any other news- paper, daily or Sunday, in Chicago. It is thus recognized by experienced pub- lishers as the outstanding medium in Chicago for the sale of books. (In the first 10 months of 1923, The Daily News printed 124,617 lines of book advertising as against 81,684 lines printed by the paper having the next highest score— The Daily Tribune.) The Special Christmas Book Section of The Daily News, issued in addition to the regular Wednesday Book Page, is well advertised in advance of publica- tion, and is eagerly awaited by the Chi- cago book buying public. Publishers who place their selling messages in this section will be assured the interested attention of the great Chi- cago reading public. THE DAILY NEWS First in Chicago The Nation 663 SPAS PAC DOS WIS BANG BAS WG Putnam Books That Make Worthwhile Christmas Gifts The wonders of those ancient civiliza- tions which thousands of years ago daz- gled the world with their strange splen- dors have been re-created for you in one of the most superbly illustrated works ever produced— WONDERS QF THE PAST The genius of the artists, builders, and engi- neers of long ago is portrayed in simple, con- cise stories, with a profusion of pictures in color and black-and-white. Four splendid vol- umes. Volume One, now ready, contains 550 pages and about 400 illustrations, 24 in colors. mo © $5.00 per volume Thirty Centuries of Life With its Dreams and Struggles Its Romance and Laughter Summarized in THE OUTLINE OF LITERATURE The Book of Books—the Story of Stories—telling of every great writer who has contributed to the immortal literature of the world. Three magnificent volumes. Over 500 illustrations, many in colors. Volumes One and Two now ready. A great story, simply told. 4.50 per volume TE ee THE OUTLINE OF ART Here is the key to the great art treasures of all time, presenting the world’s famous painters and their masterpieces. It reproduces hundreds of works of art, many in full colors. Edited by Sir Wil- liam Orpen. Two superb volumes, one now ready. $4.50 per volume *~ Mm “The Outline of Science has no rivals, There is no other book in existence that presents all the sciences from_the modern point of view in a familiar language,’ says the BookMAN of THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE Professor J. Arthur Thomson’s work, hailed as the most important publishing event in many years. In one simple, flowing story it tells of all scientific progress since the beginning. Over 800 striking illustrations, many in colors. Four beautiful volumes. $4.50 per volume Te Se ee AN OUTLINE OF HUMOR By Carolyn Wells, the editor of “The Book of Humorous Verse” and “A Nonsense Anthology.” She has written the story of the world’s humor and a fascinating survey of the development of the human sense of humor from our primordial ancestors to the present generation. 5.00 epee ee P. G.’s Latest = - . Masters and Men sparkles with epigrammatic wit as Philip Guedalla, that sensational word wizard, writes of things and people from the young intellec- tuals to Mr. Disraeli. ai aniig $2.50 SOLOMON IN ALL HIS ee Rosert Lynn’s Refreshing Essays “A revelation of the beauty of those un- remarkable things which often we never see because we see them so often. To sit before a wood fire of a winter night with this book and a pipeful of fragrant tobacco —what more delightful could be imagined ?” —Philadelphia Public Ledger. $2.5 At All Bookstores G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Bil Gale DOK DOA DIE PACK DSA NEW y ORK When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 ee ace TN een ee to the point of ending her book somewhat in medias res, at the point where women’s clubs were banned by the Convention. This occurred months before July, 1794, but the feminist author naturally considered women’s political parties the climax of her story and put it last, with the result that the chapter ends where it ought, but the book does not. Being a woman and an Englishwoman to boot, Miss Stephens finds it hard to regard the revolution as something more than the Reign of Terror. This may be because she sees the revo- lution through the eyes of those whose memoirs she has read. Despite the fact that many of the women of whom she tells suc- ceeded in living until well into the nineteenth century, she in- dorses the implication of Sieyés that it was a sufficient accom- plishment to have remained alive during the revolution. To read Miss Stephens’s book without a previous knowledge of the revolution would leave one with the notion that of the 25,000,000 people who inhabited France in 1789 there must have been only about 10,000,000 or 15,000,000 left in 1794. (As a matter of fact there were no more than 20,000 or 30,000 civil executions all told between 1789 and 1794 in all of France.) For Miss Stephens, Robespierre, despite Mr. Mathiez’s interpretation, is still the “sea-green monster” of Carlyle’s imagination. Char- lotte Corday, a silly girl whose only title to fame lies in a futile murder, is still the “angel of assassination” of Lamartine’s poetic fantasy. The virtuous Mme Roland is still a “rabid republican” long before the revolution (even if she did seek a title of nobility for her husband). And the Enragés, worried chiefly about profiteers and the price of bread, still are social- ists. Quae cum ita essent, no wonder so few achieved “the miracle of living throughout the Revolution”! The history of the women of the French Revolution yet re- mains to be written. The writer, whether English or French or American, man or woman, feminist or anti-feminist, sym- pathetic or unsympathetic, will have to see the revolution not alone through the eyes of the women he writes about, but through the aid of the memoirs of the men as well and of the newspapers, parliamentary and club debates, contemporary books, pamphlets, diaries, journals and correspondence, and in the light of the most recent historical investigation. Miss Stephens’s undertaking is more inclusive than Michelet’s work of the same title and more profound than Haggard’s, but it still leaves much to be desired. Louis R. GoTTSCHALK The Nazarene Again! The Man Himself. By Rollin Lynde Hartt. and Company. $2.50. Some Aspects of the Life of Jesus. By George Berguer. court, Brace and Company. $8.50. "Eee clear, stimulating atmosphere of these two books on Jesus brings to mind, by contrast, the stifling miasma of Papini’s “Life of Christ” which has been monopolizing atten- tion in recent months. The Italian’s alleged biography added nothing either to our knowledge or understanding of the Naza- rene; it simply repeated the sentimental romanticisms of Dean Farrar and his school, with an appalling admixture of bad scholarship and worse theology. Yet the work was widely read and rapturously acclaimed. One can hardly hope for such a reception of the two sterling books under review, and the fact is to the discredit of the American public, especially of its re- ligious leaders. Mr. Hartt’s book is brave, honest, brilliant, and uséful. It is literary, even journalistic, rather than scholarly in style, but it has a background of scholarship which is as accurate as it is adequate. Mr. Hartt has gone to the Bible with a fresh, open mind and the modern spirit, and has read its pages as he would read any other book, or books, for information. “Toward the end,” he says “a sublime figure emerges.” Tearing away from this figure all mythical and legendary elements—the miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection; casting out all “theological Doubleday, Page Har- addenda”—the incarnation, the atonement, the trinity; avoid- ing discussion of the Nazarene’s career, to which he devotes fewer pages than the eighteen in Bousset’s famous volume, the author takes us straight to “the man himself,” and presents him as a young Jewish rabbi, of marked limitations, who “could make mistakes,” parochial in knowledge and experience, but of flawless character and profound spiritual insight, a man who gave himself heroically to the service of an unselfish cause, and left behind him an example of virtue and a record of wisdom which prove him to be “the greatest religious genius of all time.” Central in Jesus’s life and teaching, and therefore in any understanding of the man, Mr. Hartt places the idea of the second coming. “Only by taking seriously his belief in his second coming . . . can we determine what manner of man he was. He held that belief with entire conviction. It was his cen- tral idea. All his other ideas radiated from it.” It explains, says Mr. Hartt, Jesus’s indifference to Roman rule in his coun- try, to slavery and the subjection of women, to all problems of political and economic life. It explains his action in “discredit- ing family affection,” his “manifestly impractical notions about property,” his amazing self-assertion. It makes clear the char- acter of his death as a martyrdom deliberately sought in fulfil- ment of Messianic prophecy. The idea, of course, was mis- taken. Jesus was the victim of an illusion. But “it gave him his mission,” and served as the vehicle of the sublimest religious teaching in the history of the world. We read Mr. Hartt’s book with reservations. We are not convinced that the idea of the second coming is so centrally important as he makes it. We find it difficult to understand Jesus in that last tremendous week in Jerusalem as an actor playing a role in a preconceived Messianic drama. Our mem- ory of the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch rises up to con- fute the assertion that the Nazarene had no interest or part in social reforms. We are certain that Mr. Hartt undervalues the moral worth of the Old Testament, and is almost absurdly blind to the significance of the prophets whom he delights to style mere “dervishes.” But these reservations diminish not a whit our admiration for his work. Its independence, boldness, origi- nality are beyond all praise. We know of few books to match it for sheer vividness and power. .Mr. Berguer’s volume brings us what we have been long anticipating—a psychoanalytical study of the life of Jesus. The book is as scholarly as Mr. Hartt’s book is popular in style. Introductory chapters on methods and sources, foot- notes, an appendix, an eight-page bibliography, and a full index, all combine to reveal the author as a trained scholar, engaged in the task of presenting a work of careful original research. Yet the book is fascinating reading, thanks in part to an admirable translation by Eleanor and Van Wyck Brooks. Mr. Berguer is as uncompromising as Mr. Hartt in his separation of the “half-legendary, half-dogmatic” from “what is strictly historical in the gospels.” His approach to the prob- lem, however, is different. He is not content to stop with the record itself, and show what is false and true therein. He makes it his particular task to go behind the record, and show what the false as well as the true may mean. The gospels are the product, in other words, not only of events but of souls working upon events. They reveal “the psychology of those who have spoken in them’”—‘“the psychology of the first Christian com- munity . .. the psychology of the author of the gospel of John ... finally, the psychology of Christ Himself.” Professor Berguer wants to find and reveal these psychologies; and he does this by treating the gospels not so much as a narrative of outward historical events as a projection of inward spiritual states. Using the now familiar principles of psychoanalysis, clearly exposited in the opening chapter, the author takes up certain aspects of the life of Jesus, and explains them from his especial viewpoint. The birth, the tales of childhood and youth, the bap- tism and temptation, the miracles, the transfiguration, the death

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Dee. 5, 1923] PIE DAS HSE MAE WAC Da DOE Among LIPPINCOTT Books You can find the Ideal Gift for each Name on Your Christmas List MY JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD By ALFRED VISCOUNT NORTHCLIFFE His own impressions, jotted down on train and liner, this diary of his famous “World Whirl” reveals the mind and personality of the great journal- ist better than any biography. “A human document.”—New York Herald. Frontispiece of author and map. $4.00 A GUIDE FOR THE GREEDY: By A Greedy Woman By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL A feast of good reading about good eating. For the gourmet of belles-lettres here is a veritable romance of cookery that will charm the mind with its piquant wit even while it enriches the menu with unexpected delights. $2.00 SEEING THE MIDDLE WEST By JOHN T. FARIS A fascinating revelation of unsuspected wonder and beauty in the vigorous Middle West. It completes Dr. Faris’ popular American Travel Series, now covering every section of the United States. Colored frontispiece, 91 illus- _trations in doubletone. $5.00 RICHMOND: Its People and Its Story By MARY NEWTON STANARD For this chronicle of a city glamorous with romance and story, old paving stones tell tales, old trees gossip, old streets become picture-books, old houses, treasure boxes of forgotten lore. 983 illustrations. $3. DECORATIVE FURNITURE By GEORGE LELAND HUNTER The handsomest and most comprehensive book on furniture ever published. A thorough treatment by an authority of the history of furniture design from early Egyptian and Assyrian periods to the present day. 30 plates in color, over 450 pages illustrating, in black and white, more than 900 pieces of the world’s most famous furniture. $25.00 THE ART SPIRIT By ROBERT HENRI Would you enjoy and appreciate art? Read this book for art students and art lovers by a “Master.” $2.00 THE PRACTICAL BOOK OF FURNISHING THE SMALL HOUSE AND APARTMENT By EDWARD STRATTON HOLLOWAY A sumptuously illustrated book for those who take pride in their own homes. 214 illustrations and diagrams. $6.50 BREWER’S PHRASE AND FABLE Revised and greatly enlarged edition of Brewer’s great dictionary. Abso- lutely essential and invaluable to all who either read or write. ‘“‘An excep- tional work as full of facts as an egg is full of meat.”—Frank H. Vizetelly, Litt.D. Buckram, $6.00. Half Morocco, $7.50 A NEW VARIORUM EDITION OF THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Edited by HORACE HOWARD FURNESS, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., and HORACE HOWARD FURNESS, Jr., A.B., Litt.D. “Indispensable to every student of Shakespeare,” says the New York Nation. Send for full descriptive list of plays now ready. Cloth, $6.00 per vol. Half Morocco, $9.00 per vol. TO WOMEN OF THE BUSINESS WORLD By EDITH JOHNSON Something long wanted—A Success Book for Women. Will supply the busi- ness woman with the specialized information she needs to advance herself in her position or profession. Covers everything. $2.00 THE CHARM OF A WELL MANNERED HOME By Mrs. HELEN EKIN STARRETT, author of “The Charm of Fine Manners”’ A charming and gracious little volume that offers real help to those couples who would accomplish a well mannered home and thus attain a true and last- ing happiness. $1.50 A Boy Will Enjoy AMERICAN BOYS’ BOOK OF BIRDS AND BROWN- TES OF THE WOODS By Daniel Carter Beard Woods lore of birds and furry little beasts for the wide-awake boy who loves outdoor life. Pro- fusely illustrated. $2.00 Entertainment for a Girl FIDELIS By Jane Abbott A charming story of a girls’ boarding school by the Girls’ Own Author. Frontispiece in color and three other illustrations. $1.75 At All Bookstores J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY London PHILADELPHIA Montreal The Nation. PLS PP OE DAS McBRIDE QTHE HIGH PLACE | fay jure, Branch Cabell It is no longer necessary to introduce a new book by James Branch Cabell with any word in praise of its author. One of the few living writers of admitted genius, his books are generally regarded as among the most distinguished contributions to modern literature. Here, then, is his latest book: a romance of that Poictesme in which were laid the scenes of “Jurgen” and “Figures of Earth”; a “comedy of disenchantment” that is audacious, wise and beautiful; a book which will, we believe, take its place among the finest of its author’s writings. $2.50 net. Postage extra. BOOKS @ JURCEN - - - - - By James Branch Cabell A new edition, with illustra- tions by Ray F. Coyle. 8vo. $5.00 net. @ THE EACGLE'S SHADOW - - - - By James Branch Cabell Revised edition, with an in- troduction by Edwin Bjork- man. $2 net. Postage extra. @ ASHES OF VENGEANCE - - - By H. B. 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Postage extra. « SfHE BOOK OF ENT ERTAIN- MENTS AND THEATRICALS By Helena Smith Dayton and Louise Bascom Barratt Tells everything one needs to know about the planning and successful execution of every kind of organized entertain- ment from the small banquet to the most elaborate pag- eant. Illustrated. $3.50 net. At All Bookstores Robert Nathan creates im fiction a kind of beauty that no other author is creating. Because of this he is destined to wim a secure place in the company of contemporary writers. —Ben Ray Redman. G TEE POPP E:T MASTER By Robert Nathan Author of “Autumn” and “Youth Grows Old’? This “story of some dolls,” as Mr. Nathan describes it, is, in the words of the Boston Transcript, “one of the most lovely and idyllic books of the season.” It is a book of gaiety and wisdom; one of the really distinguished contributions to contemporary letters. $1.75 net. 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Illustrated by da Loria Norman. $2.50 net. Send for our Holiday Catalogue ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY Publishers When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation 7 West 16th Street PENG AE DISS PIS DAE DE New York

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666 and resurrection, fall in turn beneath his exacting scrutiny. In all the purely legendary element is stripped away, to reveal the workings of certain individual souls, and the great “nopular soul” itself, “in the presence of a heroic and admirable life such as that of Jesus was,” and more especially of course the soul of Christ, a sublime spiritual genius seeking to make men over into the likeness of the divine which he had found and realized within himself. We are not competent to judge of the sound- ness of this method of interpretation. We can only record the illumination it has brought to our mind, the profound reverence with which the author has prosecuted his task, and the noble beauty of the person of the Nazarene which is left when his task is done. These two books must be anathema to Christian orthodoxy. They will give many a shock to liberals. But together, in their drastic emphasis upon modern methods of historical and psycho- logical analysis, they indicate admirably the direction in which all future study of the Nazarene is certain to move. JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Victorian Byways Studies in Victorian Literature. By Stanley T. Williams. E. P. Dutton and Company. $3. M® WILLIAMS has evolved the subject matter of these studies according to a plan well tested by the critical es- sayists who are enjoying vogue at the present time. “I have written them,” he explains in his foreword, “as an expression of the belief that one may learn much concerning an age by haunting its by-paths.” The furbishing up of a tarnished literary reputation or the “discovery” of an author ignored by posterity (and like as not by his contemporaries) is often a piquant business. But Myr. Williams has a capacity for gravity which makes his re- valuations of Victorian literature somewhat different in tem- per from what we have come to expect of the literary historian when he addresses a general public. These essays reveal the sort of miscellaneousness with captivates interest, for they have to do either with obscure names, or hidden and more or less unsuspected aspects of the great—the relations of Landor and Matthew Arnold to their contemporaries; the Mid-Vic- torian criticisms of George Brimley; the contrasted boyhoods of J. S. Mill and Edmund Gosse; Kingsley’s “Yeast”; New- man’s literary preferences; the unusual “serenity” of Carlyle’s “Life of John Sterling”; and the future of “Past and Present.” This is an incomplete, but representative, list of the con- tents of Mr. Williams’s Victorian studies, and substantiates his conviction that “disparate as they are, each book or person here thought worthy of an essay projects a tendency of the Victorian era.” He touches the Christian Socialist and Trac- tarian movements in essays upon the chief figures in each— Kingsley and Newman, the former related to his day by “Yeast,” that “singular combination of Platonic dialogue, tract, sermon, diatribe, and ballad,” the latter by his secular literary prefer- ences—Cicero, Addison, Thackeray, Bacon (for style, not phi- losophy), Milton (for poetry, not theology), and George Her- bert (for style, philosophy, poetry, and theology). In several respects the volume fails to meet one’s legitimate -expectations in the way of scope and variety. That is explicable, of course, from the fact that the essays have been collected for book publication from periodicals, and that some have little con- nection with the rest other than physical contiguity. Thus we have four essays on Matthew Arnold’s poetry, considered theo- retically, technically, and historically, but nothing on the scien- tific agnosticism of the age as represented, say, in Herbert Spencer. There are included discussions of Clough’s prose and Landor’s sense of superiority, but nothing on such an energetic controversialist of the day as Thomas Huxley. There are “Two Poems by Rossetti” but nothing of that curious aspect of nine- The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 teenth century humanism—the positivism of Frederic Harrison and his fellow-Comtians. For these lacunae which definitely limit the scope of the book we may better blame the circum- stances of compilation than Mr. Williams. At his threshold it is more just to lay our burden of disappointment that he did not bring his intimate knowledge of the literature of Vic- toria’s reign to bear upon the general public with a more in- sinuating and jocund pen, and that, in dealing with general ideas, he could not have divested himself of his skill with scholia. GERALD HEWES CARSON Mirrors of Paris As They Are: French Political Portraits. Anonymous. lated by Winifred Katzin. Alfred Knopf. $2.50. ae American boys who arrived in war-time France expect- ing to find every Frenchman a Roland and every French- woman a Jeanne d’Arc suffered grievous disillusionment. But some of them liked the French they discovered better than the illusions they lost. There is little illusion in these portraits. The anonymous writer is very French. If one is looking for an American-made’ “Mirrors of Paris” done with a wealth of newspaper anecdote he will not find it; here is graceful persiflage (a little weight added in the course of translation) and rapier comment spiced with philosophy. Here is the pepper of malice for Caillaux and Painlevé, and even for Herriot and Briand—the author hates all men of the Left. His admiration is keen for Foch and Poin- caré, but keener still for André Lefévre and Millerand. Lou- cheur, Tardieu, Barthou, Viviani—they all pass in review. To win his enthusiasm one must be not only conservative but a renegade radical, preferably a skeptic turned Catholic. But his prejudices do not prevent his search, not for the incident, but for the philosophy of these politicians’ careers. He knows French politics, as the political writers of the French newspapers—who usually nourish political ambitions themselves—do. He dwells upon the extraordinary fact that for twenty years after the Dreyfus Affair, whatever changes were made in prime ministers, the so-called Radical Party held the post of Minister of the Interior, and thereby swung elec- tions; and he rejoices that Poincaré has for the first time broken the charm and installed Maurice Maunoury in the Place Beauvau. Even Maunoury is not quite “Moderate” enough to please him (it is one of the significant curiosities of French politics that a conservative is called a Moderate, a mild liberal a Radical, and that “Socialist” is a loose term which in this country would include anyone who did not want to lease the post office to the late Mr. Wanamaker). Knowing French politics, he is cynical. “In this country, where military heroism is current coin, civil heroism, or even ~ ordinary civil decency, is almost nowhere to be found,” he sagely reflects. He insists, rightly, that the French is the most middle-class of nations, and he dwells upon the associa- tion of that class with “the financial oligarchy, which is the veritable if anonymous government of our country.” He em- phasizes that instinctive thrift which, as the doughboys dis- covered, is one of the dominant traits of French character. Many mediocre politicians, he says, have jumped to fame when they touched finance. “Let figures, budgets, the national housekeeping accounts be called in question, and immediately the French bourgeois comes uppermost. For be he great or small the French bourgeois is so near to the dour French peas- ant, he has been brought up in such a school of domestic economy, his personal affairs are in such excellent order, that he burns to restore the same order to the affairs of the nation.” That is penetrating comment, but, unfortunately, French char- acter includes another contradictory trait which the author ~ shares but ignores—a passion for glory, even though it be empty. LEWIS 8. GANNETT Trans-

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er ee em en Ro Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation

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/4¢. « BRIMMER BOOKS OFFER) yt ee Bee vf : = Ae = | seo OHOIGE SELECTIONS <4, Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1923 And Year Book of American Poetry Edited by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE Eleventh annual volume of this standard work. $3.00 Colonial Lighting by Arthur H. Hayward Mlustrated with 114 Half-Tone Plates, showing 400 Specimens of Lighting Devices. The only book on the subject of importance to collectors, interior decorators, architects, designers, etc. $7.50 The Log of a Forty-Niner by Richard Lunt Hale Edward Loomis Davenport A Biography By EDWIN FRANCIS EDGETT Life of the famous actor. $5.00 Sidelights on Negro Soldiers By CHARLES H. WILLIAMS Authentie reeord of the Negro sol- dier in the World War. $3.00 Gentlemen All and Merry Companions By RALPH BERGENGREN Pirate stories classed with Steven- son’s and Barrie’s. $2.00 It’s Your Fairy Tale, You Know By ELIZABETH RHODES JACKSON Boston charmingly blended in fairy lore and legend. $2.00 Some Pierrots Come From Behind the Moon— By DWIGHT TAYLOR Men of the eighteen-nineties in verse and sketch. $1.50 Maine Narratives —With Lyries By WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON With an Introduction by William Stanley Braithwaite Poetry certain to arouse discussion. $2.00 Do ee E At All Bookstores or from the Publisher B. J. BRIMMER COMPANY 384 Boylston Street AN STTEGFSA AMUSE SUDITOAS AT AGES ITUA EAA ENNUAYSONDSEARNSYNNALSEASONSALOEOSSQUdCANESAEOSANDEDSEANYSLNED SVAN TOOUT ADCO DUD EDEDESAUADUCUSDEEOSOSNAIEDEDD EY EITESDEY TENT ‘Being the Record of Adventures by Sea and Shore to the California Gold Fields in 1849-1854, with original sketches by the Author. the only published, account by a Forty-Niner. A fascinating, and $4.00 The Procession Masks By HERBERT S. GORMAN Volume of brilliant essays on writers and books. $2.00 Of Castle Terror By ARTHUR C. INMAN A symbolic drama of real power. $2.00 The Funny House By LOUISE HUBERT GUYOL A story for girls compared to “Little Women.” $2.00 The Coming Forth by Day By ROBERT HILLYER Egyptian Hymens, with an impor- tant essay on Egyptian mysticism. $1.50 Hill Solitudes By BENJAMIN ROSENBAUM A First Book of Poems of extraordi- nary interest. $1.50 The Carrying of the Ghost By NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD Poems by a well-known journalist, teacher and critic. $1.50 Boston, 17, Mass. Ue \)

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668 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3048 Portraits, Rather Roman Pictures. By Percy Lubbock. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3. HE narrator who speaks so wittily, so naturally, and so en- gagingly from the pages of “Roman Pictures” presents himself in the first paragraph loitering on an afternoon, long years ago, by the pretty little Fountain of the Tortoises, after “having drifted hither and thither about Rome, from the Gate of the People to the Baths of Caracalla—drifted day after day in my solitude through a month of April more divinely blue and golden than the first spring-days of the world; and whether I was in the body or out of the body I scarcely knew; for I moved in a great bubble of imagination.” Desirous for some- thing to break into his solitude and his dream, “not that I was tired of either, but because my dream and my solitude would be still more beautiful if I could look at them for an hour across an interval,’ he is met by Deering—Deering who speaks and dresses and poses in Italian, Deering the superior, who looks down from the height of six whole months of experience in Rome, patronizingly counsels his friend to “come out of books,” and generously offers to start him on the way to ac- quaintance with “the real Rome,” the city unsuspected by the ordinary gaping tourist. Deering goes off with his friend to no such banal scenes as the Palatine or the ilex-shadows and gray spaces of an evening on the Aventine and in the further country, but to a plush-and-gilt-and-mirrored café in the Via Nazionale, where they meet with real Rome in the persons of Bannock, an Ameri- can singer out for the conquest of Europe, who knows exactly what is the matter with opera in Rome and why his conquest is being delayed, with Jaffrey, a slender and shabby dancer who knows all about the circumstances that are keeping him from his own, and with Edna, Jaffrey’s partner in dancing and cockney and the ambition to emigrate to America and sure success. This is the manner in which Deering, who modestly mentions once or twice that “there seems to be something of the Italian in me,” gives his friend “a push, with his benediction, and one thing led to another, and I started to collect Roman pictures of a new sort’; and this is the reason why the reader will not find in “Roman Pictures” the more or less untidy mingling of his- tory, description, anecdote, gossip, and sentiment that experi- ence leads him to expect in all but scholastic books on Rome, but the narrative of a series of encounters with a variety of persons, most of them visitors or sojourners in the city, most of them as snobbishly superior as Deering himself in the con- viction that they alone possess the secret of the real Rome, and all of them so individual that the reader feels like renaming this book of Mr. Lubbock Roman Portraits instead of Roman Pictures. These pictures do indeed include glimpses of the real Rome of the other and more familiar sort, as in the great roar- ing church when the high swaying throne, borne upon the shoulders of faithful knaves, comes down the lane between the throngs assembled, with its “ancient white-robed figure that sits aloft, springing upright and subsiding again with out- stretched hand, and a smile, a fixed immemorial smile in a blanched face, beneath a pair of piercing eyes: Rome, Rome, indeed;” or as when the day begins as crystal, towers to its height in azure and gold, sinks to evening over the shadowy plain in pearl and wine; but these exquisite graces are not the stuff of the volume. “Roman Pictures” is the book of a penetrating judge of char- acter, a satiric observer of manners, and an accomplished literary artist. It will appeal most strongly to those familiar with English and American society in Rome, but will be en- joyed and admired by all who appreciate a finished style, a well-knit unity, and a well-governed satiric mood. GRANT SHOWERMAN In a Magic Country Barrie Marvell. By Charles Vince. Little, Brown and Com- pany. $2. A HE very fact that this book might be placed in any cate- gory of juvenile literature from “Jack the Giant Killer” to “The Diary of a Young Girl” indicates how inapplicable would be any sort of classification of its contents. Mr. Vince has presented a boy who seeks to interpret his childish experi- ences in terms of the legends and fairy tales he knows and loves. Sometimes the things that Barrie Marvell draws into his magic country do not live up to the immutable code of fairy land; the picture of two beautiful ladies is removed before he, as Prince, has chosen one of them for his Princess; or the un- kempt garden ceases to be an impenetrable jungle because a stupid uncle, all unaware that his palpable imitation is destroy- ing the illusion, insists on roaring like a lion behind the shrub- bery. Sometimes his mother and other gifted “grown-ups” can enter into the spirit of his imaginings and play the game through to the end; the three young men, for instance, who turned into true fairies making wishes of great import and giving presents of magical powers! But whether our imaginative youngster is shocked by the contacts with concrete reality or whether his dream world is vindicated by the sympathy of adults, the incidents are, in the main, trivial and overemphasized. The author’s pursuit of beauty seems as futile as a puppy’s chase of a butterfly. For though Mr. Vince writes simply, placidly, and well, he cannot make his narrative more interesting by virtue of his prose. To be sure, it is not the offensive monotony of a trombonist prac- ticing the scales but rather the gentle sameness of a tinkling cowbell on a hillside. And many a sentimental soul, strange to sylvan scenes, has found such tinkling a mainspring for ecstasy! Had Mr. Vince found more of such matter as The Three Fairies is made of, he would have added color and variety to his story. For the zest and verve of that chapter are the re- sults of a truer perspective and a more subtle realization of values. It is distinguished from the rest because there he con- ceives Barrie Marvell as the center of an adult world, a world we know, appreciate, and are interested in; whereas the other chapters present the boy in a universe of his own creation, a sphere far too small to deserve the exploring, the sounding and mapping, that the author deems necessary. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Books in Brief Injun Babies. By Maynard Dixon. $1.75. Mr. Dixon’s “seven stories about Injun babies and one about a fish” were originally written and illustrated for his little daughter, Constance, who spent many months with her father while he was painting down in the Navajo country. A-Way-She-Go, the runaway girl, So-Bée-Yit, the boy who got brave, O-S06-Sti-ki, the greedy girl, and No-Pah-no-Mah, the- long-time-alone boy, and all the other Injun babies live very near to nature. The big winds, the blue mountains, the fires of chips and pine needles and sweet grass “‘with its nice white smoke,” the birds, the animals, the snake, and the horny toad appear in the stories again and again. They are the friends the Indian children turn to for help and to whom they sing their magic songs. The stories are for little children, but the humor in them appeals to older ones as well, and the story of So-Bée-Yit, the boy who got brave, has something in it for a child of all ages. There is a gay cover and the endpapers show a very busy Indian encampment. The illustrations are drawn with the strength and sincerity characteristic of all Maynard Dixon’s work. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 669 | MDevitt-Wilson's | Booksellers 8 Hudson Terminal Building H =O Church Street New York Books for Christmas Giving ORIENTALIA The Only Shop in America Dealing Exclusively in Books on the East The following catalogues and lists may now be had free on application: Books on the Arts and Crafts of Asia Books on China and Japan Books on Mythology and Folklore Books of Voyages and Travel to the East from Earliest Times New Holiday list of books List of Oriental art objects and textiles suitable for gifts ORIENTALIA 32 West 58th Street New York City ff PCR GERMAN BOOKS NEW and OLD Large Representative Stock at B=2YER’S BOOKSHOP 207 FULTON STREET NEW YORK Opp. Terminal, Upstairs Sidelights on Negro Soldiers. Brimmer Company. $3. A dispassionate, most entertainingly written, and infor- mative account of the service of Negro combatant units, labor battalions, and civilians in the late war and of the various war-time organizations which worked with Negro troops as observed by one who for eighteen months investigated con- ditions affecting colored soldiers, under the auspices of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ and of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Because of its total lack of bias or bitterness it is all the more a scathing arraignment of the alleged democracy of America toward her colored citizens. For example: “In Camp Lee, Petersburg, Va., a prayer-meeting was conducted in an area where Negro soldiers were located, but a soldier with a rifle on his shoulder was doing guard duty, pacing in a circle around the group to see that no Negroes attended.” Mr. Williams tells, as well, of many Americans who in the stress of war were able to rise above the race prejudice which made the lot of these colored soldiers so difficult a one. He points out the amazing loyalty and self-sacrifice and devotion which Negro soldier and civilian alike demonstrated during By Charles H. Williams. B. J. Looks” Means ilo me ‘owor hewora International Beok and Art Shop 3 Christopher Street, New York City We have the largest and_ choicest selection of PRINTS in the city. Etchings, lithographs, water-colors, drawings, original and reproduction, framed and unframed. Prices, the lowest in the city. Also a large stock of BOOKS on art, current fiction, drama, poetry, etc..—new and second-hand. FIRST EDITIONS American and English Authors Books By and About WALT. WHITMAN Monthly Catalogues Issued Visitors Welcome ALFRED E. GOLDSMITH 42 Lexington Avenue New York the war, and the futility of this sacrifice in this “war to end war.” The Puppet Master. By Robert Nathan. and Company. $1.75. _ Mr. Nathan’s second novel continues in the vein of “Autumn” and “Youth Grows Old”—a vein which is very agreeable, but which surely cannot flow forever. The poems in “Youth Grows Old” were grave and fine because the author, a gifted young man, affected to be old and wished to be wise. “Autumn” took a similar tone; many tender things were said about life by one who was supposed to have lived quietly somewhere for a long time. Papa Jonas, the puppet master in the present book, is an old, moody man who pretends, along with the rest of the characters, that his puppets are alive, have love affairs, marry, think, laugh, weep, and converse. The careers of the puppets, like those of the real people about them, are in turn pathetic and gay, and there is opportunity for satire of a sort, of course. But the book in general is so gentle and so dull that one begins to wonder a little impatiently when Mr. Nathan will discover youth—when he will decide to see life closer up. He need not be less poetical then; he need only be less faint and far away. Robert M. McBride

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670 The Nation

Social Life in Ancient Egypt. By W. M. Flinders Petrie. Houghton Mifflin Company. $2. This is the forerunner of a more extensive work, the “De- seriptive Sociology of Egypt,” to be published in accordance with the will of Herbert Spencer. It is a thoroughly docu- mented and intelligently arranged work, from which irrelevant and repetitious material has been rigorously winnowed, and well sustains the author’s thesis that “nothing beyond what is self-developed in the brain of the race is permanently gained, or will survive the changes of time.” American Poetry Since 1900. By Louis Untermeyer. Henry Holt and Company. $3.50. This is both a treatise and an anthology. It is based upon the author’s “New Era in American Poetry” (1919), although much of it has been rewritten and entirely new sections have been added on Elinor Wylie, Jean Starr Untermeyer, George Santayana, Native Rhythms, and Other Voices. As an an- thology the book is valuable throughout. As criticism it ranges all the way from gossip and vulgarity to the genuine thing. All of it is vigorous, and some of it is subtle. There are quan- tities of information. Social and Diplomatic Memories. Second Series. By Sir J. Rennell Rodd. Longmans, Green and Company. $7.50. A continuation of the first series, reviewed in The Nation of July 11. It is written in the same attractive style as the earlier volume, but is of less varied content and therefore of less general interest, as it deals wholly with the author’s official service in Egypt under Lord Cromer from 1894 to 1901. This period covered the Fashoda incident and the remarkable mis- sion to Abyssinia of which Sir Rennell himself was in charge in 1897. His story of this latter journey makes an interesting addition to the literature of travel. The book is notable also for its valuable appreciations of Kitchener and Cromer. The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 8. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a*definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear Feb’y 13, 1924. 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. PEATE NIG NIG NGPA A PIANO BRENNER NIUASON ER ENaINI VO) The Season’s One Comprehensive Book on the Theatre OUR AMERICAN THEATRE By OLIVER M. SAYLER | Author of “The Russian Theatre,” etc. 25 reproduetions from illustrations. By LUCIE R. SAYLER

Can you spend a } pleasant evening in —¥ intelligent conver- i} Sation with your § guests? Or are | 7 you obliged to take i} vefuge in bridge? \ When you can’t zo to the theatre of =) an evening, let yo Oliver Sayler talk ‘\< | to you about OUR ‘ AMERICAN i; THEATRE. His conversation is — { stimulating, suggestive, illuminating, informa- #2 | tive, provocative. It will, in fact, probably § { provoke you to reply. If it does, so much the (7) =i better; you will have been rescued from the <j insidious influence of that great American V4 axiom: “Anything to avoid thought.” pe You can obtain material for a winter’s con- —~=3% A versation from your bookseller, in exchange =, —¥j for $4.00! ) BRENTANO’S { PUBLISHERS NEW YORK The Provincetown Whart theuire (From Our American Theatre)

PANS GNIS ARAVA Here is a solution of your Christmas gift problem Give a Goodspeed “New Testament” An American Translation PARSE RIES, bound in genuine leather or in full morocco. In these forms this famous new translation is more than ever a New Testament to be cherished and read with understanding and pleasure. It is a book to be owned and to be given to one’s best friends. In translating the New Testament into the language of today, Dr. Goodspeed has not sought to supplant the King James version, nor to replace its beautiful phrases with the slang of a rushing twentieth-century America. He has tried merely to make the Bible passages as easily understood by us all as they were by the common folk of ancient Greece. He has utilized the best of our mod- ern scholarship to bring out the original meaning of the New Testament in a dignified and reverent way. Regular edition, cloth $3.00, postpaid $3.12; leather $4.00, postpaid $4.12; full morocco $5.00, postpaid $5,412. Pocket edition on India paper, cloth $2.50, postpaid $2.62; leather $3.50, postpaid $3.62; full morocco $4.50, postpaid $4.62. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 5807 Ellis Avenue Chicago, I]linois DIVAS DIN BIC DEE BOIL Siac When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation Ad DNDN INANE NERC

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation Music Victor Maurel, Singing Actor UST when the term singing actor entered into operatic par- J lance I do not know. Nor could the late Victor Maurel, though one of the most distinguished of the species, have been the first to illustrate it. On that point the testimony of history is unmistakable. Manuel Garcia and his two famous daughters, Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot; Giuditta Pasta, ac- claimed the lyric tragedienne of the eighteen-twenties; Wil- helmine Schriéder-Devrient, the devastating effect of whose dra- matic genius on the grand ducal audience of Pumpernickel has been recorded by Thackeray in quite his most affecting manner; the bass Lablache, who in at least one comic part, so Théophile Gautier tells us, buzzed about the stage like a gigantic and benevolent bumble bee; Sophie Cruvelli, Therese Tietiens, Ron- coni, Obin, Niemann, Faure. . . . But why prolong a desultory and imperfect catalogue? Tomaso Salvini is said to have retorted with asperity when somebody asked him whether it was true that he had coached a certain singer in the acting of an important operatic role that he had not coached this or any other singer, and added that he had yet to see the opera singer who could act at all! That opinion has been echoed by numberless other actors of the spoken drama. And yet so shrewd an observer as the late William F.. Apthorp once wrote that the acting of Maurel and of Milka Ternina in opera was so utterly illusive that one felt it would be just as great in Shakespeare and Ibsen as in Wagner and Verdi. As a matter of fact, some twenty years ago in Paris, Maurel did attempt the spoken drama. But after a few performances he gave it up, alleging as his reason that the technic of acting in spoken drama was too different for him to master at his age. The inference is clear that the acting of the lyric stage, though by no means the same as that of the so-called “dramatic” stage, is not necessarily bad (all the pump-handle tenors and sema- phoric sopranos that afilict our eyes to the contrary notwith- standing). And it is worthy of note that some singing actors have crossed the bridge to the spoken drama with great suc- cess. At any rate, Maurel was so much an actor that the older critics of the stage unblushingly compared his Iago with Booth’s and Irving’s, and his Falstaff in Verdi’s opera admittedly out- ranked any other Falstaff, sung or spoken, of the last half century. One may judge the versatility of the artist from the fact that Maurel was supreme as Falstaff, as Rigoletto, and as Don Giovanni! Physically the Fat Knight and the deformed jester testified to a surpassing skill in make-up. Don Giovanni, Almaviva, and de Nevers happened to be the parts for which Maurel was born, for the gods were kind to him in stature, face, and figure, and no great noble of the court of Valois or of Bourbon ever wore the plumed hat with a loftier, a more pa- trician, grace. In reminiscent enthusiasm for the actor in opera, it would never do at all to forget that Maurel was a singing actor. There was nothing about him of the half-baked shirker who imagines that a strong voice and a scant six months of hasty vocal preparation are all an “artist” needs to carry a flaming temperament to dizzy triumphs in “Carmen,” “Tosca,” and “L’Amore dei Tre Re.” Otherwise he would not have been a singing actor for two score years. For his voice in its prime I have only the word of others. When I heard him he had long sung less with his voice than with his brain. But he was grad- uated from the Paris Conservatoire a first prize in vocal art at a time when that prize emphatically meant something, and to the end of his career he remained a most accomplished and polished singer—in the command of vocal color and nuance the superior of even Calvé and Chaliapin. Pitts SANBORN ‘ portrait—Alice Beal Parsons, Important Notice ! A Study Course in Music Understanding THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MUSIC By Prof. KARL W. GEHRKENS The first book of the Course of Study will be ready on or about January 1, 1924 Contents . The Notation of Music . The Function of Rhythm in Music The Melodic Element in Music The Harmonic Basis of Music The Polyphonic Element in Music Form and Design in Music Acoustics in Music 8. Expression and Interpretation in Music NOP eNe Adopted by the National Federation of Music Clubs Price, $1.50 postpaid OLIVER DITSON COMPANY, 178-179 Tremont Street, Boston 10, Mass. Chas. H. Ditson & Co., 8-10-12 East 34th St., New York, N. Y. Order of your local dealer. An Amazing Human Document! Philadelphia Public Ledger. ISLES OF ILLUSION Anonymous Edited by Bohun Lunch An unusual biograph- ical record which for stark reality and st raightforwardness of revelation is unique. The development or retro gradation of a man’s soul in brutaliz- ing life and environ- ment. “Will lie snugly on the bookshelf beside Steven- son’s IN THE SOUTH SEAS —A perfect companion- ship.” We are vehemently approv- ing.... The style of the letters is art of the highest order. .. . —John A. Weaver, Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The most interesting of all the recent South Sea books —the most interesting be- cause the most real.—Ray- mond Holden, The Literary Review. Here, at last, is a book that tells the whole truth about the South Seas—New York Times. The book contains a great The Nation, SMALL, Net $3.00 MAYNARD AND COMPANY TE TTD ER ORT AE A When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3048 Drama The Muscovites Return ser Moscow Art Theater opened its return engagement with a new and admirable kind of play. From Dostoev- ski’s “Brothers Karamazoff” M. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko has drawn a series of scenes far fuller than the fragmentary ones presented last year. But he has not attempted to dramatize, that is, to reorganize, the story in terms of another technique. A reader gives the audience the necessary connective narrative, so that the crucial scenes of the novel are presented to the audi- selves on the theater of Dostoevski’s mind. I thought at once of a similar treatment of “Vanity Fair” and of how great a moment in the theater the scene between Becky Sharp and the Marquis of Steyne would make. Here are, I think, endless pos- sibilities quite free of the travesties of the process of dramati- zation. It may have had something to do with my mood—such con- fessions spring not from arrogance but from a right critical humility—but the fact remains that the players from Moscow impressed me more deeply than they had ever done before. And I think I caught for the first time the inner secret of their pre- eminence. They do not play aspects or phases or dramatic abstracts of people, however pathetic or humorous or clever. ence precisely as they may be supposed to have played them- They play whole characters. They have utterly and finally | LECTURES AND AMUSEMENTS | 3 | The Acclaimed Triumph DAVID BELASCO Presents MRS. Fl SK E in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” A Comedy by ST. JOHN ERVINE BELASCO West 44th Street. tre. at Bane Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 The Theatre Guild presents THE FAILURES in 12 tcenes By H. R. Lenormand GARRICK THEATRE, 66 West 85th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday TRIUMPHANT RETURN ARTHUR HOPKINS ea JOHN BARRYMORE in “Hamlet” oe ees ah, MANHATTAN OPERA HOUSE Beginning Monday, Nov. 26. inees Thursday and Saturday. West 34th St. Mat Seats now selling. Eves. $3.30 to b5c. Matinees $2.75 to 65e. W. 46th ST., Bryant 2628 THE PLAYHOUSE 5s: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be preud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.”—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. cor Neighborhood Playhouse Tel. Drydock Tis Every Evening (except Monday) at 8:39. Matinee Saturday at 2:20. W. B. Yeats’ Bernard Shaw’s “THE PLAYER QUEEN” “BLANCO POSNET” BELMONT 48th St. East TARNISH os 8:30. Mate urs. & Sat. 2:30 of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.”’—Heywood Brown, WorLpD. 27th Street and Y I D D i S Hi Madison Avenue Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday Matinees and evenings “The Beggars” By H. Leviek ART THEATRE John Drinkwater’s ROBERT LEE A Notable Achievement Matinees Wednesday & Saturday, 2:30. Evs. 8:30 Monday through Thursday evenings E. “The Seven Who Were Hanged” By Andreyeyv “The Epic of the South” RITZ THEATRE, /3%,5¢,,%, [LABOR TEM LE, 14th Street and Second Avenue, New York PROGRAM for DECEMBER LABOR TEMPLE SCHOOL LABOR TEMPLE FORUM Auditorium Lectures: Sundays at 5 p.m., others at 8:30. pee, Evenings at 8:15. Dec. : “The Passing of Psycho- Analysis.” Dr. Will Durant, 4 # Sat. Dec. 1: ‘French Nationality and Literature.’’ Prof, Dana. Dec. 9: “Recent Developments in Psychical Research.” Mereward Carring- § Sun. Dec. 2: ‘The Brownings.” Dr. Durant. ton, Ph.D. ; ; sees es Ww. Kirb f Wed. Dec. 5: “Comte and Mill: Positivism.” Dr. Durant. ae corey France, the United States and the) Next War.’ A } Sat. Dec. 8: “German Nationality and Literature.” Prof. Dana. Dec. 23: Christmas Program. Labor Temple Boys and Girls. f Sun. Dec. 9: “Liszt and Rubinstein.” Dr. Durant and Miss Rutenberg. Dec. 30: To be announced. Admaission Free. AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL CHURCH Rev. EDMUND B. CHAFFEHR, Minister. Sunday Evenings at 7:15. Wed. Dec. 12: Sat. Dec. 15: | Sun. Dec. 16: Wed. Dec. 19: H Sat. Dec. 22: 1 Sun. Dec. 23: “Biology, from Lamarck to Morgan.’? Dr. Durant. “Scandinavian Nationality and Literature.” Prof, Dana. Concert by Maximilian Rose, David Sapiro and others. “Herbert Spencer.” Dr. Durant. “Russian Nationality and Literature.” Prof. Dana. We ores soeraqere 22 hay Ages.” “Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Halevy.” Dr. Durant and Mr. Sapiro. | Dec. 9: “Is prohibition Christian?” Wed. Dec. 26: “Heredity, from Mendel to Bateson.’”? Dr. Durant. Dec. 16: “The Spirit of Jesus and the Ku Klux Klan.” j Sun. Dec. 30: “‘Walter Pater.’”? Dr. Durant. Dec. 23: “The Meaning of Christmas.” Dec. 30: To be announced. Admission 25 cents. Keep this for reference. Admission Free. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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Dec. 5, 1923] The Nation 673 transcended the limitations of mere theatric characterization which Strindberg pointed out so many years ago. There is nothing left here of the tradition of “humors” which hangs on with so tough a persistence in the theater. You cannot describe the people who are being projected here any more easily than you can describe people in life whom you know so well that often you wonder whether you know them at all. The theater is conquered here, the theater which must die in order to live. Yes, the theater, like everything else and despite the pretty en- tertainments offered by the theatro-technical triflers, must heed the great command of “stirb und werde.” It is heeded here. How? What precisely is the secret of Luzhsky, Katchaloff, Leonidoff, of Yershoff and Podgorny? It is not a secret that can be expressed in terms of training, technique, artistic theorizing. These things are ultimately superficial. I do not know these men personally; I probably never shall; I do not know and do not care whether they are cultured and clever and earnest or the reverse. What I per- ceive in their playing, what gives them the power of playing as they do, is that they are or have been partakers of the very depths of human experience, that they have lived and sinned and suffered and known resurrection, that they have been par- takers of despair and bitterness. Or, if by any chance these things have passed them by personally, they have lived with and beside them and in constant, spontaneous realization of their rootedness in life. Such acting does not and cannot come fzom lives lived on the outer surfaces of experience, of ball- games and tea-parties and that famous reserve and repression which is so often a hollow bladder spanning emptiness. Among these Russians, behind even the simplest act, there is an in- stinctive knowledge and acceptance of the tragic character of human life... . Over on Forty-eighth Street the Equity Players are putting on a play by Mr. Walter Prichard Eaton, called “Queen Vic- toria.” It was Mr. Eaton, it will be remembered, who declared that tragedy is not natural to the American people. Well, in this play the people are all painted dolls with one dimension or _ Stalking abstract qualities of the superficially interesting kind, and the Gladstone dummy should be labeled “the orator,” and the Disraeli marionette ‘‘the astute flatterer,” and the Victoria doll “a good domestic woman,” and Mr. Eaton and his actors— except the admirable mime who plays Albert and sees through the hollowness of it all—really and sincerely think that any adequate account of any kind or phase of human life can be given upon terms so shallow. No, man may be wickeder and wilder than that. He is not, thank heaven, so sapless. ‘“Pas- sions spin the plot.” He who wrote that was a Victorian poet too. In the third scene of “The Brothers Karamazoff” the coroner and the prosecutor come to tax Dmitry with the murder of his father. The parts of these two officials are taken by MM. Podgorny and Yershoff. The two parts are theatrically not of the first importance and M. Yershoff especially has but a few words to speak. He sits there and listens. Later he gets up and watches the proceedings and puts on his overcoat and draws on his gloves. Yet I shall never forget that long, white, tired, supercilious face, and I know now what a prosecutor under the Czarist regime was like and what this special prose- eutor was like, and I could, I think, write the story of this par- ticular provincial official who had a very low but quite unaston- ished opinion of human nature and amused himself with the dis- sipations, not too wild, of his province and cultivated the arts a little and had almost got beyond the chafing of ambition and indeed most human aches and to whom murder seemed more a vulgar thing than anything else and who was going from hear- ing the pleas and whines of Dmitry Karamazoff, convinced of his merely vulgar guilt, to dine a little wearily at the house of the governor of the province, of whose wife he was quite fond. ...A theater, you see, that has died to live. “Stirb und werde!” LUDWIG LEWISOHN A welcome book to lovers of modern verse carlet Runner By ELIZABETH SHAW MONTGOMERY A VOLUME of short poems which is marked by unusual insight and fluency of line. The work is that of a mature, painstaking artist. Just Published Cloth, $2.00 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 426 West Broadway New York City CAVALIER AND PURITAN Ballads and Broadsides Illustrating the Period of the Great Rebellion 1640-1660 Edited with an Introduction and Notes BY HYDER E. ROLLINS, PxH.D.: Associate Professor of English, New York University Xvi + 532 pp.; beautifully printed; choicely illustrated. Price, $7.50 THE NEw YorRK UNIVERSITY PRESS 32 WAVERLY PLACE NEW YORK CITY When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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Share your Christmas cheer with men in prison Can you remember where you were on Christmas day seven years ago, and the gifts you received and the gifts you gave; the faces of your friends and the laughter of the chil- dren who were there? Have you ever stopped to think that this will be the seventh Christmas the war opinion prisoners have spent in Leavenworth? It’s a long time, isn’t it? A Christmas fund is being collected for the purpose of sending presents to the men in prison. Share your Christmas cheer with them. Contribute as gen- Send donations to ; GENERAL DEFENSE COMMITTEE, 1001 W. Madison St; Chicago erously as you can. The Nation Let us hope the remaining political prisoners will be home this year to enjoy the Yuletide spirit with their wives and little ones. Let us demand their immediate and unconditional re- lease as a matter of social sanity and simple justice. But let us see to it that they are remembered by us if they are forgotten by the myopic gentlemen who have held them so long and so needlessly behind the bars. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation [Vol. 117, No.3048 |

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FOUNDED Vol. CXVII Contents ERE ALOE CEPA TS AC EUAUD ET Sic aysictete ier e/a) sci abels alete afolel an: of el ojerelels ia wid ule ielel aietale 675 EDITORIALS: alm!” Censors. and /Other) Morons. «sie coc bac tle ne sinle wisi ereniag seis sha 678 AMPA AMY PAG cu asierstnies femeter aPveystey aiet s lavaiare fevaia nialeny o/s iol cysia\‘ela\sielerste\ fete. © 679 PEN EEUOL (AP STESHION a reieiniereisiareiels cis wlee\clale sfuislelalellcinic aise elcle eis lelsisia'e 679 THE NEXT WAR DRAWS NEAR. By Oswald Garrison Villard........ 680 “REVERSING” BURLESON’S LABOR POLICY. By Sterling Denhard at RSTRGLOI | wid slays akciepe teal etel ole ola tetas bape licieie olicierelaetarey ale ts) rele) aivel'e)c/ais/a/are/s) sine. nila sees IS PAN-AMERICANISM A JOKE—ON US? By A Pan-American RUGUER TIS Eee dayere icy cree ilenatekabelatsvel stale a wieverajetals cveltielets; is aVole ciel lalaiejee isis \sics.e 683 HOW MANY HIRAMS? By William Hard............-.cceeesesesereece 685 O YOU YOUNG EAGLES! By Edgar Lee Masters..........cceseeeeeeee 686 DNRC ES DRIER TW AW.) UByithe DYIfters iris xicieins « 2.-\e cipiclejeieiays o.eieieie slessjeie'ee 687 GORE SRON DIEING Bye cei cere tetelie oie w erelereyniaravaie, eleleiel eis, syajefeleicialls eo eisie-eiaieiele.0,0 687 KS: eh a Man’s Woman. By Henry B. Fuller.............eseceececccseecees 689 Frimitive Mentality? By Melville J. Herskovits..........+.ee.ee.eee> 689 World Politics. By Louis R. Gottschalk...............eeeeecceceeees 690 Alexander Herzen. By Johan J. Smertenko...........2esceeeserscecs 691 Only a Preface. By Sampson Raphaelson.........-..ceseeeeeeecees 691 PES Kes RES STL eee eT Te Teele (oka la: siala/ clave lateljetellavelataatelsce(ele eVeiiete) o} atsjajlons iwlaie \e.e\e 692 ETE NA DON TSE OLDER Ng EU Bisjalnie.s viele tie aieisiois <.sis leseiessie sie's cs ole sisisis ees 692 Bn tee Failures.” By Ludwig Lewisohn..............sseeccceerceceers 692 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION : Helping Russia Help Herself...........-2cccecceeccsceccsceccccrcecs a Atalgamerror Goes (Oni)... sis ec ol els cise sivicielcics si olejnsidine ciseaccineceess

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpITor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ANATOLE FRANCE JOHN A. HOBSON ROBERT HERRICK H. L. MENCKEN UBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and tone. to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. PEAKING of contempt, nothing could be more con- temptible than the course of Attorney General Daugh- erty and President Coolidge in the case of Comptroller Craig of New York City. He is not pardoned, but his sen- tence of sixty days in jail for criticizing Judge Mayer is “remitted,” an action which it is expressly stated does not constitute a vindication. In other words Mr. Craig is told: You are guilty, but because you are a prominent man and the newspapers have made a great hubbub, we are afraid to let you go to jail. Mr. Craig could be spared from his office as readily as Mayor Hylan has been, nor would his family be left in want as in the case of many a poor devil of a John Doe. The recommendation of the Department of Justice in the Craig case is in striking contrast to its pusil- lanimous poltroonery in regard to political prisoners, where there has been no such club of moneyed and powerful opinion brandished in its face. The one cheerful aspect is the promise of Representative La Guardia and others to carry the issue into Congress. Mr. La Guardia proposes that conviction for contempt, when based on any act out- side the courtroom, shall be possible only through trial by jury. We would go further and abolish the institution of contempt of court, except where there is a refusal to carry out, or an attempt to obstruct, a judicial order. The crime of lese majeste should have no place in a democracy. A judge is entitled to no protection from criticism which is not provided in existing laws against libel, slander, and dis- orderly conduct. NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1923 No. 3049

OMEBODY might remind “our Mr. Weeks,” who pre- sides over the War Department, that the cost of a bull in a china shop is not primarily the board and lodging of the bull but the crockery he smashes. Thus the Secretary of War’s economical soul rejoices in announcing that the upkeep of our army, navy, and marine corps absorbed only 14 per cent of the federal budget for the last fiscal year. Delighted! But how about the smashed crockery? How about the debt for past wars, the upkeep of the Veterans’ Bureau, and the expenditure for pensions (not to speak of a bonus in the offing)? Mr. Weeks does not give us the total percentage for warfare past and present. For the year 1920 government statisticians computed the total as 93 per cent! Owing to reduced annual expenditures, it has fallen a little since, but it is still too staggering for Mr. Weeks to care to compute it. Incidentally, the War Depart- ment is still getting rid of material which apparently is a hold-over from its riotous purchases during the World War. A correspondent sends us a catalogue of a sale in which appear 4,220 cans of allspice provided by some thoughtful commissary; also 549,880 currycombs. “Were there that many horses and mules in the army,” he wonders, “or did the men use them for back-scratchers?” Pe Sees have been prophesying that the Con- Servatives would come through the British election for a second time with a minority of the votes cast but with a safe majority in Parliament. Lloyd George predicted a million majority for free trade—but, under the electoral system which prevails in England as here, the protection- ists may nevertheless tip the scales in Parliament. At the last election the Conservatives cast only 39 per cent of the votes, but they won 54 per cent of the seats. Labor, with 30 per cent of the votes, got only 25 per cent of the seats, and the two wings of the Liberals, with almost as many votes as Labor, together had only 19 per cent of the seats. In the last Canadian election the Conservatives polled 962,- 601 votes and won 50 seats; the Progressives polled only 726,730 votes, but won 65 seats. Whenever there are three parties to a contest the system creaks and groans. In Queensland this year Labor won 43 seats to the Opposition’s 29, although it polled fewer votes; the Opposition’s forces were divided. The answer, of course, is proportional repre- sentation. ERMANY’S troubles do not diminish, although a vig- orous campaign against the food profiteers has led to some reductions in prices. Food still costs more in Ger- many, reckoned in dollars, than in the outside world, al- though wages and salaries are only a fraction of those else- where. Dr. Albert was unable to form a cabinet, and, as we write, it is uncertain whether his successor, Dr. Marx, will be able to hold the confidence of the Reichstag. Almost his first official act was to lengthen the working day of government clerks. Power, however, no longer lies with the Reichstag, or even with the civil government. The industrialists pull the strings, and General von Seeckt, commander of the Reichswehr, is threatening a dictatorial]

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suppression of Vorwarts, official organ of the largest party in the Reichstag, because it refuses to tell him the source of its revelations about his organization. Meanwhile Poin- caré and the Baldwin Government are holding desultory conversations regarding a limited inquiry into Germany’s capacity to pay, and are endeavoring to induce the Ameri- can Government to join their futile palavers. ENRI BARBUSSE is honored by the fact that the Poincaré Government has indicted him for his speech at the Berlin Congress of the International Union of Ex- Service Men. These words constitute his “guilt”: Two years ago, when there were diplomatic difficulties be- tween Germany and France about what they eall reparations (as if the war could be repaired), Karl Tied wrote me in the name of the German ex-service men that you had sworn that, if you were mobilized, you would turn your arms rather against your officers than against your French brothers. I read that letter to our national congress at Levallois; it made clear the importance and significance of our International Union. Those words come back to me today. I speak through you to the French soldiers of the army of occupation. I have no means of speaking directly to them, but I know that in one way or another the words I speak here will be repeated to them. WhenI return to France I shall print them, and I ery to those soldiers: If you are ordered to march against your German brothers, whose breasts and arms form the defense of the working-class, do not do it! Understand on which side of the struggle lie your inier- est and your destiny before you commit the crime of obeying your officers. ARLO TRESCA’S conviction ‘on November 27 for ad- vertising an Italian book on birth control in his paper, Il Martello, seems to be the final step in an indecent and dis- honest persecution of a man who is said by our State De- partment to be “causing friction between two governments” and who is hungrily awaited in Italy for his successful efforts to prevent Fascista organizations in this country. When the Post Office Department stated that the advertise- ment in question was not mailable it was deleted, and the issue was then accepted for mailing. Two other papers carrying the same advertisement have not been brought to the bar. The proprietor of an Italian bookstore in New York City which sells the book has not been molested, nor did the customs authorities make any attempt to hold up shipments of it. The book is not worrying the federal agents; it is the man Tresca who insists on attacking Fascism and thereby becomes a pestiferous fiy in the cup of friendship between Mussolini’s country and Harry Micajah Daugherty’s. N June 17 the police refused to allow Tresea to s ? in Buffalo. The July 21 issue of [i Martello was sus- pended from the mails without warning and no specific charges were brought; the case was finally dropped. On August 14 Tresca was arrested for what amounted to a crime of lese majeste, an article, then three months old, against the Italian monarchy. That indictment has not come to trial. On September 6, armed with a permit from the mayor, Tresea attempted to speak in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, but was prevented by the chief of police. On August 18 he was required to delete from his paper the announcement of a raffle, although two other Papers car- ried the notice unchallenged. On October 27 he was com- pelled to make an entirely new run of the edition, omitting The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3049 an account of an occasion when the Fascisti forced a woman to take castor oil The issue of November 10 was held up because of a prophecy that Mussolini would come to the same end as Rienzi, although the issue of April 21 had quoted the same statement by Arthur Brisbane. The issue of November 24, containing the charge that Mussolini ap- propriated for his election expenses a sum intended for D’Annunzio in Fiume, has been declared “unmailable.” And now, finally, the conviction of November 27. It took six months, but the long arm of Mussolini has finally reached him, here in the home of the free. “|. . that all who come to this shrime which we are dedicating to our dead may be forced to stop and think, and thinking, see for at least one moment the reality and the truth of war as known by our fallen comrades, and against which they fought and gave their lives.” HUS a member of the Frank B. Amaral Post, No. 113, of the American Legion explains the feeling of his group about the sort of memorial they wish erected to their dead. Appalled by the type of war memorial which only serves to create a feeling of romance and glorious adventure that is not in war, this post of the Legion has selected a bronze tablet on which Mrs. Anna Coleman Ladd has depicted the gaunt, rigid skeleton of a soldier help- lessly caught in barbed-wire entanglements, symbolizing in his person the futility, the useless sacrifice, and the ghastli- ness of war stripped of its glamor. Post No. 113 expects a storm of protest which they say will mean this—“that the general public hates to face reality and does not except when so compelled to do,” and that “in our memorial it has seen the truth and, seeing, rebels against the horror of war.” T is a pleasure to turn from the atmosphere of intellec- tual fear and repression in some of our universities to the freer air of the New Hampshire hills, where Dartmouth College is giving a fine example of faith in an education which conceives of the student mind not as a container to be filled with a given product but as an organism which can grow and function only as it has the opportunity to range facts and theories side by side. We are reminded by a com- munication from the Round Table, a student organization, that “any group within the college has perfect freedom to invite anyone they wish to speak here, and the administra- tion gives the use of the college buildings for the address.” Seott Nearing spoke last winter and William Z. Foster last month. Of the address by the latter we read in the college daily: “The crowd, which was probably hostile be- fore the speaker began, was softened by Mr. Foster’s first sentence, in which he stated that it was a privilege to speak at Dartmouth because it was one of the few prominent col- leges that retained the right of free speech.” OME plodding arithmetician has counted all the words in all the sentences of all the speeches of all the presi- dents of these United States. Coolidge, it seems, is the record-holder. He averages but eighteen words per sen- tence, where Lincoln averaged 26.6, Harding 28.9, Wilson — 31.8, Taft 39.9, Roosevelt 41, and Washington—long-winded — sinner that he must have been—51.5. Just what it proves — we do not know, but doubtless the statistician felt a gratify- ing sense that he had concluded a unique and original re- | search. It would be just like this cynical age for some 4

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= Dee. 12, 1923 | The Nation young whippersnapper to arise and remark that the stenog- raphers were responsible for the difference, and that if Washington had only been reported by a graduate of S. S. Sap’s Stenographic School, which teaches a preference for periods in place of semi-colons, he would have outranked Calvin himself. " OMRADE OLIVER” BALDWIN is the son of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. While his father is stumping Britain for the Conservative Party young Oliver is stumping Buckinghamshire for the Labor Party. His opinion of his father’s Government is clear-cut: The Government has been in office twelve months and what have they done? They have done nothing save twiddle their fingers. Their foreign policy is terrible. The Government talks about protection. The only protection I want is protection against a Government like that. He may need it when he gets back home—though we sus- pect that the Prime Minister, on trial for his politi- eal life, enjoyed his son’s campaign against him as much as anyone else in Britain. It is as it should be. If Oliver Baldwin ever becomes a Labor minister, we hope that his son will take the stump for the Tories. There is no health in a family where successive generations think and vote according to an ancestral tradition. HAT story of eleven-year-old Leo Granoff, the Boy Trotzky of Harlem, for instance, filled us with enthu- siasm. Leo, it seems, found his empty home unbearable when his mother went to the theater; finally he was, as he put it, so scared that he went down to the street and, as the police would say, “loitered” near the corner drugstore. He loitered so disconsolately that a policeman became interested. The next thing Leo knew he was being searched, and in his pockets, among the normal contents of an eleven-year-old boy’s pockets, the policeman found Communist tracts. Hor- rors! Leo was arrested; a sharp detective discovered that Leo was secretary, or third vice-president, or something, of the Harlem Branch of the Young Workers’ League. Leo was photographed, and interviewed, and finally released. The next day Miss Etta Leighton, a white-collar slave, as Leo would say, who works for the National Security League, sallied forth to study the horrid phenomenon. She found Leo gaily roller-skating with a new brand of literature in his pockets—copies of the newspapers containing his picture and an interview in which Leo declared that he preferred life in America to life in Russia because he felt his message more needed here. The white-collar slave also interviewed Leo, and forthwith gave out a statement to the papers in which she exclaimed: “It’s no joke; it’s a tragedy,” and expressed her fears for the foundations of the republic. The republic will stand; as Heywood Broun remarked, Leo is as likely as not to grow up into a standpat Republican. NE of the undeniable virtues of President Roosevelt was his fearlessness in taking a stand on public ques- tions, no matter how ticklish. In regard to the Ku Klux Klan, at least, his eldest son has inherited his father’s directness. A K. K. K. speaker at Freeport, Long Island, was recently reported to have extended the organization’s support to “Young Teddy,” whereupon the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Colored People sent a telegram of inquiry to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. “I have not heard one thing about the Ku Klux Klan indorsing me,” wrote Mr. Roosevelt in reply. “I cannot conceive that it is so, because I came out flatfooted against them in a public speech at the National Republican Club on Lincoln’s Birth- day last year.” This is good Americanism, and in the long run it will prove to be good politics. We do not need laws or rival organizations to fight the Klan; we do need to know the attitude of every candidate for public office toward the purpose of the K. K. K. to limit liberty, equality, and fra- ternity to those who are white, Gentile, and Protestant. ISS “BILLY” TICHENOR is white, Gentile, and Protestant, so she is not hounded by the Ku Klux Klan. Yet in this land of liberty-with-a-string-to-it she, too, has her troubles, as one gathers from her letter to the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, re- cently in session in New York City, whom she feelingly addressed as “Revered Leaders”: I am a member of the Methodist Church South, and so are my parents. So were my parental grandparents and great- grandparents. You Northern Methodists are forbidden to dance, play cards, and go to the theater or circus under penalty of expulsion. Both Northern and Southern branches, separated before the Civil War by the slavery question, are probably soon to reunite. Would the amusement ban later apply also to us Southern Methodists? My vocation is now that of an exhibition dancer. Bishop Berry has said actors are not welcome as Methodists. Must Methodists who go on the stage give up the church membership which means so much to them? Would I be required to resign if the Southern group amalgamates with the Northern Methodists? Won’t you please use your influence with annual conferences and the 1924 General Conference to get these blue laws lifted? After giving this letter, we assume, their best considera- tion, the “revered leaders” replied: Concerning the various matters discussed in your letters, authority does not lie with the bishops of the church; and we feel, therefore, that answers to your questions are not within our province. But the bishops assure Miss Tichenor of their good wishes, and pray God that she and her parents may have the divine blessing. It is nice of the “revered leaders” to extend to Miss “Billy” the hope of “divine blessing’’—even if she has to seek it on the back stoop instead of inside the church. hie HE MARCONI OF TELEPATHY,” as a Swiss named Konradi Leitner calls himself, disappointed several hundred persons in a New York theater because he failed to hypnotize the entire audience at once as he had promised. An instructor in psychology at Columbia University is con- ducting serious experiments to discover whether two trained subjects, working half a mile or more apart, can select the same picture from duplicate sets at the same time. St. Mark’s Church in New York City announces as a feature of its annual festival of St. Nicholas “an explanation of the occult world by a committee under the guidance of Mrs. Samuel Untermyer.” Probably Mrs. Untermyer and her committee can explain the occult world at least as well as anybody else. Naturally they would not attempt to explain the visible world or the actions of human beings, of which > at present we have only the vaguest understanding. No theaters are crowded to find out why humans put each other in jail and kill each other and run for Congress and send Christmas cards. Some problems are too hard for experts in psychology.

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678 The Nation ! [Vol. 117, No. 3049 Film Censors and Other Morons MAGNIFICENT farce could be written on the works A and ways of the film censors in the various States, but their antics are important because they illustrate what an irresponsible and dangerous thing censorship is. Let us give a few examples. In 1921 the Kansas State Board of Review ordered all scenes and titles dealing with the Tulsa, Oklahoma, race riots eliminated. Newspapers were printing pictures and stories about the riots every day, but the newspapers have waged a long and successful fight against censorship in peace time at least. The movies, afraid of their dollars, have yielded abject surrender, and the result is a fraud upon the public. Even Ku Klux Klan pictures were barred by the Kansas board, and other boards, too, have yielded to its dark influence. The Ohio board once ordered cut these words: “Probe of murders laid to Klan.” Accounts of the tricks of these censors read like a bur- lesque of the worst possibilities of censorship. One board ordered out the title, “Harvey Porter, an attorney to whom victory is more important than the honor of his profes- sion,” in its zealous respect for lawyers. Another board objected to the title “Kick the dog and Brulet will fight”— in “The Oregon Trail’—as “tending to incite to crime.” Still another objected to a picture of a marriage by radio as “sacrilegious,” although such a marriage had in fact been performed. From a Rupert Hughes comedy the title “In Sicily they challenge to a duel by biting off the tip of your ear” had to go. It was the Ohio board which would not let the International News Service say of Eugene V. Debs: “Leaving the White House after telling President Harding he has not changed his mind.” In Illinois a pic- ture was barred because a delegation of ministers who had never seen it protested that they had heard that it reflected upon the clergy. Texas barred a fantasy based on Aladdin’s Lamp as “medieval, fantastic, absurd, and fit only for the dark ages.” Pennsylvania would not even permit the word “anarchists” in a film, suggesting “fanatics” as an alterna- tive, although the “anarchists” were pictured as wreckers of society. Ohio would not allow a parrot in an O. Henry story to say “Give him hell, Dickey,” and here in New York filmgoers were not permitted to see these horrid words (in a scene showing the spanking of two children by their uncle) : “This hurts me more than it does you!” “Yes, but not in the same place.” It sounds crazy. The movies sometimes try to defend themselves, but they are not permitted even to do that. A Pathé news reel pictured several sponsors of the censor- ship, with the caption: “The people who favor censorship of moving pictures will oftentimes argue the hardest in favor of letting the people rule,” but Ohio ordered the cap- tion out. We are subjected in the movies to irresponsible boards of morons, who cut anything which offends their individual prejudices. No wonder the potentialities of the film are slow in developing. We can expect such censorship on every printed word if the New York Legislature passes the “Clean Books Bill.” And now the busybodies are begging permission to extend their puerilities to the spoken stage. They cry that the country is in danger from licentious plays and theatrical performances. In New York City the hue and cry is at its height. Commissioner of Licenses August W. Glatz- mayer tells us that the self-constituted moral jury of authors, actors, managers, and plain citizens which was in- stituted last season has been scrapped—that, indeed, no complaints have been received; but Acting Mayor Murray Hulbert is on the warpath. He wants every theatergoer to complain whenever his or her moral sensibilities have been wounded. He hopes thus, he says, to defeat the nefari- ous plans of those who “wallow in dirt that they might wallow in riches.” Who, we wonder, does he mean by “they”? The musical shows display a little more epidermis than of yore, but we are not sure that this is not as. decent as the old fashion of lingerie at provocative intervals. We suspect that Mayor Hulbert has his eye not on the musical shows, however, nor on the plays which picture life with an indecent false- ness, but on those which are really most moral in their piercing of conventional hypocrisies. He denounces plays which ‘‘make a laughing-stock of virtue and place vice on a pedestal.” What does he mean? Does he mean virtue and vice according to the statute-books, or according to the churches that forbid dancing and call belief in evolution a crime, or according to the dictates of a delicate and en- lightened conscience? We suspect that he objects to plays like “Rain” rather than to shows like “Artists and Models.” He lets the cat out of the bag when he denounces any play that “contains words or expressions doing violence to ac- cepted standards.” Like all censors he wants life petrified. And it is just such a censorship that the “unco guid” and the pathologically angry sigh for. For to the arm of the state is about to be added that of the church. Bishop Manning vociferously brandishes the moral tomahawk. The Social Service Commission of his diocese, besieged with complaints, is about to start an investigation. Accord- ing to these complaints the conditions of the New York stage are “terrible.” The reverend bishop refuses so far to name plays. He insinuates that they are in fact nameless. Equally aroused are the New York Federation of Churches and the Society for the Prevention of Crime. The redoubt- able Sumner, strange to say, seems to be in a mild and placable mood. But the probable results of ecclesiastical “censure” can be studied from one priceless example. The Rev. Dr. S. Edward Young, president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, and Mrs. Young visited in the course of their research the Knickerbocker Theater, saw “The Lul- laby,” and “found no fault with it.’ Now we do not wish to see “The Lullaby” suppressed. We would fight such sup- pression tooth and nail because we believe that the hurt done the cause of liberty and tolerance infinitely outweighs the shocked susceptibilities of voluntary visitors to a place of public amusement. But if there is one play in New York today that is morally false and misleading to the repulsive core of it, one play that is rancid in substance and mere- tricious in execution, that play is “The Lullaby.” But be- cause it could be summed up in a copybook maxim the Rev. Dr. Young finds no fault with it. What he, alas, is after is not hypocrisy and meretriciousness but fresh notions of human life and an attitude of inquiry. New York is fast becoming the first theatrical city in the world. It can manage Mr. Hulbert; let it beware of Dr. Manning and his cohorts—else they will reduce its great stage to the level of Hollywood.

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Dee. 12, 1923] A Trial by Fire OT in a long time have we heard anything which has thrilled us more than the accounts of the recent fire at Rosemary School at Greenwich, Connecticut. Here were about fifty young girls who were suddenly awakened at half-past three to find their dormitory full of blinding smoke. Three minutes after the alarm sounded all the lights went out. There was only the house-mistress to rep- resent the school authority and she was not a part of the fire drill. Yet, under the most trying circumstances, that system worked perfectly. The fire captain we should call a true heroine were that term not so shockingly misused and overworked. She kept her head perfectly and so did all her lieutenants. Every one of the girls carried out the part assigned to her without hesitation and every one got out safely, albeit several had narrow escapes. When all were out these young women, keeping strictly to the rule of absolute silence imposed during all fire drills, lined up on the terrace with the flames shooting out above their heads, while the roll was called. Then, rejoicing that all were saved, they marched, still in absolute silence, to another building. The sound of their feet upon the stone walk was the first word that came to the occupants of other buildings that their fellow-pupils were safe. Not one fainted; not one became hysterical. The whole constitutes a wonderful triumph of courage and discipline, for, had any one of those young women in authority faltered, a tragedy must have been inevitable. To understand the full significance of all this, the reader must know that this fire drill was originally worked out by a student only a couple of years ago, and that all the train- ing in it, and each annual readjustment, is done by the students themselves. It prescribed among other things that each girl should always have her overcoat and overshoes on a chair by her bedside, and should stop for no other article of attire, a regulation which undoubtedly saved lives when the test came. Rosemary is entirely under student self- control. The discipline which came through so perfectly was installed and instilled by the girls themselves, who, if we are correctly informed, enforce the penalties for mis- demeanors and non-observance. Is it any wonder that one’s pulses beat a bit faster when one learns this story and pic- tures those young women who: had just barely saved their lives calmly standing in line under the flames while their names were called? Or that one turns exultantly from the incidents of it to confront those who constantly bewail the decadence of our time, the hopeless license of the oncoming generation, who believe that the freedom of modern times makes for the undermining of the character of our youth? Thank heaven we are forever rid of the super-sensitive, ever-fainting young female of Jane Austen’s day who pro- ceeded to lose her senses whenever her emotions were played upon unduly. What becomes, too, in the light of a story like this of all the silly nonsense about the “superior sex” and its monopoly of all the so-called manly virtues? Could any boys’ school surpass this record of self-control under the most trying of circumstances? We think not, for it is a simple fact that nobody could have behaved better, or shown steadier nerves. Yet we suppose we shall still have to hear much about the modern flapper and all her faults, and how this “new freedom” of 1923, with the ballot box in the background, is depriving our young women of all The Nation 679 the finer qualities of womanhood. Well, there may be finer qualities than were displayed at Rosemary, but they are not numerous. Nor do we know a better system of human gov- ernment than self-government. That it cannot be applied too early in life has long been our belief. The record of Rosemary proves its correctness anew. ‘No Policy of Aggression’’ HERE is no reason to quarrel with the main principles set forth by Charles E. Hughes, our Secretary of State, in his reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine before the American Academy of Political and Social Science on November 30. There was no blatant assertion of super- sovereignty, as in his speech last summer before the Amer- ican Bar Association. We disagree, to be sure, with his remarks on property rights and the obligations that they impose: A confiscatory policy strikes not only at the interests of par- ticular individuals but at the foundations of international inter- course, for it is only on the basis of the security of property validly possessed under the laws existing at the time of its acquisition, that the conduct of activities in helpful cooperation is possible. Each state may have its code of laws in accordance with its conception of domestic policy, but rights acquired under its laws by citizens of another state it is under an international obligation appropriately to recognize. This is a doctrine which in recent years strong nations have assiduously tried to force upon weaker ones, but it is not consistent with national sovereignty. What is or is not confiscation is a matter of opinion, and in any event every state has a right, as we have repeatedly asserted, to man- age its fiscal and industrial affairs as it pleases. The most that any other nation is morally justified in demanding is that its citizens shall receive the same treatment under the law as all others. But the vital defect in Mr. Hughes’s words is that they do not square at all with the facts of American policy in Central or South America for the last quarter of a century. “We have no policy of aggression,” declared Mr. Hughes. No? Then why such a persistent practice of it? Why Roosevelt’s seizure of the isthmus of Panama; why the presence, while Mr. Hughes was talking, of United States marines in the supposedly independent republics of Nica- ragua, Haiti, and Santo Domingo? As Ernest Gruening pointed out in an article on the Monroe Doctrine in The Nation last week, the United States has broken sharply with the original theory of the Monroe Doctrine ever since the Spanish-American War. In spite of our absurd preten- sions in regard to Pan-Americanism, there is not a country to the south that trusts us; there is not one that desires our protection against European aggression; there is not one that would not welcome a declaration by some other Power against our further encroachments; there is not one that does not know that Mr. Hughes’s words are ridiculously at variance with all the facts. ~ The financiers, not Mr. Hughes, are actually directing our policy. By playing to the cupidity of small groups in one Latin American republic after another, they are making loans or investments under favored conditions and then calling upon a government at Washington—complacent and hypocritical—to uphold their “rights.” And yet Mr. Hughes gravely asserts: “We have no policy of aggression.”

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The Next War Draws Near By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD London, November 16 ‘<wF the Germans cut loose, our three divisions in the Ruhr are lost.” Thus spoke a prominent French general in the Ruhr the other day to an Allied general, a former comrade in arms. By that remark the French gen- eral merely emphasized what is quite apparent to military observers—that the position of the French troops in the Ruhr is an extremely serious one if the Germans should finally be goaded into resorting to such arms as they have. The Westphalians are not like the inhabitants of the Pala- tinate and the Rhineland, who are in many respects the most easygoing and peacefully disposed of the Germans. The Westphalian is a rough, hard-working and hard-fight- ing being who has been for generations engaged in the most difficult of physical occupations. He has been extraordi- narily patient and long-suffering under the harsh and brutal measures of the French; he held himself in check when, as he thinks, his comrades in the Krupp works were wantonly murdered by a frightened lieutenant and his file of men. But what worries foreign observers, and the French as well, is whether the day will not come when the Ruhr worker, seeing his wife and children dying of starva- tion before his eyes, will prefer to go against the French guns rather than endure such torture any longer. This is no idle fear. It is not so very long ago that the leaders of the workingmen in a certain Ruhr town (there are very good reasons for withholding its name) went to the foremost industrialist and said to him: “Do you want these Frenchmen out of here? If so we'll throw them out by tomorrow morning. They are five thousand and we are fifty thousand.” Naturally the industrialist was horrified. “Are you mad?” he asked. ‘Don’t you realize that if you kill these French others will come here from Essen and Diisseldorf and destroy our city and everything in it?” He was able to dissuade them, and so have others elsewhere to whom the same suggestion has been made. But the ques- tion still remains whether these checks can be applied in- definitely; whether the hour will not come when there will be a resort to arms even if it means the end of everything. A year and a half ago two prominent German pacifists told me that if the French troops were not withdrawn from the Rhineland their countrymen would attack the invaders within five years with bare fists if they had no weapons. That was six months before the occupation of the Ruhr, whose horrors and vindictive cruelties they had not fore- seen, nor the now impending starvation in the Ruhr. The French are not blind to the danger. They show it in their obvious nervousness and the great displays of force they are constantly making. The French generals are plainly ill at ease when, as in Essen the other day, they ride through great crowds of ominously quiet and starv- ing people. Especially do they show it in the cities like Mayence, where they have concentrated thousands of their women and children. They have compelled Mayence to build an entirely new quarter composed of magnificent apartment houses, each apartment in which has to be fitted up for the conquerors down to the last towel, the last piece of china, kitchen-ware, and bed-linen. In another section they have made the city build for them huge barracks, which is the clearest proof that they have no intention of ever vacating Mayence unless they are compelled to go. Now, on the night of the trial of young Thyssen when the ver- dict of guilty was pronounced by the French court-martial, there was an outpouring of the population of Mayence such as was not equaled in the enthusiasm of the first days of war. The French were powerless to control the crowd and wisely did not attempt to. The people vented their indig- nation at this travesty of justice by surging through the city for hours, singing patriotic songs. Had they been inflamed by incendiary speeches there would not have been a Frenchman alive the next morning, and every French apartment would have been ransacked as well. (This is not my opinion only but that of other judges.) If the reader of this article has followed the Separatist developments in the Rhineland, he must have been struck by the mildness of the manifestations in Mayence; this mildness is to be considered in connection with those huge apartment houses and the fact that 95 per cent of all the hotel rooms there have been commandeered by the French for the use of their officers and officials and the wives, children, aunts, and cousins these have brought with them. What would not a sudden uprising, even if quickly put down, mean to these non-combatants whose lives M. Poincaré is jeopard- izing? To return to the general situation, all the old military textbooks used to lay down the law that the last thing an army ought to do is to fight with a deep river at its back. Should hostilities begin again General Degoutte’s troops would not be in quite the same fatal position as General Burnside’s Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg; he was able to withdraw his defeated army to the north bank only because General Lee failed to appreciate how easily he could drive the enemy into the water. The French in Essen are some distance from the Rhine, and there are nearly 200,000 other French troops across the river. But they are de- pendent for their supplies upon an intricate system of rail- ways, which could be cut with the greatest ease by desper- ate men; to protect them, Allied military men tell me, it would be necessary to guard every culvert and every bridge. A prominent American diplomat declares that he has for months past awakened every morning wondering whether the Rhine bridges had not been blown up in the night. He has been prophesying for months past that there would be hostilities between November and April. If you ask him and the British officers I have talked with how in the world an unarmed and starving population can fight against an army perfectly equipped with tanks, endless machine- guns, and poison gas, they reply that desperate men will stop at nothing and that it will not do to think of the com- ing war in terms of the old. They agree, of course, that the Germans cculd not arm and equip and supply an army of the old type. If war comes, they say, it will take the form of a guerrilla warfare after the Irish model, with flying columns of about 250 men and one cannon, and much bombing from the air. The head of an important British military school has been quoted to me as saying that those are precisely the tactics for the Germans to adopt. That these details are being discussed in cold blood; i

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Dec. 12, 1923] that British officers smile at the question, How soon will you be fighting on the side of the Germans? and show no signs of resenting it, is one of the most alarming portents of the times in Europe. For another war would settle nothing and could only add to the utter misery and de- struction. If it comes, it means that those bloodthirsty Englishmen and Americans who regretted that the war ceased before the German Rhineland cities were laid waste will have their wish gratified. And if by any chance the Germans should win, there would be devastation in France such as has not been witnessed heretofore. Hate begets hate, oppression oppression, bitterness bitterness, revenge revenge. Whereas there was no hatred of France in Germany in 1919—as I can testify from my observations at that time, and I can bring hundreds of other witnesses, of every nationality, to confirm it—but only respect for the magnificent way the French had fought for their country, today all Germany seethes with hostility and the determi- nation to conquer them some day or be wiped out. That this is the case is the completest proof of the folly of the French since the surrender, as it is proof that if they really want security they have gone about it just the wrong way. When I asked the French official at Dusseldorf whose duty it was to answer the questions of the foreign correspondents whether it was not regrettable that there should be such a growth of hostility to the French among the Germans he answered: “As to that we don’t care at all.” But the soldiers do. They are taking note of it because it has a distinct bearing upon the next catastrophe and because they believe that if it comes to another struggle those who hate hardest and are most bitter will win, what- ever the disparity in armaments. The Englishmen say that as long as they hold the Cologne bridgehead it will be almost impossible for the French to start off for Berlin from the Ruhr, and they think that it would take a long time and an enormous number of men to get to the German capital. Of course the deeper the French penetrate into Germany the more men they will need to guard their com- munications and the easier it will be to cut those lines. The English point out, too, that if the French should decide to extend their “sanctions” to the occupying of Berlin, they would immediately have to recall to the colors a large number of men, to demand so large a mobilization that there would be a revolt among the French people. Cer- tainly the political Left would make a tremendous protest, and the Communist movement in France is growing much faster than people outside of that country realize—their daily paper in Paris has now a circulation of over 200,000. If Poincaré has to mobilize even a fraction of the reserves, some of the deluded French people will realize that the policy of vindictive brute force has failed. Where would the franc drop to then? Again, if the French should ever retreat from Germany, it would be like the retreat from Lexington and Concord—there would be a foe behind every wall and tree. Could England keep out of a new conflict between Ger- many and France? Who can say? Her troops are in a most difficult position now in the Cologne area. They are surrounded by French and Belgians with whose policies they do not sympathize; whose policies are responsible for the rapidly increasing unemployment in the British zone which is giving the British officials such deep concern. One of the highest British officials in Cologne is not in the least hesitant as to where he stands: “My sympathies are with The Nation 681 LP PEA Mt ENS EN VETERE CRUE NRT CEMA ICN 5 the extreme German nationalists.” “I spits when I sees a Frenchman,” said a British corporal who was just leav- ing Cologne after a long service abroad, including four years on the French front during the war. His regiment is, like himself, on the side of the Germans. What is more important is that Great Britain’s trade interests all incline her to antagonism to the French. There are those who believe that a serious situation will arise in London if, as is threatened, the next French “sanctions” should mean a seizure of Hamburg. Then the lion would roar even if his mouthpiece is so weak a statesman as Baldwin, for that would have a direct bearing upon the question of un- employment in England, which is Baldwin’s excuse for seek- ing a general election at this time. The Admiralty is be- ing urged now to dispatch some cruisers to Hamburg so as to get ahead of a French move. It, if my information is correct, has its plans worked out as to what it will do if war with France comes. Its chief function will be to blockade the French ports, but not to occupy them, which will immediately raise the interesting military question whether ships can blockade harbors nowadays when the bombing air-machine has made such tremendous strides since the war as an offensive weapon. A visiting European crowned head remarked in London the other day: “Everywhere I go these English tell me they don’t dare to do this or that.” But not all the Eng- lish are afraid of France’s power, for at about the same time a distinguished British soldier was declaring that the ‘air defenses of London could be reestablished in forty- eight hours. “If we have to fight the French we shall dis- pose of them in five months with the aid of the Germans we shall arm,” was his viewpoint. “If we had five ship- loads of English airplanes we could begin to fight the French now,” said a former German division commander in Berlin just four weeks ago; as it is we shall have to wait until after Christmas.” I do not believe the stories that large numbers of men are being trained in Germany. Why should they be? Germany still has millions of war- trained soldiers—all she could possibly handle. There is no doubt, however, that there are groups of ex-officers meet- ing and planning for the next war and that cannot be stopped by any amount of Allied military control. The danger does not lie there but in the assumption of the government by men like Von Seeckt and Hindenburg, or the rising of the desperate people on the Rhine. I take no stock in the fixing of a nearby time to strike. That was largely bluff, in my judgment. With Ger- many in its present chaos it is ridiculous to fix a time for anything. But I know and believe with all earnestness that what Poincaré is doing is bringing on the next war in Europe with giant strides, and that that war is in- evitable unless the moral forces of the world are mar- shaled to stop what is happening in the occupied territories and to get the French out of all of Germany at once. It is for England and America to see that this catastrophe does not come to pass. They can stop it if they will. They will certainly be utterly lacking in true friendship and good-will to France if they do not unite to save her from the grave she is digging not only for herself but for all Europe. It is what A. G. Gardiner calls it in the Lon- don Nation, “the greatest crime in the history of Europe.” [Mr. Villard’s next article, Germany’s Political Failures, will appear in The Nation for December 19.]

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ON eEEOEEeEeEEeEeEeEEEeeEeEeEeEeEE—— === —_= The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3049 ‘‘Reversing’’ Burleson’s Labor Policy By STERLING DENHARD SPERO WO years ago last March Will Hays began to “human- 7 ize” the postal service with an honest attempt to right many Burleson injustices. Men who had been dismissed for organization activity were reinstated. Employee organ- izations were officially recognized. Burleson’s policies were to be “completely reversed.” As a guaranty of the permanence and continuity of a new labor policy Mr. Hays established a “welfare division under a “welfare director,” to have oversight of all mat- ters affecting the well-being of the personnel. A National Welfare Council, since rechristened National Service Re lations Council, at the employees’ request, was organized consisting of two representatives from each national postal organization with the service relations director as chair- man. Local service councils were formed at hundreds of first- and second-class post offices, while county councils were established to meet the needs of rural carriers and third- and fourth-class post offices. These councils are purely advisory, although “all matters affecting working conditions of employees or relations between employees, officials, and the public” are declared “legitimate subjects” for “discussion and consideration.” Mr. Hays’s first announcement of his welfare policy was greeted with no little suspicion by some of the workers’ organizations. They were afraid that the councils were an attempt to backfire them; that the Administration, having seen the failure of other regimes to kill them by force, was trying to kill them by kindness. However, two factors have stood in the way of the use of the councils as clubs against the postal unions. First, the national organiza- tions are the basis of representation on the National Coun- cil, and although the local unions or branches are not the unit of representation on local councils, they have, for the most part, succeeded in controlling the election of dele- gates to those bodies. Second, the councils are not a sub- stitute for the direct dealing of organization officers with the authorities. The “reversal” of Burleson’s labor policy gave these officers free access to headquarters. The National Council meets regularly. It has dealt with a wide variety of questions, ranging from matters of rou- tine and detail to subjects of vital administrative impor- tance. Both the national and the local bodies have dealt with matters affecting the physical surroundings of the workers and have succeeded in having many minor causes of complaint adjusted. However, they have been unable to obtain results where the necessary reform involved the ex- penditure of money. In such cases the necessity for con- gressional action made it impossible for the Department to give relief. Many of the improvements with which the councils are credited are really the result of years of agita- tion on the part of the workers. For instance, their most widely heralded physical improvement, the installation of rest bars for distributors, is something for which the organ- ized clerks had been agitating for at least ten years. Thus far the National Council has taken no position in conflict with the Department. Of the eleven organizations which it represents four represent the supervisory staffs and post- masters, and, as one would expect, cast their votes on the official side. Three others, though representing the rank and file, can usually be depended upon to take no stand likely to bring them into disfavor with the authorities. When Mr. Hays left the Post Office Department for the movies, his successor, Hubert Work, made his contribution to “humanization” by inaugurating conference-conventions. Mr. Work characterized this innovation as “probably the greatest single accomplishment of the Department” during the first eighteen months of the Harding Administration. These conference-conventions meet once a year in a cen- trally located city in each State. They are composed of postal employees in the State, the officials, representatives of the Department, and large “users of mail.” Employee organizations have no official place in these gatherings. From the point of view of attendance and enthusiasm the conference-conventions have been a great success. It re- mains to be seen whether they will develop into really useful institutions for the discussion of postal problems, or whether they will be merely occasions for the departmental representatives to make political speeches and pat them- selves on the back. Reports of several gatherings so far held unfortunately point in the latter direction. Unquestionably the morale of the service has improved since March 4, 1921. But this improvement, which was far more noticeable during Mr. Hays’s year in office than it has been since, must be credited to factors other than service-relations work and conference-conventions. Any re- lief from Burleson conditions would have been hailed with joy and could not have failed to have a good effect upon the spirit of the force. But Mr. Burleson’s successors have had nothing to do with the factors which have perhaps been the principal causes of a better spirit. The Salary Reclassifica- tion Act of June 5, 1920, was wrung from Congress by the organized employees in the face of the old Administration’s bitter opposition months before Mr. Harding’s election. The Civil Service Retirement Act of May 22, 1920, was the second factor making for a better spirit. Yet in spite of improvements there have been indica- tions a plenty that “humanization,” notwithstanding the labor policy of the Post Office Department, has remained essentially unchanged. Mr. Hays, despite the fact that he told several delegations of employees that he was not en- thusiastic about postal organizations affiliating with the American Federation of Labor, kept his promise to “treat all alike.” Subordinate officials, however, during his and his successor’s regimes have shown no little hostility toward postal unionism. In the summer of 1922 there was evidence of an official campaign, in the Department’s traditional style, against the more independent and progressive employee organizations, especially against the National Federation of Post Office Clerks, the pioneer postal union and the most advanced of all postal associations. Toward the end of June the First Assistant Postmaster General, Mr. Bartlett, established an official censorship over the bulletin boards in the workers’ “swing,” i.e., rest rooms. Prior to the order the employees had been accustomed to display such matter as they chose upon “swing room” boards. It is significant that the bulletin-board order came but a few weeks after the National Federation of Post Office

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Dec. 12, 1923] The Nation 683 Clerks had protested to President Harding against alleged violations of the eight-hour law by the postal authorities. When the President upheld the union, the latter in triumph issued a pamphlet containing the full correspondence of the controversy. Mr. Bartlett took indignant exception to this pamphlet, especially to the cover “flash” which read: “Chronological Record of Federation’s Fight for Proper Observance of Postal Protective Law.” He issued a mes- sage “to all post-office clerks,” bitterly attacking the fed- eration. Officialdom made every effort to have this message reach all who were supposed to read it. In New York and elsewhere clerks were compelled to sign for copies of the official Postal Bulletin which carried it. It is interesting that a few months ago Mr. Bartlett actually told a com- mittee of Congress that the Department had been “com- pelled” to violate the eight-hour law the previous summer, and thus indirectly admitted the truth of the federation’s contentions. The attack on the federation reached its height at Minne- apolis where the president of the clerk’s local union, George N. Meyers, who was also president of the city Trades and Labor Assembly, was dismissed from the service because the latter body had passed a resolution condemning Presi- dent Harding’s stand on the railway-shopmen’s strike. In response to insistent protests from many quarters, Post- master General Work sent two inspectors to investigate the case. The investigation bore all the earmarks of an at- tempt to justify the Administration and disrupt the clerks’ union. Meyers’s dismissal was treated as a matter of sec- ondary concern. The investigation closed with the dis- charge of the president, Meyers’s successor, and the secre- tary of the local for technical violations of the postal regu- lations. Another employee organization, the Railway Mail Asso- ciation, has constantly complained that the Department was engaged in a systematic effort to “discredit” it, because of its opposition to the continuation of Burleson’s policy of service curtailment for economy’s sake. When the associa- tion established a system of local service committees to deal with the field officials, it found hostility so great in many centers as to render its efforts toward cooperation impos- sible. Nationally, however, the situation seemed more hopeful at the beginning of Mr. Hays’s term. The officers and national executive committee of the Railway Mail Associa- tion met in joint conference with the officials of the railway- mail service and drew up a series of “agreements” on a number of issues agitating the service. The assistant post- master general in charge had previously given his assurance that “such agreements as may be reached will be carried out faithfully by the Department.” Yet, hardly had the agreements gone into effect when the authorities began to interpret them in such ways as to nullify some of them al- most entirely. This was notably true of the “overtime” ‘agreement. The nullifying interpretations brought pro- tests from the convention of the Railway Mail Association. To these protests the same assistant postmater general who had given the assurance just quoted retorted “... it is rather disconcerting to find that you feel that the pro- visions .. . of our agreement are mandatory and that you are disposed to exact literal application of them regardless of the runs affected.” Meanwhile the association’s reactionary faction was do- ing its best to swing the organization back to its old policy of maintaining an official “stand in” and doing nothing to “embarrass” the Administration. It finally succeeded in forcing a referendum to reconsider the question of affilia- tion with the American Federation of Labor, But when the vote was taken last fall the progressives carried the day, ordering the retention of membership in the American Fed- eration of Labor by a two to one vote. “Humanization” has failed to shake the bureaucracy from its control of the service. The truth is that the individual! employees—city carriers, rural carriers, clerks, and.railway- mail clerks—are being driven harder today than ever be- fore. In proportion to the volume of mail the working force is smaller than at any time within the quarter cen- tury. Nevertheless “humanization” has had its value in that it has taught the workers that the best intentions of the political heads of the Department are no substitute for strong and independent employee organization. Is Pan-Americanism a Joke—- On Us By A PAN-AMERICAN JOURNALIST AM an Argentine. Not an Argentinian, as you North Americans say, incorrectly, but an Argentine. I have visited your country several times. I profess to know it as well as any intelligent foreigner who is not a permanent resident can know it. But I am not going to tell you what I think of it. Every foreigner does that. I am going to tell you what you think of my country. I am going to teil you that, although your Government and many of your pub- lic men have for years been fostering a creed called “Pan- Americanism,” or “Pan-American solidarity,” such a thing is still more of an idea than a fact. Listen to my conversation with George Hopkins Smith, Esq., a New York lawyer, graduate of Yale; or maybe it is Bertram A. Jones, of Chicago, box manufacturer, graduate of the University of Michigan; or Lucas Robinson, editor of the Minneapolis Blade. “How do you do, Mister—er Quintana? You are a South American, are you?” he remarks when I am introduced to him as recently arrived from Buenos Aires. “Well,” I reply, “I was born in Argentina.” “Yes, I had heard you were a South American. I’ve met quite a number of your countrymen lately, and they all spoke English so well, like yourself. I met one from Santi- ago. Then I met a most charming South American woman. She came from Montevideo, I think—wonderfully well dressed. I took her for an American. Really, you South Americans are comers. How are things in South America, anyway ?” “That’s a pretty big question,” I answer. “It’s rather a big continent, you know. I can speak only for my own country.” “Yes, of course. Brazil?” “But I come from Buenos Aires.” “Oh yes, to be sure; Buenos Aires is the capital of Ar- gentina and it’s Rio that’s the capital of Brazil. I remem- ber now—Rio is where Hughes went to the exposition they had there to celebrate Brazil’s declaration of independence from Spain a hundred years ago.” “From Spain?” I exclaim. “Pardon me for correcting I meant to say how are things in

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684 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3049 you—from Portugal. Brazil was settled by the Portuguese, you remember. They speak Portuguese in Brazil.” “They do? You don’t say? Yes, I remember now. I was thinking that all you South Americans spoke Spanish.” “No more than all you North Americans speak English,” I remark. “But we do all speak English, except, of course, in the foreign colonies in the big cities.” “Not in Mexico,” I retort. “Mexico? Mexicans aren’t Americans” (astonished). “Not citizens of the United States, but Mexico is in North America and so is Canada.” “But they are three different countries; quite different.” “To be sure, and so are all the countries in South America quite different. Had you ever thought of that?” Thereupon I try to persuade George Hopkins Smith, Esq., to listen to a lecture, or possibly it is Mr. Jones, the manufacturer, or Editor Robinson—let it be any one of them. I have had such conversations with dozens of your fellow-countrymen, and occasionally one of them shows enough interest to hear me through. If so, I say to him: “You North Americans—you Americans, as you exclu- sively call yourselves—lump the ten nations of South America into one. Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia—they’re all the same to you. Ethnologically, philologically, economi- cally, and even politically you think of them as a unit. You do not grant them national individuality. I have talked with people in all parts of your country, including your government officials at Washington, educated men like your- self. Almost without exception they referred to me, as you have, as a ‘South American.’ They spoke of ‘conditions in South America,’ of products and information that came ‘from South America’; seldom of any special country. It did not occur to them, as in your case, that they were talking to an Argentine, or that Argentina is as different from Venezuela, and Brazil as different from Chile, as the United States is from Australia. “I am a South American, geographically,” I continue, “just as Canadians and Mexicans, geographically, are North Americans, but I vas born in, owe allegiance to, and fer- vently love a country called Argentina, la Republica Argen- tina. I have respect and what we call in Spanish confva- ternidad for the people of other South American countries, but I do not relish having my nationality obliterated by being classed without distinction with Brazilians, Venezuel- ans, Paraguayans, Peruvians, and Chileans. I know that they feel the same way about it. “Once, when one of your Secretaries of State was visiting Uruguay while on a mission of friendship to several South American republics, a number of your journalists who ac- companied him were tendered a banquet by the journalists of Montevideo. High Uruguayan government officials, the leading editors, and other important personages were pres- ent. There was much good oratory, in Spanish, dwelling on the same old ‘bonds of friendship that unite the republics of Uruguay and the United States’ of which the guests of honor did not understand a word. One of them, however, had to make a speech in reply, which he did in English while an interpreter translated it into Spanish, sentence by sentence. He, too, expatiated on the bonds of friendship, but not between Uruguay and the United States. No, his theme was the ties that bind the United States and South America. And in concluding he said ‘Gentlemen, I lift my glass to South America.’ ‘Uruguay, you chump. Drink to Uruguay,’ stage-whispered a resident and wiser North American correspondent who sat at his side. And the speaker lamely added to his sentence the name of the proud country in which he was being entertained. “What did you make me do that for?’ he asked after- ward, “For the same reason,’ said the resident correspondent, ‘that, had you been making a speech like this in Paris and had lifted your glass to Europe—you wouldn’t have done it. Can you imagine what a hit a toast to Europe would make with the French these days? You know that it would be meaningless. It is just as meaningless here to drink a toast to South America.’ ” “But we have only the friendliest feelings for you, Mr. Quintana,” says my victim. “Oh, we don’t doubt that. We in Argentina accept your good intentions and good-will, but what irritates us is your profound ignorance of us, what we are and what we do. Knowing what a great nation you are, we wish your under- standing and recognition of our individuality. We read emanations from the Pan-American Union headquarters in Washington eulogizing us, telling of our resources, our high civilization, and our bright future, but when I come to visit you and say I am from Buenos Aires, I am taken for a Brazilian or just a ‘South American.’ I wonder who reads this literature of the Pan-American Union, anyway. “The most of you picture us as half-breed Indians squat- ting about the doors of adobe huts, weaving mats, pounding corn in a mortar, and fetching water from the river in clay jugs. You have seen pictures of the half-naked tribes on the Amazon, or the remnant of the Incas in the Andes, and that is your picture of all of us.” “Oh, I am sure you exaggerate, Mr. Quintana. I never quite thought that myself, and I am certain the majority of Americans know you are far beyond that stage.” “Perhaps I do exaggerate,” I interrupt, “perhaps I do; but let me tell you what a New York newspaper published about the proprietor of an Argentine newspaper on his arrival in New York a few years ago. His paper is as successful and as internationally enterprising as that which sent a reporter to interview him. At the conclusion of the article the reporter wrote: ‘The South American editor was dressed like any other gentleman.’ “The editor still keeps a clipping of this article as an amusing souvenir of his visit to the United States. ‘I suppose,’ he told me, ‘that the reporter expected to find me dressed in a belt of palm leaves or, at the best, wearing a poncho.’ “T replied that I should have thought that a great New York newspaper would know better than to publish such 3 characterization. “ ‘No,’ laughed the Argentine editor, ‘the reporter was a good reporter when he wrote that. It appealed to him and to the newspaper as news and, I found out, it was news to most of its readers that a person from anywhere in South America was dressed like any other gentleman.’ “Some time ago, your Secretary of State, Mr. Colby, visited Buenos Aires. He had received big popular demon- strations in Rio and in Montevideo, but when he stepped ashore at Buenos Aires the welcoming populace consisted of about fifty Americans, two Argentines who had been educated in the United States, and the longshoremen. No cheering people lined the streets as he drove to his hotel.

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Dec. 12, 1923] There was a quiet reception by Argentine government offi- cials at the pier, an escort of grenadiers, but that was all. What was the trouble? “Unfortunately it chanced to be New Year’s Day, busi- ness was closed, and many people were away. Mr. Colby’s loyal attachés were surprised and chagrined, I happen to know, at what they called a frosty reception, but one of the newspaper correspondents with him sensed the reason when he cabled to his paper: ‘Secretary Colby made about as much impression upon arriving at Buenos Aires as the Argentine Foreign Minister would make on arriving in New York. It was not due to lack of respect for Mr. Colby or unfriendliness toward the nation he represented that he was not welcomed by ‘cheering thousands.’ It was that he was ‘lost in the big city,’ a city of nearly 1,800,000 inhabi- tants, accustomed to the visits, also, of distinguished Euro- peans.” “Your story is something of an eye-opener for me,” say the lawyer, the manufacturer, the editor—almost all of them who have heard me through. The editor says that about the only thing that has ever made news from any of them is an earthquake or a revolution. The box manu- facturer says he has such a good business at home that he does not need to export to South American countries and therefore has no special interest in them. The lawyer says he has always been interested in foreign affairs, but his out- look has been chiefly toward Europe. He always thought it a good idea for the Government to help the young South American republics along and keep the Monroe Doctrine going to protect them. He always supposed that “South Americans” liked the idea and that they were the people who were keen for Pan-Americanism. “Who started the Pan-American Union?” I asked him. “Hm--m, who did start it?” he reflects and recalls that it was the United States. This lecture does not pretend to mean that we Argentines believe our country to be in every respect as progressive as yours. But we study you. You do not study us. We know your history. What you know of the histories of the re- spective South American republics can be summed up in three words—“series of revolutions.” And what you know of them today seems little more than that they compose that vague geographical place, South America, that re- minds you on the map of a top or a ham. So I say, if you really want effective Pan-American co- operation, take some interest in us. It is hard for us to cooperate with people who are not interested in us. Teach your children the histories of the South American republics, give them books to study that will tell them what these republics are today. That will bring to the next generation the interest and the understanding that are necessary. Contributors to This Issue EpGAaR LEE MASTERS, author of “Spoon River Anthology” and many other volumes of verse and prose, has re- cently brought out a new novel, “The Nuptial Flight.” STERLING DENHARD SPERO is making a study of unionism in the federal service. In the issue of November 14 it was erroneously stated that Magdeleine Marx is author of only one novel which has been translated into English. Two novels, “Woman” and “You,” have been translated and published by Thomas Seltzer. The Nation How Many Huirams? (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD AVING in the course of the last six years devoted many industrious, even if not laborious, hours to researches into the temperament of Hiram Johnson, and having often continued these researches to the point of the complete exhaustion and exasperation of the subject, I feel encouraged—and even qualified—to give an authoritative answer to the principal question which now seems to agi- tate the politically minded people of this country. Is Hiram Johnson a “progressive”? Or is he a “conserva- tive’? Sometimes this problem is put more bitterly: Has Hiram Johnson ceased to be a “progressive”? Has he become a “conservative”? It is readily then to be seen that two deep difficulties are involved. First: What is progressivism? Second: Has Hiram Johnson changed? The second difficulty is to me no difficulty at all. In spite of Hiram Johnson’s offishness toward and from reporters, and in spite of his secluded determination to live in an antique colonial country-house in a grove some eight or nine miles out of Washington at the spur-end of a wretched road, I have pursued him and I have wrung his guilty secret from him. This man Hiram Johnson is precisely the same man who came here six years ago. He has not changed by an inch, an ounce, a jot, or a tittle. Whatever conservatism is in him now was in him then. Whatever progressivism was in him then is in him now. It is a political progressivism, a humanitarian pro- gressivism, and not an economic progressivism. Johnson thought—and thinks—that the electorate should be permitted (through such devices as direct primaries) to express its will freely and fully and directly in affairs of government and in affairs of party. He thought—and thinks—that a railroad company (as, for instance, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company) should be a railroad and not a government. He thought—and thinks—that wage-earners, when too weak to protect themselves, should be protected by law in the matter of the physical conditions of their employment. It followed that he arrived in Washington trailing be- hind him a sort of comet’s tail of supposed general complete comprehensive “progressivism.” It was an optical illusion. The intellectual fallacy which produced it can be stated very simply. It can be stated—I hope without offense—in the form of a homely and humble parable. Once there was a man who liked apples. He liked them so much that he gained for himself a most tremendous national reputation as an apple-eater. Then, however, the fashion changed to pears. Now this man, as it happened, was no horticulturist and no pomologist. He had in his head no system of horticultural or pomological science. He knew nothing about any inward biological relationship be- tween apples and pears. He would have been unable to perceive any reason why he himself, having found apples pleasant to his palate, should find pears equally pleasant. In any case it soon appeared that his appetite for pears was decidedly feeble. He just simply was no success as a

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686 The Nation pear-eater. Thereupon he sustained the following experi- ence in cross-fire criticism. Not only everybody who liked both pears and apples, but also everybody who hated both pears and apples, rose with the same unanimous motion from the table and shouted: “You traitor! You welcher and quitter! You gorged yourself on apples and now instead of eating pears you actually eat oranges, You were in favor of throwing the Southern Pacific Railroad Company out of the politics of California. Now you have favored federal governmental aid to the American merchant marine! You voted to let the people of California have the initiative and referendum. Now you have voted to give them a high tariff on their lemons and almonds! You were for a minimum-wage law for women. Now you refuse to come out for a govern- mental corporation to buy the farmer’s wheat! How dare you? As progressives, we denounce you. As conserva- tives, we denounce you. We have a philosophy. You may not see the connection between being for the referendum and having to be for a low tariff. We, however, do see it. Both propositions annoy the regulars. What is progres- sivism if not annoying the regulars? You, Hiram Johnson, made your start annoying the regulars; and, by the Eternal, you’ve got to keep on.” Such is the fate of Johnson, if certain persons of the grand right and of the grand left could have their way. Some such persons, of a character somewhat less arbitrary than in my fable, are indeed wiser, I think, than Johnson. They are wiser if they search indeed for a ‘“progressiv- ism” which will cover these latter-day economic questions as well as the old and easily heroic human political ques- tions of the heyday of the initiative and the referendum and the recall and the direct primary and the oriflamme of Armageddon: “Let the people rule!” In this issue it is true that Johnson is not a “progres- sive.” It is also quite true that not Johnson—and not any- body else in political life in Washington, except Brookhart of Iowa—has even a suggestion for any really new eco- nomic order. I do not call it “progressivism” simply to make sugges- tions for visiting upon our present economic order a plague of embarrassments and impediments. Economic democracy means outright positive democratic cooperation in production and distribution and credit; or else it means not only nothing, but, through putting on the brakes without inventing any new steam, it means worse than nothing. Johnson is politically a progressive. Politically he can see—and say—that the Southern Pacific has no right to rule California and that the United States Marine Corps has no right to rule Haiti and that the League of Nations has no right to rule the world. In economics on the other hand Johnson belongs to no school. He sees no scheme that convinces him for any new economic order, He accordingly honestly accepts the pres- ent economic order. He honestly refrains from trying to sabotage it. He at the same time is frankly determined that heavy profits shall continue to carry heavy cor- responding burdens. He is willing to see the top dog rise but he is not willing to see the under dog kicked. That is all. I would not call it economic “progressivism” or eco- nomic “conservatism.” I would call it just present-day unphilosophical hard headed human hearted ordinary aver- age puzzled economic Americanism. [ Vol. 117, No. 8049 O You Young Eagles! By EDGAR LEE MASTERS O you young eagles! Fluttering out of nests in the mountains of vision, Whose peaks stand calm as crystal Amid vast azures of liberties; You who opened eyes upon sky-girt seas of dawn, And closed them amid the fraternal watchfulness of stars, There in nests a century old, O you young eagles, Who seeing the sun-light of ascendant futures Glistening the halcyon freshness of your feathers, Beat your golden breasts with your wings— Eagles of the Republic to be— O you young eagles! From the plains you come, and the valleys, From the hills and the forested rivers, From shores of the sea, and miles of meadow, From summits of green, and levels of gold, And slopes of purple where long winds blow; From measureless stretches of corn, Waving incalculable flags of green To the marching of states and races; From mountains where gusted storms Eddy the snow, you come. Flapping expectant wings, and calling, And streaming across the heavens To touch gray towers and halls of ivy, Pausing to drink, to feed. Then on! Storming the sky with wings, And scattering from the assaulted sun Sparks on the earth as you fly. Eagles of the Republic to be— O you young eagles! The kites and crows fly you, And hide from you, And whistle and croak for you. The barnyard fowls run cackling, And call for shelters and laws! Noisy and harmless barnyard fowls! Give them the picketed yard and the coop, The-earth is yours beside, and the peaks, And the kingdom of clouds— O you young eagles! Who will gather you under his wings After you have left the nest? Only the wings of the sun shall gather you, After you leave your golden eggs in the nest To be changed to wings By the breast of a rising sun. Rejoice, young eagles, For the long flight ahead;. For the ecstasy of the battles On your way to the sun!

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Dec. 12, 1923] In the Driftway DISON has been talking again about the coming of the four-hour working day—how we are progressing to- ward it with modern science and invention. Steinmetz, too, thought we were approaching it. In one of the last quoted utterances before his death he predicted that the working day of four hours was within seeing distance be- cause of the vast development in labor-saving devices and methods. x * * * ¥* HE Drifter regrets to dissent from this cheerful note. Despite his respect for the science of Edison and Stein- metz he thinks that their prophecy of the coming of the four-hour day on the wings of modern industrialism has about as much chance of becoming history as a peach crate of going through the Niagara whirlpool intact. The Drifter has a hunch—he will not dignify it as prophecy—that mod- ern industrialism is not going to shorten the working day by a hair’s breadth. In fact the Drifter goes further; he asserts that—contrary to popular belief—the working day is longer today than it was a hundred years ago. He is well aware that there is an array of statistics on the other gide—that he is likely to be buried under an avalanche of official reports including all the latest inventions of the mathematicians. The trouble with these statistics is that —like most others—they are compiled by arithmeticians, not by philosophers. The working day must be judged not merely by the hours that one is on the job but by the energy it takes out of you; leisure is to be measured not by time only but by the strength which remains to utilize it. If, after six hours’ labor, one is “all in” for the rest of the day, then his effective leisure is less than if, at the end of ten hours, he is still fresh. The Drifter holds that modern “speeding up” has more than destroyed the advantage of so- called shorter hours. * * * * * ODERN civilization has attacked leisure at another point. The worker, in many instances, has been so far removed from his work that he has to spend two to four hours a day going and coming. This should be in- cluded in an estimate of the working day. Half an hour in a New York subway is sometimes harder than four hours behind a store counter or a work bench. Then, too, a modern worker’s working day does, and must, include a variety of activities outside office or shop; there is the labor union, the political club, the lodge—attention to which is often as important to success as any effort on the job. * * * * * OT only have modern science and invention done noth- ing to shorten the true working day, but they are not even headed that way. The result of labor-saving machin- ery and methods has been merely to increase what we call the standard of living. This means an increase only in pointless luxury and needless waste. Science and invention, as the tools of modern industrialism, have released labor in one quarter only to divert it to a totally unnecessary piling up of material flubdubbery and hypercomplication of the already too complicated machinery of living. * *% * * * EN now, as always, work as long as they are willing to; and they have been so keyed up by present con- ditions that they are probably working a harder day than at The Nation 687 any time since the Garden of Eden. Modern industry does not offer the slightest prospect of alleviation. The only chance for more loafing is through a will to do less work, a will to simplify rather than augment the standard of living, a will to so organize life that making a living will become an incident instead of an occupation—a will to drift. THE DRIFTER Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. ]} That Typical American Dinner To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Of all the dishes suggested for entertaining Mr. Lloyd George, including stuffed roast turkey, pumpkin and apple pie, caramel ice cream, terrapin and canvas-back duck, mashed po- tatoes, coffee, etc., etc., none can compare with the most popular and typical American dinner, namely, the chop suey, to satisfy the hungry curiosity of the distinguished guest. Chop suey is American in original production and in make, and therefore deserves an honorable mention. THEODORE B. Tu Chinese Students’ Music Club, New York, November 25 To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit me to add a shot of realism to the galaxy of effusions your letter columns have contained apropos an Ameri- can dinner. A dinner peculiar to one section of this country, or one found only on the tables of a minority class, should not be adorned with the adjective American. A dinner that will have a national vogue during the coming winter, exceeding beyond calculation those menus presented by the epicureans, one that will be luscious to the gullets of millions, I offer the gastro- nomical nirvana of the unemployed proletariat: “Coffee and—” I believe this menu to be truly worthy of being known as an American dinner. Seattle, Washington, November 19 WILLIAM FARGHER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit me flatly to contradict W. B. of Magog, P. Q., who writes you that “cream that has come through a separator does not get as thick as cream that has risen in a pan.” When my father was pastor at East Hardwick, between 1890 and 1900, we used to get from the East Hardwick creamery, for twenty cents a quart, cream so thick that very commonly it was quite impossible to pour it from a pint pitcher at all, and the only way to get it out was with a spoon, although it was perfectly fresh and sweet—much fresher, I understand, than cream risen in a pan could possibly be, for this was cream from a separator. It all depends on how you set your separator. What W. B. says about “thick clots” implies that between his clots there is something thinner in which the clots swim, hence that the mass as a whole must be capable of pouring, and that he is ignorant of sweet cream too thick to pour and thought the Drifter was exaggerating when he spoke of such. I don’t mean to deny that W. B.’s cream is doubtless good stuff, and I wish I had any quantity of it from a teaspoonful to a gallon right now. A year or two ago I went into a restaurant on the outskirts of Boston’s Jewish tenement-house quarter and asked.for straw- berry ice cream. The man evidently misunderstood me and handed out a big saucer of strawberries smothered in plenty of real thick cream, about as thick as it could be and be easy to pour. I didn’t know there was such cream in Boston, and I don’t know now where or how he got it; but I ate the dish with delight, without hinting that he had given me the wrong thing. I believe this also was twenty cents.

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688 The Nation The trouble with city milk is that the city man is willing to pay at milk prices for all the water that the cow will put into the milk. As long as the water is put in by the cow and not by a man it is “milk.” Consequently the Holstein is the cow to raise for producing milk to be sold to the city jay, because the Holstein, the big black-and-white brute, is the one that will put most water in her milk and so will give most quarts for a ton of feed. The creamery, and presumably the con- densed-milk factory, does not buy by the quart but by the amount of food in the milk; so the cow to raise for selling milk to the creamery is the Jersey, the one that puts in least water and gives out in her milk the greatest amount of food material for every ton of feed that she eats. A fair imitation of Holstein milk can be made by mixing with Jersey milk a considerable dose of water and a tiny bit of sugar. Convenient statistics for precise computation may be found in the New International Encyclopaedia under Cattle. When the city’s increasing de- mand for milk taps a district that had previously been making butter and cheese, the farmers there begin to sell their Jerseys and buy Holsteins. I suppose the city man will learn to buy his milk at so much per unit of actual food value about as soon as he learns to buy his coal, big-factory fashion, at so much per B.T.U. and not per ton. Ballard Vale, Mass., November 26 STEVEN T. BYINGTON The Lively Generation To THE EpiTorR OF THE NATION: Sir: There is such a note of challenge in the unsigned ar- ticle entitled The Languid Generation in The Nation of Novem- ber 21 that those of us among the “languid generation” who have seen it feel the thrust keenly and stand ready to defend ourselves, as not a languid but as a lively generation. The charge that “the students in the colleges” are “not interested in anything” is, to our minds, preposterous and unwarrantable. The editors and managers of college undergraduate newspapers may find their task a baffling one, but that is not sufficient ground for assuming that their readers have no interests worth mentioning. Generally speaking, the college girl’s interests lie in three spheres: her activities within college; her own activities with- out college; and the activities of her family, friends, and the world at large. The girl’s world within college absorbs the majority of her time and attention because its demands in these respects are great. Besides her academic work she has dra- matics or music or athletics or literary jobs, and in the case of a large group of students she has some position in college gov- ernment, or the Christian Association, or on her house staff which arouses her interest in that particular field. The aca- demic work itself, however, does the most to locate and develop her interest. If she happens to be taking a course in English composition, which involves a study of current daily and weekly newspapers, well and good—the incentive is provided, she takes her newspapers, reads them, and establishes a contact with the outside world. But if she elects to take languages, or literature, or some branch of learning that does not necessarily have to do with international politics, it does not mean that she is any the less interested. And her interest is just as strong and just as worthwhile as that of the student taking English com- position. The college newspaper, therefore, must be content to be, for the most part, a chronicler of events of the college world. Its scope is limited, its news, even concerning college affairs, is necessarily confined. It should not expect more than a limited amount of interest and enthusiasm. Which fact prevents it from being an adequate judge of whether the college girl is interested in anything. The college girl herself must be the judge. I, for one, characterize her interest as “lively” rather than as lacking or “languid.” Wellesley, Mass., November 29 CONSTANCE MotTT-SMITH At this the Holiday Season we suggest as Gifts a choice from our comprehensive Collection of Old and Rare Books Sets and Single Volumes First Editions Books with Colored Plates Sporting Books CHRISTMAS CARDS } Desk Sets, Book Ends, Prints, Novelties, Station- ery, Brass Goods, Leather Goods, Fountain Pens. BRENTANOS| Booksellers to the World Fifth Avenue THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN MOSLEM ASIA By E. Alexander Powell A BRILLIANT piece of political writing. The author has given the clearest account we have ‘seen of the complicated affairs of the Near East— of Persia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Syria, the new Turkey, Arabia and Palestine. He is perfectly frank about the bullying and jockeying of the great powers there, and has some exceedingly interesting recent history to relate. 12mo, 389 pages, with 4 maps. Price, $2.50 At all Bookstores Published by 353 Fourth Ave. LHE CENTURY Co. New York When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3049

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Dee. 12, 1923] Books A Man’s Woman The End of the House of Alard. By Sheila Kaye-Smith. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2. Y long-standing preference for English novels as against American novels is in no wise shaken by reading “The End of the House of Alard.” It possesses, like many others from the same general source, solidity, richness, finish, back- ground, planes, perspective. You may proclaim that you prefer a new growth from a new soil. You are free, of course, to choose between a shoot from an old tree and some seedling that starts up on its own account. In the one case you may get the continuing oak; in the other you may get, let us say, the impro- vising ailantus—which prompt and facile product, as I have lately learned in suburban Connecticut, is often ranked as a “weed.” Here in her latest work, as elsewhere, Miss Kaye-Smith closes a strong little fist on significant realities. In her selec- tion and treatment of themes, and more especially in her selec- tion and treatment of characters, she may fairly be called— to give the expression a slight twist—a man’s woman. In “The Tramping Methodist” she shows a picaresque hero enmeshed in murder and love. Another early hero, Starbrace, rebels against family tyranny and runs away to join the smugglers. The protagonist of “Green Apple Harvest” exhibits the fail- ures of an honest and earnest young man in love and religion. That of “Tamarisk Town’ is a real-estate operator, as we should say, who is intent on turning a simple fishing-village into a seaside resort. The chief figure of “Sussex Gorse” concen- trates with a not dissimilar intensity on country-side instead of seaside. Everywhere masculine interests, male melodrama, boundless virility, the rugged life of the yeoman farmer, with full cognizance of oath and beer, of crop rotation, and of barn- yard activities. If one were to search our own fiction for a reasonably close analogue to Sheila Kaye-Smith, one might find it in Ottilie Liljencrantz, who, some twenty years ago, was busying herself with the heroes of Scandinavian saga and legend. In both cases the general tendency has been away from woman, with her griefs and grievances, great or little, and toward man, with the glory of his combat against fate and circumstance. Woman has her place, true; but she often takes her chances around and between. Miss Kaye-Smith too has been “historical”: her first things had to do with the earlier decades of the nineteenth century and with the middle of the eighteenth. And probably her present novel will rise to the dignity of the historical—how- ever much that may amount to—with the passing of the years. It is an important socio-historical document. Heretofore, Miss Kaye-Smith has been content usually to depict the yeoman class. If the “county families” existed for her they were in the background as a part of the set scene. But the Alards move to the front plane. They have lived too far into an unpropitious present, and their landed estate, now disintegrating, is almost the protagonist of the story: at least, four component parts of it give names to the four sections of which the book is made and provide the four general scenes of action—all quite as in a well-balanced play. In brief, an an- cient historical estate has fallen upon evil times, and each of the younger generation, in his or her way and to his or her capacity, is called upon for sacrifice to the family and its land. One gives up love to marry money; another, faced with the prospect of marrying poor, gives up marriage altogether. Only two younger members escape. One rebels at Oxford, turns to mechanical pursuits, and finally, in reaction against an older brother who is an Anglican rector, takes refuge, the last male of the clan, in a Catholic order. Another accepts a young farmer to whom part of the consecrated yet heavily mortgaged acres have been sold.- The book, in its essence, portrays the The Nation 6389 break-up of an established social system and records the vain sacrifices mistakenly made to maintain it. The advantages of a stage already set are obvious; also those of characters and properties more or less “bespoke.” The result need never be staleness, tedium, and constraint, when past is thus linked up with present and when future is foreshadowed. Where all is informed with an alert and penetrating spirit of social criticism, any donnée, however familiar, may be trium- phantly saved and worked. Miss Kaye-Smith is by no means content with presenting a single detached figure, nor even a small group in the round; she prefers to employ, frieze-like, a series of relations and interrelations, with its wide oppor- tunities for a comprehensive treatment of tendency and change. It is such a procedure that gives a novel the better half of its value. Henry B. FULLER Primitive Mentality? Primitive Mentality. By Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Translated by Lilian A. Claire. The Macmiilan Company. $5. T HE thesis which Lévy-Bruhl presents in this work, designed to follow and supplement his earlier “Fonctions Mentales dans les Sociétés Inférieures,” can be given briefiy. The mind of the primitive, he holds, operates in a manner which differs fundamentally from that of modern man. This difference is not inherent: “ . . . it is due neither to incapacity or inaptitude, since those who have drawn our attention to this feature of primitive mentality expressly state that among them are ‘minds quite as capable of scientific thought as those of Europeans.’ ” The difference is purely cultural, and is due to the method of approach which the primitive takes toward his prob- lems. Thus, we see that primitive man determines whether a thing should or should not be done by means of auguries, over- comes his enemy by magic, propitiates his forebears whose ghosts have the power to help or harm him, obeys his dreams, and heeds the omens he has been taught to deem significant. Why is there to be found this attitude on the part of primitive man? “The solution of the enigma is... in the mystical and prelogical character of primitive mentality.” “Instead of both cause and effect being perceptible in time and nearly always in space, as in our case, primitive mentality admits only one of the two conditions to be perceptible at one time; the other belongs to the sum total of those entities which are invisible and imperceptible to sense.” The primitive man thinks in terms of this mystical universe, and therefore has no trouble, we are told, in accusing his friend of stealing his belongings because he saw the act done in a dream; the time-element and spacial relations involved do not trouble him. Again, the primitive mind is indifferent to secondary causes, according to Lévy- Bruhl. With us, it is different—brought face to face with phenomena entirely mysterious, we merely reflect that we can- not account for them because we do not know enough about them, and search for the secondary causes which underlie them, and thus finally solve our problems. Not so the savage; his world is one of “‘mystic participation”; death is not caused by natural forces but by magical ones; physiological manifestations are of no import when contrasted with mystical ones. The thesis set forth above is supported by an overwhelming array of comparative data. There are many examples cited, and these, together with the attitude of the author that the basis of this special aspect of the savage is cultural rather than biological, make the work a persuasive one. But we do not believe that the thesis can be sustained. Thus, we are told that, to the savage, the world is a closed system, in which there is no room for accident or chance happenings. But this, indeed, is the very attitude of the most rigorous scientist, and while it must not be assumed that the ideas of the primitive and the scientist are alike, the attitude itself, if Lévy-Bruhl is correct in his description of it, is identical. Cause and effect is the first law of science—that the primitive visualizes his cause as

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690 The N ation [Vol. 117, No. 3049 mystical is merely because his historical background has never prompted him to search the field of nature. It would seem, further, that the author errs when he attributes to all civilized persons mental attitudes different from those of the savage. It may be true that the scientist, in his laboratory, reasons strictly and from secondary causes—but we do not have to look far to see this same scientist, out of his laboratory, going to church on Sunday to worship a Being who is not so far re- moved, psychologically,’ from the spirits of the savage! Ask the man on the street what makes the light go on when you press a button, and he will reply “Electricity.” But does he try to reason about the “secondary causes” involved? Not even the most enthusiastic supporter of Lévy-Bruhl would argue so. It may be true that we believe that death occurs “when the heart stops racing.” But it is also true that we talk of death as occurring when the soul, an essentially mystical something, leaves the body. It may be true that the primitive man wor- ships his fetishes, and does as they demand, but one does not have to search far to see how the flower of our own culture reacts to the fetish of the flag or the words “patriotism,” “con- stitution,” or “democracy.” The fetishes may be different—the psychology is the same. And as for the importance of dreams— any Freudian can tell you that their interpretation is not re- stricted to primitive man. The author admits, too, that cause and effect as we know it, is realized by the primitive man when he makes his implements or his weapons. But the significance of this fact is not realized, nor is it sufficiently exploited in this work, for it is of great importance in considering the processes of “primitive mentality,” granting that there may be anything which is peculiarly such. The translation of the work is excellent, and nothing is lost by it. Not as much can be said of the bibliographic material used by the author. The American data, particularly, are highly insufficient—the superb series of the Jessup Expedition, the many works from the Bureau of American Ethnology, the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Cali- fornia, and the Canadian Geological Survey are not utilized at all. And while the data on Africa and the South Seas are rea- sonably complete, it is significant that the author has rested his case mainly on reference to those continents about which there is the least exact knowledge. MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS World Politics History of Modern durope 1878-1919. By G. P. Gooch. Henry Holt and Company. $5. fey the third and second centuries B.c. the Romans fought a series of guerres d outrance with the Carthaginians. Car- thage was destroyed; the history of the struggle has come down to us only through Roman sources; and Punic faith has since been synonymous with bad faith. In the World War England controlled the seas and the channels of information; and for several years it looked as if the Hun of English propaganda would attain the dignity of history. But the story of the re- cent war is not likely to be told to posterity exclusively from the victor’s point of view. On the contrary, the most reliable sources of information are those put at our disposal through investiga- tions of the archives of Germany and Austria by official and semi-official committees. To these must be added the archives of England’s turncoat ally Russia and, less reliable theugh no less important, a mass of memoirs, speeches, and correspondence of many of the actors on both sides and the official blue, yellow, orange, white, and other highly colorful books of the interested Powers. He who would assay the difficult task of summarizing all this but recently available knowledge must have mastered the art of history and be prepared to allow prejudice to yield to fact. Mr. Gooch’s qualifications for such an undertaking are al- ready well known. In the present work he has made use of almost everything of value on the history of international di- plomacy since the Congress of Berlin, and very few are the moot points of that most mooted of periods to which he has not brought some very definite light. What it must have cost in the sacrifice of the personal element alone is attested by the fact that, Englishman though he is, only once does he allow himself to call the Germans names (on p. 388 he says that the remarkable treaty of alliance at Bjérko in 1905 between the Czar and the Kaiser was “treacherously extorted” by the latter) and only once does he permit his patriotism to run off with his better judgment (on p. 256 he grieves that “Great Britain has never obtained credit on the Continent for her disinterested humani- tarianism”). Aside from these two lapses, international events since 1879, which he chose as a point of departure rather than the more reasonable date of 1870 because he wishes this book to be regarded as the continuation of Fyffe’s “History of Modern ‘Europe 1792-1878,” are described as the sorry muddle they were, all nations being held equally guilty for the tragic culmination. “The root of the evil lay in the division of Europe into two armed camps... and the conflict was the offspring of fear no less than ambition. ...It is a mistake to imagine that the conflict of 1914 took Europe unawares, for the statesmen and soldiers had been expecting it and preparing for it for many years. It is also a mistake to attribute exceptional wickedness to the governments who, in the words of Lloyd George, stum- bled and staggered into the war.” If the book does not remain “standard” for some years to come it will be because new light is being shed upon the his- tory of the last fifty years almost every day and what is a good account now must soon become obsolete. Sometime in the future, England, France, and the United States will open their archives, and it will perhaps be found that the parts played by them were not so much more commendable than Germany’s as Mr. Gooch, in his anxiety not to assign motives unless he can find documentary proof for them, has represented. It is a result of this anxiety that in the early part of this work Rus- sian statesmen, whose secrets the Bolsheviks have laid bare to the world, are revealed as the grossest materialists as com- pared with the English statesmen, for whose motives only their own words are available as evidence. And as German states- men succeed the Russians as the disturbers of the pax Britan- nica, they inherit also the gross materialism of the latter, thanks to Kautsky and his associates and to the editors of “Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette.” It is not Mr. Gooch’s fault that that is the effect his book creates. He himself is quite convinced that the idea of a guilty nation is based upon a myth. But where he had to use, for instance, a semi-official report in the Quarterly Review for his source of information on England’s part in the Bagdad Railway negotiations or Cook’s “How Britain Strove for Peace” on her part in the negotiations with Ger- many since 1905, it was inevitable that he should leave an im- pression entirely to the disadvantage of the German negotiators, upon whom there is more information to be had, unless he had been willing to grant that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in official and semi-official documents. If Mr.-Gooch is at fault in not granting this, it is well to re- member that even a momentary departure from documentary material might have lifted him into the thin air of speculation with little hope of regaining terra firma. Upon some of Mr. Gooch’s conclusions there is still room for debate. Many will disagree with him in his belief that it is mere legend that Great Britain’s hostility to Germany originated in commercial jealousy rather than in naval rivalry, as he pre- fers to believe. Not all historians will be as ready to excuse Grey’s secret diplomacy in the decade before the war, to ap- pleud Lloyd George’s moderation at Versailles, and to over- — look the deliberate plan of aggressive alliance promoted by Izvolski and Poincaré that is so conclusively shown in the docu- ments published by De Siebert and Marchand. Perhaps, too, in view of Dobrolorsky’s none too convincing denial, there will be some hesitation in believing that Sukhomlinoff carried out

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Dee. 12, 1923] the general mobilization of the Russian army despite the Czar’s order to the contrary. Nor is there yet sufficient ground for a definite statement that the Lusitania was not armed on its fatal voyage. But these are points which in the present heat of controversy probably occupy a more important place than they will for pos- terity. In view of the existing state of knowledge and pas- sions it is hard to see how a better epitome of world politics from the Congress of Berlin to the Congress of Versailles could have been written. LouIs R. GOTTSCHALK Alexander Herzen The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Parts I and II. Translated by J. D. Duff. Yale University Press. $4. I CAN think of no greater service that I might render my . friends in the capacity of reviewer than to recommend the reading of this book. These memoirs are in a sense the history of Russia and in another sense the study of a spiritual adven- ture, as well as the chronicle of a noble man. Through anecdote and biography, description and reflections, the enormous pano- rama from Napoleon’s capture of Moscow to the revolutions of the fifties is unfolded. The interest that the volume evokes is nothing short of amazing; the wit and wisdom it contains is a source of continuous delight; and the enthusiasm it arouses is a measure of the reader’s soul. Obviously then, it is nothing like the average autobiography. It is rather an artist’s port- folio filled with pastels, vivid and beautiful; it is a repository of a cosmopolitan’s opinions on national traits and customs. Alexander Herzen was a name to conjure with among the revolutionaries of pre-Revolution Russia. There were many who had sacrificed as much and suffered even more for Russian freedom, but few had served the cause of liberty with such un- selfish and unswerving devotion. Though a member of the no- bility he chose prison and exile by throwing down the gauntlet to Power. At the age of twenty-two he was imprisoned for almost a year and then sent into exile on the borders of Siberia for five years. On his release he was forced to live un- der police supervision, but that did not curtail his activities. A year later he was again arrested and exiled for three years. In 1847 Herzen was permitted to leave Russia never to return, In France, Italy, Switzerland, but mainly in England, he spent the remaining twenty-three years of his life publishing a Rus- sian paper that enjoyed an enormous though underground cir- culation—even the Czar read the forbidden magazine. Both at home and abroad this Russian Voltaire was the intimate of brilliant and now famous men. The older members of his cir- cle had been the friends “of Voltaire and Beaumarchais, of Diderot and Casti’’; the younger were Carlyle, Pushkin, Heine, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Darwin. That Herzen gave as much as he received is obvious to the reader of these memoirs. His penetrating and logical mind anticipated much that has since been associated with one great man or another. Likewise, his discussions of the types represented by the peo- ple he meets are strikingly true to the latest revelations of psy- chology though happily uncluttered by the semi-scientific jargon that this study has loosed upon a sufficiently miserable world. “The English speak French even worse than the Germans; but they merely mutilate the language, whereas the German vulgarizes it. . .. Able men who take up some science late in life often show a tendency to rearrange the furniture, so to speak. . .. By no means stupid, she was full of an icy enthusi- asm in her talk, she abounded in commonplaces about virtue and devotion, she knew history and ‘geography by heart, spoke French with repulsive correctness, and concealed a high opinion of herself under an artificial and Jesuitical humility. These traits are common to all pedants in petticoats. ... This gen- erosity excited the wrath and displeasure of the ‘charitable’ ladies, who were afraid of giving pleasure by their charity, and afraid of being more charitable than was absolutely necessary. The Nation 691 . .. In fact, he spoke with a clearness which was capable, by its copiousness, of obscuring the simplest topic. ... To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial passions of an age corrupted by books.” Herzen knows himself as well as others. In a paragraph he has summed up his character: ‘‘Though I was shaken for a time by Vitberg’s influence [toward mysticism], my positive turn of mind held its own nevertheless. It was not my destiny to be carried up to the third heaven; I was born to inhabit earth alone. Tables never turn at my touch, rings never quiver when I look at them. The daylight of thought is my element, not the moon- light of imagination.” Throughout he indicates the warm pref- erences and strong prejudices of a brave mind. It is not often that “a supreme master of that superb instru- ment, the Russian language,” finds so satisfactory a translator as Mr. Duff who has rendered the concise, incisive, and ironi- cal phrases of Herzen with truth and poetry. This volume holds but the first two parts of the original; I trust the remaining three will soon follow. JOHAN J. SMERTENKO Only a Preface A Preface to Life. By Edwin Justus Mayer. Boni and Live- right. $2.50. Root JUSTUS MAYER turns a verbal flipflop and finds himself sprawling next to God. “A Preface to Life’ is the intellectual autobiography of a chaotic young man brilliantly, if not always lucidly, engaged with his chaos. It is a very sig- nificant book. For it bears witness that a young man may be a more than adequate shipping clerk, an ingenious salesman, a shrewd Wall Streeter, a craftsman in the movies, the while his mind is roving passionately from Shelley to Shaw, from Dickens to Meredith, from Byron to Blake. That such a young man has the gift of expression is impor- tant, for most men who write about Wall Street, The Retailer, or The Movies have never been flamingly aware of the subtlety and nobility of life, and most men who vibrate to Meredith, Shelley, and Blake find it impossible to realize the vital mean- ing of the Man Next Door and His Wife. “A Preface to Life” makes me want to say to Mr. Mayer: “Splendid! Now write a book!” For he has demonstrated that he has the Nietzschean mood if not the Nietzschean sweep, the eloquence if not the articulateness of the Waldo Frank who wrote “Our America,” and a seriousness which, while it does not con- tain the beautiful sobriety of Matthew Arnold, has reach and velocity. It is the sort of book which, I fancy, every first-rate writer has written and tossed into the waste-basket, but the sort of book which only a first-rate writer could write. Since it is the first one of its kind which has seen the light, it is welcome as a record of what a writer thinks of himself. But now we want what is more important—what he thinks of the world, his world, his world in terms of our own experience. When Mr. Mayer sketches with a few vivid sentences the story of the Marvelous Boy, a pallid youth who was going to write a great poem and then commit suicide but who ended as a slick-haired salesman, he is making notes for what he should and must do. The Marvelous Boy, in the long run, is much more important, if Mr. Mayer should bring to bear on him in- sight and dramatic force, than Mr. Mayer’s own thoughts about himself. When Mr. Mayer writes the sonnet beginning “O beauty cannot ever be the same Since you have loved me through the loveless night; And since the fluent curves of your delight Have rounded the rough sharpness which Iam”... he is representing emotion authentically—he is using rather than revealing his gifts—and more poetry like that should be coming from him now.

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In talking about Southern California he says: “But it has an infinite charm, and charm is more destructive of deep-rooted judgments than anything except romantic love... . There are swords out on every street in Manhattan, and Broadway is a dagger in your breast, but this spell is a mild perpetual dream in Nirvana.” Brilliant phrases, the result of poetic and pene- trating thought, the crystallization of many things seen and mulled over. And one wishes that one could have that poetic and penetrating thought itself, and in terms of the things seen and mulled over. The sentences as they stand belong only in a letter to a friend. The most arresting sentence in the book to me is: “But when I turned earthward, they [people] interested me as fascinating, repulsive, and odd personalities, endowed with moving and amusing qualities.” Let us have them, Mr. Mayer, through your eyes, and then we shall have you as we never can through a book about yourself. SAMPSON RAPHAELSON Books in Brief The Temple and Other Poems. Translated by Arthur Waley. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50. Of all the translators now engaged with Chinese and Japanese poetry Mr. Waley is by far the best, for he combines skill with scholarship in a unique degree. The present volume of ver- sions from the Chinese, his third to date, departs into a new field—that of the longer poems of two thousand years ago which are comprehended under the term “fu.” Readers who expect the compactness of Li Po will be disappointed by the flowing, elaborate compositions here of poets like Po Chii-i and Sung Yii. Unprejudiced readers will be delighted; and incidentally they will find a great deal of information on a very obscure subject in Mr. Waley’s fifty-odd pages of introduction. The Cinder Buggy. By Garet Garrett. E. P. Dutton and Com- pany. $2. A novel of hot love and cold steel, in which one may learn considerably more about the profits of a great industry than about the promptings of a great emotion. Mr. Garrett com- poses in short sentences; his story moves rapidly and he knows his background. The seeker after a business novel will find this much to his liking. Collected Poems: Second Series. By W. H. Davies. Harper and Brothers. $2. Mr. Davies’s title is misleading, since a number of the poems included here were also included in “Collected Poems: First Series,” published in America seven years ago. Most of the volume, however, is recent, and the whole of it, as those who know the author do not need to be told, is very fine. The re- markable thing about this modern Herrick is not that he can write his kind of poetry so well but that he can keep it up so long. Doubtless when he is done he will have matched his seventeenth-century master in sheer bulk—by no means the least impressive virtue of Herrick. The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 3. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3049 circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924. 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. Drama ‘“The Failures’’ 'PHIS translation, a faithful and skilful one, of H. R. Lenor- mand’s “Les Ratés” is the best piece of contemporary dra- matic literature which the Theater Guild has produced since St. John Ervine’s “Jane Clegg.” It is, indeed, one of the two or three best modern dramas seen on the New York stage. The contemporary drama of France has fallen upon very evil days indeed. Only the most fitful gleams of light shoot through the darkness of these days. The brazen clamor and ugly com- petence of the Batailles and the Bernsteins fill ear and eye. Happily for a dramatic literature once glorious for so long Charles Vildrac wrote “Le Paquebot Ténacité” and Lenor- mand wrote “Le Simoun” and “Les Ratés.” “Le Simoun,” a study of the corruption of European officials in Algiers, would have had no particular meaning for our audiences. “The Failures,” which Reinhardt produced in Vienna, which has been seen in Prague and Rome and Christiania, was the fitting work of Lenormand to produce here. The story of the play is very simple on the side of action, as all important stories in literature are. The technique will be called narrative by those who prefer names to things. In fourteen scenes, of which one was not injudiciously omitted by the Guild, Lenormand has portrayed a series of events and emotions that, highly specific and concrete in their character, move us with sorrow over all mortal things and enlarge the vision of all of life. That, as I shall and must not be tired of repeating, is the mark of true art, that it is universal and enlarging in final effect in exact proportion to its truth to hum- ble and ordinary circumstance and thought and character. Who are these failures? They are of that great company of modern men and women to be found everywhere in whom aspiration outruns both talent and character. They do love art above all else. The genuineness of their devotion gives them their tragic dignity. But they have not that peculiar union of talent with iron pertinacity which alone can lead aspiration to achievement. Hence they are in a sense lost souls. The world derides them. And all forces are on the world’s side. Good sense is on that side and even, necessarily, the attitude of the actual producing artist who must, in order to produce, have a good foundation of certain bourgeois vir- tues. Lenormand has stated the case of these wretched ones with a faultless tenderness, understanding, truth, power. He gives them one great moment of irony, of self irony. He con- demns through the medium of his treatment only one of these failures. It is Larnaudy who will not admit that he is a fail- ure, who gets drunk on hollow verbiage, who is damned be-

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Dec. 12, 1923] cause he does not know that he is damned. Beautiful and pathetic, on the other hand, is the portrait of Montredon, who knows, none so well, what he has become, who has betrayed the art he adores with an unwilling kiss because he needed the thirty pieces of silver to hold soul and body together. These are merely the implications and minor characters of the fable and bear witness to the extraordinary richness of the play’s humanity and workmanship. Its central theme is the story of two lovers who, caught in this toil of failure, wound, lacerate, outrage, and finally destroy each other. Two true lovers. In all the endless gabble about love on our stage, gabble which shows mere blindness and mere spiritual vul- garity, it was infinitely refreshing to come upon that passage in “The Failures” in which the lover reassures his mistress and takes up her worn little gloves which she never succeeds in quite mending and which move him so. ... That is life; that is love. The directing of the production by Mr. Stark Young is very able. There is humanity; there is precision. I waited with some uneasiness for Scene 10, fearing that Mr. Young would have yielded to a touch of the fantastic. I was immediately LECTURES A “| The Theatre Guild presents THE FAILURES int? ces By H. R. Lenormand GARRICK THEATRE, 65 West 85th Street Matinees Thursday and Saturday TRIUMPHANT RETURN ARTHUR HOPKINS presents JOHN BARRYMORE in ‘Hamlet’ far, Three Weels Only, 1, MANHATTAN OPERA HOUSE Beginning Monday, Nov. 26. Matinees Thursday and Saturday. West 34th St. Seats now selling. Eves. $3.30 to 55c. Matinees $2.75 to 65c. Th ELWYNS ‘* 2sscciation_ with eo ADOLPH KLAUBER present in M linck’ J ANE COWL Belinas aaa TIMES SQ. THEATRE Matinees ee Seeacainy 2:20 27th Street and ‘YIDDISH ART THEATRE 27th Street ana Evenings 8:30. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 MAURICE SWARTZ PRODUCTIONS Frid ing, Saturd d De aeeatar ee ee Monday through Thursday evenings “The Seven Who Were Hanged” By Andreyev Sunday Matinees and evenings “The Be -gars” By H. Levick Free Pablic Lectures on Theosophy Sundays at 11 a.m. Greenwich Village Theatre B. P. WADIA Sonic Vioe Th DEC. 9th—LIFE AFTER DEATH DEC. 16th—PRACTICAL OCCULTISM Questions Answered. No Fees. No Collections Ludwig Lewisohn’s article in next week’s issue of The Nation will describe the Swedish Ballet and other diver- tissements. When writing to advertisers, The Nation NDB AMUSEMENTS reassured. His feet remained firmly on the earth, where one’s feet belong. Lee Simonson in the several sets required brings the art of giving hints which fill the imagination with an au- thentic sense of reality to an unheard of perfection. Only in the cathedral scene did my imagination halt and hesitate for a moment. But perhaps that was a shortcoming in me. Among the actors I want to begin by saying something of Dudley Digges as Montredon. I have heard Mr. Digges called a “re- liable” actor with an ironic hint. I wish to call him so with- out the mild irony. His unfailing and unfaltering projection of a human being from within himself and yet not himself— that is acting. Mr. Ben Ami in the chief male part was un- even, too emphatic, and personal in all the level passages. To the play’s tensest moments, however, he rose with a rich and stormy eloquence. Miss Winifred Lenihan, in the correspond- ing woman’s part, surpassed all her previous performances. She was gentle, tender, strong, quite unobtrusive and yet quite beautifully there at every moment. Excellence akin to that of Mr. Digges was displayed in other parts by Miss Helen Westley, Mr. Erskine Sanford, and Mr. Henry Crosby. Lupwic LEWISOHN A SENSATIONAL TRIUMPH! DAVID BELASCO Presents LIONEL BARRYMORE with IRENE FENWICK in “LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH !” BELASCO THEATRE, West 44th St. Eves. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Seats now on sale 4 weeks in advance c { | THE PLAYHOUSE W. 48th ST., Bryant 2638 Matineses: Wed. and Sat. A Play the American Theatre can be proud of CHAINS “The most intelligent American play of the season.”—Percy Ham- mond, N. Y. Tribune. TARNISH 2 020. sam 48th St. East Th: urs. & Sat. 2:30 of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Iudwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.”—Heywood Broun, Wor Lp. a er a BELMONT Bvs. 8:30 AMBASSADOR ee ee ee Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 RICHARD BENNETT in THE DANCERS “I have not seen a better play than ‘The Dancers’ for a long while.” —JOHN BARRYMORE. “Miss Vollmer’s presentation of folk life is rich and authentic; she tells us what we are most eager to know—the inner truth of human lives.” udwig Lewisohn—The Nation L THE SHAME WOMAN An American Drama by LULA VOLLMER Produced by THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE, Inc. NATIONA THEATRE until December 15th then moves 41st St. nr Broadway to another Broadway Theatre OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD and Prof. EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN will speak on “The League of Nations” at the Open Forum on Sunday, Dec. 9th—at 8 P. M., 2 West 64th Street. ADMISSION FREE THE SOCIETY FOR ETHICAL CULTURE please mention The Nation

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International Relations Section Helping Russia Help Herself’ E print below in condensed form the report of Dr. Joseph Rosen, director in Russia of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s reconstruction work. Dr. Rosen is well known in Russia and the United States as a revolutionary worker and as an agricultural expert. There are three outstanding features of the Joint Dis- tribution Committee’s reconstruction work in Russia which give it a particular interest: (1) The work was entirely non-sectarian in character; (2) it was carried on almost entirely through the medium of local peasants and work- men’s cooperatives; (3) the aid given was not gratis, but the individual recipients had to pay the cooperative of which they were members for the services and help given. The A.J.J.D.C. is an American organization for the re- lief of Jewish war victims in Europe, but in Russia all its activities have been placed on a non-sectarian basis. Of the $7,800,000 spent by it in Russia since 1921, about $6,500,000 have been devoted to relief, pure and simple— to adult feeding during the famine period without difference of race or religion; to the feeding of 300,000 children (on the same basis) in the Ukraine during nine months of 1922-1923; to the distribution of clothing, shoes, fuel, etc. For its reconstruction program the A.J.J.D.C. provided $1,290,000 with the idea that an impetus could be given toward the economic recovery of the Jews in the Ukraine and White Russia, who had been particularly hard hit by the Great War, the civil conflicts, and the unparalleled po- groms. But it was understood that the economic recovery must be general if the Jewish population were to get any permanent benefit from the help given and therefore the reconstruction work, no less than the relief work, was done on a non-sectarian basis. The figures which are now avail- able demonstrate quite conclusively how non-sectarian the activities of the A.J.J.D.C. have been to date. Of 100,000 acres plowed at least 70 per cent belonged to Russian peas- ants. Of 50,000 families on the land receiving agricultural aid, more than half were non-Jewish. A. TRACTOR SQUAD WoRK We purchased in the United States eighty-six tractors, shipped them to Russia, and organized ten squads in the south- ern district. It took a great deal of work to have these squads properly organized. The Soviet Government has greatly as- sisted us in this work by giving free transportation of the tractors, fuel, supplies, and men. The tractors arrived in Odessa and were delivered to the final points of destination in good time. We purchased our kerosene and oil at the oil wells in the Grojny and Baku districts in tank cars, the Government supply- ing free railroad transportation from the wells to our tractor bases. Our tractors have not lost a single day on account of lack of fuel. To recover our expenses for kerosene and oil, we charged the farmers five poods of wheat per desiatin of land plowed, the grain to be delivered partly from the 1923, partly from the 1924 crop. We plowed about 100,000 acres of land during the season, which is a very good acreage for eighty-six small tractors. The average work of such a tractor in the states amounts to about 300 acres a year, as our farmers plow only thirty or forty *In subsequent issues the International Relations Section will print brief reports of the relief work carried on in Russia by the American Friends’ Service Committee and other organizations. days during the season. By continuous operation we accom- plished about three seasons’ work in one. At the same time we taught the local people how to operate the tractors. Although we did the work for non-Jewish as well as Jewish farmers, we made it a rule that no plowing was to be done for any villages which participated in pogroms. From many of these villages we had petitions asking us to do some plowing for them, and expressing regret for the criminal activities of some of their villagers. All the work was done in cooperation with the local cooperative organizations, which are again func- tioning largely due to our assistance. The arrangement was that each local cooperative organization was to lay out plans and make all arrangements with the individual colonists. The land of the widows and orphans was plowed first, then the land of the people who had no horses or plows, and then some communal lands. Figuring the cost of doing this work, we must say that tractor plowing under present Russian condi- tions is from 40 to 50 per cent higher than plowing with horses or oxen, but most of the land we worked had not been plowed for eight to ten years, and therefore was in such con- dition that the plowing could not have been done at all except by tractors. All the Russian agricultural organizations are extremely interested in our tractor work because this was the first time such work was done in Russia on a large scale, with a properly organized service, a thing almost unknown in Rus- sia before. Several commissions delegated by the Department of Agriculture and by other organizations to observe our trac- tor squad have rendered reports which were flattering indeed. The general conditions are much better than they were a year ago. The winter crops were especially good. While there are still hundreds of houses without roofs or windows there is plenty of grain and straw everywhere, and life in general is more hopeful and even more cheerful. But the people still have no clothing; many are literally naked. Here we touch on the most important general problem of Russian life, namely, the difference in the prices of farm products and manufactured products. Farm products are below the pre-war level, while manufactured products are extremely high. To help the situa- tion somewhat, the A.J.J.D.C. has made a special loan to agri- cultural cooperatives of $10,000 to purchase cotton and jute cloth to be used by the farmers for clothing. B. MULTIPLICATION OF PURE-BRED SEED The second line of work was the multiplication of pure-bred seed. Even to people superficially familiar with agricultural problems, it is self-evident that the quality of the seed used by the farmers is of the utmost importance. The quality of Russian seed has greatly deteriorated during the years of war and revolution. In this phase of our work we also had the full- est cooperation of the Moscow Department of Agriculture and the Ukrainian Improved Seed Society. They supplied additional quantities of seed and some funds, and placed at our disposal the staff and equipment of a number of agricultural experi- ment stations. We have organized about 252 seed-breeding sta- tions and plots where the seed brought from America, Germany, Denmark, and Norway was used for propagation and multipli- cation purposes. These breeding stations have produced suffi- cient quantities of seed (corn, barley, wheat, oats, vegetables, etc.) to be distributed among the farmers next year to plant not less than 3,000,000 acres of land. This work has received a good deal of attention in Russia, and the Department of Agriculture had a special exhibit devoted to this work at the — All-Russian Exposition in Moscow. In addition to this pure-bred seed for multiplication purposes we distributed through the cooperative societies in our colonies and villages for planting in the spring of 1923 seed loans amounting to 170,000 poods of grain, 47,000 poods of potatoes, and over 5,000 poods of clover forage and vegetable seeds.

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Dec. 12, 1923] Please visit our Christmas Shop at 2540 Broadway, New York, near 96th Street subway station. It ts filled with unusual gifts. $2 00 will buy any one of ® the following articles 201 Ladies’ Handkerchief, richly em- broidered, lace edged 202 2 Ladies’ Handkerchiefs, finest hand- work 208 2 Knitted Doilies, very fine 204 Net Centre Piece, embroidered, hand printed Batik work 206 Ivory Pendant, hand tooled 208 Latest String of Beads, any color 209 Solingen Razor 210 Pocket Knife 211 Fancy Wooden Box, hand carved 212 Framed Picture, painted on wood 214 Brush, clothes or hair or furniture, made by the blind 215 Shopping Bag, straw, handmade 216 Doll, silk or wool 217 Grotesque Doll, highly artistic 218 Stationery, latest importation, 25 sheets and 25 envelopes $3 00 will buy any one of . the following articles Sterling Silver Pendant, with chain 302 Sterling Silver Pin, enamelled 304 Sterling Silver Pendant, enamelled and inlaid 306 Baby Doll in crib, Kathe Kruse 307 Doll, larger size, silk or wool 308 2 Ladies’ Handkerchiefs, exquisite 309 2 Knitted Doilies 311 Ladies’ Cigarette Case 312 Stationery, superfine, 25 sheets and 25 envelopes 313 Wooden Box, very pretty 314 Candle Stick, hand painted 315 Beads, very modern 316 Girdle, latest fashion 317 Ceramic Figure, very ornamental Pocket Knife, best steel $5 00 will buy any one of ° the following articles 501 Real Amber Beads, medium long string 502 Real Amber Cigar Holder 503 Real Amber Cigarette Holder 504 Leather Cigarette Case 505 Ladies’ Handbag, envelope shape 506 Leather Wallet 507 Centre Piece, Filet Antique, 24 inches 508 Gentre Piece, hand embroidered 509 3 Handkerchiefs, richest finish 510 Drawing Room Doll 512 Silver Pendant, with chain, richly ornamented 513 Beads, finest, hand cut 514 Stationery, 50 sheets and 50 envelopes in large hand-painted box 515 Porcelain Box, white, gold edged Ceramic Figure, very artistic Guaranty All our goods are sold with a guar- anty of complete satisfaction. If you are not 100% satisfied, return aoods within a reasonable time and in the condition they left our shop, and we shall cheerfully refund your money. We also agree to assume all *+e- sponsibility in case of damage or loss in shipment. The Nation We went to Europe this Summer to do your Christmas shopping for you. Odd, exquisite things we picked up over there; often only one or two of a kind. Each steamer reaching these shores brings us exquisite hand-made articles, such as laces, embroideries, handkerchiefs, jewelry, leather goods, objects in skillfully carved wood including cuckoo-clocks, beautifully hand-wrought silver and brass, ivory pendants, charming beaded bags, toys and dolls, and innumerable other things. It is our task to distribute in the United States the products of the home workers of Mid-Europe. We sell articles made by the people who are anxious and willing to work; people who, in these tragic days, are thus spared the humiliation of beg- ging. They ask for only one thing, that the good people of the rest of the world buy the work of their home industry, so that they may obtain the American dol- lars with which they can purchase food and all of life’s necessities. The list of items is necessarily incomplete, but it is offered in the hope of showing that our undertaking merits your support. We want to give fair value to our customers, even as we give fair pay to those people of Central Europe who want to work rather than plead for alms. Recognizing the fact that our list can, at its best, give but a general idea of the goods shown herein, we only ask you to order, not to buy. The money accompanying your order is merely held in trust while the goods are shipped and examined. We suggest that in sending us your order, you let us make the selection for you by telling us how much you wish to apply to each gift and whether it is to be a present for a man, woman or child. 147 Fourth Avenue New York Our Food Department offers ex- cellent assortments available for im- mediate delivery anywhere in Central Europe from our warehouse in Hamburg. $7 5 will buy any one of e the following articles 702 Filet Antique Centre Piece, 30 inches 703 1 doz. Finest Guest Towels, hem- stitched, Damask border 704 Centre Piece, linen or knitted, large size 105 Pillow Cover, embroidered or painted 706 Table Cover 707 Painted Centre Piece 708 Spoon, handwrought silver 709 Brass Candle Stick, hand hammered 711 Silver Lorgnette 712 Ceramic Figure or Vase 713 Ladies’ Leather Handbag 714. Wooden Box, metal inlaid 715 Real Amber Beads, round or cut 716 Real Amber Cigar Holder | W117 ee ne Cigarette Holder, gold an $10 00 will buy any one of ° the following articles 1001 Sterling Silver Pendant, studded with Marcasite 1002 Colored Wood-Cut, unframed 1003 Water Color, by De Luca, unframed 1004 Beaded Bag, hand crocheted 1006 Stationery, 100 sheets, envelopes and cards 1007 1 doz. Hand Towels, 18 x 34, hem- stitched, Damask border 1008 Table Runner, Filet antique, 20 x 45 1009 Luncheon Set, 13 pieces 1010 Sofa Pillows, all colors, richly em- ae proidered rass Box, for Cigarettes or 1014 Cuckoo Clock, hand carved sor 1015 Ladies’ Purse, fine leather, envelope 1016 I oF gree h vory Rose, hand carved, very lar 1017 Ivory Chain, nicely eraduated esta 1018 ee pennant richly carved, work of ar VIOLINS FRYx REINER Made with the famous patented tone im- proving device endorsed by Fritz Kreisler. All instruments are full size, permanent- ly guaranteed faultless in tone and may be exchanged if they should ever deteriorate in any way. Including Bow and Pupils’ Violin $7.50 ano Orchestra Violin .$15.00 $20.00 Concert Violin -$25.00 $30.00 A Little Christmas Gift for You To all those who will mail their orders not later than mid- night of December 15th, we shall send with the order a charming little Christmas Calendar. ORDER BLANK Metas Corporation of N. Y., 147 Fourth Avenue, New York. Enclosed find $ Address Please make all checks and money orders payable to The METAS CORPORATION and send cash by registered letter ONLY. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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696 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3049

We distributed for planting 100,000 grapevines brought from France and 150,000 seedlings of hops in the Volhynia (hop) dis- trict. C. DISTRIBUTION OF LIVE STocK The next step was the distribution of live stock. During the war millions of horses were killed and died from disease. The farmers lost at least 50 per cent of their live stock, if not more, and it was the Jewish farmers especially who suffered in this respect. Before the war the Jewish colonists in the Cher- son and Ekaterinoslav provinces had about 12,000 horses, in 1923 they had only 3,300; the number of cows in the colonies decreased from 9,000 in 1916 to 4,400 in 1923. 1. CATTLE We had an appropriation of $100,000 for live stock, and our plans were to purchase horses outside of Russia, in Hungary or Czecho-Slovakia, but after due consideration of the matter we decided to purchase horses in the Ukraine on the right side of the Dnieper River, in the Zhitomir province, where they were cheaper and more plentiful than in other districts of the coun- try. The Russian Government has given us a good deal of assistance in this matter by granting free transportation for our men and the animals, and also veterinary service. These expenses were practically equivalent to the cost of the horses. Twenty special trains that had the right of way were placed at our disposal, and in a number of cases it took only three days to take the horses from Zhitomir to Cherson and Nikolaieff, where it ordinarily would take from ten days to two weeks for a freight train to make the trip. The horses and cows were distributed through the cooperative societies. The societies would decide which members of the colony needed the horses or cows first. The horses were charged at the price of the actual cost, in terms of grain. Another arrangement was that a farmer receiving a horse could work for a widow and be credited for this work as partial payment against his horse account. A good many farmers have paid for their horses during the season by doing work for others who had no horses. We also distributed over one thousand cows and fifty bulls for breeding. Most of these cows were given to families of widows with children. Cows are paid for in terms of grain or in terms of milk. 2. CHEESE MANUFACTURING COOPERATIVES In most of our colonies we organized cheese manufacturing cooperatives, and our traveling instructors taught the farmers how to manufacture and improve the quality of their cheese. A central cooperative was formed at Charkov to which all the cheese is shipped and this cooperative sells it for them at a profitable price. In this activity the Government has also given us assistance by placing at the disposal of the cooperatives re- frigerator cars. These cheese cooperatives are a paying propo- sition, and the money realized from the sale of the cheese con- stituted the chief working capital of the agricultural coopera- tives until the new crops came in. 3. DISTRIBUTION OF FARM MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS The next item was the distribution of farm machinery and implements, outside of tractors. This was also accomplished through the local cooperatives, the implements to be paid for in terms of grain. Altogether we distributed 1,000 plows, 2,000 harrows, 1,400 cultivators, 400 buckers, 500 mowing machines, 500 seed cleaners, 300 wagons. In several instances we assisted im organizing cooperative shops for the manufacture of wagons, Et and small implements, also farm machinery repair shops. 4, ASSISTANCE TO SETTLERS Another very important phase of our work was assistance to new settlers or families taking up some form of farm work as a means of making a living. Owing to economic conditions in Russia there is a movement among the Russian Jews to take up farming as a livelihood. For a time, when the new economic When writing to advertisers

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Dec. 12, 1923] The N ation THE MYSTERIES te PEOPLE, or, HISTORY OF A PROLETARIAN FAMILY ACROSS THE AGES By EUGENE SUE HEN the name of EUGENE SUE is mentioned one thinks at once of THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS and THE WANDERING JEW. Upon fur- ther reflection one recalls that he wrote other romances, notably a series entitled THE SEVEN CARDINAL SINS. The average Sue reader concludes that that is all that Eugene Sue ever wrote—or at any rate, that that is all that was ever translated of his works. The conclusion is erroneous. Sue wrote a work which in importance, in grandeur, in brilliancy far exceeds any of the aforementioned. That work, effectively if not formally suppressed, is entitled THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE That work has been translated into English from the original French by the eminent scholar, the late Daniel De Leon. THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE is unquestionably Sue’s master- piece. Into that work he poured ing of much historical data, with the passion of the Prophets, he makes clear to the reader that while at any given time autocracy and social wrongs may pre- vail, in the long run it is de- mocracy, the spirit of freedom, his passion for freedom and democracy ; on that work he lav- ished his scholarship, his learn- ing, the result of his historical researches. For THE MYS- TERIES OF THE PEOPLE is not merely a work of fiction, though fiction it is, fiction sub- limated. It is fiction and history so blended as to produce a work truly unique in the annals of literature. The purpose of Sue is to trace the struggle of mankind from slavery and oppression to free- dom and democracy. To that end he pictures the history of two families: the family of Joel, representing the downtrodden and oppressed, and the family of Neroweg, representing the ruling, What they think of Sue’s MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE I have found the books most interest- ‘ ing because of the help they give me in picturing to myself what went on in other days. ...I£ one is interested in history, I think they would have value H to him.—Prof. Ernest C. Moore of Har- vard University, Division of Education (formerly of Yale University). I think that your group would make no mistake in possessing yourselves of the historic novels of Eugene Sue. I believe that you would find them sur- prisingly modern, and, indeed, consider- ably futuristic as well. For we have not , yet caught up with his vision... .— Rev. Charles Fleischer, leader of “The Sunday Common,” Boston, Mass. the autocratic that survives, while autocracy and oppression, the spirit of slavery and darkness, go down to ignominious defeat. THIS WORK IS: ‘HISTORY PM ATS MOST LELEASING AR Fs li TS FICTION TURNED TO A MOST USE- FUL "PURPOSE:. ., ltmdulills with equal success the two im- pertant ends of modern en- deavor—IT INSTRUCTS WHILE IT ENTERTAINS. IT ENTERTAINS WHILE TE ON Se, THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE, owing to the great manufacturing cost, has been out of print for a few years. Originally published by us in 21 cloth bound volumes it has now been assembled into 3 classes. In a wonderful panorama, with glowing colors and a tremendous sweep, Sue depicts the age long struggle between oppressor and oppressed, between social rights and social wrongs. And with the marshall- Send for illustrated circular for full descrip- tion and terms of THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE. Unique, matchless. His- torical fiction, fictional history. NEW YORK LABOR 45 ROSE STREET Publishers beautiful volumes, bound in flexible artcraft leather, printed on thin, opaque paper in large, clear type. The set contains upward of 5,000 pages. THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE is published by us exclusively. No other Eng- lish translation. Translation protected by copyright. NEWS COMPANY NEW YORK CITY When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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698 TT TL AE SL HLL EN policy was inaugurated, it seemed that Jews would go back to trading, but they soon realized that there is very little chance now for the small trader, and this movement to take up some productive work is still very important. Many thousands of Jewish families have taken up farming and are anxious to con- tinue it if given the opportunity. The establishment of workmen’s cooperative banks, known as “loan kassas,” constitutes the reconstruction work for the city people. Eighty-two kassas to make loans to artisans for cooperative purposes were organized up to September 1, 1923. At present there is a stable currency in Russia, the chernovitz, which inside of Russia is much more desirable than dollars or pounds, as the rate of chernovitz in Soviet Russia is propor- tionately higher that than of foreign currencies. The loan kassas make loans in this new currency, and this safeguards them from the loss of their capital through the de- preciation of the ruble. The number of families benefiting from our kassas is not less than 20,000. Some of the kassas have developed special lines of work, organizing producers’ co- operatives, such as the shoemakers’ cooperative in Vinnitza, woodworkers’ cooperative in Zhitomir, metal workers’ coopera- tive in Odessa, mill producers’ cooperative in Ekaterinoslav, ete. The majority of them have developed operations in co- operative buying of raw materials and tools, and others have organized cooperative selling of products. In August of this year representatives of all the kassas in the Ukraine held a conference in Kharkov and organized a central service bureau which acts as a clearing house for the purchase or sale of goods in every section of the country. 5. TRADE SCHOOLS Our trade-school work was carried on in cooperation with the ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) and the ORT (So- ciety for the Promotion of Trade and Agriculture among the Jews in Russia). ... It is interesting to note that we have rendered assistance in this work to forty-two trade schools and three agricultural schools teaching a dozen trades to nearly 4,000 boys and girls. Italy’s Terror Goes On ITTLE is heard of disorder or disaffection in Italy but occasionally an article is published like that printed below, indicating continued resistance to Fascist rule. To the Workers and Workers’ Organizations of all Countries: As reaction in Italy proceeds with its work of destruction, the breaking up of surviving syndical organizations continues along with the persecution and murder of workers, while the prisons are still being crowded with victims. The courts are overrun with comrades involved in cases which have been forced to trial by the police and judicial authorities during the last three years of close cooperation between the courts, the police, and Fascism. ... Even in these last few days the Arezzo trial against the Val- darno miners and the Turin trial against the Minervino Murge peasants have both resulted in outrageous verdicts against our comrades, who were insulted with impunity in the courtroom by the lawyers, the press men, and the Fascist caliphs, who in some cases even attempted to lynch the condemned men. Dur- ing the last few days the comrades of Valdarno, Minervino Murge, and Cerignola have been sentenced to terms amounting altogether to more than fifteen centuries. The sentences vary from 10, 20, to 30 years, very few being granted easier terms. Comrades! ... Think of the victims in these life and death struggles; think of these comrades who may perhaps never leave their cells, be- cause they refused to ask for pardon from the judges of bour- geois reaction. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE ITALIAN SYNDICALIST UNION PIONEERS IN SHIPPING LIEBESGABEN (Snipments) Make Up Your Own Combinations in accordance with the special wishes and requirements of your relatives and friends abroad. Our Warehouse in Hamburg Assures Quick Service In Case of Loss, we Duplicate the Shipment at Once Ask for our Price List G & CHR All Orders and Shipments Delivered FREE HOUSE! ONE OF MANY ASSORTMENTS $20.00 OUR OLD HAPAG $20.00 24 lbs. Flour 1 Ib. Cocoa 5 lbs. Lard 10 Ibs. Rice 1 pkg. Tea 6 lbs. Breakfast 10 lbs. Sugar 6 tins Con. Milk Bacon 5 lbs. Farina 6 tins Evap. Milk 5 Ibs. Cervelat Wurst 5 lbs. Dried Fruits 1 qt. Salad Oil 2 tins Corned Beef 2 Ibs. Crisco, 1 Ib. tins 50 Bouillon Cubes ASK FOR OUR PRICE LISTS Orders by Radio, an additional charge of 75c. per order. SELF-PACKED PACKAGES are FORWARDED WEEKLY and at rates commensu- rate with efficient service. Insurance against War, Marine, Theft, Pilfering and Non-Delivery, upon request, at reasonable rates. American Merchants Shipping & Forwarding Co. H. von Schuckmann C. E. W. Schelling 30 Years’ Shipping Experience with Hamburg-American Line OFFICES: 147 4th Ave., cor. 14th St. New York City HAMBURG OFFICE—ROSENSTRASSE 16 5 Ibs. Coffee 0) " Practically immediate == relief of pain follows a dose of i ma Hy ! a | fi i ) ‘It is equally efficacious for ui HEADACHE a= TOOTHACHE NEURALGIA SS —and in addition to being Hl absolutely safe to take = .—it has no undesirable _—— - after effects. Sse In aluminum bores é2sizes. Atall druggists = S General Drug Co. | ___ a 94N, Moore Street, New York SSS | (a> SSMS TNT CHET ET RS os “~y = When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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The Nation

No. 3050

NE index of the appalling difficulties of life in Ger- FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXVII NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1923 Contents this scheme, which in its essence meant simply an agree- ment that England should share in the swag and keep silent EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS ...........cccceeeee cree ee esc eee scencetes 699 in return for certain concessions, as in the Mediterranean. EDITORIALS: Labor’s Triumph in England...........-.ceceeececceeseeescseteces 702 The President and the Progressives.........e.eeseesseereseeseecees 703 The Menace of Mexico ........eceeceec ences ces re cet cec eee eenceces 703 Mie) Seasteem DemoOcvacy, | oc cleiiciclels «ccs o sicle's cieicieelewiels sia s ce vagmmesc sie 704 GERMANY’S POLITICAL FAILURES. By Oswald Garrison Villard... 705 THESE UNITED STATES—XLIII. WASHINGTON: THE DAWN OF A TOMORROW. By Robert Whitaker............cceccccssccceeces 107 THE KENNELS OF NEW YORK. By Victor H. Lawn................ 710 GHOSTS. “By. Byrne Marconmier <i. eiec6 es wine cw cinec sce cscs ewaiecane ryikat THE PROGRESSIVES PROGRESS. By William Hard................. 712 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter............ cc cccccccccceccsccecs 713 UUPOE SE ONDEINGBY Ue ai cicis cictelatsieic apeie ciefe eiaiaisie elelasiers aclesiciesscescvesinciseie 713 PICASSO ON FIFTH. By Herbert J. Seligmann................+-+-+25 714 BOOKS: Without Benefit of Clergy. By Glenn Frank..............-....0-.- 714 Robert Frost. By Mark Van Doren: ........ccsccceenccscrcesnnecce 715 Economics—Antiquarian and Academic. By David E. Lilienthal..... 716 Senit Pudaeine. | Bye WeleEUtCD. <6 ccc cjsccln ewe ccecslawscnccccneevns 717 PENAL LO NS: O Be LEt Yi ESIE LZ: Er es 0101s cle/eleisie/¢ cinvewiain.cjecilsisice secs aiieesies 718 MUSIC: Roland Hayes. By Henrietta Straus..............cesescecscceecees 718 DRAMA: Divertissements. By Ludwig Lewisohn............-....se.eeeeeeees 718 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: “Reactionaries of All Countries, Unite!’ By Emil Lengyel......... (21 Nien ane ECCK= EVAN aici slalalatcie se s/e]ask=\s\s)¢ ele/ore/siele's + s.0 eo elsie eiie 722 COMPLE blab INGE lealereleieeinie|eleielele olalela’sis(sis)el s/elpiciln viaivieie cle co's shsle'e 724 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, EpITor ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER LUDWIG LEWISOHN FREDA KIRCHWEY IRITA VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ISABEL LA MONTE, ADVERTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN ANATOLE FRANCE ROBERT HERRICK NORMAN THOMAS CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States apd Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 1170 People’s Gas Building. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: Ernest Thurtle, 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. W. 4, England. ET no one be deceived by the inspired reports that conditions are getting better in the Ruhr; that the French are beginning to have their way; that the troops are being reduced in the cities; that the Paris magnates have now decided that they are going to be good, and, after having done their utmost to destroy German credit and financial ability, are now going to help Germany to get on her feet. The situation is not one whit less critical than it was. Fridtjof Nansen has just uttered a solemn warning that the next war approaches rapidly. It is not going to be averted by any halfway measures, or by any sudden French decision to change their policy after the mischief has been done. There is no cessation of the misery and the suffering in the Ruhr and in all Germany, no improvement in the situation of the neutrals against whom France struck most serious blows when she entered the Ruhr. In short, there can be no health in Europe until the whole entangle- ment is straightened out. From London come reports that the French and English were near an agreement just prior to the election in England, under which the French were to consent to a reduction of the Ruhr occupation to a “simple ‘System of financial and economic control with British par- ‘ticipation,” such control to be “extended progressively to other regions in Germany,” with permanent military occu- pation of the Rhine, but with France abandoning all sup- port of the Separatist criminals. It will be a cause for rejoicing, indeed, if the defeat of Mr. Baldwin has blocked

many is given by the price of a single newspaper. A copy of the Berliner Tageblatt cost 5,000 marks on July 29; it had risen to 500,000 September 9; in November it crossed the billion mark. With the issue of a supposed gold currency the Tageblatt began printing prices in both gold and paper marks. The contrast is ghastly. On No- vember 18 the price reads: 20 gold pfennigs, or 120 billion marks. One pre-war metal mark was equivalent to 600 billion marks of the kind men receive as wages. E are glad to see that Mr. Coolidge is going to enter the Illinois and California primaries. That is the democratic way of testing out public sentiment and ascer- taining whether the Republican masses favor his continu- ance in office or not. Indeed, we hope he will go still fur- ther, openly announce his own candidacy, and have himself enrolled as a candidate in every State which is advanced enough to test the sentiment of the voters by means of a primary. That does not, of course, mean that we shall thereby escape the customary procedure of having a Repub- lican nominee picked by bosses in a room in the most exclu- sive hotel of the city in which the convention is held, But at least, if most primaries should reject Mr. Coolidge, the leaders could not be in doubt as to his chances at the elec- tion. Senator Johnson, too, is at work and will likewise confront the acid test of the primaries. On the Democratic side, only Mr. McAdoo seems to be making any headway. He might easily sweep the country if he would come out for government ownership of railroads and against the League of Nations, but he is hedging and, like all poli- ticians, wondering whether it would be expedient or not. OTHING spreads like a bad example. Judge Mayer de- cides that the administration of justice has been imperiled by criticism from Comptroller Craig, and imme- diately Justice Hagerty of the New York Supreme Court conceives that the majesty of the law is undermined by the remarks of an assistant corporation counsel. The jus- tice declares that a slur has been cast upon the entire Supreme Court of the State, and demands an apology. The criticism was in a newspaper interview to the effect that makers of gambling slot machines could, with political influ- ence and high-priced counsel, obtain injunctions preventing police interference. The remarks were made without ade- quate evidence, and the assistant corporation counsel subse- quently wrote to Justice Hagerty that they were inaccurate. This was not enough; the dignity of the bench must be upheld by an apology. What tommyrot! Most people had never heard of this slur on the courts until Justice Hagerty brought it to their attention. Congress and the President have been subjected to pitiless and constant criticism since this republic was founded; yet our legislative and executive branches are functioning with ever-increasing power and authority. Is it not possible that our courts, too, can carry

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The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 8050 on without suppressing free speech on the part of persons who dispute, however rightly or wrongly, the unblemished record of the bench for justice? HILE meditating on Judge Mayer and Justice Hag- erty, who seem to think that the way to uphold the majesty of the law is to make it ridiculous, our eye caught an item in the Seattle Union Record, which told how a farmer was faced with hanging or deportation (minus his ears) because he had taken one of his cows out of the public pound and Jed her home against the protest of the custodian of the inclosure. A charge of “pound breach” was laid against him and he was found guilty. But when the judge searched for a law under which to sentence the farmer, it was found that the criminal code of the State of Washing- ton failed to provide for the offense. Resort was then had to the English common law, and an ancient act was dis- covered which provided that a person guilty of “pound breach” might be either executed or exiled to a penal colony in Australia after having his ears cut off. The edition of the Union Record which we were reading went to press before the judge had decided which penalty to apply, but the story should be an inspiration to Judge Mayer and Justice Hagerty. Were they to crop the ears or hang a ring in the nose of anybody who criticized the courts, the waning prestige of our judicial system might be restored. E owe the New York Times an apology. In com- menting on Judge Parker’s defense of the “capital- ist press” we stated that the Times had omitted Senator Wheeler’s reply to Judge Parker while printing the judge’s attack upon Senator Wheeler. We were mistaken. The fact that the Times’s own index department informed us that it had not printed Senator Wheeler’s reply does not obviate the error. It had printed a fair extract from Senator Wheeler’s letter, which, while under a less conspicuous head, was longer than its extract from the attack upon him. We . make the correction herewith, and we are glad to give the correction the same position we gave the original charge. N spite of the ease with which our last tariff bill went through Congress, there are signs that the business com- munity is no longer as solid for this particular kind of boneheadedness as it was once. Take the bankers, for in- stance. The Chase National Bank of New York City has issued a bulletin by its economist, Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr., who calls attention to changed economic conditions which are leading bankers to view our tariff wall with a doubt that they did not feel previous to the World War. They have seen, for a period of nine years, an excess of exports going out, unmatched by imports, unmatched even by the so-called “invisible” items of immigrants’ remittances, ship- ping services, and the like. They have seen, consequently, the piling up of an ever-growing debt of foreign countries to the United States, not primarily to banks, but rather to investors, exporters, foreign-exchange speculators, etc. ... They have studied anxiously the problem of how Europe could ever pay her debt, and it has become increasingly clear to them that she can pay it only if she is allowed to send goods here, sell the goods in our markets, and turn over the proceeds in dollars to her creditors here. It is increasingly clear that the present excessive tariff rates constitute a hurdle so high that Europe would have the gravest difficulty in making large payments here, even if she were otherwise in a position to undertake it. EANWHILE two billion dollars in gold has flowed into the country in the past nine years, draining Europe’s liquid assets. And this great gilded heap, which some of us regard as such a bulwark of wealth and strength—are the bankers equally enthusiastic about it? The answer, according to Mr. Anderson, is in the negative. This gilded heap is a vast “dead asset,” both wasteful and dangerous. Gold is a tool of trade. It is an expensive tool. Gold bears no interest. When it is accumulated in excess of the need, it involves a waste of capital. The United States would be very much better off today, for example, if we had a billion and a half dollars less of gold in the country and instead had a billion and a half dollars more of housing facilities in our congested cities. The United States would also be better off if the coun- tries of Europe had a billion and a half dollars of our gold as a basis for the restoration of sound currency and liquid credit position. These words are as significant as true. If the bankers ever decide to present a united front against a protective tariff, then the historic tenet of the G.O.P. is doomed. Pea in France have a dash and verve utterly for- eign to our own. Lucien Midol, leader of the railway strike of 1920, was recently elected by the Communists to the municipal council of Paris. After the strike he had taken refuge in Switzerland, and the French courts, as is their wont, condemned him in absentia for a great variety of crimes. Upon his election Midol crossed the Franco- Swiss frontier on foot, took local trains to a suburb of Paris, and walked into the capital with the morning flood of wage-earners. On the appointed day the police set up a barrage about the Town Hall, but Midol slipped through unrecognized, took his seat, and made a speech. After the session all the deputies entered the chairman’s office. The police demanded entry. Ferdinand Brunet, far from a Communist but evidently with a touch of humor, stood at the locked door with the key in his pocket and informed the police that they had no right to enter his office. The police sent for a locksmith. The lock was picked and the police rushed in. “Too late,” said one of the councilors. So the police rushed out, while Midol, sitting at Brunet’s desk, laughed with the rest. He then joined, unrecognized, the reporters and listened to a police officer describe how he had escaped from the window. The next day, while the police searched every automobile and pedestrian crossing the French frontier, Midol had himself photographed in Paris. A second time Midol passed the police barrage and entered the City Hall, but this time a police officer discov- ered him in the cloakroom. ~ HUNDRED years ago a small leaflet circulated in Manchester, England, which aimed to relieve the eco- nomic burden of excessively large families by giving the parents contraceptive information, was labeled by the good people “The Diabolical Handbill.” Seven years ago, fifty- five years after the first birth-control clinic in the world was opened in Amsterdam, the police arrested Margaret Sanger and two others for opening such a clinic in Brooklyn. The tide has scarcely turned yet. birth control have now a fund of practical data with which to wage a fight that is more fundamental that all the mater- nity and child-welfare legislation in the world. For eleven months the New York Clinical Research Bureau has con- ducted a scientific study of 900 cases—the first socio-medi- _ : But the advocates of le

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Dec. 19, 1923] cal research in birth control that has ever been done. For every case studied, two were rejected because they did not fall within the legal classification of those who may be so aided. All who received information at the clinic had to show that it was needed as a measure of health; 73 per cent sought it as well for economic reasons; 49 per cent showed bad family inheritance. The United States stands sixth on the child mortality list; in the five countries ahead of us there is no legal restriction on the dissemination of birth-control information. The United States is twentieth on the list in maternal mortality. We must get rid of cant in dealing with a subject of this kind or else forever class ourselves with those who used to condemn lightning-rods as an interference with divine providence. o YEAR and a day”—the old fairy tales always hung upon that glamorous phrase. Likewise, too often, the modern fairy tale of justice and political freedom. “A year and a day,” said His Honor, Judge Henry W. Goddard, leaning down from his bench in the United States District Court in New York City, as he sentenced Carlo Tresca to the federal penitentiary at Atlanta for carrying in his paper, Il Martello, the two-line advertisement of a book on birth control. As The Nation pointed out last week, the authori- ties are not concerned about the book. It was not in the hope of catching an insignificant advertisement that a spe- cial agent of the Department of Justice hired himself out to fl Martello for a year. But that he was unable in that time to find better cause for arresting Mr. Tresca makes the present charge and conviction all the more disgusting. Dis- trict Attorney Mattucks’s admission that the whole inves- tigation was made at the instigation of the Italian ambas- sador, and his suggestion that if Mr. Tresca would leave the country at once sentence should be suspended, are significant. Time was when Americans would have vigor- ously resented the dictation of a foreign Power in American courts. INDNESS is a real impulse of the human heart, we be- lieve, and not a mere outcropping of the idea of duty or a seasonal, Santa Claus sort of benevolence. But how tragically easy it is to choke the springs of kindness with a clod of prejudice or a hard, indecent lie. We have recently received a communication from Paxton Hibben of the Amer- ican Nansen Committee, which quite persuades us that the press associations, with various superheated patriots and officials as accomplices, are unwitting murderers of Rus- sian children. He sends us a letter from a man who last year collected $1,200 worth of clothing for the orphans of Russia. This year he will do nothing to help these chil- dren—he has been told that the Russians are selling grain and with the proceeds importing paper on which to spread the doctrines of communism, that a huge and unnecessary standing army is being maintained, that “unlimited funds” are being sent from Russia into the United States “to stir up labor strife with the ultimate view of the overthrow of our democratic form of government.” He admits that the children are not to blame but fears that Americans must be rather indifferent to their sufferings until the “majority in Russia ... some day come to their own, assert their rights and powers, and oust this bunch of robbers and mur- derers. . . .” Such has been the food fed to the American public. The Russian Government may list its chief im- The Nation | 701 ports, and repeat its offers for the recognition and the settlement of the Czar’s debts, and show how its army — compares with the other armies of Europe. And the scan- dalous misrepresentations bought and published by the United Mine Workers may be shown up in every decent journal. None the less official lies and unofficial slander carry farther than these denials—to the end that Russian children are left by kind and honest Americans to die. OHN MORLEY was a stalwart old stoic, and one re- spects the stern dictates of his will. But has any man the right to lay down such terms as these: As it is possible that some person may desire to write a memoir of my life, which I regard as wholly superfluous, I en- join upon my executors and each of them to refuse to aid or encourage any such design, and not allow any such person to have access to any of my papers, whether personal or acquired in the course of official duty, either for perusal or otherwise. And I also desire that the same refusal of access to my papers shall be extended to persons writing memoirs or biographies of friends of mine or others. There has, perhaps, been an exaggerated mania for me- moirs in these latter years, but the least valuable of them. have been published by their living writers. If John Morley. had desired that a decade should elapse and personal im- pressions fade before his story were written, that would be, possibly, a justifiable request; but to bar the future from attempting to understand the past through the papers of such a man as Morley—that seems to us a dead hand set against the right of history. A more sympathetic side of Morley’s character is revealed in his bequest of “a sub- stantial contribution from my library, not to be less than 5,000 volumes, to be chosen by the chairman of the [Man- chester] University Council in priority to any other bene- ficiary, such volumes to be placed in Ashburne Hall for the benefit of the women students.” HE fruits of last year’s convention on church pub- licity are being gathered. At that convention the chairman of the church-advertising department of the Asso- ciated Advertising Clubs of the World described the need for broadcasting Christianity in the following terms: This is the greatest field yet unentered by the advertising fraternity. ... The advertising men with their genius and ability to spread truth must take an interest in the church and put it into the minds and hearts of men. If they do not do so, they will show the first evidence of narrowness and selfishness yet shown by the wonderful profession when a new door opens. ... The plain duty of the advertising man is to “join the church and become a vital part of the organization” ... for when the church prospers, all other business prospers. . . . The people are hungry for God, but they must sometimes have quail mixed with their manna. . Now the seed which fell upon the good ground has sprung up a hundred-fold. Churches are advertising as never be- fore. The Editor and Publisher proudly reports that the Brooklyn Eagle ran “the largest single piece of church ad- vertising copy ever printed in a daily newspaper”’—a dou- ble-spread on the occasion of the fall meeting of the Metho- dist Board of Bishops. A manufacturer a few doors from The Nation’s office offers “Interchangeable Signs for Church and Commercial Advertising.” “I’ve put Jesus in my balance sheet, boys,” says the Y. M. C. A. orator in “Bunk,” “and I find he shows a net profit year after year.” But “Bunk” is only a novel.

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702 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 8050 Labor’s Triumph in England F profound significance to the whole world is the out- come of the British elections. It is one of those events which like a sudden flash of lightning illumine the darkest skies with a radiant promise of the morrow. To liberals and progressives everywhere the gains of the Labor Party, utterly unexpected in their magnitude, must bring fresh hope and encouragement. Fighting against all sorts of odds, with their treasury exhausted, with cries of “so- cialism” and “beware the capital levy” being used against them everywhere by the united forces of wealth, privilege, and conservatism, the Labor Party appears to have won forty-seven additional seats where thirty was the highest number the most enthusiastic had dared to prophesy. More than that, they won in districts in London where it was not believed that they had any chance whatever. Their policy of refusing to amalgamate with the Liberals was triumph- antly vindicated. The Liberals, despite the Asquith and Lloyd George reunion, won forty seats less than the Labor Party, which remains His Majesty’s Opposition. Rarely has political folly met with so prompt and de- served a punishment as that which has overtaken the Bald- win Government. Planless, cowardly, and utterly incon- sistent in their foreign policy, incredibly shortsighted and mistaken in their appeal to the country on a false domestic issue, the Conservatives have been fairly overwhelmed. They have paid the price for intrusting their fortunes to a sincere but dull and superficial business man, and for under- taking to overthrow in a three weeks’ campaign that his- toric British policy of free trade to which Britain owes its prestige and power and for decades owed its industrial domination of the globe. It is precisely this triumph of free trade as well as the progress of the Labor Party which makes this election so momentous for the whole world. Never was there a greater need for the one conspicuous free-trade nation to nail its colors to the mast. When all Europe condemns itself to needless losses and hardships be- cause of the endless new frontiers and vicious new tariffs which are the aftermath of the war, so shining an example of sound economic policy could have been lost only with the utmost detriment to mankind. The free-trade victory is, we believe, decisive. Elections may follow one after an- other in England—it looks as if they would—but we cannot believe that any other statesman will be found for a long time to come willing to test his fortunes on this issue— certainly not without long preparation. To Mr. Baldwin the hour seemed particularly tempting because of the un- rest and huge unemployment. Would the voters not jump at the chance to stimulate employment by artificial bar- riers? Plainly he had thought nothing through. The very fact that, taking his proposals at their alleged value, they would only revive industries employing 140,000 men, when there are nearly 1,500,000 unemployed, made his case hope- less with all thinking voters. Surely we shall not again see an approach to protection from that angle, whatever else the future may hold in store. The result of Mr. Baldwin’s political incapacity and total misconception of the desires of the electorate has resulted in a situation which, as has been widely pointed out, sub- jects the British constitution to its severest test of modern times. A system of government developed by and for the two-party system and presupposing a majority after every election is now confronted with the fact of three great parties none of which is able to control the House. It would be idle to prophesy the outcome of a tangle which is almost without precedent, indeed is without an exact precedent. It would be rash’ for the Labor Party to take office when it holds but 190 out of 615 seats. Fortunately its leader, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who so readily sacrificed what seemed to be his entire political future in 1914 by his opposition to the war and his steadfast adherence to his pacifist princi- ples, is not the man to feel any personal inclination or temptation to become the first Labor premier. A minority party taking office would carry on the government only un- der the great handicap of knowing that its opponents by joining hands could turn it out on any measure. The very insecurity of its existence would make against efficiency and against any domestic or financial program looking to the future for its development and working out. The Labor Party would, in addition, suffer from its unquestioned need of longer parliamentary experience—we have no fear as to its ability to produce the necessary administrative talents to carry on the several departments of the government. Its membership is mixed; success has brought dangers as well as responsibilities, and some of the men who have risen from the lower ranks of Labor have much to learn and have many preconceptions and needlessly bitter class partisan- ship to divest themselves of. It may become a political necessity for the party to assume the management of affairs under these conditions, but it would not be likely to help it at the next election. Yet the temptation to assume control must be very great. There is work to be done which they must itch to do. Leaders like Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Henderson, who will doubtless find a seat in the House before very long, must ache to get their hands upon the Foreign Office and to lead the way to an adjustment of the European situation without the settlement of which there is no hope of England’s re- turn to prosperity. At the same time, they must see that if they take office now their efforts to clear up the mess created and left by the governments which have followed one another since 1914 will put upon them a task so great that any failure would react upon them. Indeed, it is openly stated that the Conservatives would like to see Labor take office, believing that it could not make sufficient headway to save itself from discredit at the hands of an electorate pray- ing for prompt and early relief from the sufferings to which it is subjected. Let no man underestimate the gravity of the British situation. We agree with Mr. Baldwin that England is quite as deserving of the sympathy of the world asis France. It is not the habit of Anglo-Saxons to exhibit their wounds like an itinerant beggar and to dwell upon their need of ‘sympathy. But the menace of the future in England, quite aside from unemployment, is such that one can at times only wonder whether British industry can ever really recover from the shock of the war and whether an unprecedented migration is not inevitable. None the less, we hope that Labor will at least avoid the compromise of a coalition government, just as it steadfastly refused to coalesce before the poll. Let the Liberals and Conservatives combine if they will. A Ramsay MacDonald government which included Messrs. Lloyd George and Asquith would be an anomaly and would speedily become a byword. ee eel Oe Oe ee oe ae ae | ca

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Dee. 19, 1923] The Nation 703 The President and the Progressives EITHER the organization of Congress nor President Coolidge’s two messages to it tells us much that we did not already know. Mr. Coolidge’s recommendations confirm the verdict, already rendered, that he is our most conservative—not to say stand-pat—President since Wil- liam McKinley. The organization of Congress shows what we have known since its election more than a year ago— that it contains an unusual percentage of progressive mem- bers but that their effectiveness will be impaired by inex- perience and lack of cohesion. Interest in Washington this winter will lie in the tug- of-war between the two forces: progressivism in Congress and reaction in the White House. Mr. Coolidge’s political qualifications consist of caution, conservatism, and obedi- ence. They were the characteristics necessary for a young . Republican who sought to get ahead in Massachusetts in the days of Winthrop Murray Crane’s dictatorship; they car- ried Mr. Coolidge into the Governor’s chair, but they could not have carried him further. The rest was a streak of—for him—golden luck. And now, in his message, Mr. Coolidge naturally reverts to the only political bag of tricks he has: caution, conservatism, and obedience. To a country seething with complex problems and intolerable situations, Mr. Coolidge offers the gospel of stand-patism. He cannot do otherwise. He has nothing else to offer; and besides he realizes that his one hope of a nomination for the Presi- dency next summer is to offend as few persons as possible and to sit on the lid as hard as he can for the next six months. As a sitter on the lid we can think of few abler men than Calvin Coolidge. He learned long ago to stand without hitching, and he can as surely be depended upon to sit without squirming. Naturally a continuation of the Harding policies—what were they, by the way?—will be Mr. Coolidge’s chief en- deavor. We shall continue our policy of drift with regard to Europe. With the exception of a favorable reference to a world court—out of deference, no doubt, to Mr. Harding’s advocacy of it—Mr. Coolidge’s messages contain not a sin- gle constructive recommendation in regard to foreign rela- tions in a world of chaos. He stands with Mr. Hughes, of course, in refusing to consider cancelation of the Allied war debts to us in return for the possibility of averting an eco- nomic collapse in Europe. He would hold to an I. O. U. which (except in the case of Great Britain) there is no hope here or hereafter of collecting rather than reestablish a market for American products. In reaffirming the policy not to recognize Russia in the present conditions, Mr. Cool- idge says hopefully that he sees there “encouraging evi- dences of returning to the ancient ways of society.” Mr. Coolidge’s hermetically sealed mind is revealed almost in toto in that trustful devotion to the “ancient ways of society.” It is the gospel of stand-pattism in the presence of the greatest industrial experiment of modern times. In domestic policies Mr. Coolidge deserves praise for his recommendation in favor of a constitutional amendment to end the issue of tax-exempt securities. In backing Mr. Mellon on this issue the President takes a courageous and statesmanlike stand. Among his recommendations Mr. Coolidge places first and foremost the Mellon plan for re- ducing taxation and spiking the soldiers’ bonus. Opposition to the bonus is good conservative doctrine, but in a candidate for renomination it marks political courage. The other pro- posals are mainly wasteland: the tariff wall should not be attacked; all the railroads need is consolidation; agricul- tural prostration is dismissed with a suggestion to farmers to diversify their crops and resort to cooperation; the fuel emergency is passed over with some kind words for the inadequate recommendations of the Coal Commission. It would be too much to expect a thrilling battle between the progressives and the President. Mr. Coolidge will not put up a great fight for anything. If there is dangerous work to be done, he will intrust it to somebody else. The progressives in Congress, on the other hand, are full of fight, but have no permanent philosophy nor even any present pro- gram upon which to unite. Interest hitherto has centered chiefly in the progressive bloc in the Senate, but as William Hard points out in his Washington letter on another page, more is likely to be heard this winter of the progressive bloc in the House, because of the solid delegation of ten from Wisconsin and the discipline and unity that is to be expected from this group. It is doubtful, of course, if the House progressives obtained any substantial advantages as a result of their much-advertised fight in connection with the speakership. The House is a clumsy and autocratic body where a new man, even of outstanding ability, has little chance; where no minority, no matter how ably led, can accomplish much. The country will only be piling up disappointment for itself if it expects much in the way of progressive legislation from the present session of Con- gress. There is sufficient progressive strength to present an embarrassing opposition and thus to win some compro- mises. But more than that is improbable. The chief hope will be in an educational campaign for the country and in the possibility of laying foundations for a broader and deeper progressive movement. The Menace of Mexico EDUCED to its simplest terms, the De la Huerta coup is an attempt to stab the Mexican revolution in the back and to return Mexico to the political heirs of Porfirio Diaz. His manifesto, which omits all mention of Article 27 and makes land distribution contingent on a foreign loan, is conclusive, if direct evidence were needed. General Guadalupe Sanchez, the Vera Cruz division commander who heads the revolt, has long been an evident counter-revolu- tionary. His insubordinate assaults upon the agrarians in Vera Cruz have augmented the unrest in that state and deeply troubled the federal Government. Americans may wonder why De la Huerta, long an inti- mate associate of the Obregon regime, should now seek to destroy its three years’ constructive work. For those who really know De la Huerta the answer is not difficult. He was a good interim president chiefly because he had the support of Obregon and Calles, whose policies he carried out. As Secretary of the Treasury he gradually yielded to the temptations of his office and began building a political machine. The reactionaries, native and foreign, lent him all the support that seemed expedient. An obviously reactionary candidate would stand no chance. So the Cooperatista Party, equipped with all the revolutionary catchwords and apparently named for its

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704 members’ systematic cooperation in looting the state and the municipal treasuries they controlled, sprang into being. A press campaign in the United States, in part financed by the treasury funds, stigmatized General Calles as a “red” and a “bolshevik.” In Mexico, on the other hand, while secretly trafficking with all the forces of reaction, De la Huerta was trumpeting his radicalism, verbally indorsing the Calles candidacy, and declaring in the most solemn terms that under no circumstances would he compete—to do so would imperil the revolutionary conquests already made. President Obregon, distressed by the raiding of the treas- ury, which was increasingly manifest in arrears of pay to public employees and in the hamstringing of the govern- ment education campaign, nevertheless desired to avoid an open breach. But his refusal to sanction the fraudulent election by which the titular Cooperatista leader, Prieto Laurens, sought to capture the governorship of San Luis Potosi, precipitated the announcement of De la Huerta’s candidacy, “in response to overwhelming popular demand.” When, after six weeks’ campaigning, this proved to be little else than the clamor of the reactionaries and the pay-roll patriots, who included the “red” anarcho-syndicalist lead- ers, he chose the time-honored Mexican method, open revolt. The real tragedy of this attempt lies in its destruction of President Obregon’s valiant effort to establish a peace- ful and democratic succession to the presidency. It had been his highest ambition to achieve this. For three years he has sought to avoid interference in state elections and has aimed to make them true expressions of the popular will. His plans were often thwarted, nor were his judg- ments infallible. Often he had to choose between injecting his authority, which he disliked to do, or acquiescing in a palpably crooked result. Often his choice lay between de- grees of fraud and violence. In many cases. as recently in the state of Queretaro, he had to decide against his own friends and against those of the same political faith. Had he been a Diaz he could easily have filled every public office with revolutionaries of his own stripe and paved the way for an uncontestable presidential election. His candidate had long been Plutarco Elias Calles, Sec- retary of Goberracion, without question the one man with the popular support, the strength, and the vision to carry on the almost superhuman task that Obregon has attempted. In every sense Calles was the logical candidate. But while making no secret of his preference, the President deter- mined that the election should be free and that no official machinery should be used to help or hinder any candidacy. Calles therefore resigned his cabinet post, as did his staunchest supporters, Gasca, governor of the federal dis- trict, Morones, head of the government munition works, and others. The federal Government did not lift a finger for Calles—the anti-Calles press in Mexico City has not been able to cite a single instance of official pressure. Neverthe- less De la Huerta and his following loudly raised the cry of “imposition,” and when they found no popular~ support themselves sought to impose their candidate by the sword. Yet good may come out of this defection. Pseudo-revolu- tionists have long handicapped Obregon’s efforts, and while mouthing the shibboleths of the new order have shame- lessly betrayed it. Many of them have now eliminated themselves. Here and there disappointed office-seekers and grudge-holders of one sort or another may attempt to profit by the situation. But despite all the disruptive forces the revolt will fail because the plain people are for Obregon, | The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 whose government has been a sincere and determined effort against incredible odds to move toward political and social democracy. Yet a very real menace, not only for Mexico but for the United States, exists—unfortunately beyond Obregon’s power to avert. It calls for the unremitting vigilance and efforts of all decent Americans. For it is not without sig- nificance that within seventy-two hours a New York paper should editorially demand a large army, declaring: “We are not prepared today for a small war, for such an unwel- come duty as intervention in Mexico, should it be forced upon us.” The Seas of Democracy EMOCRACY, friends, is not born of crowds, of masses of people indiscriminately hurled together. Democ- racy is the result of selection, of patient, discerning choice, of slow nurture, of freedom guarded and watched over. The swarming public schools in our great cities are seldom breeding-places of democracy; from above and from below democracy is too often strained out of them—regimenta- tion, prejudice, and punishment dominate the scene. If American children are to learn the democratic spirit, if they are to believe in their own right and the right of everyone else to grow into free and creative and individual persons, if they are to respect tolerance and difference and courage, they must find them somewhere else than at the over- crowded public schools controlled by political boards rather than by educators. Unfortunately the places where they may learn these virtues of the free citizen are rare in the whole country. A few public schools here and there have been set apart for experimental work in education; in the smaller cities the schools are often fairly free from political domination and sometimes open to liberal educational influences; in New York there are perhaps half a dozen private schools as well which in varying degrees and in different ways are trying to utilize freedom as a training for freedom, and self-ex- pression as an educational tool. Numerically the value of these schools is insignificant; only a handful of children can be reached by their methods. Educationally their value is beyond estimate. They are the laboratories from which the educational discoveries of the future are likely to spring. A few of the more “regular” and conservative of these institutions are well endowed and successful. Most of them, however, and especially the more advanced among them, are forced to waste precious time and energy in the mere business of keeping alive. One of the younger and most interesting of these oases of freedom is the Walden School | in New York City, which is valiantly struggling toward © an endowment to maintain itself during the next four years. The City and Country School, against similar odds, is per- forming an equally interesting and stimulatingly different piece of work. In both schools the children are treated as the friends and companions in work of their teachers, indi- } vidual preferences and talents are eagerly watched for and § encouraged, individual difficulties are problems to be studied not sins to be extirpated. Differences in method are the necessary incidents of a voyage of discovery over seas | where most of the charts have been found misleading and thrown overboard. Those who can help these schools have — a right to feel that they are helping the Columbuses of edu- i cation to explore new seas.

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Dee. 19, 1923] The Nation 705 Germany’s Political Failures By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD London, November 12 IR sind ein unpolitisches Volk’—‘“we are a non- political people’—once wrote Prince Bilow. No one can study the Germany of today and of the last five years without concurring in the Prince’s verdict. The ineptness which permitted the maneuvering of Germany into a position of moral turpitude in 1914 did not cease with the birth of the German republic. The years that have passed, years of physical suffering and mental anguish such as only the Russians can understand and appreciate, have produced no dominant German statesmen or statesman, have brought forward no moral or spiritual or political leader, have con- solidated public opinion not at all. On the contrary, with every month’s slipping down into economic chaos and intel- lectual despair, the cleavages have become more marked, the differences more varied and more bitter. Under relentless and vindictive pressure from outside, it has not only been impossible to close ranks, but some of the worst passions and the worst elements in the community have come to the surface. With the enemy not only at the door but in the front hall, parlor, and kitchen and well on his way upstairs, it is impossible to present a united German front. It is easy to sing, as the crowd still does, “Deutschland itiber Alles,” but to make the necessary sacrifices so that the enemy shall meet a Germany compact, indivisible, and un- shakable—that appears impossible. Once more we see, as in so many other countries, the exploding of the old theory that each grave national crisis produces its master spirit, its Lincoln or its Cromwell, divinely prepared to deal with the hour. Germany is but one of many countries in which en- lightened and able leadership is lacking. Now I am well aware how urgent are the extenuating cir- cumstances. Every act of the Allies since the war has been as if deliberately planned to hamstring, and then to destroy, the newly born democratic movement in Germany, the free- ing of which from its autocratic mastership Woodrow Wil- son declared to be one of our purposes in entering the war. It is not easy to develop self-government and self-control when you are suddenly called upon to take over a nation prostrate in the ruins of its autocratic government and to construct an entirely new system of national management under fire. You cannot so readily show what possibilities of successful self-government lie within you when you are hampered at every turn, when at least three-quarters of your most valuable assets in the way of national resources are stolen from you, when you are beset by dozens of foreign commissions, when you get nearly one hundred orders in one week as to how you, representing a presumably free and independent government in possession of full sover- eignty, shall conduct your business. Nor is your situation improved by the presence of thousands upon thousands of foreign troops upon your soil, representing a clear-cut polit- ical purpose to dismember your country, to take from it additional stretches of territory. If under these circum- stances you can retain any authority over your people, that is perhaps a noteworthy achievement. Then, we ought surely to judge leniently the conduct of a people who for nine long years have been subjected to a mervous strain and a mental torture of the worst kind; who during at least four, if not five, of those years have daily faced the specter of famine; who are now reduced by for- eign exactions and cruelties and by their mismanagement of their own currency to a point where their mental hori- zon is limited entirely by the questions where can they get food and how can they pay for it. Few people in modern times have been called upon to undergo such a trial by fire. Yet, when every allowance is made, I must confess to bit- ter disappointment that the political incapacity of the Ger- man people continues and continues so gravely to their own hurt. I cannot find it easy to overlook or forgive the con- tinuous factional disputes and intrigues in the Reichstag. It is not easy to forgive the placing in the Cuno cabinet of a totally inefficient finance minister (to speak politely of him) by the Centrum, and his retention there as the price of that party’s support of the coalition when the Reich was in its gravest straits. One can understand the persistence of racial differences such as those which exist between Prussia ‘and Bavaria. One can even understand in a way the fanati- cal, semi-religious devotion to country of the Bavarian mili- tarists, monarchists, and nationalists, with the resultant belief that at this juncture there is no other method to save the fatherland except to impose their will upon the rest of Germany. But one cannot forgive the playing of petty party politics while the national house is burning, nor the insistence upon exploiting at this time the differing sec- tional points of view; one does feel that in such an emer- gency Communist, monarchist, Socialist, Bavarian, and the ultra-reactionary of every stripe ought to suspend their differences, postpone their quarrels, turn to in order to keep afloat their sinking ship, and uphold the hands of the con- stituted authority in the extraordinarily difficult negotia- tions with the false and lying Gallic enemy. What if those constituted authorities are not faithful to their tasks? Why, then the united pressure of the masses could and should make itself felt; at worst, the hour of accounting and reck- oning would have to be postponed. As for the ministries that have existed in Germany since the revolution of 1918, have they been true to themselves, their people, and their obligations? I have the strongest feeling that they have not. Too often there has been a lack of straightforwardness, and that still exists. When Strese- mann sent his ultimatum to Bavaria at the end of October he suppressed the most important part of it from his own people. With disgusting indirection he simultaneously struck at the Bavarians over the heads of the Saxons, pulling down the government of the latter because he had had “sev- enteen complaints of the ill-treatment of Saxon industrial- ists by Communist workers.” Stresemann did these things for expediency’s sake and for tactical reasons. Suppression of truth is a dangerous game to play in most countries, and one may be certain that if the German people discover how the actual facts have been withheld from them those guilty will have to pay a heavy price. But perhaps the clearest instance of the way the succes- sive German governments have failed to keep faith with their own people appears when one remembers the solemn promises given in 1919 that immediate steps would be taken to socialize the great industries. “Die Sozialisierung ist

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706 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 da!” read great posters on all the blank walls and public buildings when I reached Berlin during the Spartacist up- rising in March of that year. It was held to be the most potent and magic formula with which to calm the revolters. But nothing whatever has since been done. The mines were to be the first to be nationalized; they are still in private hands. Now, nationalization may or may not be a wise policy, but that the majority of the German people wanted it in 1919 can hardly be doubted. It was beyond dispute sol- emnly promised to them. What wonder if the authority of the government has failed with the masses? It has perhaps been a fortunate thing for the successive chancellors that the German people have become hourly more and more con- cerned about their daily bread and.less and less able to con- centrate upon their politics and to compare promise with performance. As for the political ineptness of the controllers of Ger- many’s Government, the instances of that are legion. I repeatedly asked in Berlin why the simple device of ap- pointing an advisory finance commission of foreigners to cooperate with the German Government and to advise it in the matter of payments to the Allied governments was not adopted. Supposing a commission comprising Sir George Paish, John Maynard Keynes, Frank A. Vanderlip, Paul Warburg, a Swiss, a Dutch, and a Scandinavian financier had been appointed, and the German Government had laid all its cards on the table and been guided by the commis- sion’s advice, what a safeguard against foreign insinua- tion and misrepresentation that would have constituted! What a means with which to meet the demands of the Repa- ration Commission! The word and opinion of such men must have been accepted by the financial and commercial world as conclusive. Yet no one in Berlin appears ever to have thought of such a simple stratagem. If such a com- mission had certified to the honorable efforts of the Ger- mans to pay, approved the amounts of their payments and their capacity for future deliveries, not even M. Poincaré would have dared to dispute the decisions. Instead, the Germans blundered on, producing abroad the widespread belief that they were seeking to avoid their just debts, amaz- ing their friends when they gave Poincaré the opportunity to enter the Ruhr because of inexcusable minor defaults, and never making one clear-cut reparations offer and stick- ing to it through thick and thin. Such a body of experts would moreover have aided in the handling of the German currency situation. The French have reason to say that part of the responsibility for the German financial collapse rests on Berlin because of its failure to deal properly and promptly with the currency problem. In another article I have pointed out how victory through passive resistance was thrown away because of the failure to plan for its adequate financing—another case where, whether through stupidity or shortsightedness or otherwise, the Germans were misled by those in authority. There persists a general suspicion that in some of the helter- skelter stabilizing efforts to peg the mark at this or the other figure the insiders enriched themselves. Indeed, it is rather openly charged that labor unions and some political parties have financed themselves by gambling in exchange. It is impossible to get a satisfactory answer to the question why, if it was a good thing to establish a new and sound currency on November 1 last, it would not have been a good thing to do it on February 1 last. Finally, as to the general financial situation, there is today still no adequate governmental appreciation of its desperate character or even of the exact nature of the disease. What political incapacity that spells when Germany is dying from this disease, induced and superinduced by outside pressure and malignance! There are competent experts in Germany like Dr. R. R. Kuczynski; they do not appear-to be consulted. It is not too late now to call in foreign experts, but the Berlin vision is probably still not broad enough for that. I do not believe for one instant that Berlin has been deliberately dishonest as to reparations, or in the debasement of its currency; but one must admit that their political ineptness has on occa- sion presented matters to the world as if they were. Again one does not feel that one is entirely unjust in believing that a resolute government would have grappled with the disorderly elements, the profiteers, the gamblers in the necessities of life, who inevitably rise to the top when there is such a complete stirring up of all the forces that constitute national life. There are base men in every coun- try, tax evaders, men who cheat their government and en- rich themselves cold-bloodedly at the expense of the unfor- tunate among their fellow-countrymen. But a government filled with righteous determination to combat the wrong and having some political flair would have found means of checking the excesses which Germany has witnessed along these lines—happenings that have given rise to the suspicion abroad that the Government itself has connived at a flight of capital out of the country to avoid the payment of just debts. This impression has been widely circulated by the Allies, but it is not warranted by the facts, especially when it is recalled that the German Government has repeatedly and in vain called upon the Allies and the neutral nations to compel their banks to reveal the deposits made by Ger- mans in those institutions and countries so that it might tax them. Again, there are the German industrialists. Today they constitute a coordinate government within the German em- pire. Instead of aiding Berlin to grapple with them, France has done everything it could to exalt the industrialists at the expense of Berlin by dealing directly with them, which has of course destroyed Berlin’s authority over them and has encouraged them to make use of the distress of their coun- try and the approaching starvation of the masses of their workmen, to attempt to do away with the eight-hour day and otherwise to improve their position as against that of their employees who have nothing left but to submit. During the war, according to report, these large industries were prac- tically taken over by the Government; there certainly seems no reason why in this even greater national emergency a similar policy could not have been pursued. The fact, I fear, is that the Cuno and Stresemann governments have been governments by and for business men rather than for the whole German people. So one leaves Germany today with a sinking heart over its political incapacity. Any people plunged into democracy so suddenly would have had reason to ask for indulgence even had there been no foreign complications. Germany was particularly handicapped. It had a huge defeated army of - 6,000,000 men to demobilize while changing from mon- archy to republic. It has clearly had to pay for its whole autocratic tradition and policies under which men were often excluded from administrative careers if they did not belong to certain charmed circles. It has had to pay for the whole Bismarckian policy of stifling liberalism and punishing so- cialists for their opinions—did he not say that he would

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Dec. 19, 1923] The Nation 707 “squeeze them against the wall until they squeaked”? It is suffering now because of generations of autocracy whose whole tendency was to make men leave everything which has to do with government and administration to the bureaucracy and thus to deprive themselves of experience in the affairs of state. Yet when all is said and done, the disappointment is there that the record of the last five years is what it is; that so proud, so self-confident, so conceited a people, so cer- tain of their powers and their mission in the world, have made such a poor showing; that they have not even dealt adequately with their own war criminals; that they are still without the insight to understand the psychology and the points of view of other peoples; that they are not even able to convince the world of their own honesty of purpose; that they are without spiritual unity and concord; that they are cracking under pressure, albeit a wicked pressure, diaboli- cally planned not only to destroy their country but also to destroy their reputation for integrity and their character by compelling them at the pistol’s point to agree to do the im- possible. What does one see before Germany? Well, if any man of ordinarily humane and Christian instincts should let his mind dwell on what may happen in the next few months if England and America continue to flinch and to fail, he would not be able to sleep o’ nights—that is if he had seen the situation at first hand in the Ruhr and elsewhere. One of the most terrible catastrophes in the history of mankind is under way. What if that could be staved off? Well, even if the French could overnight be remanded to sanity, charity, and ordinary human decency, the Germans would still have before them the Slough of Despond. They will, I fear, have to go down far in suffering, misery, and disaster. It looks now as if they would have to take their dose of a dictatorship of the right and a dictatorship of the proletariat. It looks as if there must needs be years of convulsion, disorder, and civil strife before the new birth comes—a new birth which could have been brought about so easily had the good inten- tions and the financial] ability of the Germans in 1919 been met by Christian fellowship and good-will on the part of the Allies. The responsibility for the deaths of millions of Europeans rests in large measure with the rulers of Austria and Ger- many in 1914. The responsibility in this hour for the im- pending death by slow starvation of millions of German men, women, and children will rest in first line upon the French. Upon their heads will be the blood of the innocent. For that blood they will yet pay a terrible price unless all history is a lie. These United States—X LITI* WASHINGTON: The Dawn of a Tomorrow By ROBERT WHITAKER Y predecessor in the pastorate at Seattle thirty-five years ago, a typical Titan of the frontier, was never weary of demonstrating that the Puget Sound country is not the Northwest corner of the United States. Seattle, he insisted, is considerably nearer New York City on the east than to the farthest extension of Alaska on the west. Wash- ington State is the doorway, and the only doorway to more than one-sixth of the total continental area of the United States. One can hardly say of Alaska now what might have been said truthfully thirty-five years ago, it hasn’t been scratched yet. It has been scratched, and with wonderful results. What those results have been in Alaska and in the world at large does not concern us here. What they were for the State of Washington would take many paragraphs to tell. It is enough to say that Washington’s hour of greatest advance followed hard upon the golden dawn of Alaska’s Klondike discovery. It was but a dawn, with a bit of dull gray morning following. But the day of Alaska has yet to come, and that day must mean more to Washington than any flurry of such ephemeral prosperity as a gold rush brings. The doorway to Alaska, and to all the coast of North America which lies between Puget Sound and Alaska, that is the State of Washington. What is of more consequence to Washington’s future is that Puget Sound is the doorway to Asia as well. Asia, indeed, confronts our whole West Coast. But it is characteristic of the land mass on both sides of the Pacific that the shores approach each other toward the north, and recede rapidly from each other on * Reproduction forbidden. Quotation limited to 300 words. Copyright, 1923, The Nation, Inc. All rights reserved. the south. This, with the shorter are of earth curvature as one goes northward brings the ports on Puget Sound several days’ sailing nearer those of China and Japan than are the ports of California. The volume of commerce which passes now from Puget Sound to the Orient is many times in excess of that of all our harbors which lie farther south combined. It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, with dramatic con- ciseness: ‘The Mediterranean Era died with the discovery of America; the Atlantic Era has reached the height of its development; the Pacific Era, destined to be the greatest, is just at its dawn.” One need not agree with the negative phases of this epitome of world history to appreciate the promise of the Pacific. And Puget Sound is the most re- markable of its inland seas. In area and contour, accessi- bility and security at all seasons of the year, scenic variety and beauty, in the healthfulness and invigorating quality of its climate, and the wealth of sea food to be found in it and adjacent to it Puget Sound will bear comparison with any inland sea on the earth. It is no idle dream that its shores will some day be the dwelling-place of many millions cf people. The State of Washington might claim much of promise from the world carriers of tomorrow if it had no wealth of its own to offer. But of such wealth, present and prospec- tive, there is no lack. Consider what we may call primeval wealth, that which was there before man ever saw the land, the treasure of the great woods and the treasure of the great waters. There is no need to conjecture what only yes- terday were those primitive conditions, nor to waste tears on man’s extravagant misuse of the resources he found. Sickening as is the desolation of the forests where imme-

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708 diate profit has dominated the white man’s devastation of -them, the. area of Washington State still exhibits a wealth of standing timber which cannot be stated in terms easily grasped. Half the timber of the United States today is on the slopes of the Cascades, the Coast Range, and the Olym- _ pics of Oregon and Washington, the Bitterroots and Rockies of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Washington itself is exceeded only by Oregon in its share of this vast bounty of nature, and today leads all other States in lumber pro- duction. Five and a half billion board feet of lumber a year are the product of her three hundred logging camps and eight hundred sawmills. Four hundred thousand houses a year in the United States have but a few months previous been standing timber in Washington. Fishing in the Pacific Northwest is an industry with an output of eighty-five million dollars a year. The business exceeds that of the east coast of the British Islands and New England combined. Washington handles not only her . own great product, but the vast volume of fish which comes . down from the north. This wealth of wood and water, . which man did nothing to create until very recently and which he has most miserably failed to conserve, would in and of itself give Washington a considerable place in the commerce of the world. But there is the potential wealth of the State to be con- sidered, in particular the magic “white coal,’’ which is to _ transform the earth, is transforming it today. One thinks .of Niagara naturally with the mention of hydro-electric power, The potential capacity of the Niagara Basin is said _to be six million horse-power. The Colorado Basin sur- ., passes this expectancy by a million horse-power. On the authority, of Eastern experts the potential hydro-electric , ‘power of the Columbia River Basin, which lies largely _ within Washington, is twenty-one million horse-power. And besides this primeval and potential endowment lav- ished on the land there is what we may call the provisional wealth, the grains, live stock, and fruits upon which man has so learned to depend. You may travel for hundreds of miles within the State far from the haunts of the salmon, throughout what is fittingly known as The Inland Empire, _ where the all but treeless land is an ocean of billowy grain _at harvest time. Even the eye accustomed to the vast wheat fields of the Mississippi Valley marvels at the illimitable . vista of. soft-hued grain. The dairying interests are especially favored over large areas of the State by a rain- fall that does not fail them in summer. Poultry raising prospers peculiarly in that climate and is carried on with a scientific efficiency and success second to that of no other portion of the land. Washington is the greatest apple- raising section of the earth, is made for berries as naturally as its streams are made for fish, and under right economic conditions could produce fruit enough to feed a continent. A healthful climate is everywhere recognized today as a prime factor in the building up of a country’s population. So also we are beginning to understand the value of scenic beauty. Let another free from the habitant’s bias speak of what Washington offers the seeker after health and natural loveliness. In “The Conquest of Consumption,” Dr. Woods Hutchinson writes: When once we cross the summit of the Cascades we enter a totally different climate, an air which is mild, gentle, and moist, but never depressing; a country of green mountains, dazzling snow-tipped peaks, of grass, of moss and fern, which knows neither the barrenness of winter nor the brownness of summer, The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3050 a land which has all the best and most invigorating qualities of the cradle of our Teutonic race, with none of its extremes. From one end to the other it is the land of tall trees and tall men, of the apple, the peach, the prune, and the pine; the land of the green valley and the rushing river. The rosy pink of its orchards every spring is equaled only by the sunset glow upon its peaks of eternal snow. It is the charmed land of the Ameri- can continent, where a temperate sun, a mild climate, and a fertile soil give man the stimulus of the green and rain-swept North, with the luxurious returns for moderate effort of the teeming tropics. ... If you have never seen Oregon, Washing- ton, or British Columbia in summer, you lack important quali- fications for imagining what the climate of heaven may be like. That world traveler and generous commentator on Amer- ica, the late Viscount Bryce, has written: Neither Europe nor Asia nor South America has a prospect in which sea and woods and snow mountains are so united in a landscape as in the view from Puget Sound of the great peaks that rise like white towers above the dark green forests of the Cascades. If these testimonies seem to stress unduly the region of Puget Sound it is not for lack of loveliness to praise in other sections of the State. For mingled grandeur and beauty I have seen nothing on the Pacific Coast which surpasses the view one gets under favorable conditions in going up the canyon of the Columbia River, from the fords fifty miles below Wenatchee to the hills and gorges north of that city. The somber severity of the lower canyon, with its bald, massive cliffs all but bare of vegetation, is in striking contrast with the wealth of apple orchards and vine-clad hillsides where the valley broadens at the con- fluence of the Wenatchee with the greater Columbia. The mountains are there also, towering to greater heights by far, with their sharply silhouetted crests melting into the sunset skies till lost in a golden haze where cloud and crest are indistinguishable. And there are other sections and scenes a plenty of which one might write with no less enthusiasm. Yet with all this Washington State is neither truly prosperous nor contented. In common with all the agricultural States Washington is hard hit at present by the general paralysis of the producers’ markets. It avails Washington little that her grain yield is so generous when the price for grain is so inadequate. She fares better per- haps with her live-stock and subsidiary interests, but the same general condition prevails. Her precedence as the foremost apple-producing section of the world is but a mockery to the men who ship great cargoes of the finest fruit to the market, only to find themselves actually out of pocket when the freight charges are paid. Her very plenty is her poverty when that plenty lies rotting upon the ground because it is the day of the profiteer and the parasite in America just now instead of the day of the producer. Likewise the very magnitude of her potential wealth, her undeveloped water-power, makes for her difficulty in realiz- ing upon it. If it were less, the private corporation might be sufficient for it, or the State itself might assume the burden of bringing the water to the magic wheels. But so vast is the undertaking that we shall have learned a much larger measure of cooperation than anything we have yet realized before the stupendous task is done. Washington’s history shows an unusual degree of devotion to the coop- erative ideal, Her experiments have been many on this line, and the spirit of solidarity has wrought to more effect . ' there in the Northwest than most of the people can either |

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Dec. 19, 1923] The Nation 709 eens eee ree reser eee eee eee ee eee eee ee ————EEEEEEEEEeEE—>—>——————————==_ believe or understand. The things which have been reck- oned her calamity and disgrace are really large with promise. But meanwhile there are vast areas of desolation where there should be enjoyment and fruitfulness because in common with all America Washington waits for the prac- tical values of brotherhood among the masses of mankind to make themselves understood. Within half a dozen years Washington State has seen two massacres in connection with her lumber industry. Amid the eternal grandeur of the snow-clad giants the spruces stand, tall, cool, and silent. But the tension of the fevered pigmies at their feet is ever at the fighting-point. Seven men were shot to death on a beautiful Sunday morning in November, 1916, when a company of two hun- dred and fifty I1.W.W. went from Seattle to Everett to the help of their comrades who were waging a free-speech fight there. It is possible that the fatalities were more, some bodies being swept overboard from the ship Verona in the terrible fusillade which was directed against it by those who had said that the workers should not land. Many others were sorely wounded. High-handed measures had been used against the workers for months, and barbarities endured py them which were provocative to the last degree. The men who represented property there and who were respon- sible for the unlawful interference with the right of the workers and their comrades to land were not officially molested for the part they had in the massacre. On the other hand the workers, who had suffered by far the heavier mortality and the more serious injuries, were swept whole- sale into jail and every effort was made to hold them there for life, or hang them as the aggressors in the affair. The trial, carried on at length in Seattle with the financial back- ing of the lumber interests against the accused, resulted in the complete acquittal of the workers. In Centralia on Armistice Day in 1919 there was likewise loss of life on both sides, and if the heavier loss on this oc- casion fell upon the champions of law and order they made the balance more than even in the unspeakable barbarity of their vengeance following. This time a conviction was secured of part of the workers placed under arrest, the arrests being again altogether from the ranks of the work- ers. The judge who tried the case had already made public oration against the workers. The evidence to prove prior conspiracy upon the part of the accusers he ruled out of court. Soldiers surrounded the courtroom and paraded their uniforms before the jurors. Intimidation was there to the fullest possible measure short of open violence or formal demand for a verdict of guilty on the part of an armed force. Nevertheless only a part of those under trial were condemned, the verdict, second-degree murder, being ab- surdly inconsistent with the circumstances of the massacre if the accused or their comrades were the aggressors. Even this compromise verdict was accompanied by an appeal from the jury to the judge for clemency, and since that time no less than five of the twelve jurors have made open affidavit that the verdict was not according to the evidence but was wrung from the jury through fear. Add to this that an extra-legal jury composed of representative labor men sent there by conservative labor bodies unanimously acquitted all the accused in their verdict. Four years later the men who are serving terms at Walla Walla, their requests for a new trial refused without show of reason or right, may think themselves forgotten, but their fate is a constant fertilizer of the ever-thickening growth of labor solidarity. One need not resort to labor pamphlets to discover what the deeper rootage of this labor solidarity is. Here is a passage from an eminently respectable and conservative journal of California, Swnset magazine, under date of Feb- ruary, 1917: Shingle-weaving is not a trade, it is a battle. For ten hours a day the sawyer faces two teethed steel disks whirling around two hundred times a minute. To the one on the left he feeds the heavy blocks of cedar, reaching over with his left hand to remove the heavy shingles it rips off. . .. Hour after hour the shingle-weaver’s hands and arms, plain, unarmored flesh and blood, are staked against the screeching steel that cares not what it severs. Hour after hour the steel sings its crescendo note as it bites into the wood, the sawdust thickens, the wet sponge under the sawyer’s nose fills with fine particles. If “cedar asthma,” the shingle-weaver’s occupational disease, does not get him, the steel will. Sooner or later he reaches over a little too far, the whirling blade tosses drops of deep red into the air, a finger, a hand, or part of an arm comes sliding down the slick chute. To this vivid presentation of the price at which the lum- ber profits in Washington have been made should be added at least mention of the revolting, body- and soul-destroying conditions which prevailed in the lumber camps till the I.W.W. forced some decency there. Out of such travail was born the militant solidarity of the shingle-weavers’ union and later the compact and effective resistance of the Washington I.W.W. It was a new-found sense of union that brought about that surprising coordination of the working forces of Seattle which produced what is still known as the Seattle Revolution. A “revolution” in the sense of intending any bodily harm to anybody it was not. The actual conduct of it was as orderly as a Quaker Quarterly Meeting. It was revolutionary only in the sense that it revealed to a startled public, including the workers themselves, the unrealized dependence of a modern community upon the least and poor- est of the workers, and showed what the economic power of the workers means once they move and act with a com- mon purpose. The origin of the Seattle general strike at the beginning of 1919, otherwise described as the Seattle Revolution, was simple enough. Workers’ solidarity had been necessary during the period of the war, had been profitable to the employers, and had been encouraged by them. Consequently the labor unions grew extraordinarily in numbers and power. Then came the cessation of hostilities, the be- ginnings of “retrenchment” with the “deflation” of the wages of the shipyard workers, the interference of red tape at Washington, D. C., which it is claimed stalled successful settlement of the matter in Seattle, and then the walkout of the workers of the city in common protest. The like of it had never happened in America before, and is not likely to happen again soon. It was as when the son of an over- bearing father learns for the first time that he can throw his father, and fears to use his new-found power until he is ready to go his own way. Seattle labor was not ready to cut loose from the capitalist organization of society, had not dreamed of it, and had not the remotest thought of challenging the State. It has no such dream today. Spirit there is in Washington labor, and unity beyond that which is common. The Northwest has been made by men who have had to stand up to nature, and therefore are not afraid to stand up to each other. More dirt has been moved in the making of Seattle itself than anywhere else on the Ameri-

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710 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3050 PN can continent except at the Panama Canal. They know how to resist there. But resistance is not revolution. The work- ers of Seattle were overwhelmed with confusion at their own success, but made an orderly retreat back to their jobs. It was the supreme opportunity of the owning and gov- erning classes in America if they had possessed either the intelligence or public spirit to meet it. As it was they made a god of one of the cheapest demagogues who has ever disgraced the mayoralty of a great city, a man who had fawned and cringed to the workers until the logic of their own success compelled them to draw back and he could rush in and make great ado about the suppressing of a revolution which had never been. But the weakness and the disgrace of it, as the hurt of it, was more theirs, the responsible leaders of business and culture in Seattle, that they could avail themselves of such paltry subterfuge and display. If there is any possibility of understanding between labor and capital it was theirs then, and they might have done the capitalists of all America a service. Instead there were The Kennels pyrotechnics in the press and on the platform, and a ven- geance upon a foe which had voluntarily dispersed scared of its own strength, such vengeance as reacted quickly to the undoing of their own interests and particularly to the punishment of the small business man. The emphatic quality of Washington State is its adapta- bility to the purposes of creative labor. The climate is a worker’s, not an idler’s climate. The land is no parasite’s paradise; it is a treasure house that waits upon free, un- trammeled labor to bring forth its resources. “The sum- mer playground of the American continent” it may deserve to be. But its summer is short, and its merits are not of the few weeks only in which men rest and play, but rather of the whole working year. The dawn of a tomorrow is upon the woods and the waters, the fruit-fields and the grain-fields of Washington, a tomorrow which can only come to the great commonwealth of the Northwest with that better social order in which the workers shall enter into their own. of New York By VICTOR H. LAWN HE United States, leader in number of automobiles per capita, wealth per capita, and other things that do not matter much, continues to permit all the countries of Europe to increase their lead in essential matters of politics and economics. Particularly pertinent at this time is the housing situation. So far, the United States has the most nearly unblemished record of inactivity in the matter of housing for workingmen of any civilized country. Tax exemption in a few States, the Homestead Commission of Massachusetts, the utterly inhuman mill towns of New England and the steel and mining towns of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado, and others, and the aborted be- ginnings of the Emergency Fleet Corporation during the war constitute the few insignificant efforts in this country. Nowhere has there been an intelligent attempt to face the problem. Nowhere has there been a courageous assault upon the Swiss guard of Profit. Nowhere has it been made plain that good housing for the workers at a fair rent may be inconsistent with a return upon investment, and that economic security is sometimes inconsistent with profits. It is natural, therefore, that students of the housing problem should be watching with interest the meditations and the tribulations of the Commission of Housing and Regional Planning appointed by Governor Smith of New York. This body has held hearings throughout the State, and in New York City alone the testimony filled 1,205 pages of the stenographic record, with an additional jammed portfolio of exhibits, reports, and tabulations. Seven men and one woman are on this housing commis- sion. It was not long before they realized not merely that there is a housing shortage today fully as acute as at-any other time in the State’s history, but also that this shortage is only a superficial manifestation of the tragedy of poverty on the one hand and the utter callousness of profiteers on the other. Before these two fundamental propositions this committee, without question one of the most intelligent, most responsive, most comprehending committees in the history of the State, is practically helpless. The commission knows what it can do. It can suggest municipal and state building operations or a subsidy to pri- vate builders. It can also suggest cooperative building hedged about with legal protections for the tenant-owners. These plans were advanced during the hearings. There is no question that relief would result from either scheme, although municipal home-building is the most logical. But the commission knows equally well that the great forces of profit-makers will not for a moment consider striking their colors even to ease the stringency of a situation filled with dangers not only to the mass of people, but ultimately to themselves. During the hearings the impudent refusal of ‘Wall Street” to turn a hand was testified to by bankers and builders and the avarice of a group of landlord-owners was emphasized. For the student of sociology and economics there is no better textbook, no more human document, than the record of the hearings before the commission. I had just been reading “Pelle the Conqueror,” an epic of poverty in Eu- rope, and I had consoled myself with the thought, “Well, no matter how bad things are here they are not as bad as that—besides, Pelle lived forty years ago.” That comfort I no longer have. Here are a few instances picked at ran- dom from the record: There has been a decrease in the wages in the tobacco fac- tories. They are paying the lowest wages in years....A woman came in the other day—had a husband who was earning $20 as a cigarmaker. She is paying $40 a month rent for rooms that used to rent at $15 a few years ago. You see that is a per- fectly disproportionate rent, and she has been obliged to go to work. They have two children and she wanted to leave them in our day nursery. But so many mothers are going to work now that we think a long time before we take any woman in a nurs- ery whose husband is making more than $20 a week. And to counterbalance this is the testimony of a real- estate operator that before the war landlords were earning about 4 per cent on their property and that now they are not content with 8 and 10 per cent. “Pelle the Conqueror” contains vivid paragraphs describ- ing the stenches and the primitive sanitary conditions in The Ark, a notoriously decrepit home for the very poorest

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Dec. 19, 1923] The Nation — 711 Lanse ee reer e eee eee eee ee ee a in Copenhagen. The following paragraphs describe differ- ent houses in New York City in October, 1923: Another house on Twenty-ninth Street, a six-family house, toilet in the yard, and when the toilet is flushed they have no water in the house. They have no improvements. Mrs. K. lived in an apartment where the chief amusement of | the two younger children was to crawl through the holes in the walls. In this house the water supply is always uncertain, and there is never enough water to flush the toilets. The woman on the top floor carried water up three flights for this purpose. After listening to a week’s testimony of this nature it seemed that every other house in New York was an Ark. The most serious feature of the situation is the effect upon the children of living crowded into unsanitary ken- nels. Health commissioners and settlement workers had told of malnutrition among children, but it remained for a little East Side woman, Mrs. Edith B. Coff, to make real and vivid the conditions that exist: Out of about 400 children 102 were so distinctly underweight that on examination we found most of them were underweight somewhere between five and seventeen pounds. Their ages were between five and twelve years. If a child was six or seven pounds underweight we would do nothing. It was the normal size or weight for an East Side child now./. . . I found that the cause of the children’s condition was the housing condition fore- most. We find that the children do not sleep. The usual family consists of five or six persons. There are no doors. There is no privacy. The gas is burning until 12 or 1 o’clock, especially if there is a baby. Everyone is talking. Everyone is walking. The street is noisy and the child does not fall asleep until 12 and half-past 12 and 1. I have tried to go up time and again and help put a child to sleep and then I knew how little really I could expect the mother, who has three or four other children, to put that child to sleep at eight o’clock. The father sits up and smokes a cigar and talks with the neighbor and the child screams. There is no air. They sleep there, four in the back bedroom, with one window. They sleep three or four together and they are naturally restless. When they get up in the morning they are not able to eat their breakfast. They did not sleep. They did not have any air. They get up tired and nervous and disturbed, and when they get up they do not have their breakfast. They go to school, come home, have a little something to eat, and then the same story begins all over again. A few hours after this testimony had been given a wit- ness for the landlords said: ‘All this talk about the poor people has nothing to do with the housing situation. You’ve always got your poor people, high rents or low.” On the other side of the housing situation is the state- ment, frequently reiterated, that with the present high cost of building and the premium exacted by banks for lending mortgage money the speculative builder cannot rent for less than $15 a room and make any profit on new homes. Nor can the small homeseeker get money to build his own home in the suburbs, thus relieving the congestion and the ex- cess demand on homes occupied by the poorer workers. Charles O’Connor Hennessy, president of the Franklin So- ciety for Homebuilding and Savings, laid the blame for “tight money” directly to the financial institutions. “The savings banks,” he said, “do not as a rule lend a dollar to any small homeseeker for construction purposes, that is to say for the building of houses, and until very recently it was true that the savings banks of the city did not encourage applications from homeseekers upon com- pleted houses for small loans.” Mr. Hennessy also blamed the Wall Street houses for not ‘pal housing activity on a large scale. investing in the bonds of the Land Bank, a State institu- tion similar to the Federal Land Bank. The Land Bank was authorized in 1915 and was the forerunner of the Fed- eral Reserve Bank as well as of the farm loan system. It was intended that through this Land Bank funds would be made available on easy terms for homeseekers of New York State to build or to buy. It is composed of savings and loan associations with resources of $70,000,000. But first the war prevented the Land Bank from functioning properly and since 1918 the trust companies and banks have refused to buy their 5 per cent bonds. David B. Hutton, managing director of the Land Bank, told the commission he had been with his hat in his hand to the big banks and financial institutions, but they would not buy his bonds. Faced with this situation, what does the future hold? The housing commission will, of course, recommend exten- sion of the emergency rent laws for two years. It will recommend that the laws apply to tax-exempt houses, now outside the jurisdiction of the housing bills. It will prob- ably recommend that tenants be given the benefit of any doubt that exists in the minds of judge or jury; that the landlord be shorn of special privileges such as eviction, and that he be limited in his redress to the same measures of equity that apply to the butcher, the baker, and other tradesmen. It will recommend minor changes and probably the abolition of the tax exemption on new buildings. But the commission will probably go further. It is al- most certain to recommend that cities be compelled to in- vest a certain amount of their sinking funds in the Land Bank. In this way city funds will be made available to residents for home building. This much will exhaust the program which the housing commission will hope to push through the legislature. But the eommission will hardly content itself with this “immediate program.” The report should and doubtless will include a suggestion for munici- This is the only way out. It may seem revolutionary now. But the present innocuous New York laws were denounced as “socialistic” two years ago. After a year or two of quiet education municipal housing will be accepted as the proper thing and legislation will be forthcoming. Ghosts By BYRNE MARCONNIER Bremerton—Bremerton—long, long ago: A gray house in Bremerton and white, white snow. The blue of the water and the blue of the sky— And Bremerton shall have my heart until I die. The little port of Bremerton’s a land-locked place, Set about with green trees and ferns like lace. The birds fly low in Bremerton, and East and West The weary ships to Bremerton creep in for rest. There’s clover at the threshold, and rue beside the walk; And in the grass the muttering of banshee talk. No candles at the window—no laughter through the trees— Black mustard in the garden, but no heartsease. Bremerton—Bremerton—long, long ago: A gray house in Bremerton and white, white snow. The blue of the water and the blue of the sky— And Bremerton shall have my heart until I die.

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712 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 The Progressives Progress (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD N the House of Representatives at this writing the “progressives” seem to have made much more progress than in the Senate. The chances seem to be—at this writ- ing—that there may be a considerable revival of the prominence and also indeed of the importance of the House of Representatives during this session of Congress. Part of the reason for this development is as follows: In the House the “progressive group” has a firm and highly disciplined nucleus in the ten Republican members from Wisconsin who are so securely established—for the most part—in their districts at home that they can readily afford to bid defiance to all ideas of national Republican “regularity.” In the Senate there is no such nucleus for the “progres- sive group.” In the Senate Wisconsin itself is one-half “progressive,” if the word “progressive” is used in its current technical Washington sense. Senator Lenroot of Wisconsin does not belong to the “progressive group.” Senator La Follette of Wisconsin does indeed belong to it and was its organizer. His amazing control of popular support in Wisconsin has been one of the chief factors in giving to the House of Representatives a Wisconsin delega- tion in which, barring Mr. Berger of Milwaukee, every member is a “progressive” and a belligerent “progressive.” La Follette has insured to this session of the House of Representatives a continuous lively “progressive” disturb- ance. In his own division of the Congress, however, he has not been so successful, and he could not be. He himself .at this writing is still physically unable to attend the sessions of the Senate, and although it is author- itatively reported that his health is now improving it is regarded as unlikely that he will be able in the Senate to carry the burden of his own work and then also to give to the “progressive group” the discipline which it needs. The House “progressives” are led by Congressman Nelson of Wisconsin, a hard-bitten wary fighting veteran, who has been in politics since 1892 and who at the end of eight terms of service in the House of Representatives retains an unexhausted enthusiasm and energy on behalf of his orig- inal and unrevised variety of “progressivism.” He was reelected to this present Congress by a vote of four to one. He is assisted in the management of the “progressive group” in the House by Congressman Woodruff of Mich- igan, who serves the “progressive group” as its secretary. Nelson has been known for a rather anti-war attitude. Woodruff served as an enlisted man in the Spanish-Ameri- can War; and then in the World War he served two years as an infantryman and rose to the rank of major in the course of duty in France. He is as inflexible a “progres- sive” as Nelson. He is also equally strong in his district. He was elected to the last Congress by a majority of 30,000 and he was reelected to this Congress without opposition. He is Suave in manner, buoyant in action, hopeful of the future. If the “progressives” in the House were able to win their first skirmish and to hold together against Gillett for Speaker until Floor Leader Longworth of the Republicans came forward with his peace plan for an harmonious re- vision of the House rules, it was because the Wisconsin © delegation and the leadership furnished by Nelson and Woodruff had aggressive experienced skilfulness in Wash- ington and assured strength back home. In the Senate the situation is immensely more difficult for the “progressive group.” With La Follette temporarily absent the leadership of the “progressive group” in the Senate devolved with greater weight than ever upon Senator Norris of Nebraska, who is in any case its leader by title. Senator Norris, however, is about to retire from senatorial politics. He no longer enjoys the senatorial political strug- gle. He regards it as water in a sieve, as dust in the mouth, as a stone rolled up hill only to roll itself down. It accordingly happened that a good deal of the leadership of the “progressive group” in the Senate devolved then upon Senator Brookhart of Iowa.. The problem was, and is, one of organizing the Republican members of the senatorial “progressive group” in such a way as to enable them to form a sort of “third party” in between the regular Repub- licans and the Democrats. The Republican majority in the Senate is so slender that if four “progressive” Repub- licans act independently of it the result is that it there- upon ceases to be a majority. It turned out that the number of Republicans willing to attend the meetings of the “progressive group” in the Senate was not much more than four. Senator Capper of Kansas, who joined the “progressive group” last spring, was not observed attending its meetings this fall. Nor was Senator McNary of Oregon. The Sen- ators attending were Norris of Nebraska, Borah of Idaho, Brookhart of Iowa, and Ladd and Frazier of North Dakota. Borah of Idaho was sometimes diverted from attendance by other duties. The Republican element of the “progressive group” was in such circumstances reduced in its active meetings to a membership literally and exactly of four. Of these four Norris is experienced but about to go away; Ladd has been here only half a term; Brookhart has been here a year; Frazier has been here only a few days. It further happens that Brookhart and Ladd and Fra- zier naturally have not yet been able to build up in their own States any such political security as exists in Wiscon- sin for Nelson or in Michigan for Woodruff. When these facts are observed with a regardful and a cold eye, they indicate that skilful and experienced and aggressive maneuvers by the “progressives” in the Senate will inevitably be likely to be less frequent and less effective than by the “progressives” in the House. That is the logic, though of course not necessarily the outcome, of the situa- tion. There is always the chance that logic may be over- come by some outburst of defiant human impulse. It happens further that the first domestic questions of importance which seem likely to come to a head in Congress are the questions of taxes and of the bonus. Both these questions will have their first battlefield in the House. The House “progressive group” will try to present, and | 1 will perhaps succeed in presenting, a solid front both to the tax problem and to the bonus problem. disposed toward favoring the bonus and it is strongly dis- posed toward refusing to give to taxpayers in the “upper q brackets” the reductions which Mr. Mellon asks for them. On the bonus accordingly and on the Mellon taxation © | plan the “progressive group” in the House will have a head- on collision with the Administration; and then, in company — with the Democrats, it will give Washington—as things } now seem—its first great legislative combat of the season. G It is strongly |

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Dee. 19, 1923] The Nation 713 In the Driftway HE press has been buzzing with the story of a Jersey miss who has been left a fortune by an old man she had befriended in time of illness. That the young lady had believed her benefactor to be a penniless old man in need of human cheer should not prejudice the world except in her favor. Well, it’s a pretty story, and makes excellent ma- terial for eloquent press writers, but the Drifter has no violets to throw at the young lady’s feet. The thing that bothers him is the leaving of legacies under any circum- stances. Somehow it doesn’t strike him as a particularly fair way of allotting worldly accretion. Did the young lady really earn this money? One soberly questions it, while as soberly doubting whether, placed in the young woman’s posi- tion, one would be beset by such ethieal qualms and ques- tionings. * * * * % S for the Drifter he has some doubts. He can even fancy himself reaching for his hat and starting off on an im- mediate quest for ailing old citizens with fortunes tucked away in some convenient bed-tick. And until he finds one, anybody at all is at liberty to call his bluff and try him out on this slightly uncertain economic theory. Meanwhile, his favorite inheritance story happened in Brittany. He was walking without much aim or direction through that delightful country, as different from the rest of France as black from white. About half way between Penmarch and Pont-l’Abbé a little side road, overgrown and green, took his fancy, and pursuing it for half a mile or so he came upon a house, part brick and part stone, with a fine six- teenth-century flavor and less like the conventional chateau than an English Georgian dwelling. In front of it a man in sad-looking trousers and shirt and a superb Gallic mustache was industriously raking leaves. He did not look up as the Drifter stopped to read the sign in front of the door: “Museum of Breton Antiquities.” The Drifter en- tered, observed the ancient Celtic pottery and stone tagged with bits of paper much the worse for wear and no dusting, and engaged the buxom housekeeper in conversation. The museum, he learned, was a celebrated one; a fine scholar had collected the specimens, among them many Druid relics, and had had besides an unusual library. At his death it had gone to his son. The Drifter naturally put the ques- tion. “The son? Ah, to be sure, monsieur; outside; you must have passed him as you came in. He cares nothing for these things; he lives the life of a simple peasant; he will be no scholar, no, not he.” THE DRIFTER Correspondence Non-Sectarian Student Relief To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: In The Nation for November 14 appeared an article, Student Pogroms in Europe, which said that relief organ- izations in Europe discriminated against Jewish students. This unfortunately led college students here to believe that the work of the European Student Relief was not administering impar- tially. May we correct this impression by bringing to your attention one of the fundamental principles which characterizes the work of this organization, that “relief is to be adminis- tered impartially, without regard to race, nationality, or creed or any other criterion than proven need.” We are inclosing proof of the work of the organization among Jewish students. New York, November 17 HELEN OGDEN, Executive Secretary, Student Friendship Fund To THE EpiTor or THE NATION: Sir: It was farthest from my thought to imply that an international organization such as the European Student Re- lief discriminated against the Jews. In fact, I looked into the work of the E.S.R. at a number of Central European univer- sity centers and found the attitude of the organization and the men in charge thoroughly impartial, and this observation was confirmed by the local Jewish students. I did say—and this the E.S.R. might meditate upon—that the national relief organizations of the students themselves, Polish, German, Aus- trian, etc., were, with few exceptions, hostile to the Jewish students. And wherever I found the E.S.R. (who perhaps could not do otherwise) operating through the local national student bodies, as in Warsaw, Lemberg, Cracow, Bratislava, I found—quite unknown to the E.S.R. administrators—the Jew- ish student discriminated against or altogether overlooked in the distribution of books, clothing, food, etc. In one case, an announcement of a distribution of books, sent by the E.S.R. to the university authorities in Warsaw, to be transmitted by them to the various student societies, was never brought to the attention of the Jewish society. Without attaching the slightest discredit to the E.S.R., and recognizing its absolute impartiality, I have come to the conclusion that due to the in- tense racial hatreds in this Central European area the best way to administer Jewish student relief is through a Jewish organi- zation. MARVIN LOWENTHAL New York, November 24 Christmas in Prison To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Str: May we beg you to add this appeal for funds to your list? The Workers Prison Relief Committee has launched its third Christmas appeal for funds in order to send cake, fruit, candy, tobacco, etc., to our fellow-workers behind the bars. At Christmas time the harsh prison rules are relaxed somewhat to allow such delicacies to be sent in to them. Donations may be sent to 70 Auburn Street, Paterson, N. J. Paterson, December 4 WORKERS PRISON RELIEF COMMITTEE Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus of Nazareth TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: As a commentary on Mr. Villard’s fine article anent pas- Sive resistance in the Ruhr, which the press of the world has wrongly represented as having been defeated by armed force, will you give space to these illuminating observations from Mahatma Gandhi? I believe in the doctrine of non-violence as a weapon, not of the weak, but of the strong. I believe that that man is the strongest soldier who dies unarmed with his breast bare before the enemy. I want India to practice non-violence because of her strength and power... The raison d’etre of the Gandhi method is summed up in these words of the man who is leading hundreds of millions in the world today, to practice the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth—for, as one of the younger Indians put it recently, non-cooperation has gone beyond the boundaries of our country and is the prop- erty of the world: Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical force. The dignity of man requires obedi- ence to a higher law, the strength of the spirit. New York, November 26 BLANCHE WATSON

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Picasso on Fifth By HERBERT J. SELIGMANN OUNG ladies, select and fashionable, in boarding-school assortments, were taken to see them. Cultured young men were seen to faint with delight. Ladies of uncertain age struck attitudes giving one to understand that they felt—inexpressible things. And this because sixteen Picasso paintings and pas- tels were shown on upper Fifth Avenue in a once elaborate mansion now become an art dealer’s paradise. Far, far is this from the days when Sefior Pablo Picasso was first introduced in New York, in April of 1911. Strangely enough that first appearance was on Fifth Avenue, too, at the same place where Cézanne, Rodin’s water-color drawings, Toulouse-Lautrec, Brancusi, Matisse, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Arthur Dove, and a host of others were first exhibited in America. It was not then in the 700’s, the upper fifties of Fifth Avenue, but at 291, home of the Photo-Secession, that this pioneering took place. Amid what a hubbub the archives of Camera Work will tell. “The results suggest the most violent wards of an asylum for maniacs, the craziest emanations of a disordered mind, the gibberings of a lunatic!” wrote one enthusiastic newspaper critic. Another gentleman of the press, who was sensitive to Picasso’s beautiful draftsmanship, described the work exhibited as “childish wooden images, Alaskan totem poles, and gargoyles smeared with green paint, or weird geometrical jumbles.” An- other wrote of the “hideous assemblage” that the Spanish painter was presenting, “semblances of human heads covered with green hair and figures which have hexagonal legs.” Some scribes were cautious—and respectful. Since then many drops of water have fallen from the sky and rolled under many bridges. The Internaticnal Exhibition at the Armory brought more Picasso. Two years ago several Picassos were shown at the Sculptors Gallery in Fortieth Street. Last spring Picasso was triumphantly uncovered, if not discovered, in the studio of Mrs. Whitney. And now fame, select boarding-school misses, and the hush of upper Fifth Avenue with soft carpets. Senor Picasso has again cut loose. His boldness and free- dom delight his admirers and disconcert everybody. Two years ago he had enormous figures of women, painted with the calm- ness of Egyptian sculpture. They seemed hewn in impalpable stone, heavy and brooding and serene, issued from a giant imag- ination. That period was represented in the pastels and a painting among those recently shown. But Picasso has found a new lyric style, again proving that he has no formula, that he can paint in almost any manner and yet create his own song. Two paintings—rather drawings in paint—seem to herald the new manner, which begins in 1922 and runs through 1923. In these two paint-drawings, named Maternité, an iridescence of color, green and flesh, is lightly painted and on this are drawn the songlike contours of a mother and child. The lines them- selves, delineating leaves in one of them, are songs. Color and line seem like separate melodies interwoven in counterpoint. One of the drawings is on canvas, whitened. White has moved Picasso powerfully. He applies it direct in these paintings, mar- velously tinted for tones of white skin mantling with blood; or flat and thin, showing the texture of the canvas; or rich, heavy, and brilliant, for high white light. The line drawing in paint, of the two named Maternité, is elaborated and varied in the other canvases, A Saltimbanque, or seated acrobat, in bright red tights, black trunks, with deep purple chair seat, is outlined in black, the face brilliant white, and a white cloth is thrown about the neck and shoulders. The drawing is lean, delicate, and strong. In all of the canvases the resources are amazingly varied. Picasso models arms and legs from bare canvas, through the lightest brushing to rich strong paint surface. The surface is lovely irrespective of subject, and seems playing against and with the drawing. A harlequin’s head is painted in fine pencil The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3050 strokes against white broadly brushed, and the figure is white, flat white, contours lightly drawn. A woman’s figure in a blue gown is modulated by etching-like scratches in the paint. In Femme au Turban a brilliant deep blue head covering tops a brilliant red waist, with brilliant white upon the arms, and a clash of green and violet in the dress. This figure, like the har- lequin’s, rises with the thrust of a pillar, savagely strong and sure. To Egypt is added the spareness and delicate serenity of Greece, and still it is Picasso. Part of its acclaim, doubtless, came to this exhibition because visitors could recognize the subjects—all human figures, or heads. The paint loveliness, the invention displayed in the sur- faces, however, were a song that, like many a song, happened to be “about” something, to have for its subject the human figure. Lyric is a word that came often to the lips of those who hap- pened into the room. Every sensitive visitor felt here a person- ality of noble simplicity, one bold and masterly in using the finest resources of his medium. In face of the simplicity and delicacy and power of these paintings, a few people still cherish their own blindness. They recall the absurdities of bygone chatter. This is the same Picasso precisely about whom the critics wrote in 1911, the same spirit at work, though the man is a dozen years older, but fully as bold and free—with more mastery. Certainly he is one of the freest figures of our time, unique in his utterance. The history of this painter’s work in America, beginning with the exhibition at 291, and the puzzlement and opposition of critics and public, culminating in the semi-official sanction of Mrs. Whitney’s studio and upper Fifth Avenue, is one that is not without parallel. Blindness of persons who call themselves critics is with us always, and indifference of patrons and museum directors. Twelve years is a short time for mastery to come to its own in New York City. The history is significant not alone because it is Picasso’s. The same thing confronts every vital spirit in America. Books Without Benefit of Clergy The Story of the Bible. and Liveright. $5. Pee its supposed irreligion the present generation is more likely to give the Bible a romantic reverence than to give it a rational reading. Even those who regard Mr. Van Loon as a sort of theological anti-Christ should, therefore, thank him for having transformed this much-revered but little- read book into a much-debated and widely read volume. Although Mr. Van Loon went out of his way to write an uncontroversial book, he has unfortunately charted a new battle- ground for the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy which today disgraces Protestantism by forcing it to squander in a senseless guerrilla warfare between its members precious en- ergies that should be employed in the prosecution of its basic mission of regenerating individuals and reconstructing insti- tutions on a Christian basis. This “uncontroversial” book has become a storm-center of controversy because it is the first children’s version of the story of the Bible which puts the broad results of modern historical criticism into simple words. Not that Mr. Van Loon deliberately set out to translate the re- sults of the “higher criticism” into a book for children. He specifically disavows any such intention. And I believe he means what he says. I cannot join those reviewers who think Mr. Van Loon is a self-conscious theological radical who denies any interest in doctrinalism in order not to scare away ortho- dox readers. I take him at his word when he says: “As a matter of fact I am not trying to rewrite the Bible or interpret the Bible or give a modern version of the Bible. I By Hendrik Willem van Loon. Boni

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Dec. 19, 1923] The Nation Sr rece rere rr rae eT IT OE TTT ES ET BE ET I ET = am leaving the Bible most severely alone. The Holy Books have been translated with extreme competency by our Great Grand- fathers. I have a profound respect for their labors. I shall not offend their sense of the ludicrous by a futile attempt to improve upon the King James version. “Neither dare I confess to that profound theological knowl- edge which is necessary for a critical examination of the Old and the New Testament. Those who expect to read a Bible written against a background of the latest archaeological and philological discoveries will be disappointed. The book merely tells the story as I personally (and in a most uncontroversial fashion) would like to tell it to my own boys. Nothing more and nothing less.” The fact that Mr. Van Loon’s version of the story cor- responds as closely as it does to the results of modern historical criticism of the Bible is due, I think, not to the fact that Mr. Van Loon has based his book on the detailed work of modern scholars, but simply to the fact that the major conclusions of modern Biblical criticism, arrived at after much burrowing among ancient documents, are just about the conclusions at which any sensible man would arrive if he were able to read the Bible through without any preconceived theological notions. I have always envied the “heathen” who has the chance to read the Bible for the first time. What an advantage he has over the rest of us who have such difficulty in approaching the Bible with the same open-minded honesty we bring to other books! I have often thought that if, by some sort of executive order of an over-seeing Providence, all memory of the Bible, of Christianity, and of theological doctrines could be wiped from the mind of the human race, and a freshly printed copy of the Bible placed in the hands of every member of the human family, we should be suddenly rid of the ruinous controversies that are today despiritualizing the church and a genuine revival of religion would sweep the planet. It is not the Bible that is difficult to understand; it is the theological explanations of the Bible that have befuddled the mind of mankind. Now, Mr. Van Loon, being a really educated man, has been able to recover something of the freshness and freedom of ap- proach that a man who read the Bible for the first time might enjoy. But we cannot ignore the fact that, despite his intention of keeping his book free from all preaching, Mr. Van Loon has preached a great deal. He has done much besides tell the story. He has dramatized the Modernist conception of the Bible—at least certain important aspects of that conception. And he has done’ this less by what he has put into the book than by what he has left out of the book. He has frankly left out the stories of the Resurrection and of the Virgin Birth, for instance. Of course, he has a good precedent for not speaking of the Virgin Birth, inasmuch as Jesus Himself never, so far as any existing record indicates, referred to it. Supernaturalism is rather completely deleted from the story. This means, of course, that the book is drawing and will continue to draw the fire of the champions of orthodoxy. But I do not think we have any right to judge this book as an attempt to draft a complete body of religious thought. I wish that Mr. Van Loon had called his book “Stories of the Bible” instead of “The Story of the Bible.” We might then have had all the advantage of the freshness, the common sense, the human appeal of his book, without having its wholesome influence blurred by the theologi- cal brawls it is engendering. The book was written for children, but the author clearly could not forget that adults would read it too; with the result that there are stretches of the book that are hardly easy read- ing for the average boy or girl. But, all in all, it has a dash and a fire that will capture the interest of young and old alike. Mr. Van Loon is a sophisticated man, but he has managed to retain both gusto and simplicity, two virtues that the sophisti- cated usually throw overboard. The book abounds in clever characterizations. The rather starkly realistic stories of im- morality in the Old Testament have been disinfected so that even Mr. Sumner need not be disturbed. Rahab’s harlotry is 715 ARSENE FATT ATTY SPP THEY ET YESS ET SU CAP PF LL IY SN STL SIL LTE deftly understated in a reference to her as a woman who “was not particular in the choice of her friends.” Meticulous critics will point out many technical slips, but these are less serious than the lapses into superstition that often mar such books. I think it a good thing that Van Loon’s “The Story of the Bible” should be on the market alongside Papini’s “Life of Christ.” Papini’s romanticism and Van Loon’s rationalism will tend to correct each other. Between the two books, the Car- penter of Nazareth will not suffer greatly, and millions will read afresh the vivid record of mankind’s quest for the infinite. GLENN FRANK Robert Frost New Hampshire. A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes. By Robert Frost. With woodcuts by J. J. Lankes. Henry Holt and Company. $2.50. Selected Poems. By Robert Frost. $2. URING the seven years since “Mountain Interval” Mr. Frost has not been silent. From time to time poems have appeared in magazines or anthologies, and a good many of them, at least among those readers who like Mr. Frost better than any other poet, have become legends. Now at last these come together and fall naturally into the places which they were born to take in the unique unity of their author’s work. And as if to emphasize that unity, Mr. Frost as editor has bound them by footnote and cross-reference to a long poem, New Hampshire, which endeavors to express his attitude in general toward the world. New Hampshire is full of philosophy and fun. If it can be summarized at all, it is a statement of Mr. Frost’s partiality to wildness. He likes New Hampshire because it is no good to anybody but itself. It is solitary and queer; it has no stand- ard product for the trade. “Just specimens is all New Hampshire has, One each of everything as in a show-case, Which naturally she doesn’t care to sell.” All of its people are different, and its many resources are too slight to be exploited. “One of my children ranging after rocks Lately brought home from Andover or Canaan A specimen of beryl with a trace Of radium. I know with radium The trace would have to be the merest trace To be below the threshold of commercial, But trust New Hampshire not to have enough Of radium or anything to sell.” It is not much on education, although—worse luck—there is Dartmouth. Its inhabitants have mastered the fine art of wise living by themselves. The shorter poems round out a volume which is quite as good as any of Mr. Frost’s other three, and which stands up very well with “Selected Poems”: (1913-1920). Incidentally, these notes and grace notes make it possible to see wherein the indirectness of their poet’s method is effective and wherein it fails. At its worst it is a mannerism, a tour de force of syntax; it puzzles with mere obscurity. At its best it is poetry of the subtlest sort, because it carries the conviction that there was no other way to communicate the reticence inherent both in the subject and in the poet. Out of A Star in a Stone-Boat, for instance, an idea gradually emerges which Mr. Frost could not and should not have expressed directly. He has paced all the way around the idea, hinting of this or that aspect; the idea itself is left for the reader to get, and if he is the right kind of reader he will get it and rejoice. In a larger sense also the indirectness of Mr. Frost justifies itself. His love of the coun- try is so profound that he will not say in so many words that he loves it. Indeed, one has the illusion that Mr. Frost would Henry Holt and Company.

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716 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3050 wees eee ee eee eer ee eee eee ee ee re eee eee reer eee eS rather not talk at all. Now and then he has confessed to being moved by birches, or an occasional lonely house; but countless other things must wait their day, and most of them will wait in vain. To create such an illusion is to be one poet in ten thousand. The Witch of Cods was already famous as a ghost story. The Runaway is unsurpassed of its kind. It remains to point out the excellence as narrative of such a poem as The Axe- Helve, the beginning of which slips us so easily and silently— almost alone by means of rhythm—into the situation. “T’ye known ere now an interfering branch Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. But that was in the woods, to hold my hand From striking at another alder’s roots, And that was, as I say, an alder ‘branch. This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day Behind me on the snow in my own yard Where I was working at the chopping-block, And cutting nothing not cut down already. He caught my axe expertly on the rise, When all my strength put forth was in his favor, Held it a moment where it was, to calm me, Then took it from me—and I let him take it.” MARK VAN DOREN Economics—Antiquarian and Academic Economics of the Hour. By J. St. Loe Strachey. G. P. Put- man’s Sons. $2. The Control of Industry. By D. H. Robertson. Brace and Company. $1.50. ‘<sJXCONOMICS OF THE HOUR” Mr. Strachey has called his latest volume. Economics of what hour? one cannot refrain from asking, after reading this amazing and frequently amusing congeries of eighteenth-century comment and judg- ment on twentieth-century problems. But the book is impor- tant, nevertheless, and demands a closer analysis. In the first place, Mr. Strachey is not some obscure college professor: for many years he has been the distinguished editor of the London Spectator, the organon of conservatism in England, and as such, the ex officio defender of “Individualism, Independence, and Freedom,” and the severe critic of collectivism in every form. Most important of all to us in this country, Mr. Strachey gives expression to economic conceptions shared by many of our own citizenry—conceptions long since abandoned by informed observers and students, but still clung to affectionately by those whose individualistic psychology has lagged decades behind the industrial development of the world. It is inevitable that in supporting an eighteenth-century laissez faire psychology in the midst of our industrial society, Mr. Strachey should put himself into all manner of ludicrous positions. His naivete, and his incredible ignorance of the sim- plest realities of industrial life are as choice as can be found anywhere: they rank with the pronouncements on social ques- tions of our own Supreme Court! For instance, he frowns upon legislation regulating the conditions of labor for women, and, as he tilts back in the comfortable editorial chair, says blandly: “The ordinary instances of unsuitable work for women should be left to the instinct of chivalry in the men.” (Could Gilbert and Sullivan do better than that?) Inspection laws to protect the safety and health of workmen he disapproves of: let the men take care of their own safety—do their own inspecting. “A man can far better secure his own health and safety than any number of inspectors,” he says. From such dicta, among many others of like sagacity, it is clear that Mr. Strachey has never been inside a modern industrial plant, or if he has, has learned not a thing from his experience. When he tries to think about industry, like most individualists of his stripe he is back in the days of the small shop. It is not only in this childlike Harcourt, conception of industry that Mr. Strachey shows that he lives between the editorial office and his club: “In the olden days, the bad old days .. . the state often fell into the hands of a particular class and this class used the power of the state not for the general good but in the interest of the ruling classes.” Innuendo: today government is in the hands of all the people, and is conducted for the common good. In his condemnation of modern collectivist and democratic tendencies on the ground that they interfere with “Individual Freedom” there are many who will agree with the distinguished conservative, though they share few of his illusions about eco- nomic problems in general. But the forces which cabin and confine individual freedom are not simply the result of collec- tivism, as Mr. Strachey’s gifted countrymen the Webbs have pointed out. Another preachment which runs through the book is like- wise a familiar one in this country. It can be summed up in our war-time slogan, shouted to the worker from all sides: “Produce! Produce!” Mr. Strachey, however, puts it into a studied formula to this effect: the present division of the total product of industry between money and labor cannot be revised; “it is useless to argue about the division of the cake, for that is settled ...on immutable principles,” Mr. Strachey assures the worker. The way to increase his share is to increase the total product greatly, by working harder, by not limiting output, by eliminating strikes, and so forth. The total product being greater, by the same division the worker will receive a greater quotient. Nothing could be simpler! Unfortunately for the symmetry of the theory, the truth is that increasing general productivity does not benefit the worker according to the rea- soning suggested. Statistical analysis by Mr. Soule, for in- stance, shows that although production in this country has in- creased about 80 per cent since the beginning of the century (so that under the Strachey argument each worker would now have 30 per cent more of the resulting product than he had in 1900), as a matter of cold fact the purchasing power of his wages has decreased 10 per cent in that period. Nor are the principles upon which Mr. Strachey and his friends proceed “immu- table.” Recent economic history has convinced most students of industry that the conception of “inexorable economic laws” must be laid to rest, and that economic forces can successfully be subjected to social control. All in all, Mr. Strachey’s rubrics of an economic day which has gone forever, present as clear and convincing a discussion of economics as Tweedledum’s masterpiece of logic. ‘Contrari- wise,” continued Tweedledum, “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” “And,” Mr. Strachey would add, “that’s economics.” With the keen scalpel of his acicular prose, Mr. Robertson dissects our economic organization so that its structure and the manner of its functioning are revealed. He makes it clear that our system is not the invention of the fat-jowled, silk-hatted “capitalist” of the cartoons: it is rather the product of cen- turies of industrial development. Extraordinary as it may seem, it is an economic system which runs itself: “the multi- tudinous economic activities of the world... govern them- selves with all the... elasticity and variety of freedom.” Largely because of this very uncoordination, experiments in industrial enterprises to correct the grievous defects in the scheme may “try their luck side by side” with the predomi- nating plan. These efforts to amend or supplant capitalism Mr. Robertson presents succinctly and with discernment: pro- ducers’ and consumers’ cooperation, of which he gives a shrewd analysis; collectivism, the real significance of which he, in — large measure, fails to comprehend; communism, for which, despite his scientific manner, he shows impatience. The crest — of the book is reached when, in an eloquent passage, he describes the task which confronts these reformationists: “The control of industry requires not so much to be wrested from a band of supermen who are keeping it in some secret cupboard, as to be Hi painfully built up out of the clay of man’s ever-changing tech-

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Dec. 19, 1923] nical achievement, and fixed out of the troubled atmosphere of his tumultuous needs and desires.” The impulse to translate life into terms of points and rules is a characteristic of the academic mind, and because Mr. Robert- son (who is a Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cam- bridge) has succumbed to this temptation, the latter half of his book is a sorry anti-climax. He formulates a proposition which he calls the “Golden Rule of Capitalism,” and this he makes the centripetal point of his analysis for the remainder of the book. The “rule” is to this effect: “where the risk lies, there the con- trol lies also.” This (as Mr. Kittredge once said in another connection) is brilliant, but it is not true. Exceptions which nullify the rule can be cited off-hand: the contribution of the workers to industry; the public utilities and the national banks in this country and elsewhere; the thousands of small stock- holders; cooperative enterprises, and so on. There is no less profitable occupation, whether for a Marx or a Robertson, than the formulation of “rules” in a field which has long defied this trick of the academician. Davip E. LILIENTHAL Scrut Pudding Riceyman Steps. By Arnold Bennett. George H. Doran Com- pany. $2. Young Felix. By Frank Swinnerton. George H. Doran Com- pany. $2. M* BENNETT has always made his best books out of his most unpromising material. When, for example, he has chosen some lively attractive girl as his heroine and the colorful eager life of London or Paris as his background he has seldom succeeded in being more than jauntily trivial or in extracting more than the surface values from his themes; but give him a group of thoroughly dull people moving in the stodgiest possible society and he wrings from them every drop of human interest which they contain. The most incorrigible of optimists, he seems never really to rise to his task of proving human life worthwhile except when the task seems hopeless, but when there come to his hands the people whom he best understands— people petty and dull even beyond the ordinary limits of petti- ness and dulness—he can make them seem impassively heroic and significant of something besides the stupid persistence of the human race; he can make us love them for their very com- monness and agree, momentarily at least, that the most signifi- cant thing about human nature is not its depths or its heights but its every-day levels and the seldom clarified muddles of its mild vices and virtues. The whitewashing of villains and cut-throats or the investing of the extremity of squalor and baseness with romantic glamor is comparatively easy, but it is doubtful if any writer ever achieved a more amazing feat than Bennett did when he made the monumental sogginess of the Five Towns interesting and convinced us, as he certainly did, that even there the burden of life was, in his own words, an “exquisite burden.” The effect produced by his deliberate, tough-minded delight in swallowing the most indigestible portions of human life is hard to analyze but Max Beerbohm succeeded in transliterating it perfectly in his parody in “A Christmas Garland.” When the hero of that sketch is presented on Christmas day with a liberal portion of scrut pudding—a delicacy peculiar to the hearty workmen who scorn the luxury of raisins and substitute a liberal admixture of pieces of broken pottery—he not only crunches it all between his teeth but passes his plate for more, in that act winning the heroine’s heart and exhibiting Mr. Bennett’s soul. The novelist reveals his unassuageable appetite for life by relishing it in its most unpalatable forms. “Riceyman Steps,” an excellent novel and quite the best which its author has written in some years, contrasts a stupidly good person with a stupidly evil one and succeeds in awaking almost equal interest in and affection for the two. The book is described by the publisher as taking Mr. Bennett “back to the The Nation 717 pleasantly leisurely method of narration which marks ‘The Old Wives Tale’ and ‘Clayhanger’ and which to the true Bennett lover is one of his surest charms,” but the book has the old-time flavor less because of the method of narration than because the author has abandoned his pose as pocket philosopher and again occupied himself with people unordinarily ordinary. One may expect in the beginning that the middle-aged bookseller hero is going to be picturesque or quaint but nothing is further from the truth. He turns out to be as petty a human being as ever novelist created and his ruling passion is avarice, not spectacular or dramatic, but trivial and mean. With the utmost relish Bennett traces meticulously every detail of his hero’s cheese- paring and every phase of his commonplace, ineffective rela- tions with his wife. Yet when in the end both die of undernour- ishment and the shop passes away the reaction of neither author nor reader is cynical; one feels simply that some very typical flesh has gone the way of all such, and one pays the tribute of sympathy which the common humanity demands. It is but fair to add that the atmosphere of almost unrelieved littleness which surrounds this precious pair is relieved by the figure of the servant girl whose loyalty and goodness are rooted as deeply in the dim recesses of her uncomprehending soul as avarice is rooted in the soul of her master, but Bennett will allow us to surround her life with no fictitious glamor either, for when she disappears with her lover he adds the last lines of the book: “Hlsie and Joe were characteristic of the district. They would have had to look much worse than they did to be classed as humble in Clerkenwell. Nor were people shocked at the spec- tacle of the woman lugging a heavy grip-bag while the man carried naught. Such dreadful things were often witnessed in Clerkenwell.” Life, he seems to say in a sort of parody of Nietzsche’s phrase, is interesting because it is dull. Frank Swinnerton’s new novel, cast in the form of a biogra- phy, tells the story of the boyhood and youth of a man of artistic sensibilities who is born into a shiftless family from which he inherits both a talent for non-success in life and a cheerfulness which makes him accept failure as a matter of course. The book has the freshness and force of style which marked “Nocturne,” but it suffers somewhat from the fact that many of the neces- sary incidents in the biographical story of a young man have been endlessly repeated in the contemporary novel. It is more diffuse, too, than “Nocturne” and lacks the unified dramatic roundness which was one of the most striking features of that excellent story. But the conception of character is both fresh and interesting, and as the book appears to be but a portion of a larger work it will be perhaps better to postpone final judgment until the rest is published and to say simply that it seems prom- ising. The plan and purpose of the whole will probably be more evident as the story progresses. J. W. KRUTCH Contributors to This Issue ROBERT WHITAKER has been for thirty-five years minister, lecturer, and publicist on the Pacific Coast. He is at present living in San Diego, California. Victor H. LAWN is on the staff of the New York Evening World. GLENN FRANK, editor of the Century Magazine, has re- cently published a collection of essays and lectures, “An American Looks at His World.” HERBERT J. SELIGMANN is a critic of art and literature as well as publicity director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. HENRIETTA STRAUS, The Nation’s music critic, is a frequent contributor to current magazines and is New York music correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Davip E. LILIENTHAL is a recent graduate of the Harvard Law School who is specializing in labor law.

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718 ° ’ , : The Nation’s Poetry Prize T HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Saturday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 38. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924. 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. Music Roland Hayes I? sometimes happens, though not often, that an artist im- prints upon his work so much of what we call his soul that to do full justice to the one we must understand the cther. Such an artist is Roland Hayes, the Negro tenor. To write only of his singing would not be enough, although that alone would place him in the front rank of concert artists regardless of race or nationality. I should certainly call him our finest American lieder singer, for the “spirituals,” in which he is supreme, are only a part of his art after all. He has a tenor voice of rare beauty and unusually rich middle register, and its wide range and easy production enable him to give with equal perfection the lyric loveliness of a song or the dramatic force and accents of an aria. With unusually fine musical sensibilities he has an ear for languages so acute that whether it is Purcell in English, Handel in Italian, Bach in German, or Fauré or Massenet in French, he sings with impeccable taste and diction, never once straying from the picture in the frame. But these attributes form after all only the husk of his art. Its substance is something quite otherwise, an inward element that bears the stamp of an experience more spiritual even than artistic. It brings to his art what my old singing teacher used to call “the most wonderful quality in the world,” namely, tenderness; because where passion can tear a singer to pieces and leave the auditors cold, against tenderness there is no de- fense. It is a quality that lends enchantment to the voice, yet it is not always included in the “artistic temperament.” Clément has it in a marked degree, as has also his youthful successor, Baugé. But while in the French tenors it takes on a certain sensuousness, in Hayes it seems to spring from a deep and pure humanity, subjecting all that he sings to a sort of spiritual alchemy. And not all that he sings can stand the test. Pseudo- The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 sacred music like Dvorak’s setting to the magnificent text of his seventh Biblical song becomes unbearably cheap, like a common- place church solo. Even the “Dieu” of César Franck’s “Pro- cession” seems a bit futile, the mysticism vanishing into thin air. Yet such an atmospheric fragment as Fauré’s “Clair de Lune,” stripped of all sensuous nuance, will gleam suddenly like the ray of pale moonlight it was meant to be. And the “spirituals,” like no other songs in form and content, will shine as pure gold, bearing a strange kinship to old masters like Bach, as though they were merely repeating a familiar message in new words. Here is an interpretation of music that is independent of schools, and, to understand it fully, one must go to the man himself. A Negro, born and raised in the South, he received at birth two gifts, the musical heritage of his race and the religious faith of a mother who had learned the healing qualities of that faith during her early years of bondage. These two gifts he has cherished, trying always to be true’ to what was best in himself as a Negro and as a man. And with these two gifts to guide him, he has gone his way, simply, recognizing no material bar- riers, and removing mountains of prejudice as he went. His first step was to take singing lessons in the face of the theory that the Negro voice loses its individual, natural beauty when it is cultivated. This theory he has definitely smashed, for his voice has not only retained its rich warmth, but also that curi- ously sympathetic quality peculiar to his race. During his years of study in the South he worked as a waiter, and when he finally went North to live he seems to have taken with him the respect of his white patrons, as they subsequently proved. He remained North for some years, chiefly in Boston, completing his vocal studies, giving occasional concerts, and even venturing a debut in New York, where, as I remember, he re- ceived unusually good notices. Then he found that there was no place for him yet as an artist in a country which had just fought to “make the world safe for democracy.” So he went to Europe, where kings and titles and class distinctions still abound, and there he found recognition wherever he went, was lionized by the aristocracy of Paris and London, and was even “commanded” to sing before royalty. But of none of these things does he speak. If you ask him why he went to Europe he will tell you that he went to learn the languages and to try to understand the people, because he felt that if he could understand them he could understand their music. It is because he understands his own race, he adds, that he is able to sing their “spirituals” so well, and he feels that the same principle could be applied to all humanity. By building on the best qualities in himself that are peculiar to his race, as well as those that are common to all mankind, he hopes to prove that the Negro can be a universal artist, something more than a singer of “spirituals.” In this way, and not by making a racial issue of his art, or of his career as an artist, he hopes to win recognition for his race. And he is accomplishing his aim. The citizens of Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked so long as a waiter, have asked him personally, through the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, to come back and sing for them. And this request has pleased him more than all the commands of kings. For now that the South has begun to welcome him on his merits as a man and as an artist he knows that he has at last been able to show to his people a light where before all was darkness, and a safe footpath on a road that was deemed impassable. And so, seeking the verities of his art through those of life, he has been able to transmute that art from an expression of formal beauty into a spiritual utterance. HENRIETTA STRAUS Drama Divertissements EW YORK is full of a number of things. There is some- thing for every taste, from the most acridly sophisticated to the crudest. There is a wild jumble of stimuli. He who is

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Dec. 19, 1923] C. B. FALLS | , A book for children by the “foremost color printer in Amer- ica.” “We may well feel proud 5 that an A.B.C. Book so admir- able in design and in color printing has been produced on CS this side of the Atlantic.” $2.00 at Bookstores DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. BOOK The Perfect Christmas Gift WN The Arabian Nights ILLUSTRATED i Edited by FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT in three volumes—or separately THE ARABIAN Reon EN- FEEF == ——— = NN ly bh Orr. $2.00 MORE TALES vou THE ARABIAN NIGHT: ill. by Willy Pogany. $2.00 THE ADVENTURES OF HA- ROUN ER RASCHID, ill. by - Willy Pogany. $2.50 ii Henry Holi & Co., 19 W. 44th St., N. ¥- STORIES from the EARLY WORLD By R. M. Fleming The brave stories of high deeds that have thrilled the people of twenty-four nations from the earliest times, bril- liantly retold for children. Illustrated. $2.50 THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street New York What Have Books for The Nation Children to Do with Internationalism? Wy HO cannot recall early bigoted im- pressions of nationalities? I remem- ber best the English schoolboy’s attitude toward the Frenchman. It was that he was an effeminate eater of frogs and snails! With that (before the days of Edward VII and the Entente Cordiale) we dismissed him. What English schoolboy ever read a French “Tom Brown’s School Days”? Did they go to school? Oh, well, if they did it was probably to some Cat’s Cradle Institute or Needle Work Nursery! How many race hatreds derive their per- petuation—if not their origin—from legends, from fairy tales, from sagas told around the peat hearth or the tribal camp fire? Wrongs, real or imaginary; grievances exaggerated or accurately re-told; ready-made, second- hand, traditional impressions; biases—an- tipathies that grew more deadly as every new generation drove them further from the reasoning, deeper into the instinctive, field: who shall say what harm they did? Who shall count the wars they brought about? And if our forefathers could educate race hatreds into their children, we should be able to educate race hatreds out of ours. And education is not just dates and mul- tiplication tables. Education is home, friends, games, story-books, life. Desultorily the World today is trying to get back into old suits of clothes—pre-war mufti suits—and wondering why they don’t seem to fit any more. Until the problems of internationalism are acknowledged and faced Society and Civilization cannot go forward from the pass they have now reached. We must proceed with our evolution or let re- peating history bring us back to 1914. We have had expensive experiments in Internationalism. We have had costly, chill- ing reactions. And still the suits don’t fit. And still, noisily, we wonder why. While all the time we know. No one can contemplate, in this world crisis of 1923, the patent crying need for encouraging the International Idea without realizing that one of the safe roads toward the goal is that of the Children, of Educa- tion, And education is not only school. Edu- cation is home, games, story-books—life. Hucu Lortine Louis Untermeyer’s . GR Aldve Bian 0 Va MAYA the BEE By Waldemar Bonsels Hugh Walpole — “This is one of the classics of mod- ern literature for children.” Illustrated in full colors. $3.00 Handsome booklet by Hugh Walpole sent free on request THOMAS SELTZER 5 West 50th Street New York HEROES OF THE WILDS By CHELSEA FRASER With 16 illustrations, $1.75 True stories of everyday life, telling of the daily work of the forest ranger, the explorer, the cowboy, the sur- veyor, and others. More fascinating than fiction. THOS. Y. CROWELL CO., New York The Adventures of Don Quixete By MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Abridged and adapted by Edwin Gile Rich With colored jacket and eight full-page illus- trations in color by Thomas Derrick. An edition of the world classic by the great Cervantes for young people! ‘‘Among those books whieh it is part of a parent’s moral obligation to place before a child, Don Quixote is one of the first; while the appealing ar- rangement of this volume gives it an added claim to candidacy.”—The Dial. Net $2.00 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY THIS OD aioe WORLD A delightful an- thology of chil- dren’s verse col- lected from the fin- est lyrics, ballads, and nonsense verse of the last 75 years. “This Singing World’”’ follows Mr. Untermeyer’s successful collec- tions of modern British and Amer- Illustrated by ican poetry. Florence Ivins. $3.00 Harcourt, Brace and Company, ** New"Ynxt"™ international Book and Art Shop, 3 Christopher Street haes th ew York City We ve the largest and choicest selection of Also a large ee of PRINTS|IBOOKS In the city. Etchings, lithographs, water-colors, drawings, original and reproduction, framed and unframed. Prices, the lowest in the city. MAKE THIS YOUR SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PRESENT MY WINDOWS ON THE STREET OF THE WORLD Probably the most interesting and important biography of this year on art, current fiction, drama, poetry, ete..—new and second-hand. By JAMES MAVOR, Ph.D. 2 vols., $12.00 E. P. DUTTON When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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720 The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 subjected to them all, unless his aesthetic skin can somehow combine sensitiveness with reasonable thickness, is likely to be lost. I proceed to the events of a given week to make good these feeble but not quite importless generalizations. The week began on Sunday afternoon with the répétition générale—why not dress rehearsals?—of Les Ballets Suédois at the Century Theater. I do not ask: why not Swedish Ballets? For the fact is that only the names of the dancers and some most agreeable folk-tunes in a single number have anything to do with Sweden. The symbolic poems or scenarios which the dances illustrate are by M. Jean Cocteau and by M. Paul Claudel; the music is largely the work of M. Darius Milhaud. The theme and mood of the first two ballets, Skating Rink and Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel, are of a devastating dryness of the soul. Here is lethargic despair and an irony that, in its gross and com- plete bitterness, verges on the obscene. M. Claudel’s “plastic poem,” L’Homme et son Désir, is full of a large imaginativeness but one that has no freshness, no dew, no star. Everything is close, sultry, miasmic. Little can be said of the dancing in these ballets, since there is, in fact, little dancing. There is panto- mimic gesture of a symbolic sort and I cannot think it more than adequate at any point. What counts here is the music, and I need hardly say that it is music of the ultra-modern sort, wholly unmelodic, wholly dependent for its values on the printed program and the pantomimie gesture. There is a fashion in which it undoubtedly illustrates both. Without them it would be meaningless. This merely illustrative art is, except at occa- sional moments, crudely realistic. When in L’Homme et son Désir the noises of a primeval forest are to be musically illus- trated, the percussion instruments are augmented by two slats ripped out of a packing case and struck together, and among the wood-winds a wry-faced gentleman is seen to blow a screechy penny-whistle of tin. This is new; it is assuredly not subtle. I do not deny that this music has moments when it makes the nerves quiver; the deeper part remains cold. The Swedish legend on the theme of the foolish virgins is quaint and charm- ing and the Swedish folk-tunes have lovely melodic curves and flights. On Monday Mr. John Barrymore reopened in “Hamlet” at the Manhattan Opera House. Unless my memory is outrageously at fault his performance was clearer and more clearly beautiful last year and has now taken on a tinge of morbidness that warps it. His tenderness is now oversoft and his facial expres- sions are almost neurasthenic in character. His Hamlet remains a performance of the highest distinction and several of his fel- low-players continue to give the best interpretations of those parts that have ever been seen. That is true of the Queen, of Polonius, of the First Grave-Digger. Next, in this week, came the usual trade goods—“Time” (Thirty-ninth Street Theater), an agreeable but quite unim- portant little comedy, and “In the Next Room” (Vanderbilt Theater), a detective mystery melodrama very ingeniously con- trived, in which the villain who, in such plays, was always a Frenchman before 1914, a German from 1914 to 1918, a Rus- sian from 1918 to 1922, is a Frenchman again! The necessary limitations of time and human strength pre- vented this deponent from seeing any of the remaining offerings of the week except “Laugh, Clown, Laugh” (Belasco Theater), a play which illustrated like every other of its origin that I have read the feeble fantasticality and thick, unashamed tearfulness of the contemporary Italian theater. This piece of emphatic picturesqueness and violent but stale emotional antitheses is staged by Mr. Belasco with his accustomed taste and skill and smoothness and the part of the Clown is admirably portrayed by Mr. Lionel Barrymore. He creates a good and forlorn and very concrete human being whose sufferings could move one deeply were they not so obviously patched out of a hundred similar theatric anecdotes which have drawn easy tears so long and so often that, in all but the veriest innocents, this particular source is dry. Lupwic LEWISOHN SATURDAY CAMERADERIE LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS The SELWYNS * association with : _ ADOLPH KLAUBER present M linck’s J ANE COWL a ual Maibach TIMES SQ. THEATRE gratinces thorsien Saturday 2:20 BELMONT 48th St. East of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.”—Heywood Broun, WORLD. TARNISH eve. 30, a urs. & Sat. 2:30 A SENSATIONAL TRIUMPH! DAVID BELASCO Presents LIONEL BARRYMORE with IRENE FENWICK in “LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH !” THEATRE, West 44th St. Eves. at 8:30 lf , BELASCO Mats. Thurs. & Sat. 2:30 Seats now on sale 4 weeks in advance N ATION AL Theatre, 41st St., West of Broadway, Evenings 8:00 Matinees, Thursday and Saturday, 2:00 “A royal revival of one of the world’s matchless ple ** Alexande Woollcott, in N. Y. Herald. gi F WALTER HAMPDEN in Cyrano de Bergerac SEATS ON SALE FOR 8 WEEKS. “Miss Vollmer’s presentation of folk life is rich and authentic; she tells us what we are most eager to know—the inner truth of human lives.” Ludwig Lewisohn—The Nation THE SHAME WOMAN An American Drama by LULA VOLLMER Produced by THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE, Inc. COMEDY peeeee Matinees Thurs. and Sat. s E. of Bway. at 2:30-. Evenings at 8:30 27th St. and Madison Ave. YIDDISH ART THEATRE MAURICE SWARTZ, Director ‘ Now Playing Friday evening, 8:30; Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 and 8:30 Osip Dymow’s new comedy of American life “BREAD” AMBASSADOR ee Mats. Thurs. & gan 3380 RICHARD BENNETT in THE DANCERS “T have not seen a better play than ‘The Dancers’ for a long while.” : —JOHN BARRYMORE. DR. WALTER TIMME will lecture at THE NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH 469 West 23d Street THE AUTOMATIC GLANDULAR MECHANISM Monday, December 17, at 8:20 P.M. Chelsea 1386 Admission $1 Every week 3:15 to 5:15 PEOPLE’S HOUSE, 7 East 15th Street DetwZ2, Negro Spirituals AUGUSTUS GRANVILLE DILL CHARLOTTE W. MURRAY GARFIELD W. TARRANT Dec. 29, European Drama, Mimic and Real NAIDA CASTELHUN When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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International Relations Section ‘‘Reactionaries of All Countries, Unite!’ By EMIL LENGYEL N November 7, one day before the outbreak of the “beer-hall revolution” in Munich, a detachment of Hungarian soldiers surrounded the Vienna express train coming from Budapest and arrested one of the passengers, Dr. Francis Ulain, a member of the Hungarian Parliament. They found in his possession a passport to Munich and an “international agreement” signed, as between the Bavarian and Hungarian states, by Dr. Adalbert Szemere and Titus von Bobula on behalf of Hungary, and visaed by Herr Doehmel, “diplomatic delegate,” on behalf of Bavaria. Ulain’s errand was to have the agreement signed by Adolf Hitler as the supposed representative of the sovereign Ba- varian state. The document, which is now in possession of the Budapest police, contains provisions of a diplomatic and military nature. It virtually restores to Hungary the terri- tory adjudicated to the succession states by the Treaty of the Trianon. At the same time it provides, in the main, that Bavaria is to supply Hungary with soldiers, particu- larly with such as have some special training, and which, it is implied in the text of the agreement, could be used in case Hungarian labor should strike as a protest against the “liberating action” of the reactionaries. On the other hand, Hungary promises to furnish Bavaria with foodstuffs. The full text of the agreement as it is reprinted in the Bécsi Magyar Ujsdég of Vienna is as follows: PRELIMINARY AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BAVARIAN AND HUN- GARIAN STATES TOWARD A UNITED POLITICAL AND Miuirary ACTION 1. In view of the identical interests and purposes of the con- tracting parties their close cooperation is agreed upon in all respects and under all circumstances. 2. Notwithstanding this identity of political and military in- terests and purposes, the sovereignty of both contracting parties remains unaffected, so that interference of one in the political affairs of the other is declared inadmissible unless the other party consents. 3. Both contracting parties reserve the right to enter into other international agreements provided such agreements do not affect unfavorably the interests of the other party. 4, If one of the parties enters into an agreement with a third Power that is injurious to the interests of the other contract- ing party, a compensatory agreement is to be concluded. 5. The Bavarian state recognizes the pre-war boundaries of the Hungarian state. The Hungarian state extends to Bavaria a reciprocal recognition of its frontiers. Should one of the contracting parties decide upon the annexation of foreign terri- tory, the other contracting party obligates itself to recognize such annexations, provided they do not affect its interests. 6. The identity of the task to be performed renders it the duty of both contracting parties to supply each other with all the material means at their disposal in order to attain the de- sired end. 7. The Bavarian state obligates itself to supply the Hun- garian state with all materials which it may need. The same applies to the Hungarian state. [The first and second in- closures of this document set forth in detail the services most urgently needed by each contracting party.] 8. In addition to the aid mentioned in the first and second inclosures Bavaria supplies Hungary with specially trained soldiers. [The third inclosure furnishes a mere detailed ex- planation of this section.] 9. The contracting parties are obligated to notify each other of the time of the military action which they have agreed to execute with a view to establishing the governmental system which they desire. (Note: The Hungarian military action will probably take place toward the end of November of the current year.) 10. This agreement is provisional. After the military actions, conferences are to be held by the contracting parties in order to pass finally upon the relations of the newly constituted states. Supplementary Clause: Both states agree to postpone solution of the problem of monarchy until after the termination of the military actions. Budapest, November 3, 1923 EITC ec, cco.niu's seas e aikiwia anaes we Dr. ADALBERT SZEMERE, TITUS VON BOBULA Visaed by: DOEHMEL, diplomatic delegate First INCLOSURE Inasmuch as the transports to be effected by Bavaria as de- termined by the German Kampfbund on October 24, 1923, are not deemed sufficient, it is agreed that the number of troops enumerated in the list of the Kampfbund should be doubled. Although the materials enumerated in said list are thought sufficient to enable Hungary to start the military action, it is nevertheless agreed that when the Hungarian army is enlarged the material will be increased. In addition to the men to be turned over to Hungary by Bavaria request is made for officers who would train and or- ganize the Hungarian army, and act as military advisers. Troops and material should be held at the disposal of Hun- gary from the day designated by Hungary’s representatives. For the period of one month Bavaria will pay and supply the Bavarian troops in Hungary. SECOND INCLOSURE Hungary is willing to supply Bavaria with foodstuffs after the military action has been terminated. The transportation of foodstuffs will presumably start in January, 1924, and will include wheat, vegetables, cattle, wine, milk, milk products, and poultry. Final agreement concerning this inclosure will be reached through verbal negotiations in Munich. THIRD INCLOSURE It is deemed necessary that Bavaria should furnish Hungary with men prepared to perform skilled work in addition to their military activities. FOURTH INCLOSURE In view of the importance of the financial provisions to be agreed upon by the contracting parties it is necessary that they should be determined verbally by the Bavarian and Hungarian delegates who are to meet in Munich. As behooves a document drawn up according to the rules of secret diplomacy this “preliminary agreement” was ac- companied by a covering letter which described in detail the measures taken in order to insure the victory of the “military action.” Special arrangements had been made to intimidate the inhabitants of Budapest. Coincident with the declaration of the military dictatorship a pogrom was to be executed in all Hungary against the Jews and other “unreliable” elements. How thorough the job would have been is evidenced by another document, seized by the Budapest police, in which the suggestion is made that after their accession to power the dictators should notify the

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Cee ee ee ee 722 The Nation Alliance Israélite Universelle at Paris that if the Little Entente made the least attempt to interfere with events in Hungary, all Jews—men, women, and children alike—living on Hungarian territory would be massacred. It is generally assumed in Hungary, and this belief is strengthened by certain passages of the secret agreement, that the two coups d’etat were not intended to be performed at the same time. It was expected that after the military dictatorship of the Hitlerites had been declared in Bavaria, some of the Bavarian troops would have been utilized in the Hungarian insurrection. A document which was in possession of acertain Dr. Fritz, an agent of Hitler in Hun- gary, contained strategical outlines for the invasion of Hungary by the Bavarians. According to this document, Bavarian and Austrian Hakenkreuzler (soldiers wearing the swastika, the Aryan symbol) were to enter Hungary as soon as Hitler became victorious in Munich and were to march through Sopron toward Budapest, the Hungarian capital, where they were to be met by the troops of Ulain and of the notorious Gémbés, leader of the “Awakening Hungarians” and other reactionary organizations. Captain Gémbés, whose name is already familiar to the foreign public, was selected to head the list of the mem- bers of what the would-be dictators termed the new “cabi- net,” which was to oust Count Bethlen, now prime minister of Hungary. Francis Ulain was the connecting link between the Hun- garian and Bavarian insurgents. He figures as ‘Minister of Justice’ in the proposed new reactionary government. He is known in Hungary as a member of the extreme right ever since the white terror was inaugurated in Hungary and as the faithful body-guard of Admiral Horthy, the regent-governor of Hungary. As he was the most humble member of the conspiracy in Hungary, it was he whom the Hungarian authorities arrested despite his parliamentary immunity. Most interesting in the whole affair is the role of Regent- Governor Horthy. Those Hungarian papers which are pub- lished by the Hungarian émigrés and which therefore can express their opinion without danger of criminal prosecu- tion, declare that the evidence presented in this case against the governor shows that he was conspiring against his own government. His friends, the political and military leaders of the white terror, were already complaining that he had let the government drift too far toward “liberalism.” Be- sides, Horthy may have thought that a coup d’etat, timed as judiciously as that to which he owed his governorship, would insure for him permanent possession of his office or might even land him on the Hungarian throne. The communiqué of the Budapest police headquarters summarizing the cross-examination of Ulain and his ac- complices goes far toward disclosing the connection between the governor and the prisoners. Its publication created a sensation in Hungary because it is interpreted to indicate a determination on the part of the Government to take up the challenge to the regent-governor and to expose his rela- tions with the political adventurers. “Deside Szrubidn, police captain,” the report of the police says, “who is in charge of the investigation, ordered Francis Ulain, Adalbert Szemere, and Titus von Bobula to be brought before him. Asked about the criminal act with which they were charged, the prisoners declined to testify. They insisted that they should be taken to the regent-governor, Nicholas Horthy, and be allowed to meet [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 YE A TEST ETE TS SLT SS ae him alone. They demanded that the police call up the gov- ernor and transmit their statement to him. They were sure, they said, that the governor would desire to see them. When they were told that neither of these requests could be complied with, they repeatedly declared that they would testify only in the presence of the governor. Francis Ulain added that he did’ not doubt that the governor would come to see them at the police headquarters as soon as their message was received by him. When all their demands were turned down, the prisoners declared that they would not answer any questions.” Titus von Bobula, another conspirator often mentioned in Hungary in connection with the attempted uprising, is an American citizen. Probably it is intuition rather than evi- dence which makes the Hungarian newspapers insist that he is the representative of a “marvelously rich American.” The seizure of the secret agreement between the Luden- dorff-Hitler and Horthy-Gémbés-Ulain extremists calls at- tention to other prospective “alliances” which were under negotiation between the Bavarian and Hungarian reaction- aries on the one hand and Polish and Austrian reaction- aries on the other. One of Hitler’s lieutenants was carry- ing on negotiations with Polish reactionaries in which the “renunciation” of East Prussia in favor of Poland was suggested to balance the ‘“‘willingness of Poland to counter- balance the intervention of Czecho-Slovakia in Bavaria in the case of a military action.” Besides this, the Vienna Stunde reports another “alliance” which was planned be- tween the Bavarian and Austrian Hakenkreuzler. It is logical to assume that the secret agreement con- cluded between the Bavarian and Hungarian reactionaries and the negotiations with their Polish and Austrian sym- pathizers were intended to form the basis of a bloc of reactionary states in Central Europe. With their tolerant attitude toward the extreme right both Herr von Kahr in Munich and Count Bethlen in Budapest had seemed to signify that if sufficient force were brought to bear upon them they would be only too glad to yield. When they saw that the insurgents were bungling their way toward de- struction they simply turned their backs on them and thus, nolens volens, prevented what history would have recorded as the twentieth-century edition of the Holy Alliance, prefaced—as the Hungarian near-dictators indicated—by a Mid-European massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Von Kahr at the Beer-Hall R. VON KAHR, “dictator” of Bavaria, played an am- biguous part in the Munich beer-hall revolution of November 7. The Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten for No- vember 9 contains a full account of the meeting at which the dramatic Hitler coup occurred. From it the following excerpts are taken: State Commissioner von Kahr had finished about half of his eddress. He had just pronounced the following sentence: ‘“Na- tionalist circles believe that the restoration of a strong state authority would be sufficient. But the strongest man, provided with the greatest power, cannot save the people without active help from the people, help inspired by the national spirit.” At these words unrest became apparent at the entrance. Loud eries of “Hoch, Hitler,” were heard. Hitler himself, pistol in hand, followed by armed men, burst into the room, stepped up to the rostrum, and declared that the beer-hall was guarded by armed men. In order to make himself heard above the din he

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Dec. 19, 1923] The Nation 723 NL

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Page 749

724 fired his pistol at the ceiling and then cried: “The national republic is declared.” This was at 8:45. Hitler then asked von Kahr and General von Lossow [commander of the Bavarian Reichswehr] to leave the room for a discussion with him. This they did. Shortly after, Prime Minister von Knilling and his fellow-ministers and officials Schweyer, Giirtner, Wutzlhofer, Zetlmeier, and Bern- reuther were led out under guard and put under arrest... . At 8:55 Hitler, who had returned, spoke as follows: “Fellow- Germans! Five years ago today the most infamous crime was committed. It plunged our poor unhappy people into this im- measurable misery. I therefore propose: “That the Knilling Cabinet be deposed; that a Bavarian gov- ernment be formed with an administrator and with a prime minister equipped with dictatorial powers. As administrator I propose Herr von Kahr; as prime minister, President Pohner. The Government of the November-criminals in Berlin, and Ebert with it, is declared deposed. A German National Government will be named here in Munich today, and a German national army will immediately be formed. “TJ therefore propose: Until a reckoning with the criminals who are today driving Germany downward is completed, I un- dertake the direction of the policy of the German National Gov- ernment. His Excellency, General Ludendorff, assumes direction of the German national army. General Lossow becomes Min- ister of National Defense. Colonel von Seiffer becomes chief of the national police... .” At 9:45 Dr. von Kahr, Hitler, General von Lossow, President Poéhner, and Colonel Seiffer reentered the hall, together with General Ludendorff. Dr. von Kahr, amid stormy applause, de- clared: “Gentlemen: In the fatherland’s bitterest need I assume direc- tion of the destiny of Bavaria as viceroy [Statthalter] of the monarchy which five years ago was destroyed by ‘thoughtless hands. I do this with a heavy heart, and—as I hope—for the welfare of our beloved Bavarian home and of our great German fatherland.” After Adolf Hitler had spoken again, announcing that von Kahr, von Lossow, von Pohner, and von Seiffer had accepted the tasks assigned to them, General Ludendorff spoke, in part, as follows: . .. This hour marks the turning-point in German history. Let us enter upon it with a great moral earnestness, convinced of the overwhelming difficulty of our task and impressed with our heavy responsibility. With the rest of the people let us go to our work. If we do this work with pure hearts—German men, I do not doubt it—God’s blessing, which we invoke in this hour, will be upon us. Without God’s blessing nothing happens. I am convinced, I do not doubt, that God in Heaven, when he sees that German men have at last risen again, will be with us! The daily newspapers have told how Hitler’s “Govern- ment’”’ was overthrown on November 9, how Ludendorff was arrested, and how Hitler fled, while von Kahr resumed his old position. The Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten for No- vember 10 gives an obviously inspired interpretation of von Kahr’s action at the beer-hall: In the days and weeks immediately preceding, Hitler had re- peatedly, before witnesses, agreed to maintain a loyal attitude toward von Kahr and to undertake no action against him. He had accepted the invitation to be present, in an invited gYoup, when von Kahr made his great proclamation [at the beer-hall on November 7]; and he had promised not to speak on that occasion. He abused the trust placed in him to carry out a putsch and to overcome the state commissioner and his national- minded guests. ... In such a network of conspiracy von Kahr must have experi- enced the most difficult moment of his life. For he had to act in contradiction to his inner nature. It would have been natural The Nation ; [ Vol. 117, No. 3050 But he for him to have cast his treachery in the traitor’s face. knew that if he did that the armed men who dominated the hall would have arrested him and the leaders of the Reichswehr and of the state police, and thereby have destroyed law and order in the state and have brought evils beyond prophecy upon our fatherland. At that moment von Kahr came to a decision which must forever be regarded as one of the greatest and most ex- traordinary deeds of German history. He, the man of loyalty and truth, apparently surrendered. ... Had he not made the sacrifice—in full consciousness that he exposed his name and reputation to the worst misinterpretations, in full consciousness (even more serious for him) that he was acting for the first time in his life in contradiction with his own self—then Munich would today be the scene of worse battles than we have experienced. One’s judgment of the significance of the Bavarian-Hun- garian negotiations described by Mr. Lengyel must depend in considerable part upon the interpretation placed upon von Kahr’s relations with Hitler before and on Novem- ber 7. France in the Palatinate HE German charge d’affaires in Paris delivered to the French Government on October 26 a note in which he complained of the French attempt to create a separatist government in the Rhenish Palatinate. He cited the speech made by Major Louis of the French army before the Kreis- tag (quoted in the International Relations Section for November 28) and added that after the Kreistag had unanimously rejected the proposal for an autonomous state General de Metz delivered the following note to the Bavarian representative with the occupation authorities: The Bavarian Government, by its conduct in the present con- flict with the Reich Government, has placed itself outside the constitution, thereby breaking the constitution. The French have to conclude that the executive power of the Bavarian Government no longer exists in the Palatinate. Accordingly the Bavarian officials in the Palatinate no longer have the at- tributes of sovereignty. General de Metz therefore forbids them further to exercise their official functions. If they wish to remain longer in the Palatinate they may do so only as private individuals. This notice will also be sent to the other Bavarian officials in the Palatinate. The charge protested in the name of the Government of the Reich against this action, which he called contrary to law and to the Treaty of Versailles. To this protest M. Poincaré replied in a note printed in the Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten for November 11. M. Poincaré’s note made no mention of the two official French statements against which the charge protested, but said: The protest misrepresents the attitude of the French authori- ties and assigns to them a responsibility which is not theirs. The present difficulties of the Palatinate are not due to the procedure of the French authorities but solely and only to the agitation in Germany which is the consequence of passive resistance. It must be emphasized that the recent events in Germany have brought the Palatinate into an inextricable posi- tion which fully explains the unrest of its people. Just as the French Government held entirely aloof from the preparations which led to the outbreak of the separatist action, just as it has held aloof from events in the Rhineland and will remain aloof, so also it can accept no responsibility for decisions which have been made in full freedom by the people of the Palatinate... . The irony of this reply .will be appreciated after a study of the documents printed in The Nation for November 28, and of that printed above. . ;

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Tne Nation FOUNDED SA FTA RT TIE TE EL PD Pe Vol. CXVII

~ Contents EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS .......cccccccscceccccccrssccccccsresssers 7125 EDITORIALS: Thou Shalt Not Despair..........sceseecccscccccccesesecscresececs 128 The Case of the Fundamentalists......-..sesesereeeeseececeseccece 729 The Twilight of a Noble Art.........-+++++- Ata hic's. sloleveletetstel sieteisia'eye 729 The Woman Without a Country......-ceeesceeeccenrescsrevererece 730 WHEN WE AMERICANS DINE: } The Supremacy of the Beefsteak. By William Allen White......... 731 A La Maryland. By H. L. Mencken.....+.-e+s-seeeesscecreecerers 731 Where Pie Is King. By Don C. SeitzZ....... cs cece cence cess ree ccere 732 When Company Comes in Tennessee. By E. E. Miller............- 132 In the Creole Capital. By Basil Thompson.......+-.sseeeseseeeens 732 What Alabama Offers. By Clement Wood.........-.+sssseereseess 133 The “Dutch” Tradition. By Reginald Wright Kauffman........... 133 Dining in New Mexico. By Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant........... 133 FOR THE INDIAN’S SAKE. By Oswald Garrison Villard.............- 134 CHINA’S FIRST PRESIDENT. By Bert L. Kuhn............-..-s-e0- 735 AMERICA WORST. By William Hard............c2ccscesccs sien cieccces 137 WHY HENRY FORD WANTS MUSCLE SHOALS. By G. W. Norris.. 1738 IMPRESSIONS. By Wilbert Snow..........eee cece cee eee e eee eeeeneees 739 IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter..........-..0.cccscccctavcsceens 739 CORRESPOND E NG Hiiiceiacinclalesisicisiciclseleveislelain is eule's nels cles eleee sissy s oe se 740 BOOKS: APITCHGEISLON.. |) ESViATECUG Ol ISTLCKOWG., ofela ie iavel lols sei an cee. © ee sisleisineres eee 742

A Teacher’s Diary. By Homer E. Woodbridge........... 742 Thirty Years of the East Side. By Konrad Bercovici... 743 Credit and Crises. By Henry Raymond Mussey.........ssseeeeeeee 743 A New Marco Polo. By Clarissa Rinaker...........-.eeeeeeeeeees 744 The War and the Consequences Thereof. By Herbert W. Horwill... 745 Eerste ES ee be ic reteret atte atea iaveveha tela) ale a: a)'oiis tis) ails, al a} eveiayay by si wie! oliepalevate la, eljaia Neetetese 745 EDEMA TION Ss) EORTC NG EULZ ioc 's'lsneseciccisisic sees sissies ececisecases 746 DRAMA: Mesenden sy Mla war WuewISONM)s © /4.2/0 «\2 oo oe ccc rele class sdcicacieciscsecs 746 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: SITES UU ITO TLV IVER TCO salty a lersvelalcl a cla/cielaie vi clele!a a4) s, siele\sieie,e.e, ave gkalditalalsaiclepaiaen 748 MASc AMET ICA NTU ELATED ots ayeletel al video lena) oe) esc ieo¥'n ape wise aiugeie'e tibug, © ombsmmingh 749 MaxtawA ppeals) tol iine AWViOMIG<)1/saye. a 0's cl aie leave 00) oiele div sieielele © elelelbiele ene escie ove 750

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4 HE appointment of General Charles G. Dawes and Mr. Owen D. Young to serve as American experts on the committee which is to investigate Germany’s financial troubles is another step toward our non-political participa- tion in the restoration of Europe, though it must be said that if the Reparation Commission had wished to find out the status of Germany it could have done so long ago. That body has been a tool of the French—nothing more or less; if it is now going to proceed in a detached scientific way, we have advanced. As to the new negotiations between Ger- many and France, there may be some hope in them, but once more M. Poincaré blocks progress by his statement that there can be no talk of a revision of the treaty and no readjustment of reparations except through the Repa- ration Commission. Fortunately, there are growing signs that M. Poincaré is learning to change his mind. With the promise of a British Labor ministry in office before long, he does well to reconsider his positions. LL right-thinking Americans must be profoundly thankful that at this holiday season we have released the last of our political prisoners sent to jail under war- NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1923 1865

No. 3051

time federal laws. One man remains in the toils, it is true, whom the Joint Amnesty Committee included in its appeal, but the circumstances in his case put him on a different footing from that of the men who went to jail because of conscientious beliefs which they were courageous enough to declare in an era of hysteria and blindness. But while we are thankful for the vindication of American honor that has been achieved, and although we give full praise to Presi- dent Coolidge for his part in it, we cannot but feel a certain sadness that this act of justice has come only after some of the men have served more than five years in jail, after prisoners convicted in similar circumstances in Europe had long since been released, and after the opposition of official Washington had been worn down by a prolonged process of attrition and erosion. Neither can we forget that the fight for victims of free speech and opinion is not over. The fed- eral government has released its political prisoners but there are 127 men in Washington, Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California (ninety-seven in the latter State alone) imprisoned under absurd and un- justifiable anti-syndicalism laws. We must now voice an aggressive demand for the release of these men and—un- less the Supreme Court declares such statutes unconstitu- tional—for the repeal of the laws as well. PEN HE action of the Republican National Committee in yielding to the demands of Negro voters and the exigencies of the Coolidge candidacy by restoring the unfair and unjust representation of the Southern States in the Republican National Convention cannot be too strongly censured. It took years of agitation, and President Hard- ing’s assistance, to get rid of this scandal on June 17, 1920. Its restoration now is proof positive of the alarm of the presidential machine and of the determination of the President’s backers to dominate the convention. There could be no stronger argument for the abolition of the party convention as it now exists. For there is not one single honest reason which can be advanced for the restora- tion of a system which has no other purpose than to make easy the control, by bribery and corruption, of delegates who represent only a handful of voters. EVEALING as to the undercurrents of the De la Huerta conspiracy in Mexico is a tiny paragraph in the State Department’s announcement of December 11 as printed in the New York Times: “The American consul at Frontera, Tabasco, Robert L. Rankin, telegraphed the Department at 10 a.m., December 10, that the garrison at Frontera revolted at noon December 9 in favor of De la Huerta. The commanding officer was killed and a number of Bolsheviks were executed.” Thus a United States consul and the official machinery at Washington help propagate the assumption that any Calles adherent is ipso facto a “Bol- shevik.” The American press, too, has manfully whooped it up for reaction in its news columns. On the first day it reported nine Mexican states in revolt. With at least one accession daily every one of the twenty-eight states has since been recorded as anti-government. The Chicago Trib- une declared in a special dispatch on December 17 that

Page 751

726 The Nation De la Huerta “is in control of the whole Yucatan peninsula” and that the governor of the state of Yucatan, Felipe Car- rillo, “the leading Mexican exponent of Communism,” had fled. The facts are that after ten days the revolt, except for isolated mutinies at widely scattered points and a few individual defections, is still confined to the armies of Gen- eral Estrada in Jalisco and Colima, and of General Sanchez in Vera Cruz. This is not to say that the effects of De la Huerta’s treason—especially the material damage—are negligible. But the rebels cannot expect to win. As indi- cated by documents printed in our International Relations Section, the organized workers have rallied around Obre- gon, who in this grave crisis and with the country an armed camp, has kept his democratic faith by refusing to curtail the liberty of the press. RAISE be! Even in the church the stirrings of progress will not down. No sooner does Bishop Man- ning rebuke Percy Grant and soundly lecture Dr. Guthrie than Dr. Parks gets up in his pulpit to announce his heresy as to the Virgin birth. More than that, hundreds of other clergymen through their modernist association fling down the gage. Surely this shows once more the folly of trying to sit on a church lid; it proves that, even within the church, men’s consciences are alive and that their thoughts refuse to be bound by the heresy hunters. Therein lies the one hope of the church. If it stands still, if it is to be Bryanized, it will die. As for the Episcopal bishops, they have been dared by Dr. Parks to try a fellow of their size instead of putting the Bishop of Texas up to picking on an unknown rector in his diocese. Bishop Manning will find it difficult, indeed, to put on trial the rector of one of New York’s most fashionable churches, representing so many millions and so much power. HE interchangeability of the Republican and Demo- cratic parties when it comes to combating a real effort to make headway against the “system” in Washington re- quires no better demonstration than the action of Senator Bruce of Maryland, Democrat, in voting for a Republican when there was danger of the election of a progressive Democratic Senator to the chairmanship of the Interstate Commerce Commission in place of Mr. Cummins. Wall Street pins its faith to Cummins; if he goes down, if a so- called radical succeeds him, it will lie awake o’ nights in anguish as to what may happen to the Esch-Cummins law and the railroads. Therefore it is not surprising to learn that Senator Bruce was overwhelmed with telegrams of approval for his action. We shall, moreover, not be sur- prised if other Democrats are found, if necessary, to bolt their own nominee for the chairmanship. We hope they will be, for the Bruce bolt has stirred public opinion not a little in the progressive West. Anything which demon- strates anew the essential twinship of the existing major parties will be of value the country over. Meanwhile, judg- ing from the agonized protests in the conservative press, Congress is rapidly going to the radical bow-wows. Thus Louis Seibold, political correspondent of the New York Her- ald, telegraphs in alarm that Congress will soon be wrecked if the majority Republicans and the minority Democrats do not immediately strike hands to prevent the La Follette group “from making alliances which would eventually result in disaster to both.” Many heretofore conservative Repre- [ Vol. 117, No. 3051 sentatives and Senators are considering whether they should not ally themselves with these radicals who have recently done so well at the polls. Mr. Seibold reports that there are enough of these “to help Mr. La Follette achieve his ambi- tion of destroying both the. major parties.” Who would think from this that Mr. La Follette has never yet bolted his own party? — (‘10 Frank B. Kellogg has been confirmed as our Ambas- sador to Great Britain and that high office sinks lower than in the lifetime of any living man. President Coolidge has broken not only with the elder tradition that men of statesmen’s stature should represent us in London; he has abandoned the more modern idea of having a literary man speak for us at the Court of St. James’s. Mr. Kellogg is merely a conventional second-rate lawyer, an ex-Senator discredited and overwhelmingly defeated by his constitu- ency, and we have heard no sound reasons advanced for his — appointment save that he is a “lame duck” and should have a nice big office to wind up his career. We cannot even fol- low the current gossip that his selection is connected with the Coolidge candidacy. If Mr. Coolidge’s backers have any sense, they must know that to identify his cause in Minne- sota with Mr. Kellogg is to injure it irreparably. HE death of John R. Rathom of the Providence Journal recalls one of the most despicable episodes of the en- tire war period—the wholesale lying of that newspaper as to its alleged discoveries of unwarranted activity by the Ger- man representatives in this country. Miinchhausen was a tyro by comparison; yet these stories went all over the country and are doubtless still believed by multitudes. Mr. Rathom himself came into tremendous vogue as an after- dinner speaker and was engaged by the World’s Work to write a series for it which it advertised thus: How the devilishly cunning plots to kill our people, sink our ships, dynamite our factories, and disrupt our national life were run down and thwarted. More thrilling than fiction, and withal the most patriotic service to America since the war be- gan. It is the modestly told story of a brave editor and re- sourceful reporters who beat the Germans at their own game. After one article the series suddenly stopped and it then appeared that on February 12, 1918, Rathom, under the compulsion of the United States Government and by advice of counsel, signed a confession (printed in The Nation for November 17, 1920) admitting the falsity, or such exag- geration that it equaled falsity, of almost all his alleged revelations. To a number of deliberate misstatements he pleaded guilty. Thereafter Mr. Rathom’s career as an after- dinner.speaker and newspaper romancer ceased. The World called him at the time a “faker” whose confession is ‘‘one which for comprehensive avowals of downright falsehood has few parallels in the annals of mendacity.” Yet this confession did not prevent his being retained as manager of the Providence Journal and, mirabile dictu, continuing to sit as a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of the Associated Press. NE happy result which is the immediate consequence of Labor’s gain and Premier Baldwin’s loss in the British elections is the decision to abandon the construc- tion of a naval base at Singapore. The cancelation of the proposed tour of the Earl of Cavan to Singapore and Australasia is regarded as tantamount to throwing the

Page 752

Dec. 26, 1923] project over, the British press pointing out that as no suc- ceeding cabinet, Liberal or Labor, would be likely to in- dorse the enterprise, Mr. Baldwin has concluded that the $50,000,000 involved can be better used to relieve the eco- nomic distress and widespread unemployment at home. Thus Great Britain is saved not only from a huge economic waste but from an action which would have called for simi- lar expenditure by other countries and must have measur- ably increased the provocations to war of which the world is already too full. Fortunately the Dutch Government’s proposal to erect counter-fortifications in the East was re- cently squelched by its opponents in the legislature, and need not be revived. If now Secretary Hughes will recall our naval mission to Brazil, which is so upsetting South America, the world will have taken some substantial steps in the direction of peace and good-will. HE chess game of diplomacy never stops. The players T sometimes pause long over their pieces, but they finally move them in just such a formal check-and-counter- check game as of yore. Mussolini found himself excluded by France and England from the Tangier conference; so he turned to Soviet Russia and likewise made an alliance with fascist Spain which threatens control of the Mediter- ranean trade route. Let no one romanticize over the sym- pathy of these three dictatorships; similarities in their form of government have nothing to do with this alliance. England and France are trying to edge Spain out of Mo- rocco and to exclude Italy from a conference of Mediterra- nean Powers. Naturally, Italy and Spain turned to each other; naturally also Mussolini looked to the pariah nation of Europe for help against the two dominant Powers. So the chess game goes on, and the pawns suffer. There is good reason to believe that Mr. Baldwin’s reported assent to part of the French policy in the Ruhr was not unrelated to the moves of Mussolini. . Uae of 400,000,000 francs to Poland and of 300,- 000,000 to Jugoslavia have been approved by the com- mittees on finance and foreign affairs of the French Senate. The proposed 100,000,000-franc loan to Rumania is post- poned for further consideration, The New York Evening Post reports from Washington that France also plans a 500,000-million franc loan to Hungary, and the Paris corre- spondent of the New York World explains that “a large portion of the proposed loan to Hungary will be sunk in metallurgical works undertaken and controlled by the Schneiders, the powerful magnates of the French war industry. who recently acquired the famous Skoda works, the Austrian Krupps, (now in Czecho-Slovakia), where the big guns were made that smashed the forts of Liége at the beginning of the war.” These loans are to be spent for mu- nitions either now on hand or to be manufactured in France. They represent a policy of deliberate militariza- tion of the lesser nations of Europe. America is not, to be sure, in a position to adopt a very much holier-than-thou attitude. John F. Sinclair, the Minneapolis investment banker, has pointed out through the North American News- Paper Alliance that Poland’s foreign debt has already grown to $270,000,000, in which is included $24,000,000 owed to the United States Grain Corporation, $51,000,000 to the American Relief Administration, $57,000,000 to the United States Liquidation Commission (for military The Nation : 727 supplies?), $4,000,000 to our Shipping Board, $24,000,000 to our War Department, and $2,000,000 to the Navy Depart- ment. Some of these loans might bear explanation—they are all post-war issues. VEN a good law can provide a foolish or timid or tyrannical government with dangerous technical weapons, as for example the Cable law which holds, among other things, that an alien woman may not acquire Ameri- can citizenship through marrying an American, but must become naturalized herself. The unreasonable use to which such a reasonable piece of legislation can be put is shown in the case of Anna Lerner. Mrs. Lerner was born in Russia but has lived in this country since she was six years old; she is now twenty. Her father died before he could take out naturalization papers and she is still too young to acquire citizenship herself. Two years ago Anna Lerner went to Russia to join the Kuzbas industrial colony, and there she married Noah Lerner, another colonist, an American citizen, and a World War veteran. Her hus- band came home ahead of her; early last summer he sent back passage money, and Mrs. Lerner went to Riga to sail for the United States. The American consul at Riga re- fused to visa her passport; the head of the visa division of the Department of State rejected her application; and finally Secretary Hughes himself has decided that Anna Lerner is a dangerous alien who had best be kept out. In everything but a technical sense this girl is American. Her family all live here, her three brothers are citizens, her husband lives here, she was brought up and educated in Philadelphia, she speaks no Russian. In coming back to the United States she would not only be rejoining her husband, she would be coming home, Well, she may not come home. She is a Communist; she went to Russia, and to the limit of her eighteen-year-old abilities tried to help Russian industry to its feet—and Secretary Hughes is afraid that Anna wants to overthrow the Government of the United States. | Eicon year the Dial makes an award of $2,000 to the contributor during that year whose total literary pro- duction is in the opinion of the editors most striking and most full of promise. Sherwood Anderson received the first award, T. S. Eliot the second, and the third has just been given to Van Wyck Brooks. In “Letters and Leader- ship” Mr. Brooks has set forth fine and distinguished ideals for the practice of letters in America. It is true that he almost completely lacks humor, and that he expects of American literature the qualities which at present would be but little representative of American life—order and a conscious striving toward intelligent perfection. In “The Ordeal of Mark Twain” he studies his protagonist almost solely with the purpose of finding out how far he has ful- filled, or been permitted by his native culture to fulfil, the obligation of leadership imposed upon him by his art. For Mr. Brooks the consciousness of this obligation is at once the penalty, the reward, and the measure of the artist. The sporadic robustness, the experimental and often crude grop- ing after some vague accomplishment which is so much a part of the growth of American letters are qualities which do not interest him. Nevertheless, the ideal of a perfect if somewhat cool culture, led on and nourished by the prac- tice of letters, is a noble one and deserves the st dily, in-, creasing following which Mr. Brooks has won RPE esi os. 4 Lie

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728 To GEORGE W. Norris, UNITED STATES SENATOR, GREETING: OR twenty years you have sat in the seats of the KF powerful in Washington and served your country faithfully and well. During all that time, unlike many of your legislative associates, your soul has been your own, your voice the voice of reason and justice, your vote the vote of conscience. Wherever you have gone men have respected you, political opponents have envied and feared you. They saw you enter the Senate a reformer, a pro- gressive; some among them laughed cynically and, point- ing to many an example in the Senate Chamber, declared: “The system will overcome him.” The system found itself baffled by a brave and honest man. The years passed; you were progressive still. The Great War came, beclouding men’s minds, instilling passion into their hearts, making them give out only words of hate and unreason. You re- mained clear in vision, temperate of speech, loyal to the core. You voted against the war which was a crime against America and its every ideal, and in so doing you kept the American faith. You have kept it ever since. Always you have been the captain of your soul. And now today, twenty years after your entrance into public life in Washington, you tell us that it is all in vain, that you are laying down your burdens, that you will not return to your constituents seeking anew their votes and their approval. The “system” has conquered you, not by bribes, or by illusions, but by sheer weariness and the force of repeated disappointments. In homely language you declare: “Under the present conditions in Washington and conditions which have existed ever since I came to Con- gress, it is almost impossible to obtain effective legislation in the interest of the people. I have been bucking this game for twenty years and there is no way of beating it. I’ve done all I could. Now I’m through.” “His lined face,” writes the correspondent who took down these words of yours, “his tired eyes, his hair grown white, the resigna- tion of his speech and gesture, all testify to his utter weari- ness, and his words are almost despairing.” We realize how the strain has told; we are aware that you have held your office all these years without any other financial re- sources than your salary and that this has added enor- mously to your difficulties and constantly kept you in the background when it would have been to the public welfare had you been free to travel, to speak, and to study. We understand full well the wear and tear of the daily sena- torial drudgery upon him who is worthy of the office. We know that the fulness of years approaches—you have passed your sixty-second birthday. And yet, understand- ing all this, we can but say to you this is no time to flinch. It is the wrong hour for loss of faith or confession of defeat; the wrong hour to lay down burdens, however they may bind and chafe. For in America the skies are clear- ing. Everywhere people’s eyes are being opened, every- where there are signs of an awakening to the real costs of the war, a growing appreciation of the wisdom of those who stood against it and have been justified by its total failure to salvage the world and by the destruction of human and moral values which has followed in its train. Everywhere there are indications that the inevitable pe- riod of black reaction is drawing to a close, that the tide The Nation Thou Shalt Not Despair [ Vol. 117, No. 3051 of liberalism is rising again. Truth is abroad in the land once more and the sober common sense of the plain people of Lincoln is beginning to make itself felt. The day of the fooling of nearly all the people is once more almost at an end. New allies and new friends are sitting at your right and at your left in the chamber you have so long graced. Then why surrender now? To you, Senator, the brightening political skies should be an imperative sum- mons, not to lay down the fight, but to take it up anew. It was you, George W. Norris, who when a Represen- tative, led the successful fight against Cannonism in the House. If there is a new fight on now against the Con- gressmen of special privilege, it is, however, true that the conditions today are not as bad as when you led the fray. More than that, political progress means repeated battles and a never-ending series of victories and defeats, as it is the law of our life that each succeeding generation must fight some of our battles over again. Not all; some are won for all time. It was you who led in numerous strug- gles to better the plight of the farmer you know and under- stand so well. If his situation is again acute, perhaps more so than ever before, that is no reason for despair and no excuse for retirement from the dust and the heat of the day. On the contrary, it is the very reason why the plume of Richmond should wave above them all. Even if it were failure, as you allege, which moves you to lay down your arms now, why then it is once more necessary to say that not failure but low aim is crime. The aim must be to fight to the very last no matter what the odds. The very worth of your service, the very fidelity with which you have wrought and battled, is the unanswerable reason why you, a patriot of the finest water, should stay in har- ness until the last. Do you not remember Cyrano de Bergerac? His dying eyes see a thousand foes round about him; his failing rapier thrusts to the end at Prejudice, Hypocrisy, Compromise, Cowardice, Stupidity: I know I shall be beaten by your might. What matters it! I fight! I fight! I fight! And there was Terentius Varro, Roman consul. Have you forgotten him? He and his fellow-consul lost their battle — to the enemy; his comrade fell. But when Varro returned 1 to Rome with his beaten legions, the populace and the | Senate greeted him with acclaim, for, they said, “in the darkest hour he had not despaired of the republic.” If it were in our power, Senator Norris, we should have — an outpouring of the populace upon the plaza behind the | noblest building in the world, within which you labor. We | should have no patricians, no lictors, no centurions, and — no pro-consuls in the gathering—only the humblest of our } citizens, attired not in garments of ceremony but in the | garb of arduous toil. We should have them call you forth © and ask that you still serve on. We believe that you would not be able to resist such a call to further service, } for you have been of the humble and you have labored for } the lowly. For these, until the end of time, must their } champions forswear rest and peace and content. We can- } not by any magic wand call forth this gathering; we must a continue to see it in our mind’s eye. But on its behalf we § speak its unspoken words: “Thou shalt not despair.” .

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Dec. 26, 1923] The Nation > 729 The Case of the Fundamentalists UR psychoanalyst friends are having a lot of fun with the Fundamentalist brethren. What repressed de- sires, what envy and bitterness, find outlet in the zeal with which these Christian soldiers refuse to sit at meat with such enemies of Christ as Dr. Fosdick and sentence to hell all poor sinners who happen to doubt, or not to care, whether Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin! Yet such intol- erance is not peculiar to religious controversy. A news- paper columnist has suggested that he knows men who would people hell with those who do not reverence the books of Joseph Conrad. Doubtless in private life these Funda- mentalist champions of Jehovah who send their enemies to an eternal hell are good neighbors and stern foes of cruelty even to animals. In a world of nationalists, Ku Klux Klans, and embattled labor internationals there is, alas, nothing strange in intolerance. What gives Fundamentalism its strange savor is its re- assertion of the ancient faith that no mundane affair is com- parable in importance to eterna] salvation and that eternal salvation by fiat of God depends upon the acceptance of His revealed scheme of things. In this conviction the Funda- mentalists have the general backing of the church. To be sure, the greatest of the Catholic fathers and Protestant re- formers alike would look with suspicion on the Baptist brother who would reduce the essentials of faith to belief in the deity of Christ, his Virgin birth and bodily resur- rection. They would also protest against the brethren who would make the ancient faith in the imminent return of the risen Christ an essential dogma of Christianity. Neverthe- less, despite some vagaries, in its general conception of God, the universe, and salvation, Fundamentalism is undoubtedly in the main stream of Christian tradition while Modernism represents a religious revolution as far-reaching as the Protestant Reformation. Those liberals who insist that they are only reinterpret- ing the essential truths of Christianity in the thought forms of a modern world have to go very far back—back not only to the Gospels but to a critical interpretation of the Gos- pels—to rid themselves of all those theological dogmas which they reject. In the Baptist church the lack of a rigid creed and the liberty of the individual conscience make the lot of the liberals somewhat easier. But in creedal churches like the Episcopal and the Presbyterian they fight at a cer- tain disadvantage. When the Episcopal bishops say that the doctrine of the Virgin birth is an integral part of the ac- cepted creeds, and should be accepted by the clergy, the statement seems plausible to the layman in the pew and the man in the street. It is not easy to answer such an argu- ment as the Philadelphia convention of Presbyterian Fundamentalists set forth: We believe that men should be as free to teach as the winds are to blow. But we also believe that the Presbyterian church is a church whose creed in the most explicit and unmistakable language commits its ministers to certain definite views of Christ and the Scriptures. No men should be ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian church who cannot cheerfully ac- cept its doctrinal teachings; and to countenance in Presby- terian pulpits a teaching which violates the creed of the church is as contrary to right as it is contrary to common sense. It is not enough to say in reply that liberals are good men or fine preachers. It is not enough to talk of tolerance. All that may have a psychological effect on the churches; but logically it is necessary to prove that creeds do not mean what they say or are more elastic than they seem. Far be it from us to declare such proof impossible. We are not theologians and our sympathies are with the liberals, but it does seem as if the symbolic and eclectic sense in which Modernists are forced to accept the Bible and the creeds was a decided handicap in the battle before them. But whatever the difficulties, from the standpoint of sound religion and clear thinking it is well that the battle should be joined and not evaded. The true answer to Fun- damentalism, as the Fundamentalists realize, is not a plea for a comprehensive church. It is proof that Fundamental- ism is wrong in its understanding of God’s plan for salva- tion. If it is right, not it but God is to blame for the whim- sical cruelty with which men are sent to damnation. And when one begins to speak of God in this universe of ours, not all the questions asked of the Modernists will come from the Fundamentalists. Some there will be who accept- ing the beauty of the modernist theology will perhaps sor- rowfully question its truth, while others will point to the fact that enlightened Modernism has been scarcely more successful in making its believers the uncompromising pro- tagonists of a warless world or of human brotherhood than has rigid Fundamentalism. The Twilight of a Noble Art ; HE New York newspapers, which are making such a hullabaloo over what they call “the recrudescence of banditry,” seem to be missing the vital point at issue. It is not the increase in banditry but the deterioration in its quality that is distressing. The profession of highwayman or high-sea man is one of the most ancient and honorable of callings—synonymous with imagination, resource, and courage. The names of famous brigands and pirates and buccaneers have come down to us from centuries whose princes and governors—respectable, house-broken, and unin- teresting men—have long since been forgotten. Of course there have always been some bad eggs among bandits— some men who were merely cruel and greedy—but the same is equally true of grocers, parsons, and plasterers. Our best bandits have generally fought fair and sometimes chival- rously. Men like Robin Hood have come to be regarded as positive benefactors. It is disturbing to turn from this picture of when ban- ditry was in flower to the situation in New York and sev- eral other large cities. The newspaper estimates of annual losses through banditry are beside the point. It is doubtful if there is any substantial loss of wealth at all—merely a redistribution of it. As equalizers of wealth bandits are much more successful than income-tax laws or regulation of prices; they are more discriminating in their victims than profiteering landlords, bucket-shops, or real estate swindlers. Yet banditry is at ebb tide for all that. The sad fact is that, like journalism and the stage, it has been commercialized; the soul, the glamor, the joy have gone out of it. Our bandits are no longer men of courage and imagi- nation; they are mere thugs and gunmen. They refuse to take a chance—or to give their victims one. They run no more risk than bankers or bootleggers. A once noble and gallant profession has been reduced to a sordid twentieth- century business. It ought forthwith to be admitted to our chambers of commerce and boards of trade.

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730 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3051 GGG ——— aE Apparently the only hope for banditry is to do with it as we are doing with the stage—to revivify it through impor- tations from abroad. For the fine traditions of the profes- sion still persist in Europe. We read with pleasure the other day of how Mucha, the illustrious Polish bandit, was living up to his duties as a citizen and a taxpayer. He made out an itemized income-tax return, giving the date and place of each robbery during the year, with the amount realized in each case, and sent the statement to the proper public officials with the sum due. He did not even charge off anything for depreciation or dependents. Then there is Romanetti, the popular brigand of Corsica. In the recent senatorial election in the island both the can- didates—Francois Coty, the manufacturer of perfumes, and Adolphe Landry—sought the brigand’s aid, but he stoutly maintained that it was beneath his dignity as a gentleman and a robber to take sides. The night before the election the police surrounded the Grand Hotel in Ajaccio, the capi- tal of Corsica, saying that they had come to arrest Roma- netti, but in the morning they searched the hotel without finding the bandit. Coty was elected. Landry then charged that his rival had ordered the display of police to make the natives think their hero was in conference with the per- fume-maker. Coty replied that the police demonstration was to prevent him from communicating with his lieuten- ants. Whereupon Romanetti wrote to the Paris newspapers declaring that he had had nothing to do with the election, although offered 50,000 francs by one of the candidates. Naturally no clean-handed bandit would soil his fingers with politics. The Woman Without a Country If a female citizen of the United States marries a British subject she retains her American nationality and becomes a British subject under British law. If .. . a female British subject marries a United States citizen she becomes state- less. NTIL something over a year ago alien women living - in the United States could become citizens in three ways: they could remain unmarried and qualify for nat- uralization; they could marry a citizen; they could marry an alien who became naturalized and acquire citizenship through his act. Unmarried, they were as free to choose as men. Married, they were as helpless as babies. They might live here a lifetime and learn the Constitution by heart, but never, never could they acquire citizenship un- less they were married to a citizen. On the other hand they might have reasons for not swearing allegiance to the country of their adoption—willy-nilly they became citi- zens if they were married to a citizen. American women followed their husbands with the same choiceless submis- sion, and lost their citizenship by the act of marrying an alien. And so a bill was passed, without any discussion, making the citizenship of women independent of their mari- tal status. American women were to keep their citizenship if they chose, though they married foreigners; alien women must acquire citizenship just as men do—except that a woman marrying a citizen need prove only one year of resi- dence in the United States to be naturalized. It is easy to pass laws but it is hard to eliminate the chances of personal tragedy resulting from them. Enough misery accumulated under the old law to wipe it off the books, but the new law has its tragedies as well. One of them, a case of flagrant, vicious cruelty to young Anna Lerner, American in every but a technical sense, is told in detail on page 727. And other cases are piling up. Foreign women come here ignorant of our laws, unused to the idea of an independent status. Their husbands are likely to get out into the current of American life and in time to be nat- uralized. The women, left to themselves, are most unlikely to. And so, though the law has transformed them into the equals of men, they become in fact unequal before the law. The Woman’s Trade Union League in reviewing this situa- tion says: In a question of separation, financial transaction, divorce and custody of children, the wife’s case against the husband is that of an alien against an American citizen. Should the nat- uralized husband want to rid himself of his wife he has only to persuade her to leave the country on a visit. Her return is that of an alien and therefore problematical. ... In time of war the father and children may live under the protection of the American flag, while the wife, if an enemy alien, is open to camp detention or deportation. And not only may an immigrant married woman who fails to become naturalized forfeit the protection of our flag; she may have no other protection. In the course of a recent conference of the British International Law Association de- voted to the discussion of the nationality of married women, Dr. Ernest Schuster, a leading English authority, made the statement quoted at the beginning of this article. His con- cern was with the status of British women married to Americans. Neither here nor in Great Britain have they any legal nationality or any citizenship rights. To the British authorities the Englishwoman married to an Amer- ican is American and is treated as such, but the United States disowns her. This situation obtains in most coun- tries, although a few have passed laws making it possible for a woman marrying a foreigner to retain her original nationality if under the law of the husband’s country she does not acquire his nationality. The complications which may arise where women have no such protection, especially in matters of travel or immigration, are manifold; and de- cidedly more painful than those of the American woman married to an Englishman, who can claim the privileges of British subject and of American citizen wherever she may xo. In 1922 a joint committee of both houses of Parlia- ment in England was appointed to look into the proposal to adopt the American law, but it appears to be indefinitely deadlocked. It is to be hoped that the difficulties which have cropped up under our new system will not discourage other countries from a change which would have the advantage of ending the anomolous situation now existing between them and the United States, as well as equalizing the status of men and women. The International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance has already proposed a general adoption by all countries of the principle that a woman’s nationality should be determined without respect to her marital status; this would wipe out the present international difficulties. In the United States a vigorous campaign should be set on foot by labor organizations and social agencies of all sorts to make the position of alien women clear to them. Finally, should not the United States take the lead in ~ calling an international conference, to adopt, if possible, — some uniform principles in establishing nationality? We have international codes in regard to navigation, postal f x service, and the like. Why not in regard to citizenship?

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Dec. 26, 1923] (On October 17 we commented editorially on an “Ameri- can dinner” that was served to Mr. Lloyd George in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In our next issue there was a spirited criticism of this editorial by the Drifter, and there- after the rain of correspondence which poured into the office suggested that the subject had aroused more interest and passion among our readers than the occupation of the Ruhr, the price of coal, or the shortcomings of the adminis- tration at Washington. So we referred the controversy to several of the authors of articles in our series on These United States, with the request that they would serve the readers of The Nation with a home dinner typical of their section of the country. They responded enthusiastically; dinner is served.) The Supremacy of Beefsteak By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE MERICAN cooking is in general bad—both public and private. But at that it is better than English cooking. Domestic science taught in the schools and colleges has tive, inept, and given to fruit salads, boiled mayonnaise, paper frills, and striped ice cream. But good American dinners may be had in any community. In every town or village is always at least one righteous woman who can cook. And yet whole sections of the land, groups of States, have not one professional man cook worth naming, and no hotel cook who has either distinction or even rudimentary capacity to fry sour apples! The American dinner typically is seasonal and served somewhat in the degree of familiarity with which the guest is known. In summer an American dinner would contain fried or broiled spring chicken and strawberry shortcake— made with actual shortening. After the strawberries go, comes corn on the cob, blackberry cobbler or green apple dumpling—American dishes of excellence to go with the young chicken. When young chickens become passé, turkey appears with its trimming; and then pie—pumpkin pie, apple pie, or mince pie—is part of the typical American dinner, and the glacé sweet potato, the parsnip, and the rutabaga. Of course ice cream, which of late years has been universally over the earth served, is rather typically American. Now all this is the company dinner; the dinner for the stranger guest. But when he has been in the house for a o } week, or if he is a dear and trusted friend, he is served with his a beefsteak of parts and consequence—cut two inches thick, broiled “rare,” and served with sauce or without it. The ‘beefsteak is American. It is one of the things which may be found in American homes served better than in public— that is in homes where discerning Americans live. A beef- steak is the most American of our dishes. No other nation knows it—this big, thick, rare, four-pound, T-bone steak, seared over on each side and broiled slowly after the searing without anything in the pan—no grease,no water, no foolish condiments. It is not regional. It is as accessible in Seattle as in Palm Beach. But a good beefsteak is the same on The Nation | When We Americans Dine A Symposium on the Great American Dinner helped only a little; too often making our cooking decora- 731 every American table. Around it any dinner that is built scientifically becomes rather keenly American. But it is not the “company” dinner. That clusters around fried chicken, roast turkey, baked ham, or some sectional sea food. No man ever gets a typical American dinner at a New York hotel. The better the hotel, the less likely one is to get an American dinner and the worse it will be when it is served. Our best hotel cooks have the European tradition. Their American accent is always bad. A La Maryland By H. L. MENCKEN ATING is no longer practiced as a fine art in Maryland. There are, in fact, not three public eating-houses in the whole State where decent victuals are still to be ob- tained, and even in private houses there has been a melan- choly falling off in my time. Prohibition, of course, is to blame. The old-time Maryland gentry are not rich; in the main they can’t afford to buy wines and liquors at the cur- rent bootlegging prices. So they cease to entertain, for they can no more imagine inviting a civilized guest to a dry dinner than they can imagine putting him to bed with the hogs. For many years there was a standard Maryland dinner, served with few variations on all festal occasions, public or private. It began with olives and celery, proceeded to a plate of thin soup (usually mock turtle), then to Chesapeake Bay oysters on the half-shell, then to terrapin in the Maryland style, then to roast wild duck, and then to some modest sweet or ice, and coffee. Sometimes a salad was added. If so, it consisted of hearts of lettuce with thin slivers of Mary- land country ham; the dressing was always olive oil and vinegar—much more vinegar than oil. The terrapin, always served with terrapin eggs, was stewed in Madeira; the vile cream sauces favored in New York were absolutely un- known. The duck was served bleeding if the guests were New Yorkers, but rather well done if they were cultivated Marylanders. The oysters were always large; no Mary- lander ever ate a small oyster. The only condiment put upon them was a drop of lemon juice. With this dinner there went an invariable program of alcoholic beverages. Cocktails were very seldom served; the first drink was almost always a glass of dry sherry. With the terrapin came champagne and with the duck some sound red wine, usually a heavy Burgundy. With the coffee came a liqueur—almost always fine brandy. The highly flavored and scented liqueurs were never served save when harlots were present. After dinner it was proper to put a bottle of Madeira on the table, or, failing that, port. Such dinners are now only dreams. Prohibition has ex- tinguished them, save in the homes of profiteers. Even the profiteers, alas, can’t bring back the past. The Chesapeake Bay oyster has been going downhill for a dozen years past, canvas-back ducks have become extremely scarce, and genu- ine diamond-back terrapins are almost unobtainable. The Marylander of today eats the common fodder of the republic. Like all other Americans, he has been ironed out.

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732 Where Pie Is King By DON C. SEITZ EW England does not run to course dinners in the ordinary daily fare. The housekeeper usually “con- trives” one dish with trimmings. Certain days have a spec- ified menu. Thursday, for example, is the day of the “boiled dinner.” This consists of a considerable piece of corned beef cooked with turnips, beets, carrots, and cabbage— plenty of “rubbage,” it will be observed., Dinner is a noon, not an evening meal. Supper is light except on Saturday evening, when baked beans and brown bread are insisted upon. If there is company, in fall when the porkers are ripe, this bill of fare may be accepted as perfect: Baked beans Roast Spare ribs Baked potatoes Biscuit and butter Pumpkin pie Apple pie Indian pudding Tea Indian pudding is a delicious compound of corn meal and molasses, served with cream. Pie is the universal dessert and adorns most meals, including breakfast, north of a line running from Bellows Falls, Vermont, to Portland, Maine. For Friday, fish chowder is the dinner dish. It is best made from cunners, a fish with firm, sweet flesh, frequent- ing the rockbound bays of Maine. The chowder is embel- lished with round “Boston crackers” split in half. Pie and coffee in large cups, with milk, completes the repast. “Broiled scrod”—haddock or young cod cut across the grain —is a favorite breakfast dish. Codfish tongues with pork scraps is another. Portland will not eat flounders, our own filet de sole. There they are “mudfish.” Salt codfish is an important item of food. Boiled with beets and served with pork scraps (cubes of salt port fried brown), it is consid- ered delectable. If any is left over, it can be chopped fine and “het up” for breakfast as “red flannel hash.” Dough- nuts and coffee go with every breakfast, as well as pie. For a supper, ginger cookies and tea serve. The pie allowance for a well-regulated Maine family of five is twenty-one per week! When Company Comes in Tennessee By E. E. MILLER TENNESSEE dinner, in October, for a welcome A guest—a farm dinner, of course, since city dinners, like cities themselves, trend away from the individual and toward standardization. Country dinners shape themselves around one central dish, and at this season that dish is foreordained. Fried chicken it must be—not the little spring chicken, the creature of a few ounces and a few mouthfuls, but a lusty, coop-fed fellow at the limit of frying size, each drumstick a juicy and satis- fying portion, each piece of breast flake after flake of tender whiteness. He is fried just to a golden hue, the skin crisp but not crackly, piled piece upon piece into a great pyramid on a broad platter, choice of cuts and abundant second help- ings for all. We give the preacher fried chicken when he comes, or Cousin Dave from the next county; it is what we should give a prime minister if he came; for in all the length and breadth of this lavish land there is nothing better to give. The Nation [ Vol. 117, No. 3051 On one side of the master-dish waits the plate of boiled ham—disks of piquant pink tastiness that quicken appetites anew. On the other, the big bowl of gravy and the yellow, syrupy sweet potatoes—who has not eaten chicken gravy and sweet potatoes has something yet to live for. Butter beans,. too, and okra steaming hot, and scarlet tomatoes crisp and cool. Hot biscuits, inevitably—soft, thick, fluffy biscuits that divide at a touch and melt on the tongue, never a crust about them, only a hint of brown on top and bottom. Rivaling them, brittle corn sticks into which the butter fairly flows. And jellies—that glass of royal wine-color is blackberry jelly; that clear red is apple; that shimmering gold is peach. More jellies than we can get around to, but our hostess, in wholesome pride, may offer us along with them preserves of equally varied colors and equally intriguing flavors. _ We countrymen do not care much for the courses with which dinners may begin. Fried chicken is for us a good enough beginning; but dessert there must be, and the des- sert of apple-ripening season is prince of them all. Long before it comes into sight tantalizing fragrances drift in to us from the kitchen, and when it appears every eye brightens and every nostril widens. Apple dumplings? The winiest-flavored apples fresh from the orchard, gently’ | baked and slowly simmered a long, long time in a deep | earthen dish, a garment of flaky crust about them, sugar ~ and butter and the spices of Araby in their hearts. We pour over them a sauce of liquid sunshine and the dinner © rises to its ecstatic conclusion. Preacher, prodigal, visiting cousin, revered celebrity from distant lands—the guest has been well fed. In the Creole Capital By BASIL THOMPSON HE American dinner to my untutored palate is as much | a mystery, and will, I blush to confess, remain so, as | tatting or Miss Stein’s “Tender Buttons.” But here, down in “Ny Orl’ns,” it is a pleasant task to catalogue the victuals | and vintages (in the French ménage of means and a cellar | this latter item is still featured) that find their way into the | anatomy. You are, we will say, a modest fellow of some || importance. You have been invited to dine at the home of a | prominent Creole family. If your host is a gentleman and a © pirate, and he is usually both, an ojen, a Martini, or a Saze- | rac cocktail (he will assure you if the last is proffered that © his man mixes them with a skill equal to that of the head | bartender at the old Royal Street establishment) is thrust © under your nose and you sip not unreluctantly thereof. Per- 7) haps he is well stocked and plies you with another; and per- 1 haps a third, in which event dinner takes on color. You are | properly placed. The stage—beg pardon, the table—is set. } The man, a sepia-toned old South Senegambian, yassahs and | ’scuse-me’s in the best tradition. Is it oysters on the half / shell or shrimp cocktail? Either is right. Is it crayfish? bisque or consommé of fowl or mock turtle (not gumbo at a course dinner)? It is soup in any event. Hors d’ceuvres? Well, as you will, from stuffed olives to paté de foie gras. } Fish? Broiled pompano, sheepshead 4 la Normande, snap- | pers. With the arrival of the entrée, if your host is true to i form, a pirate and a gentleman, you have had with your? soup, sherry; with your fish, white wine; and are beginning to feel—well, just a bit drowsy; full is more like it. You

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Dec. 26, 1923] The Nation 733 anaes ee eee rere eee renee ener eee ———————E—————EEE——————_——————————_—————_———————E glance indifferently at your filet mignon bordelaise and demi-julienne spuds, or Mallard and stuffed egg-plant, or veal roast and candied yams. You eye suspiciously the vin ordinaire, recalling some unpleasant adventure with the red ink of today or last night, literally. You positively sniff at the salad: alligator pear or water cress (de cresson de fon- taine) or head lettuce with French dressing. You are sick if a pastry, or sherbet, or charlotte russe, or some other delicacy is shoved before you. Only your café noir and eognac hold any allurement now, and these in the medicinary sense. Pousse café, bah! Suississe, out! You totter from the board bloated, taut, sweating. You swear a terrible oath under your beard and smirk painfully at a pink gargoyle somewhat suggesting your hostess. God be thanked, mother doesn’t lay it on after this fashion. With mother now it’s like this—Soup: tomato, vegetable, gumbo créole, oyster stew on “Fridays and days of abstinence.” Fish: now and then. Entrées: lamb or pork chop, veal roast, roast beef. Vegetables: cauliflower with butter sauce, spinach with toast, corn fritters, egg-plant, asparagus with drawn butter, snap beans, butter beans, red beans, cow peas, green peas, squash cakes, corn on the cob, stuffed tomatoes, potatoes in variety—but not all at once; in season, my dear. Everything in season. Salad? Well, head lettuce, alligator pear, sliced tomatoes. Dessert: apple meringue, bread pudding, peaches and cream, figs in their time, watermelon, or fruit etceteras, brought up with a fine syrupy demi-tasse, brewed and dripped by Nancy Johnson in the famous manner. And the estimable lady next door doubt- less has her own ideas on the subject. Monsieur Alciatore, proprietor of Antoine’s restaurant, has his ideas also. And also Madame Begué’s anonymous successor, and the anony- mous successor to Monsieur Maylie’s thriving establishment. Ferd Alciatore of the Louisiane, the Galatoire Fréres, and Count Cazenave of Le Foyer du Gourmet, have theirs, too. The American dinner? New Orleans answers we eat as we must, or please, or please to please. What Alabama Offers By CLEMENT WOOD HE private households of moderate means in Alabama are of two classes: first, the Negro field cabins and the mountain and mill-town white houses; second, the more prosperous white and Negro families. The typical dinner for the Negro field or furnace hand, and the white mill hand or mountaineer, would be about the same: Sow-belly (fat white pork) Turnip greens and pot liquor (the latter the water in which the greens are cooked) String beans, snap beans, boiled onions, or some other cooked vegetable in season Corn pone (baked of corn-meal, salt, and water) Coffee, with “long sweetening”—or molasses You need not ask for the soup, fish, or dessert courses. There are none. For the rare dinner of state, there might be fried chicken, or possum “an’ taters.” In the more prosperous families you will get the most opulent meal that I have yet encountered in America. Leave soup for thin souls, and fish for the seaboard; although, of course, Mobile would specialize in ‘Kubeyon,” properly spelled “Court Bouillon” (baked redfish with a thick Creole tomato sauce), alternating with broiled pompano. The ordi- nary home dinner, with a respected relative or a guest present, would be something like this: Fried young chicken Beaten biscuits and corn pone (An eccentric addition would be persimmon bread or sweet potato bread) Stewed okra. Turnip greens Mashed yams with pecans and cream Rice Coffee with cream Fig preserves. Crab-apple jelly. Quince preserves Garden tomatoes, with sugar and vinegar Ambrosia, or Syllabub (Ambrosia is equal parts of orange, pineapple, and cocoanut, served in orange baskets; syllabub is whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla) Lady Baltimore cake (Before Volstead’s day, scuppernong or muscadine wine would be added; with a mint julep before the meal. A homelier dessert would be molasses pie, with molasses biscuits for the children) Compared to such a meal, or to barbecued lamb, or gamey Southern venison, the boiled New England dinner is as tasteless as the realism of Henry James. The ‘‘Dutch’’ Tradition By REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN *WVHERE being, happily, no such thing as a typical Amer- ican, it follows that there can be no typical American dinner. I think of Connecticut’s oyster-stuffing for turkey as a little more alien than garlic used to be, and I’m sure that Connecticut would consider my scrapple of doubtful patriotism. Therefore, I may but contribute to The Nation’s symposium the menu of such a dinner as average Pennsyl- vanians of moderate means “get up” when they want to dine —as on a Sunday afternoon—rather well and altogether “natively”: Fruit Salad Roast Ribs of Pork, Apple Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Sauerkraut, and Real Beer Mince Pie (laced, not with brandy, but moonshine whiskey), and Cheese Coffee Some smuggled liqueur Dining in New Mexico By ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT *WYHE New Mexican, like other Americans, orders his life with reference to eating. Among the Pueblos religion itself, as Frank Cushing once said, is an insurance against future meals, and I have never fared more hospitably in the pleasant land of France than in this arid corner of our country, where the very cattle are scrawny and athletic like the cowboys, and every scrap of vegetable food—save the nuts and sunflower seeds and wild grasses and cactus fruit, the wild currants and plums which the aboriginal inhabi- tants used exclusively until the development of corn—has to be won, not only by the sweat of the brow, but by the most cunning ditching, terracing, and entreating of scanty waters. In discussing the real American dinner, I must, however, present three menus: Indian, Spanish-American, and plain United States.

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734 ER See es Dinner is the evening meal in the Pueblo country— usually there are only two—and when you enter a house in the pueblo of Zuni, for instance, you are always greeted: “Enter, sit and eat!” The repast is set out on the earth floor before the three-cornered fireplace in decorated pot- tery bowls, the family, probably ten or twelve people of several generations, squatting around it. So long as the chief males or guests of the family are not there, nobody begins to eat. When all are gathered, every person, includ- ing the children, selects a morsel of every kind of food, breathes on it, and says this “grace”: ‘Receive, (oh, souls of) my ancestry, and eat; resuscitate by means of your wondrous knowledge, your hearts; return unto us of yours the water we need, of yours the seeds of earth, of yours the means of attaining great age.” With this the offering is thrown on the fire and the meal begins. Cushing’s first name as a real Zuni, He-Who-Eats-From-One-Bowl-With- Us-With-One-Spoon, is indicative of Zuni table manners. Nowadays the guest is likely to be offered a metal spoon and white cup, and granite-ware coffee pots and iron frying pans prevail. But en famille, the one earthen spoon, the gourd dipper floating on top of the olla are common, and the food in the bowl is much as it has always been. Infallibly a stew of meat joints and another of frijoles (succulent brown beans) seasoned with plenty of chile colo- rado (red pepper meal), onion, and salt, and probably some spicy herb. For a relish, if there are guests, stuffed sheep intestines or a skewer of broiled meat, or a blood pudding— close to the French boudin—cooked in a large intestine. For vegetables, “in season,” fried or roast or baked squash, boiled pumpkin, green corn on the cob. For bread—a most important item—he’we or wafer bread, something like our dry breakfast foods in consistency, made by cooking a thin paste of red or blue or yellow corn meal on a hot stone and then rolling it. Sometimes puffy little brown loaves of wheat flour as well, baked in the round outdoor oven of sun- dried brick, common to both Indian and Spanish villages. In the melon or peach seasons there is an abundance of juicy fruit, and dried melon rind is often baked in a sort of tart as an extra delicacy. But on the whole the Indian meal is without sweets. Now let us approach a Spanish house in a mountain valley not occupied by descendants of the Conquerors, but by sim- ple “Mexican” people. If the family is alone, we shall be wel- comed to little but frijoles, a bowl of chile, red or green, and a pile of tortillas—a sort of pancake of white flour browned on top of the stove—and a pot of coffee, brewed and re- brewed. In the corner is a sack of pifion nuts—a tiny nut which is taken into the mouth in quantity and cracked with the teeth, the shells being ejected from one corner of the lips while the rich kernel is still being chewed. There will perhaps be another sort of flat pancake of blue meal, served in layers with red chile sauce between, or rice cooked with onion and chile. On feast days there will surely be a rich sweet chocolate drink, white bread baked in the round ovens, chile con carne (with meat), bread pudding soaked in spiced syrup, stewed dried apricots or peaches, a custard with bananas in it. The Mexicans are charmingly ready to share their last tortilla and their fiesta goodies with American neighbors, but a Spanish servant lass, brought up to ab- stemiousness at home, eats less than the proverbial mouse in the rancher’s house. “What pigs they must think us!” said one of my white neighbors. [ Vol. 117, No. 3051 The bountiful American farm dinner in my valley is not so different from that of New England. Fried or roast meat, several kinds of excellent vegetables, macaroni baked in a glass dish—for the mail-order houses keep us up to date—preserves of various rich species, flaky hot biscuits, pie, coffee, and cheese. The American rancher would scorn to borrow recipes from the Pueblos, but tortillas, “Spanish rice,” and chile are not unknown to his table. If there is one article of diet common to all races in New Mexico, it is this same chile colorado, which hangs in flaming strings from the roof beams against the red brown walls of the houses, like the flag of an exotic civilization. Chile keeps the palate keyed up to the climate and the mountains: it is a spice of the devil to counteract the dominant presence of God on the peaks. For the Indian’s Sake Washington, December 14 N behalf of the American Indian a majority of the committee of one hundred citizens recently appointed by Secretary Work met at the Department of the Interior in Washington on December 11 and 12 to discuss and debate. The Secretary welcomed them and asked their advice and their criticisms of the Indian Bureau. The Indian Commis- sioner was equally frank in requesting the judgment of the committee upon his work, and the Board of Indian Com- sioners was well represented in what was, in its personnel, a truly remarkable gathering of the friends of the Indian. It was no slight achievement to have brought into one room men and women of the caliber of General H. L. Scott, W. J. Bryan, Herbert Welsh, John Collier, Bernard M. Baruch, Warren K. Moorehead, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mary W. Roe, Edith N. Dabb, Margaret McKittrick, Maud Wood Park, and Mrs. H. A. Atwood of California, together with many distinguished representatives of the various mission- ary activities. That there were discordant elements here represented everybody knew. The best achievement of the conference was that the discussions were conducted in excel- lent spirit, despite the infliction of the most incompetent and bemuddling chairman who ever presided over any such gathering, and that as they progressed many differences were ironed out. In the case of the Pueblo Indians, for in- stance, the very mention of whom at the outset of the con- ference sent cold shivers of apprehension down every spine, there came about a nearer approach to a union among the friends of these people than had seemed possible. Secre- tary Work may not have had in mind a welding of the re- form forces as a primary purpose of this gathering but it seemed none the less to tend in that direction. Not that it reconciled all the divergencies of opinion. © These will doubtless last as long as there remains an Indian to be helped. For, where it is not a question of the correct technique of aiding them, as in the case of the Pueblos, the divergencies are due to varying philosophies of life and con- ceptions of democracy. That was strikingly illustrated in some of the debates which brought out with disheartening clearness how superficial is the democracy of many Amer- — icans. Mr. Bryan spoke well on behalf of the Indians’ fun- damental right to citizenship and the ballot, but the same — old arguments advanced against the enfranchisement of Negroes and of women were heard once more. General Scott was, for example, deeply concerned lest the “buffalo |

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Dec. 26, 1923] The Nation Indians,” who are too ignorant to use the ballot and do not want it, should have it forced upon them. For their sakes he was willing that the competent and educated Indian should continue to have to face the existing difficulties in attaining the full stature of a free American where he can attain it at all. Every effort to set a limit to the functions and existence of the Indian Bureau met with stout opposi- tion. In fact, only in one matter, the question of the health of the Indian, was there a clear-cut advance; the recom- mendations for improved medical service, for nurses and matrons, and for larger appropriations were unanimously and enthusiastically adopted. What is more important, the conference demanded an emergency appropriation of $100,- 000 for combating the three worst diseases, and urged an immediate investigation of the entire health situation by the National Health Council. For the rest, whenever the conference came to thin ice, it skated carefully around it or else took off its skates and retraced its steps to dry land. Surely nothing could have been more humiliating than the conference’s submission to Secretary Work (to whom all its resolutions were directed) of the two motions in regard to the Pueblos, the one favor- ing the Lenroot bill, the other opposing it. That so able a body could not bring itself to ascertain its majority mind upon this subject must have caused Mr. Work some amuse- ment. This vital topic, the debates as to which aroused the whole country last winter, was thus left practically un- touched. Similarly astonishing was the failure of the conference to adopt Mr. John Collier’s resolution that the business of the Indian Bureau be reported on by the Bureau of Municipal Research and the Bureau of Standards. It would seem as if the members of the conference and the government offi- cials concerned would have jumped at this opportunity to get expert opinion as to the efficiency of the Bureau and of its methods of conducting its business. If the proposition had been one to inoculate every employee of the bureau with the germs of yellow fever the conference could not have shied away from it more emphatically. Even more dis- tressing is the fact that the conference adjourned without any ringing demand that the Indian have equal protec- tion of the law. Mr. Thomas L. Sloan’s appeal, as an In- dian, that the Indians should have full protection of the courts and that certain lawless procedures of the Indian Bureau should cease made no impression whatever. Every- body who knows the Indian problem knows that the Bureau is inseparably woven into the politics of the country and that each administrative change brings a fresh inoculation of partisan politics. No one would have learned this from the meeting. But gingerly references were made to the retaining in the service of political appointees who, when their unfitness is demonstrated, are usually transferred to another reservation instead of being ousted. General Scott’s excellent suggestions for creating a general administrative staff in the Indian Bureau and giving employees definite rank and title, with pay corresponding to that rank as in the army, were unanimously adopted. As for the religion of the Indian and his dances, there, too, the issue was. shirked and there, too, was the same cleavage between the conservatives and the progressives. Mr. Bryan, now a professional religious zealot, was appar- ently eager to shove the Christian religion down the throats of every Indian, and the effort to cut off all the tribal dances, because some are alleged to be immoral, was much in evi- dence. The curse of “Americanization” is coming to rest upon the Indians as upon our immigrants. They must be made just like the rest of us in their fear of the future, and they must be stripped of all their tribal customs, culture, be- liefs, and arts. If they are not in the course of time made absolutely to conform to the standards of Main Street in Lincoln or Tampa it will not be Mr. Bryan’s fault or that of most of: the missionaries. Fortunately there were brave and outspoken words against this proposed outrage. Despite the disappointments of the meeting it more than justified itself. Such a committee is urgently needed, and it would be an excellent thing if Secretary Work could see his way clear to making it a permanent institution with semi-annual meetings. OF Ge Ve China’s Newest President By BERT L. KUHN Shanghai, November 1 N an appointed day early in October there assembled at Peking, after no little hesitation, a few less than six hundred Chinese gentlemen who were duly accredited as members of the Parliament of China. The legal time for a presidential election had arrived. On the first ballot, Marshal Tsao Kun, former private in the Chinese army and more recently inspector general of the provinces of Chihli, Honan, and Shantung, was given some 480-odd votes and was declared elected. His only opponent, Sun Yat-sen, “President of the Republic of South China,” had thirty-three ballots cast for him. Five days later Tsao Kun was in Peking, traveling the paths of the emperors, with all the pomp which the East could provide. Yellow sands were strewn over the highways before him, a custom handed down from imperial days and religiously followed each time a new emperor ascended the Throne of Heaven. Nominally, Tsao Kun is now president of China. Ac- tually, he occupies precisely the same position as before his election—Dictator of the Central Provinces. How long he will be able to hold on and how much he may extend the authority of the central Government will depend without question on his force of arms. China has not one but sev- eral new internal wars hatching. To obtain any comprehensive idea of the problems which China’s new president is called upon to face, one must go back to his early history and the record of events of the past year or two which he so engineered as to place himself in office. Tsao Kun is and always has been a soldier. Illiterate in his early days and of a caste that was by no means high in the eyes of his nation, he first gained a minor degree of prominence by personal acts of bravery. This led to his appointment to one of China’s old-time military academies, from which he was graduated with a petty commission. His subsequent career was that of every prominent Chinese militarist of today. First commander of a brigade, then of a division, he gradually augmented his forces and bound them to him in personal fealty by seeing to it that they were paid as regularly as possible, that they were clothed, and that they were fed. To do this he adopted whatever means seemed to' suit him, seizing here and there, levying his own taxes and collecting them, without regard for the Peking Government other than to draw a fine line when it came to interfering with foreign interests.

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736 A commander of the imperial forces in the revolution of 1911, Tsao Kun, when he found that he was allied with a lost cause, joined the forces of the Republicans. His was not an act of submission. It was in every sense an alliance, an agreement to maintain the status quo with those in power at Peking as long as he was left without interference in the territory which he then controlled. While President Yuan Shih-k’ai, who had also supported the empire and also gone over to the republic, lived this system worked out well enough for both sides. Tsao, ex- panding his armies ceaselessly, was paving the way toward making himself the one great leader of central China. He was fortunate in his choice of subordinates, two of whom, General Wu Pei-fu, Tsao’s “number two,” and General Feng Yu-hsiang, who has achieved endless publicity as the “Chris- tian general,” are still with Tsao Kun, although efforts have been made in many quarters to sway them from their alle- giance. It was Wu who successfully prosecuted the two years of warfare against the Anfuite clique, and again, a year ago last spring, it was he who in three weeks of battle delivered so smashing a defeat to Chang Tso-lin of Man- churia that the latter was forced to withdraw outside the Great Wall and has remained in his own realm ever since. Last year Tsao Kun was at the height of his power. His armies were victorious everywhere; he had demonstrated convincingly that in the Yangtze valley he was supreme. He could and did make and break presidents. It was through him that Hsu Shih-chang was forced to give up the position which he had so long nominally held as chief executive of the nation. It was through Tsao that Li Yuan-hung was in- stalled at Peking amid great talk of “reunification at last.” But Tsao, strong man that he is, has one weakness. He is vain. And thoughts of another being his “superior” galled him. Tsao had lived in the old China. He had seen the glories of the Dragon Throne. When the final test came, vanity conquered, And so Tsao decided to go to Peking. The actual mode of his entry is common knowledge in China. Once his decision was reached, money was no object. The president, Li Yuan-hung, was unceremoniously ejected and fled first to Tientsin and later to Shanghai, all the time protesting his right to hold office but unable to exert that right. The great seals of office which Li, in his flight, had intrusted to his wife, ill in a hospital in Peking, were snatched by adherents of Tsao. Then the election was called. Tsao took no chances. Before the electoral college went into session, votes sufficient to put him over were definitely pledged. How these pledges were obtained is illustrated by photographs of checks for $5,000 each, paid by Tsao to vari- ous members of Parliament, which have been reproduced in many of the newspapers in Shanghai; a prima facie case of widespread bribery has been clearly made out. Tsao Kun is president of China, but the China which he will actually govern will be confined to Honan, Shantung, Chihli, and parts of the other Yangtze valley provinces, with minor leaders in some other sections lending him a half-hearted sort of support. Chang Tso-lin, super-tuchun of the three eastern provinces, made plain his stand in the matter long before the actual elections took place. In a statement bristling with stinging adjectives, he denounced the ambition of his old-time rival as outright robbery of the presidential chair. Since the election he has said little, but he has already summoned his troops and mobilized them for a series of “maneuvers,” all of which will be held on the very borderline of his domain. That Chang Tso-lin will The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3051 offer battle eventually is conceded by everyone familiar with the situation. In Chekiang province Tsao finds another well-organized enemy. General Lu Yung-hsiang, who from his yamen at Hangchow controls the destinies not only of Chekiang but of the military district of Shanghai and Sungkiang, the great ocean outlet for Yangtze trade, both before and after the elections issued statements which clearly show his animos- ity; and he already has extensive military preparations under way. Sun Yat-sen, fiery patriot of Canton, although he has his hands full at the present time in his efforts to overcome Cheng Chung-ming, who once drove him out of his capital, has paused long enough in his military campaign to declare open war on Tsao and dispatch long telegrams to Chekiang and the three eastern provinces with a view to forming a tri-partite alliance to oust Tsao. Such an alliance looms as a strong possibility for the spring, and if it is formed and activities are started on all fronts, Tsao is likely to find himself hard pressed. The attitude of the foreign Powers toward Tsao is still a matter in doubt, although representatives of the lega- tions, including United States Minister Jacob Gould Schur- man, attended the election. It is noteworthy that none of the diplomats has, up to the present time, paid the custo- mary courtesy call on the new president. Current reports assign as a reason for this the fact that China has not yet given a satisfactory explanation of the Lincheng bandit out- rage, along with the indemnities and guaranties asked by the Powers, and that Tsao Kun, as inspector-general of Shantung at the time of the bandit raid, might be held in a measure responsible for the occurrence and might there- fore prove persona non grata with the Powers. Tsao Kun will not be a popular president. The stigma attached to his election and the bribery of the parliamenta- rians has already been made much of by his opponents everywhere. Word of his election was received in many sections of the nation with an unusual degree of sorrow and contempt. Mass meetings, in many cases organized and led by returned students, denounced the balloting as the worst case of corruption in China’s history, At Shanghai the day of the inauguration, which also chanced to be the twelfth anniversary of the establishment of the republic and which ordinarily would have been a gay holiday, was given over to a “humiliation-day” program. Flags everywhere were flown at half-mast. Though it had been forbidden by the authorities a mass meeting of 6,000 persons was held and adopted resolutions denouncing the new president and branding his election a national disgrace. Dummy characters portraying the president and members of parliament were paraded before the meeting and were the objects of vicious satirical thrusts. Just how strongly resentment over the choice of Tsao Kun is being felt elsewhere among the people of China it is impossible to ascertain at this time. Speaking generally, it may be said that the common citizen—coolie, skilled work- man, merchant, or tradesman—bestirs himself very little in politics so long as local affairs move on serenely and he {is not victimized too frequently by bandits or soldiers. Na- tional politics as a general rule concern him little if at all, for, illiterate and unable to comprehend any other China than that which he knows in his own village, he is content to let the self-appointed village, town, and provincial leaders take the initiative when it comes to national politics.

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Dec. 26, 1923] The Nation ! 7137 America Worst (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD ONVERSATIONS with foreign diplomats, no matter how discreet, and glimpses into the foreign press, no matter how casual, will bring home to almost any American reporter, I think, the start at least of a burning suspicion that this beloved country of ours, which regards itself as a sort of gentle and winning babe of peace in the manger of the nations, is in fact succeeding with a greater and greater rapidity in getting itself regarded by all these low-down foreign statesmen and editors and bankers and merchants and proletarians as the star-spangled uppish and insuffer- able habitat of the most offensive outfit on the surface of the globe. A Japanese diplomat in London once quelled and quenched me with an observation which I fear I may already have quoted a great many times to the readers of The Nation. I find difficulty in keeping it off my mind and tongue. This diplomat was taciturn beyond all the necessities either of his profession or of his race. He was engaged, when I met him, in illustrating the complexities of London society by making the acquaintance of Irish rebel ladies at the home of a British Foreign Office official. He crept or paced about the drawing-room like a soft-pawed tiger peer- ing through grasses in a jungle. He looked and he listened and he perhaps took what was said and pondered it in his heart but it certainly bore no fruits on his lips. At last my hostess set me upon him with definite and inescapable in- structions to cause him to speak. I approached and presently found myself babbling idly about the climate of Washington, D. C. He listened and he looked and my babbling became idler and shriller while his taciturnity gloomily deepened. At length, however, he spoke. Neglecting and setting totally aside the whole ques- tion of the climate of Washington, he suddenly and simply remarked: “Mr. Hard, your country is a beautiful woman whom no one dares to contradict.” I am proud to remember that I had resourcefulness enough to say “Thank you for not saying ‘heiress.’”’ I then came, however, to the end of my resourcefulness and I re- tired to the side of my hostess to show her the wound I had gained in her service. It smarts now on numerous occa- sions, the nature of which I shall indicate, although now a certain part of the point of that Japanese diplomat’s epi- gram is blunted. Now, the beautiful lady whose lovely home is in Wash- ington, D. C., is not only from time to time considerably contradicted but also even from time to time approached with a demonstration more or less resembling a frank and hearty slap. When in the name of all that is good and beautiful and true, of which we are the self-authorized supreme expositors, we discourse to the Dutch Government about the great and unselfish principle of equality of opportunity for all hu- manity in the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch Government does not hesitate to tell us in return that we are talking in fact about the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and that the reason why that company did not get the Djambi oil field is that its bid was lower and poorer than the bid by the Dutch company which was awarded the prize. When we aspire to make Mr. Volstead the purser of the British merchant marine, there are numerous rough country squires in the British House of Commons who do not hesi- tate to jest and jeer at our moral mission toward making the world walk straight instead of whirling round. When also by an arbitrary one-sided statute of our own we try to destroy the Liverpool cotton-standards arbitration tribunal and to substitute for it without negotiations or un- derstandings a tribunal of our very American own on this side of the ocean we get visited by Liverpool cotton mer- chants who politely but pertinaciously want to know who we think we are and why. When a dozen of our States remain in utter acknowledged default on certain foreign-held debts of theirs for decade after decade, and when then we talk in terms of the loftiest international morality to Soviet Russia on the subject of the clinging moral bindingness of foreign-held debts, Moscow now permits itself to laugh not simply in its sleeve but even in its propagandist publicity. When we demand equality of treatment for our explorers and exploiters and well-diggers and oil-pumpers in the man- dated territories wrung from the hateful Hun, there now are not wanting certain European colonial administrators who lift their voices to inquire why we do not also embrace an equality of expense and effort in shooting the natives and otherwise rendering the mandated territories a secure scene for the application of our ideals and the expansion of our exports and imports. When further, and most particularly exasperatingly, we produce a flock of statesmen who outnumber and outnoise all the other statesmen in the world for bleating and baaing and moaning and caterwauling about helping Europe and helping humanity and helping the universe and meanwhile we are going to collect out of the private property of Ger- mans found in this country the last cent of all legally valid claims of our citizens against the old dead imperial German Government, the world really can scarcely be blamed for beginning to think that we are the most morally wilfully wall-eyed people in the whole human international family. Even Calvin Coolidge, even that chip of clean cool marble from the marble-hearted State of Vermont, can get melted to a drip of slush by this modernistic American Turkish bath of empty hot moral vapors. At the end of a long presidential message in which he discusses point after point of public policy without one trace of any sort of emotion and in which he promises Europe not one specific thing except that we will join a world court if we can join it without getting into Europe, he suddenly, having concluded all his recommendations, gives his moral bootstraps a hitch and soars straight off into the open blue sky with two hundred and fifty words of a runaway burning balloon of idealism without a single parachute of any recom- mendation for action anywhere attached to it. Idealism, he says, is what we must have; but he does not say what for. Sacrifices, he says, are what we must make;

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738 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3051 but he does not say what sacrifices or ior whom or why or when. We must help to stabilize the weld, he says; but he does not say how. We must speak, he sys, with the voices of the world’s spiritual forces; but he des not say what it is that those voices say, and his mesage ends with a sublime evocation of them unaccompanied by the slightest responding squeak from them, themselvs. To apostrophize the morality of the wiverse and of the United States of America, and to call it aday’s work for the world: that is the strange state of mind to which the suc- cessors of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have come, And I know why they have come to it; and I am willing to share my knowledge with anybody within, range of my pen. They have come to it because in these present drippy and foggy, pining and yearning days, we have abandoned the solid realism of our forefathers and have ceased to try to perceive and pursue the actual interests of the United States and have wandered off into talking about the inter- ests of everybody in general and nobody in particular, and we have ended by not being able to perceive and pursue any interests at all. We have passed from being selfishly useful to the world into being idealistically and altitudinously perfectly useless to it. We have passed from America first and international effectiveness into internationalistic rheto- ric and America worst. Why Henry Ford Wants Muscle Shoals By GEORGE W. NORRIS United States Senator for Nebraska READ with interest The Nation’s challenge to Henry Ford to operate Muscle Shoals to make cheap fertilizer for the people, without profit. It is a novel plan, There is no danger, however, of Mr. Ford accepting it. If we were to give Muscle Shoals to anybody, I would just as soon give it to Henry Ford as anyone else. I have never made any personal attack upon him, and I am not moved in my opposition regarding Muscle Shoals by any feeling of animosity or ill-will, He is a man whom in many re- spects I greatly admire, but I would not give away the heritage of the people even to a saint. I would not be willing to do it even if Mr. Ford could give us a guaranty that he would live for one hundred years—the lifetime of his corporation, which, under his plan, would have the ownership and control of the property. If it were not for his popularity in the country, his proposition would not re- ceive favorable consideration from the hands of anyone. If Mr. Ford is able to produce nitrates as cheaply as it is claimed he can, there is no reason in the world why he should not at once proceed to do it. It is not necessary that the Government should donate to him millions of dollars’ worth of public property in order to have him perform this very much desired thing. If he were a poor man and claimed to have some knowledge that no one else possessed, which he could not transmit to anyone else, and was thus moved by the philanthropic desire to help his fellow-men, there would be some justification for him to come to the Treasury of the United States for funds. But no one can offer in his behalf the claim that he lacks funds to pro- duce nitrates. Muscle Shoals is not the only place in the world where this can be done. There are many other places where there are even better water-power oppor- tunities than at Muscle Shoals. I am very reliably in- formed that the commission which President Wilson ap- pointed to locate this great plant was opposed to its loca- tion at Muscle Shoals, on the ground that there were other places where we could have accomplished the same thing by the expenditure of much less money—but President . Wilson took the bit in his mouth and located it at Muscle Shoals because of the influence of a few leading Demo- crats in the Senate. This may not be true. I have never seen the records. I have it only from those who claim to have seen the records and the presidential report of Mr. Wilson’s own commission. It is perhaps not material whether the story is true or not, but it does demonstrate that Henry Ford could go elsewhere if he wants to pro- duce nitrates from the air, and be able to do it cheaper than it can be done at Muscle Shoals. The facts are that nowhere or at any time has Mr. Ford ever agreed to make any guaranty, either that ni- trates could be produced cheap enough at Muscle Shoals to become valuable as a fertilizer proposition or that the corporation which he organizes will not be under the con- trol of Rockefeller or some other Wall Street interest within a very few years after it is turned over to him by the Government. Mr. Ford’s criticism of Secretary Weeks for the sale of the Gorgas plant is without any foundation, without any logic or reason. Anyone who has studied the Muscle Shoals proposition must agree that the Gorgas plant has no more connection with Muscle Shoals than the fifth wheel of a wagon. The reason why the Government put its money into Gorgas and doubled the capacity of that plant, owned by the Alabama Power Company, was to enable it to have power for building operations at Muscle Shoals. It was the nearest place where cheap power could be had. The only object of it all was to secure this power until they obtained power at Muscle Shoals. I can conceive of no sane man entering into the contract that the Government did in building at Gorgas, if it was ever the intention of either party that the Government should permanently own the Gorgas plant. Gorgas is truly a scrambled egg. The Government simply added to the existing plant, a little better than doubling its capacity. The plant is all under one roof, all built on land owned by the Alabama Power Company. The only means of getting coal for its opera- tion is from a mine right at the door, owned by the Ala- bama Power Company. Other buildings constructed there by the Government, necessary in the full operation of such a large plant, were built on land owned by the power com- pany. This included houses built for the employees to live in. They were not even built in one section of the locality; you would find one cottage owned by the Alabama Power Company, the next one owned by the Government, the third one owned by the power company, and so on. I do not see how any sane man looking into the question can reach any other conclusion than that the power com- pany had to buy out the Government or the Government

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Dec. 26, 1923] If we decide that buy out the Alabama Power Company. the Government should buy out the Alabama Power Com- pany, then we must take into consideration another thing that is absolutely connected with it—that the Alabama Power Company owns a lot of other plants constructed in different parts of the State and that Gorgas is only one of a system all linked up together. They have contracts running over many years with municipalities, corpora- tions, mining companies, and individuals, by which they have agreed to supply electric energy to these various cus- tomers. If we should arbitrarily take away Gorgas it would cripple them and make it impossible for them to per- form their contracts made with these various municipalities, corporations, and individuals. Therefore, we would be liable for damages unless we carried out the contracts of the Alabama Power Company, and if we carried them out we would have to buy not only Gorgas but every other plant owned by the Alabama Power Company. Secretary Weeks and I do not agree on most funda- mental principles of government. He is opposed to gov- ernmental activities of various kinds that I favor; but it seems to me that in the sale of the Gorgas plant he acted wisely and for the best interest of the Government. When Mr. Ford makes his unjust criticism of Secretary Weeks for this sale, I cannot help accepting the conclu- sion that he must have some ulterior motive in his desire to acquire Gorgas. If he simply wants to make fertilizer at Muscle Shoals, as he claims, then he has no use for Gorgas; but, on the other hand, if he wants to have a mo- nopoly in that section of the country in the development of hydro-electric power, and wants to use the unusual con- tract that he demands of the Government by which this property in the hands of his corporation shall be abso- lutely unregulated either by State or nation, then I can see how he would like to cripple the only competitor he would have in the field. I do not see how one can reach any other conclusion than this one—that his desire to have the Gorgas plant was for the purpose of selling it, just as Weeks has done, to the Alabama Power Company. Under his proposition, his corporation would be required to pay the Government five million dollars for the owner- ship of property worth nearly one hundred million, and would have the lease of a great water power for one hun- dred years without any provision for regulation, and he could have made the sale to the Alabama Power Company as the Government did and thus been able to realize almost enough to pay the entire amount which he had agreed to give to the Government. But in any case, it would have left him with all the other valuable property in his hands without the expenditure of very much money. Indeed, there is other property included in his proposition of vari- ous kinds, located at Muscle Shoals, belonging to the Gov- ernment, which is not necessary for the operation of Muscle Shoals, and would readily sell on the market for enough money to make up the balance of his payment, so that he could have sold it and had the entire property at Muscle Shoals absolutely free of any cost. This property consists of railroad engines, railroad cars, lumber of all kinds, and immense quantities of building materials, all in first-class condition and practically all of which has a stabilized mar- - ket price. I would be glad to help Mr. Ford or anybody else, if I could honorably do so as a government official, to make cheap nitrates. If he would make a proposition and select his place where there is cheap water power anywhere in the United States and guarantee in the contract that the power utilized would be used for the production of fer- tilizer, I should be willing to give him a location. But I would not be willing to go into the Treasury of the United States for money to pay for its development and give him that also. Impressions By WILBERT SNOW These entered into me and shaped my dreams: The full, triumphant buoyance of flood tide; A wooded cove streaked with the low moon’s beams; A little island where white seagulls cried My drowsiness astir, and perched to ride With schooners that indulged the wind’s desire; Calm spots on choppy seas; an ocean-wide Northeaster rousing moods that issued higher Than pushing waves; the reminiscent fire In eyes of sailors who had ploughed the main On full-rigged ships where mutinies and dire Atlantic gales from Montreal to Spain Had filled them with adventure glowing bright As brass rings through their ears in sunset light. In the Driftway HE Christian church has lately been much in the public eye. There is the group of preachers, headed by the Bishop of New York, which is scandalized by the immor- ality of certain plays and dances; there is the Executive Committee of the Modern Churchmen’s Union which ex- presses doubts about the Virgin birth; there are the Fun- damentalists insisting on heaven as their very own preroga- tive; and finally there is the combination of church and bank building which is presently to be erected in New York City. As for the latter, the Drifter saw a much finer and grander example of the same combination in Chicago last summer, a veritable Woolworth tower with the church up on top and maintaining its exalted position, doubtless, on the rents from the offices beneath its heel. The Drifter scorns to make the obvious remark about the money chang- ers in the temple, though it does seem apt. Instead, he is glad to offer a remedy for the church’s difficulties; a return to the simpler days of the past! * * * * * HE church, like other time-honored institutions in the present day, is suffering from the results of the indus- trial revolution. It has too much money, too many members, too large buildings, and it pays its ministers too high sala- ries. The Drifter hereby announces that he will print no letters from ministers proving that $1,400 a year is not too much for a man with a wife and seven children! With the proletariat he is not at the moment concerned. The church, he repeats, is too rich and too great; large-scale production and attempted monopolistic control is going to be the ruin of it, and justly so. And it is trying along with its great- ness, to do too many things. Time was when the church sought to dispense the bread of life only; now that it has gone in for baking entertainment cake and pleasure pie on a large scale it is competing with institutions that have been in the business a long time and know it better. No, the

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740 The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 8051 Drifter is all for the good old days; then religion was reli- gion and if you did not go to church you were birched and that was all there was to it; nor was amusement provided to make the two-hour sermon any easier to sit upright through. * * * + x F course, the old days were not all spent in birching, as a recent item in the Manchester Guardian may in- dicate. The late Dr. Emil Reich, at the opening of a cook- ery exhibition in London some years ago, declared: “In Protestant countries cooking is much worse than in Catho- lic countries. The reasons are simple. In Catholic coun- tries there is a distinct set of people, monks and the inhab- itants of monasteries, who have long made a specialty of good eating and drinking. Their life used to be devoted very largely to that purpose. Where in any country there were specialists who studied nothing but how to eat and drink well, there, it stood to reason, the people would learn of them. In Protestant countries there was no such set of people. Everybody was in a hurry making money all day long. ...” Which, as the Drifter said above, is what ails the church. Too much money, a too intricate management, too many interests, above all, an attempt to reconcile reli- gion and daily living. The birchers who insisted on noth- ing but religion, and the eaters, who were preoccupied s0 largely with the flesh, never did this. They could take their religion or leave it alone, but they did not attempt to do both at once. When the modern church is as wise, it will not only solve its problems but it may even gain a convert in THE DRIFTER Correspondence [Letters to the Editor should ordinarily not exceed 500 words, and shorter communications are more likely to be printed. In any case the Editor reserves the right to abridge communications. ] Shall We Do Nothing? To THE Epitor oF THE NATION: Sir: Major General Henry T. Allen, running true to his fear- less form, has accepted the onerous leadership in the cause of common humanity to stay stalking famine as it threatens to destroy the lives of helpless men, women, and children in Ger- many today. These are as much the victims of a cruel war as were the millions who fell before fighting guns. The aftermath of peace is a hideous mockery to these innocent sufferers. The war was not brought on by them. The terms of peace were not of their making. The intricate questions of interna- tional debts and of national capacity to pay do not enter into their lives. The legality or the illegality of the occupation of their territory is not discussed. Empty stomachs do not indulge in words. They become articulate through action. All these people know at present is that they are hungry, that their children are dying for want of milk, that the sick and feeble can no longer hope for suste- nance, that even the daily rations of black bread and soup are rapidly becoming unattainable, that the conditions of the Near East are now the conditions of the Nearer West—and yet in the face of all this appalling calamity our great country, in which the barns are more than filled with plenty, is standing by lit- erally callous to the appeal and skeptical as to its veracity. General Allen knows whereof he speaks and his statements would be more than upheld could we but read the contents of the mail bags arriving eath week from Germany. America has always been just and eternally generous. No nation has ever turned to us for food that has not been fed. No nation has ever asked us for raiment that has not been clothed. Therefore, are we at this crisis to be once again loyal to our great heart or are we to stuff partisanship cotton into our listening ears? Shall we do nothing while the voices of little children are piteously crying for bread and while the old and feeble are ap- pealing for those crumbs which are falling from our own tables of prosperity? As a 100 per cent American, without one drop of German blood in my veins, I wish to urge the immediate support of the efforts of Major General Allen, and I beg those who read this letter to remember the white crosses in the cemeteries of France and to realize that our soldiers who laid down their lives would be the first to give their approval in the nobility of their souls to this human movement freed from all political bias or partisanship. In the name of mercy and of God’s charity let us help those who need it! New York, December 1 ELISABETH MARBURY Will Gandhi Die in Jail? To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Stir: I have received letters from India telling me that Mahatma Gandhi is far from well. He now weighs less than one hundred pounds, and although he is cheerful long confine- ment has seriously affected his health. It is desirable that some effort be made by those who admire Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings of non-violence to urge the British Government to release him as soon as possible. There is no reason to believe that the British Government will release him unless international public opinion is mobilized to force the issue. British public opinion is not much concerned with Gandhi. British statesmen think that as long as they can, by making concessions to the Turks, keep the Mohammedan world contented, British rule in India is safe. The British Government prefers the sword of Kemal Pasha to the invincible arms of Gandhi—the power of folded arms and dependence upon the spiritual force of non-cooperation; so Gandhi lies in jail and none among the British statesmen pays attention to it. The Christian world seems dead, so far as its spiritual power is concerned. It pays no attention to the fact that the man who, according to Mr. Sherwood Eddy of the international Y.M.C.A., has demonstrated the life most nearly like that of Christ, is now rotting in jail. It is a credit to the Indian Christians that they asked for Gandhi’s release. May I not ask all other Christians who see the hope of the world in an assertion of Christ’s spirit to appeal both to the King of England and to Earl Reading, Governor General of India (who belongs to the oppressed Jewish people), and to request that they make use of their power and sense of decency and release Gandhi before it is too late? Washington, D. C., December 25 TARAKNATH DAS Liberty and Last Year’s Bird Nests TO THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: Having read with interest Mr. William Hard’s article defending the “progressivism” of Hiram Johnson, I would like to ask why it is not possible to measure “progressivism” once in a while by some such easy fundamental as adhenence to the people’s side of political questions, instead of the side taken by property and the propertied few. There are other things than tariff to measure “progressivism.” Of course not many of our so-called progressives measure up to fundamental standards. A general sympathy with the majority of the people ought to make our statesmen a little more solicitous about freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from compulsory mili- tary service, freedom from purchased power in the United

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Dee. 26, 1923] States Senate, freedom from judicial tyranny through the exer- cise of the Supreme Court’s veto and the misuse of the con- tempt process. In order to be fairly progressive or liberal it is not necessary to start undermining the pillars of the temple. Just a leaning toward democracy and a preservation of the people’s liberties and self-government are, it seems to me, a reasonable standard by which to measure our political progres- sives. We would like to hear them (even if they wish to vote for a tariff on lemons) declare against imprisoning people for their political convictions whether in California or under hys- teria-made war laws. We would like to hear a protest against decisions of the United States Supreme Court wiping out those amendments to the federal Constitution which are supposed to guarantee the people in the exercise of their citizenship. We have no quarrel with Senator Johnson. We have always admired his fight on the Southern Pacific, but we can’t go on exploiting last year’s bird nests and be regarded as progressives. Washington, D. C., December & GILSON GARDNER An Appeal from Stefan Zweig To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: I appeal to you on behalf of a German writer whose condition is extremely precarious and who has done as much as anyone else for America in a spiritual sense. I am appeal- ing for Hans Reisiger, who besides having produced valuable works of his own has given to the Germans a splendid edition of Walt Whitman’s works. It contains not only a masterly biography but also a translation in truly poetical German. Through him Walt Whitman has been made familiar to the Germans. American newspapers have enthusiastically re- viewed this edition, which meant to such men as Gerhart Hauptmann and Thomas Mann an unforgettable experience. If any German writer deserves to be helped by America it is Hans Reisiger. I happen to know that he is very badly off. His work on Walt Whitman is big and expensive and so has small sales. He is eager to introduce another prominent American writer, Thoreau, to the Germans. To achieve this, he needs a little rest from the commercial English translations he has to make, in order to gain some kind of a livelihood. Maybe there exists in America a Walt Whitman association that would help him out of gratitude for his eminent services. Hans Reisiger has been forced to give up his home and migrates from place to place. Any money intended for him may be sent to my address. Salzburg, Austria, October 30 STEFAN ZWEIG [The Nation will glady accept donations for Hans Reisiger and forward them to Stefan Zweig.] The Poles Protect ‘‘Their’’ Jews To THE Epitror or THE NATION: Sir: It appears from the press of November 27 that the Polish ambassador filed an official protest with the German chancellor against the mistreatment and plundering which Jewish citizens of Poland suffered during recent disorders in Berlin. They demand, first, that the guilty be punished and, second, reparations for the damages sustained. My sympathy in this matter is entirely with the Poles because I really think it terrible on the part of the Germans of Berlin not to know that the Jewish citizens of Poland belong to the Poles and that the right to mistreat and plunder such Jews is strictly and purely a Polish right. Did not the Lord create German Jews for them? I am thinking of a story told of a massacre in the days of the Czar, when two Cossacks played protectors to two Jews. Each defended his Jew loyally until one of them took a dis- like to the Jew of the other and dealt him a blow in the face. This provoked the other Cossack to the extent that he treated The Nation 741 eee ree eee eee ee ere rere eee eee ee ee eee ee a the Jew of the first Cossack in the same manner. It was not until each Cossack killed the Jew of the other that they con- sidered the argument satisfactorily settled. I sincerely hope that in case the Berlin officials disregard the formal protest of the Poles, the latter will not try to settle the argument by avenging themselves on German or other Jews, but, on the contrary, treat the Jews in their own Poland in such a human way as to set a fine example to the cruel Germans of Berlin. Cincinnati, November 28 DAVID SCHREIBER An Appeal for Clemency To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: The case of a group of men now in prison in Texas should interest your readers. About eleven years ago a party of Mexicans, with one citizen of the United States, Charles Cline, started for Mexico to take part in an insurrection against Diaz. The Texas authorities tried to keep them from crossing the border. There was a running fight of several days, and in the course of it a Mexican gunman who had been made a deputy sheriff was killed. It is not known with certainty who killed him; but on account of it the entire party when captured were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. They have already served more than ten years. All appeals for clemency have thus far been in vain. It is believed that this severity is really not so much because they killed a Mexican as because among their baggage was found a banner with the motto Land and Liberty. An earnest effort is being made to secure the pardon of these men, and especially of Cline. Friends of mine who knew him before his imprisonment describe him as a fine, clean, cour- ageous young labor leader. Appeals for clemency have been made by various prominent persons and labor organizations in the United States, as well as by President Obregon and the Mexican Federation of Labor. Will not your readers, if they think these men have suffered enough, write to Governor Pat N. Neff, Austin, Texas, and join in the request for a pardon? Dorchester, Mass., December 10 ALICE STONE BLACKWELL Recollaring the Clergy To THE EpIToR oF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of December 5 there appeared a com- munication from a correspondent referring to a purchase of collars made by the American Red Cross for shipment to Japan in connection with the relief work there. It occurred to me that you might be interested in knowing that these supplies were purchased upon direct requisition from the Japanese Im- perial Emergency Relief Bureau confirmed by the Japanese Embassy here; and, from advices received, are intended for the use of the clerical classes rendered destitute in this disaster. Washington, D. C., December 7 JAMES L. FIESER, Acting Chairman American Red Cross Contributors to This Issue WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE wrote on Kansas in the series These United States; H. L. MENCKEN, on Maryland; Don C. SEITZ, on Connecticut; E. E. MILuer, on Tennes- see; BASIL THOMPSON, on Louisiana; CLEMENT Woop, on Alabama; REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN, on Penn- sylvania; and ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT, on New Mexico. BerRT L. KUHN is on the staff of the China Press (Shang- hai).

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Books Arlie Gelston Arlie Gelston. By Roger L. Sergel. B. W. Huebsch. $2. “e RLIE GELSTON” would seem, at first glance, to fit quite neatly into one of several pigeonholes made to dispose of the modern novel, and doubtless will be so fitted— probably into the one labeled “another realistic novel of the Middle West.” But actually, in spite of the emphasis upon Coon Falls, Iowa, and the painstaking relation of details, what power the book has is in other elements. The place does not matter, as it matters in “Clayhanger” and “The Return of the Native.” The realism, carefully and slowly worked out, never has that last, essential keenness. It might be—and will be—called “another story of the fallen woman.” To this much-worked theme, which has fascinated men novelists particularly, since the day of “Pamela,” one little ray of illumination has been added in “Arlie Gelston.” It is found in the underlying thought of the book, not, as might be expected, in the fact that the old tale is retold in an Iowa setting under the conditions of today. “Arlie Gelston” speaks one thing not spoken in “Esther Waters” nor in any of the other novels of similar theme. Arlie—a provincial girl who “goes wrong” helplessly and blindly, marries when her baby is born, is widowed and marries again, just as helplessly, but returns to her husband instead of giving up for the third time: to blind impulse—learns that to keep on submitting herself to the compulsion of sex would be to meet extinction of her self. If “Arlie Gelston” fails to give the sharp poignancy of place for which one somehow feels that it labors, it does not have certain prevailing weaknesses of realistic fiction. Mr. Sergel never makes the common and easy mistake of being deceived by much-used words and phrases. He does not accept the girl’s life as “drab” and ‘‘depressing” on the face of it because she is inarticulate and lives in poor surroundings. The book does not have the little neat, tinny quality that this would give, but rather a suggestion of depth and universality. He does not make the other mistake of sentimentalizing his heroine and adding a dramatic grandeur which is not there. There is strength in the underlying conception, in the organization and working out of the story. There is, because of this, a kind of nobility which is pleasing without overdrawing. This first novel is not faulty in conception or form. It is not hasty or shallow, nor does it ever get out of hand. Rather, one feels it almost too carefully, too slowly and deliberately done, never with that sharp stroke that brings the thing into relief. The trouble with the whole tale is that it seems submerged under a kind of sea from which rise gleams that never quite break. There is a mufiled atmosphere through which the char- acters fail to make their way. One can not point to this or that as wrong or out of character, but there is no strong feel- ing of the people as people. Action is better than conversation, which is carefully recorded but as if from afar, and without that keen sense of “rightness,” those indefinable touches, which mark the novelist who has a feeling for character. Mr. Sergel has looked at these people conscientiously and without preju- dice, but he just fails to reach them, so that the reader never gets to the point of wanting to exclaim, “Yes!” Perhaps, after all, whether he “knows” Coon Falls or not, he remains a little unsure, a little alien to it. Had Mr. Sergel had this intensity of understanding, he might easily have used four hundred and twenty pages for his story, but he would not have needed them. There is a lack of strong concentration in the book, so that each scene gives many fine things and is just on the brink of finer, but never the essence of anything. There is, with all of this, a power and distinction which is not keenly felt, and yet is there. It lies in those elements which verge upon poetry. It is in certain beautiful sentences, in the indefinite power of atmosphere, in poetic perceptions, in The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3051 the feeling that comes from the sky at evening, the snow, the scent of the river. Both Mr. Sergel’s power and his weakness as a novelist come from the thing that his heroine once felt as she looked at the river: “She was dizzy before the huge insubstantiality of the earth. She wanted it to become the land it was, a county, Iowa.” It never really does this; nor is the other feeling of “huge insubstantiality” great enough to give a compensating value. The worth of the book lies, finally, in sentences—in gleams that come from that shrouding and muffling sea: “But when the strong moon broke the clouds at last and the fields knew for an hour the quiet flood, she was lifted into a sourceless cold brilliance. With the hour, with morning, it would disintegrate into separate and innumerable molds. Pro- vincial by its own necessity it would shape itself into grotesque form and place. But Arlie, sleeping in release from Des Moines and the Isis, was aware only of her wide and vacant dream.” The book leaves one with a desire to press it all together, hard, and see if some final essence cannot escape. RutH Suckow A Teacher’s Diary My Class in Composition. By Julien Bezard. Translated and adapted by Phyllis Robbins. Harvard University Press. $2.50. A FEW years ago Rollo Walter Brown put American teach- ers in his debt by his careful and thorough account of French methods of teaching composition (“How the French Boy Learns to Write”). M. Bezard’s book is a sort of sequel and illustration of Mr. Brown’s. It takes us into the classroom of an enthusiastic and skilful teacher and shows what he expects of his boys, how he cooperates with them, and something of what they accomplish. The subtitle, “A Teacher’s Diary,” is perhaps a little misleading; the volume is rather a series of extracts from a teacher’s day-book, or record of assignments, suggestions, and criticisms, with many specimen themes. The class (in the Lycée Hoche, at Versailles) is made up of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys. The course consists of a series of theme assignments, beginning with subjects based on observation, such as anecdotes of town and village life, or mem- ories‘of school, and proceeding through longer and more care- fully planned papers on topics familiar to boys, such as stamp- collecting and the making of an herbarium, to subjects drawn from the history and literature which the pupils are studying in other courses. No attention is paid to the arbitrary distinc- tions of the “forms of discourse.” A great deal of time is given to the preliminary discussion of theme assignments; M. Bezard believes, with most French teachers, that such preparatory work is more important than the correction of themes. The teacher works out with the class an outline (by paragraphs or main divisions) for almost every paper; this general outline every pupil is expected to follow, developing details in the best way he can. The most successful themes are then read and criticized in the classroom; and the teacher, with the advice and cooperation of the class, draws from them a sort of composite theme, using the best parts of two or more papers, and some- times, if no student has treated one section of the subject ade- quately, supplying the deficiency with a piece of his own writ- ing. Many of the themes quoted in the book are thus “revised and amplified” by the teacher, who, says M. Bezard, “after doing full justice to the good points in his pupils’ themes, should not fear to complete them in his own, to develop them, to raise them as it were to the second power.” : There are obvious objections to some features of this method. To require of a class themes so uniformly planned that parts shall be interchangeable involves a serious sacrifice of individ- ual initiative and spontaneity, even when the plan is the result of the collaboration of the class with the teacher. In America, I am pretty certain, the best students would not do their best work within such limits; French pupils are probably more

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Dec. 26, 1923] docile. Even the requirement that all themes on a given day must deal with the same topic has disadvantages as well as advantages. It sacrifices the interest which comes from variety of subjects and altogether misses the best sources of material, which are the special knowledge and experiences of individual students; on the other hand, it gives unity and point to class discussions. It should be, I think, an occasional rather than a general practice. In spite of such objections, however, M. Bezard’s method can give us invaluable help. Our composition teaching suffers from a worse than Egyptian plague of rules and textbooks. We have carried into the realm of writing our naive faith in laws as a method of reform, and delude ourselves into thinking that we can get rid of sins of expression by teaching and learning rules. Handbooks of rules, scrap-books of specimens, text- books of rhetorical theory, books upon the sentence, upon the paragraph, upon punctuation, upon the “forms of discourse” swarm among us, and we often inflict two or three of these plagues upon the student at the same time. We put a high premium upon correctness, yet the writing of our students is notoriously incorrect. Probably the greatest service that M. Bezard can do us is to suggest that we have absurdly over- stressed rhetorical theory and details of form at the expense of substance. If he uses a textbook of any sort, his diary says not a word of it. His attitude toward errors of detail may be indi- cated by a quotation: “Of course, shortcomings must be criti- cized, mistakes pointed out, weeds pulled up whenever they sprout too abundantly in favorable soil. But how much surer it is, relying on the preventive method so dear to modern medi- cine, to strengthen the organism so that it will itself eliminate the harmful seeds.” HOMER E. WOODBRIDGE Thirty Years of the East Side Haunch Paunch and Jowl. Boni and Liveright. $3. N OBODY can, or will, write the book about himself and sign it. Not so much because of certain actions and thoughts one does not care to unveil, as because of the other people such confessions might involve. For though we have the right to tell the truth about ourselves we have no right to tell the truth about others. An anonymous autobiography in which “the others” are just as anonymous is, to my mind, the best way out of the difficulty. \ “Haunch Paunch and Jowl” is the autobiography of one who has come up in the world from petty sneakthiefery and gangsterdom to the justiceship of an important court. It de- scribes also the lives of a celebrated lawyer, a successful theater manager, several judges, a wealthy manufacturer, the founder or founders of the needle industry union, a few settlement workers, and a number of well-known politicians and philan- thropists. It is the East Side, New York’s East Side, again: its ideal- ism, its inner dissensions, the hatred between the German and the Russian Jews (against the description of which in my article in The Nation the Jewish press has protested so vio- lently), the corruption of its politics, the pitilessness of the shyster lawyers in their dealings with poor ignorant immi- grants in trouble. The immigrants, lured here by rosy tales of wealth and liberty, with dreams of education for their children, find out too late what they have to pay for their dreams. The finer the grain the less the resistance. But the coarse one lives through, adapts himself, rises, moves away from the East Side to Harlem and from Harlem to Riverside. The children—the children of the newly arrived immigrant—become acquainted and soiled with every form of degradation and corruption. Reading the book was like listening to a recital of the well- known stories of the East Side. I know the judge in question, in fact, the judges: the one who made a reputation for his An Anonymous Autobiography. The Nation strictness and the other for his chumminess with the gangsters, the gorillas. Who does not know Maxi, the sharp, soft-spoken criminal lawyer who himself writes the decisions of the judges, and that unforgettable East Side congressman. whose every speech was a denunciation of the Russian Czar’s regime? And there is only one ‘‘Talker’s” coffee house on Division Street. The scene of vandalism when the Jewish gangsters, murderers, and thieves, pious on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, maimed the members of the group “Truth and Light” who dared to eat on fasting day—that great day has not been forgotten. Religion triumpned. “Haunch Paunch and Jowl” is not an autobiography. It is thirty years of history. The birth of theater managership, of jazz, the unfolding of Al Wolf from a fedora-hatted peanut vendor into a powerful theater mag- nate, and the development of a singing pickpocket into a king of popular song. Some of the gangsters rose to prominence; others went to the electric chair. It is a marvelously wrought book with deep, stirring moments. Through it runs a pure and tragic love, the perfume of a rose in a charnel house. Phillip, Uncle Phillip, is the pivot around which turns the description of the industrial situation of those days: pitiless ex- ploitation, unscrupulous competition, strikes, the employment of gangsters to break the strike, the counter-gansters, the schem- ing sweatshop owners, the dirt and the corruption of it all. It has changed a good deal in the last few years, but it is still largely the same. Reform only changes the personnel and not the system. The East Side is like Jerusalem revived. With Christs and Isaiahs and Sadducees and Pharisees. All the beauty, purity, idealism, and all the corruption of the Orient reenacted in a different setting, because and in spite of the setting. A vortex within a vortex, a struggle to death. The carrousel, crowded with laughing Polichinelles, turns, and the throaty steam organ grinds out a solemn tune, and jazz is being played in a lofty cathedral. KONRAD BERCOVICI Credit and Crises Monetary Reconstruction. By R. G. Hawtrey. Green and Company. $3. Longmans, The Paper Moneys of Europe. By Francis W. Hirst. Hough- ton Mifflin Company. 175 cents. Cycles of Unemployment. By William A. Berridge. Houghton Miffin Company. $1.25. Costs and Profits. By Hudson Bridge Hastings. Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50. HE war has hammered into men’s heads one useful idea— that the primary quality of a good money is stability of value. It has demonstrated likewise that the control of bank credit is essential if we are to stabilize prices. Mr. R. G. Hawtrey has done yeoman service in this field. He entertains no illusions about the gold standard, but like all intelligent theorists recognizes that “artificial” control is necessary if prices are to be stable. His notable discussion of our Federal Reserve system, in the chapter given to that subject, points out clearly the wide measure of control over prices that the Federal Reserve Board can and ought to exercise through its power to fix the rate of rediscount. Mr. Hawtrey performs a service in his strong insistence on the power of the central bank to control inflation through a judicious use of the dis- count rate. We ought to give that responsibility definitely to the Federal Reserve Board, and hold it to its duty. In his chapter on the European currency situation, Mr. Haw- trey recognizes that drastic deflation would only pile fresh ills on top of those already caused by inflation. He suggests a revaluation of money units, with international cooperation to maintain their stability by means of a gold exchange stand- ard—an interesting theoretical possibility, apparently some dis- tance away, in view of present happenings. But nothing can be done, of course, without balanced budgets. Francis W. Hirst’s little tract on “The Paper Moneys of

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TAA The Nation Europe,” a lecture delivered at the University of California on the Barbara Weinstock Foundation, tells again the familiar story of the assignats of the French Revolution, and points out how much worse the present situation is than the one then existing. It is a serviceable reminder of well-known truths, using some present European conditions for illustration. If price levels fluctuate, then business activity will fluctuate, too. William A. Berridge’s “Cycles of Unemployment” is a very careful technical statistical study of the available evidence concerning employment fluctuations in the United States since 1903. Employment indexes follow the other indexes of busi- ness activity at about a six months’ interval, and probably themselves forecast by a few months the commercial buying power of wage earners. Mr. Berridge’s work should help not only the technical economist, but also the practical business man and the statesman who are trying to soften the incidence of business depression on the wage worker. But why cannot the Pollak Foundation and their publishers either put their footnotes at the bottom of the pages, where they belong, or else leave them out altogether? Their present arrangement is perfectly calculated to cause the maximum of trouble for the student. Hudson Bridges Hastings’s “Costs and Profits,’ another Pollak Foundation book, is a highly abstract analysis of the eausation of the cycle, based on the changing relation of costs and profits. It is frightfully hard reading, but Mr. Hastings kindly summarizes his conclusions in the first part of his book. He finds the underlying causes of commercial crises to be five, all based essentially on current business policies with reference to the relations between money and goods, as follows: (1) ‘The failure of business concerns as a whole to disburse an amount of money equal to the value of the things they produce; (2) the development of forward buying and speculation, leading to a relative overdevelopment of industries producing commodities as compared with those producing services; (3) the accumula- tion of stocks held on speculation; (4) the use of savings and profits to produce goods not used in the processes of produc- tion and distribution; (5) the lag in the flow of interest and profits into the hands of ultimate buyers on account of inter- corporate ownership of securities. The orthodox theorist has thus come to assert specifically, not only the possibility, but the practical inevitability of temporary general overproduction in the sense of a deficiency of purchasing power in the hands of those who want to buy goods. The vigorous study now being given to the relation between the flow of purchasing power and the actual output of goods and services is full of promise for the ultimate control of the cycle. HENRY RAYMOND MUSSEY A New Marco Polo Wandering in Northern China. By Harry A. Franck. The Century Company. $5. N “Wandering in Northern China” Mr. Franck offers fresh delight to the growing number of vicarious travelers whom prudent regard for the American idol detains by their own firesides and office-desks, while an inborn longing sends their spirits in pursuit of adventure. China has been a fascinating country to the tiaveler since Marco Polo brought thence tales of surpassing wealth and splendor. Her charm did not wane, though official visits were fewer, during many centuries when foreign visitors were ad- mitted to her court only as representatives of vassal states owing tribute to the emperors upon the Dragon Throne. Inter- est was renewed when Western nations forced open doors for exploiting the immense natural resources of the empire and for preaching Christianity and marketing opium, tobacco, oil, and other blessings of civilization among its ignorant millions. And as its port cities became rapidly Europeanized and increasing numbers of Chinese students sought education abroad and ex- [Vol. 117, No. 3051 cited hopes of its westernization, and especially after the gov- ernment was suddenly democratized, a tide of travel turned toward China in the wake of commercial and benevolent enter- prise. A modern traveler in quest of adventure must therefore leave the treaty ports with their complexities and comforts and seek in the interior the monuments and ruins, the glamor and filth of the oldest surviving civilization. Mr. Franck avoids also entangling alliances with commercial, political, and re- ligious interests. He is merely a traveler who enjoys traveling and who wants to see for himself and to report what he sees with candor and fairness. Consequently, his account has much to offer the student as well as the fireside tourist. Approaching China through Korea, he observes the efforts of the Japanese to introduce much-needed improvements and reforms in that picturesque and unhappy land. And he cannot help seeing that their brutality and blundering indifference to injustice hinder their efforts as reformers and damage their reputation as empire-builders. Across the border in Man- churia Japanese influence gives way to the strong military power of the war lord of the north, whose orderly rule at Mukden raises some hope of permanence and real progress. In northern Manchuria, and especially in Harbin, hordes of Rus- sian refugees, hungry, proud, dissolute, and irresponsible, in- capable of profiting by their most bitter experiences, tend to weaken, Mr. Franck feels, the doctrine of the supremacy of the white race. Struck by the character of these refugees the wanderer remarks: “a few days in northern Manchuria were enough to explain why the Jews are so powerful and so hated in Russia ... almost enough to make clear the incredible suc- cess of bolshevism over common sense.” Very few travelers have cared to risk the dangers of crossing the Gobi Desert to Urga, the holy city of Mongolia. There the filth and stupid- ity of the fierce Mongol nomads and the bestial superstition of Lamaism imported from Tibet are not mitigated by the actual . but unrecognized rule of Russian “Reds” and natural good nature and tolerance have been revlaced by suspicion and intrigue. Wandering in the middle provinces, with a comfortable home in Peking as a center, brings Mr. Franck in contact with life and problems more essentially Chinese. Peking he finds a city of extraordinary contrasts—where, under an almost anarchistic republican regime, a woman is absolutely safe in any part of the city at any time of day or night, where a deposed emperor is supported by the republic that deposed him, and where camel trains and limousines, smart foreign officers and pig- tailed coolies jostle one another daily in Hata Men Street. To the south he visits Shantung, the province of Confucius, where the Chinese now have a chance to manage or ruin the railroads and well-planned city they have at last received from the Japanese. Further south, in the province of Honan is Kaifeng, which Feng Yii-hsiang, the Christian general, cleaned up dur- ing his six months’ rule, and where a colony of Jews has been completely assimilated. In this province the Chinese unem- ployment problem breaks out in banditry under the very nose of Wu Pei-fu and the bandits by skilful use of foreign hostages and the pressure of foreign governments succeed in enforcing most of their demands upon the central Government. In Shansi, the “model province,” he sees what a Chinese tuchun can do in improving schools, soldiers, and roads, eradicating banditry and opium and foot-binding, and making his province safer and more modern if less picturesque. In the west he meets poverty and suffering combined with good nature and industry inconceivable to the stay-at-home. Here opium is still grown for the profit it brings, and wheat famine is frequent. Here foot-binding is so universal that the traveler himself exclaimed at the “ugliness” of a woman with natural feet. Here poverty, overpopulation, unemployment, and centuries of destruction not only of trees but even of their roots, with consequent failure of rainfall and the wearing away of the soil itself, have produced such depths of human misery that patience has become a curse. Yet this universal good

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Dee. 26, 1923] The Nation nature of the Chinese, together with their habitual industry, redeems the gloom of every traveler’s tale of China and offers some hope of an ultimate solution of her problems. It is regrettable that the author could not fulfil the hope held out in his foreword of representing Chinese words by phonetic symbols less mystifying than the usual romanization. But wholesale reform is doubtless impracticable. It is more regret- table that he did not by adding an index make “Wandering in Northern China” a valuable reference book as well as an in- forming and amusing companion of the fireside traveler. Its five hundred pages full of useful information do not deserve the neglect into which such an oversight will inevitably throw them. CLARISSA RINAKER The War and the Consequences Thereof The Genesis of the War. By Herbert Henry Asquith. George H. Doran Company. $6. Where Are We Going? By David Lloyd George. Doran Company. $3. t. books were priced according to their power of absorbing the reader’s attention, it is Mr. Lloyd George’s book that would cost the bigger sum and Mr. Asquith’s the smaller. Mr. Asquith’s might effectively be prescribed as a remedy for insom- nia, while Mr. Lloyd George’s would be better than a wet towel around the forehead at the end of a tiring day. The senior of the two ex-Premiers is anything but a dull speaker. But there is much in this volume that no one can struggle through who is not responsive to an overmastering sense of duty. Mr. Lloyd George, on the other hand, contrives to retain on the printed page the outstanding characteristics of his platform oratory. He is as vivid and stimulating as ever, especially by means of his amazing skill in summing up a situation in a graphic meta- phor. What a descriptive reporter was lost to the press when he went into Parliament! The chapter in which he records successively his memories of the scene when Gladstone intro- duced his final Home Rule Bill and of the signing of the Irish Treaty at Downing Street is a masterpiece of realistic writing. In the first sentence of his preface Mr. Asquith deprecates by implication any comparison with the other author-member of his family. “This book,” he remarks, “is not an autobiography.” Nor does it review either the war or the consequences thereof, but limits its scope to tracing the genesis of the war through all the antecedent stages up to the final outbreak. It is signifi- cant that references to the Kaiser take up the lion’s share of the index. Somehow he seems to have got on Mr. Asquith’s nerves, so much so that he is sometimes dragged in quite ir- relevantly, as, e.g., in a discussion of his claims to scholarship. “A Polemic Against the Kaiser’ would, indeed, have served fairly well as a subtitle for the book. There is very little of the “Now It Can Be Told” about Mr. Asquith’s story. It is mainly from material already accessible that he constructs his narrative of the formation of the Entente and of the efforts made by Lord Haldane’s mission to Berlin and otherwise to maintain friendly relations between England and Germany. One notes that Mr. Asquith declares himself “as satisfied as one can be of anything in the domain of conjec- ture” that, if Baron Marschall had not died a few months after his appointment to the London Embassy, there would have been no European War in 1914. Opinions will differ as to whether his apologia for the foreign policy of Great Britain is adequate; whether, for instance, he satisfactorily disposes of the suspicion that her Government had tied its hands by the military and naval “conversations” with France. Moreover, he ignores the later revelations about the mobilization of Russia and its effect in precipitating the debacle. No unbiased person, however, can deny that he defends himself convincingly against the charge that the Government of which he was the head was inefficient or careless in its preparations against a possible war. Typical George H. of the thoroughness with which everything was arranged in ad- vance was the compilation of the War Book, which incorporated all the plans that had been determined upon to. meet that con- tingency. We are told that draft Orders in Council accompanied the King wherever he went in time of profound peace and were kept set up in type in the printer’s office as well, so that on a sudden outbreak of war they could be circulated and put into operation at a moment’s notice. Mr. Asquith is justly contemp- tuous of the popular scares that were fomented by people who should have known better. He speaks of the German invasion of England as “a chimerical danger with which the great au- thority of Lord Roberts alarmed the public imagination, and which, in deference to him, received careful and protracted in- vestigation in 1907-8 by the Committee of Imperial Defense under my chairmanship.” If Mr. Asquith’s book tells us of the Genesis of the War, Mr. Lloyd George’s begins with the Exodus from it. The chapters herein collected “represent a running comment on the European situation during the past ten months.” No hint is given of the circumstances in which these “periodic reviews” were made. We are left guessing whether they were originally entries in the author’s diary, or letters to friends in the Antipodes, or— incredible hypothesis!—contributions to the yellow press. The most obvious criticism of the book is suggested by its opening” sentence, in which Mr. Lloyd George invites us to imagine the impression that present-day Europe would make on a man who had been wrecked on a desert island on a bright July morning in 1914 and had returned to civilization a week ago. Let us carry the speculation a little further and suppose this lucky fel- low attempting to reconstruct, from a study of this volume, a record of its author’s own activities and policies during the in- tervening period. After reading the chapter on The Treaty of Lausanne, with its picture of Britain, France, Italy, and the United States as helpless tarpon, lying on the bank with the Turkish hook in their gullets and without a swish left in their tails, how could our Robinson Crusoe suspect for a moment that David Lloyd George had himself contributed in the least degree to such an unhappy result? From the book as a whole he would naturally conclude that in the peace negotiations the British Premier of that day would have risked his political career, if that had been necessary, in order to prevent any settlement that had in it the faintest trace of greed or vengeance. “Enduring peace,” we are solemnly assured, “can only rest on a foundation of justice.” In the discussion of the tendencies that lead to war there are many pages of a criticism so scathing that we begin to wonder whether it is Lloyd George or Lowes Dickinson that we are reading, and they are accompanied by moral appeals so fervent that they might fittingly have come from an Archbishop of Canterbury. HERBERT W. HoRWILL Books in Brief The Letters of Alciphron. Translated by F. A. Wright. Dutton and Company. $3. Another volume in the rapidly expanding series of Broad- way Translations, which are designed to present some of the “more robust and human examples” of classical and medieval literature. Alciphron is delightfully modern, and the translator has contrived—with one or two discreet lapses into Latin—to give the flavor and color of the original. i:..P: Undertow. By Henry K. Marks. Harper and Brothers. $2. As the case history of a family of remarkable dulness and uninteresting degeneracy, this book possibly justifies itself. Its claim to consideration as literature can scarcely be allowed, although the sordidness is slapped on with such generosity that it cannot avoid an occasional touch of effectiveness. The author gives life a coat of tar and feathers, and thinks that he has clothed it in reality.

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746 The Art of Poetry. Seven Lectures, 1920-1922. Paton Ker. Oxford University Press. $2. The professor of poetry at Oxford was a profound and witty scholar who is perhaps too little read in America. He knew more than Matthew Arnold did, was fairer, had more common sense, and loved poetry as well. All that he lacks is the narrow passion which made that other professor of poetry penetrate so far. In these vastly entertaining lectures on Shelley, Milton, Pope, Moliére, Arnold, Romantic Fallacies, and The Art of Poetry he moves easily through a wide world of literature, stir- ring the memory to old enthusiasms which he deepens or corrects by the light of his accumulated wisdom. The Viking Heart. By Laura Goodman Salverson. Doran Company. $2. Earnestness, in lieu of the less cumbrous endowments of a truly gifted story teller, may be made to serve an honorable purpose in the writing of fiction, and has done so in this case. A solid and straightforward recital of life among Icelandic emigrants in Canada. By William George H. Second Contemporary Verse Anthology. Selected from the magazine Contemporary Verse, 1920-1923, by Charles Wharton Stork. E. P. Dutton and Company. $8. Most of this is hundred per cent American verse—optimistic, mild, and mediocre. From an American Legation. By Ira Nelson Morris. Alfred A. Knopf. $4. As a literary production, this book by the American minister to Sweden from 1914 to 1923 is even more neutral than Sweden tried to be. As a contribution to the now-it-can-be-told archives, it is a lamblike document with but few burrs of disillusion in its optimistic wool. Mr. Morris “seems to see a light ahead’’; he affirms that “the only way to stop war is to remove its causes,” and—without himself contributing anything very tangible to- ward the solution—manages to emerge with the hopeful, unem- barrassed smile of a Sunday-school superintendent on a bright Sabbath morning. The Philosophy of Civilization. By R. H. Towner. G. P. Put- nam’s Sons. Two volumes. $5. The cornerstone of this curious work built up with baf- fling ingenuity, is that civilization rises and falls in accordance with mathematical law. There are many astounding corollaries. “Civilization has been contemporaneous with alcoholic tempta- tion; savagery with prohibition.” ‘Popular or democratic gov- ernments ... are invariably anti-Christian.” “A nation that obeys the gospel of Jesus will find mathematical law always in its favor.” Mr. Towner’s entire conception is too intricate for normal assimilation; it impresses one vaguely as a triumph of mathematics over mind. Barnabé and His Whale. By René Thévenin. Translated by Ben Ray Redman. Robert M. McBride and Company. $2. Doubtless there is a public for such a translation as this, otherwise it would not be made. It strikes one, however, as rather feeble fantasy, deficient in ingenuity and halting in ac- tion. “So it appears”’—to quote from page 155—“as Médor (called Poil Maudit) had discovered, and as Barnabé Tignol was to discover also some two months later, that the Vicomte Melchior de Frétilly and the student Jean Gautier were simply one and the same person. But why this double mystery? Zoé Croche, keenly intrigued by this mystery, could not postpone fathoming it. As for the reader, he has, no doubt, already guessed.” Well, as for the reader, he has, no doubt, by this time, ceased to be “intrigued.” The Cults of Campania. By Roy Merle Peterson. Academy in Rome. $2.50. In this volume of 400 pages Mr. Peterson treats exhaustively the ancient religions which have left records of themselves in the area between the Volturnus on the north and the peninsula American The Nation [Vol. 117, No. 3051 of Surrentum on the south, a district by reason of easy sea communication particularly susceptible to outside influence, and by reason of land routes very effective in the transmission of this influence to Rome. Its religious life included cults from Persia, Chaldea, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Africa, the native Italian cults, and Christianity itself. The cosmo- politan character of Campanian religion and culture, together with the presence of the important cities of Cumae, Baiae, Pompeii, Caqua, and Puteoli, lend to Mr. Peterson’s work, despite its being primarily concerned with detail, a very con- siderable interest for the general reader as throwing light on the universal aspect of Italian and Roman civilization. The American Academy is to be congratulated on the success and the significance of this initial volume of its Papers and Mono- graphs, and the American republic of letters on its able repre- sentation in Rome. Brighter Intervals. By Gordon Phillips. London: Nisbet and Company, Ltd., 5 shillings. With a deprecatory gesture, the author suggests that the contents of his book be taken lying down, since most books— “except French novels (which necessitate getting up and look- ing for the dictionary) and handbooks on golf”—are most easily assimilated in that posture. Mr. Phillips twangs a very light lyre; neither in his prose nor in his verse does he serenade a comic muse on a balcony much higher than his own head. a The Nation’s Poetry Prize HE NATION offers an annual poetry prize of $100 for the best poem submitted by an American poet in a contest con- ducted by The Nation each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The rules for the contest in 1923 are as follows: 1. Each:manuscript submitted in the contest must reach the office of The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York City, not earlier than Saturday, December 1, and not later than Monday, December 31, plainly marked on the outside of the envelope, “For The Nation’s Poetry Prize.” 2. Manuscripts must be typewritten and must have the name of the author in full on each page of the manuscript submitted. 38. As no manuscripts submitted in this contest will in any circumstances be returned to the author it is unnecessary to inclose return postage. An acknowledgment of the receipt of each manuscript, however, will be sent from this office. 4. No more than three poems from the same author will be admitted to the contest. 5. No restriction is placed upon the subject or form of poems submitted, which may be in any meter or in free verse. It will be impossible, however, to consider poems which are more than 400 lines in length, or which are translations, or which are in any language other than English. Poems arranged in a definite sequence may, if the author so desires, be counted as a single poem. 6.. The winning poem will be published in the Midwinter Literary Supplement of The Nation, to appear February 13, 1924, 7. Besides the winning poem, The Nation reserves the right to purchase at its usual rates any other poem submitted in the contest. The judges of the contest are the editors of The Nation. Poems should in no case be sent to them personally. Drama Legend Pes platitudinous “Bluebird” and the facile mysticism of the later essays have almost made us forget that when Maurice Maeterlinck was a young man he wrote a series of

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Dec. 26, 1923] beautiful dramatic legends that told in figures and symbols the story, which is as old as the world, of the fear that haunts men, fear of their fate in a homeless universe, fear that what- ever is lovely and rare and therefore fragile will go down to disaster, fear, above all, of the inevitable end. Some of these legends, “Intérieur” and “Les Aveugles,” Maeterlinck invented. And these invented dramatic legends are, strangely enough, the best. Others he borrowed from literature and tradition and clothed them in that atmosphere of awe-struck beauty which is his specific contribution to literature. It was absurd of Octave Mirbeau to call the young Fleming the “Belgian Shakespeare”; the admiration which Maeterlinck’s early plays evoked was not absurd. To recall them today seems to me peculiarly useful because we have many new plays that are symbolical and ob- scure. Maeterlinck is never that. The early plays are never flatly didactic like the “Bluebird”; they are crystalline in spite of their somberness of mood. The mind may not always be able to formulate their meaning which never fails, however, to find the soul. “Pelléas and Mélisande” is, of course, a retelling of the story of Paolo and Francesca. . But it withdraws that story from both the tumult and the accidents of time and place and definite law and custom and makes it the story of the pitifulness of hearts that must be free and that are doomed. All the hearts here are pitiful, even the angry and deluded heart of Golaud. The lovers of the story have no hope from the first and must give their all for that one immortal moment of the cry of Pelléas: ‘‘All’s lost, all’s saved.” And the conclusion of the story, which is in truth the conclusion of all mortal stories, is in the words of the wise old king: “If I were God how I would pity the hearts of men.” It is late in the day to remark upon the style of the dramatic dialogue in these plays of Maeterlinck. But it seems not yet to be understood. Its method is the method of understatement which we find in popular legends and folksongs, the method of laconic speech with tragic implications rather than that of pas- sionate outburst and relief. The constant use of this method will often degenerate into mannerism. But it has moments of beautiful effectiveness, of ample power, like that moment in which the cry of Mélisande, “I am not happy!” strikes deeper than many tirades in verse and prose. The production at the Times Square Theater has its inequali- ties both in respect of scenic investiture and the interpretation of the text. The playing of ‘the first scene of the first act is incredibly out of key. Here Maeterlinck’s tragic hints are twisted into loud realistic chatter. It is fair to say that Mr. Reicher recovered the characteristic music of the piece almost at once and did not fail either to hear or to express it again. Mr. Rollo Peter’s designs are unequal, too. But the best of them give a very poignant sense of those desperate though magic casements on the marge of a sunless sea, and many of his scenic moments are superbly “composed” and one remem- bers figures that stood still on the stage for only a second but remain fixed in the mind. Miss Cowl is to be most highly commended for her selection of the play. No actress of today has had a braver or more artistic inspiration than this of following “Romeo and Juliet” with “Pelléas and Mélisande.” Soon we shall altogether for- get that there ever were such pieces as “Lilac Time” and “Smilin’ Through.” And the possibility of our being able to forget those plays augurs well for the future of our stage. Miss Cowl’s performance, like the production, has one or two moments in which the ‘key of the play’s inner music—and that is everything here—is lost. Especially her cry at the moment of the murder of Pelléas, her cry of grief and terror, is far too realistic and rends the atmosphere. But throughout the greater part of the evening she has the mild grace and awe and tenderness and passion always on the edge of doom which the playing requires, and she and her associates melt effortlessly into this timeless legend of what is of all time. Lupwic LewisoHn The Nation 747 LECTURES and AMUSEMENTS | in association with Fhe SELWYNS * ADOLPH KLAUBER present J ANE COWL in Maeterlinck’s Pelleas and Melisande TIMES SQ. THEATRE Matinees Phen colt ae 2:20 BELMONT 48th St. East of Broadway “Admirable and moving play, superbly cast and acted.”— Ludwig Lewisohn, THE NATION. “Mr. Emery writes with a command of the English language, which is not given to any other native playwright, not even excepting Eugene O’Neill.””—Heywood Broun, WORLD. TARNISH evs. 8:30, mats. Thurs. & Sat. 2:30 A SENSATIONAL TRIUMPH! DAVID BELASCO Presents LIONEL BARRYMORE with IRENE FENWICK in “LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH !” BELASCO THEATRE, West 44th St. Eves. at 8:30 Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:30 Seats now on sale 4 weeks in advance Theatre, 41st St., West of Broad , Evenings 8:00 NATIONAL oe Matinces: Tharsday and Saturday: 2:00 WALTER HAMPDEN 8h gore de Bergerac “A royal revival of one of the world’s matchless plays.’’—Alexander Woollcott, in N. Y. Herald. SEATS ON SALE FOR 4 WEEKS “Miss Vollmer’s presentation of folk life is rich and authentic; she tells us what we are most eager to know—the inner truth of human lives.” Ludwig Lewisohn—The Nation THE SHAME WOMAN An American Drama by LULA VOLLMER Produced by THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE, Ine. THEATRE Mati Thurs. d Sat. COMEDY Alst St. E. af 2:50. Bvaninel at 8:30 of Bway. 27th St. and Madison Ave. YIDDISH ART THEATRE MAURICE SWARTZ, Director Now Playing Friday evening, 8:30; Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 and 8:30 Osip Dymow’s new comedy of American life “BREAD” Evs. 8:80 AMBASSADOR 4% W of Bway. Mats. Thurs. & Sat., 2:80 RICHARD BENNETT in’ THE DANCERS “I have not seen a better play than ‘The Dancers’ for a long while.” —JOHN BARRYMORE. The Society for Ethical Culture of New York (Founded 1876) Central Park West and 64th Street On Sunday, December 23, at 11 A.M. 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